The Villa and The Vortex: Supernatural Stories, 1916–1924 by Elinor Mordaunt
(Handheld Press, 2021)
Reviewed by L.J. Hurst
Handheld Press have a small but significant list of re-discovered classics. One of their specialities is weird fiction, and within that is ‘women’s weird’ (the title of two of their theme anthologies). Elinor Mordaunt’s life (1872-1942) was extraordinarily varied, from a middle-class childhood through fiancés dying in Africa to actual marriage in the Indian Ocean to someone who proved to be a brute and subsequent escape to Australia. Somewhere in those last two events Mordaunt began to write.
The stories collected here are in chronological order and the first, ‘The Weakening Point’, about a boy born to die and reminded of it every birthday does not seem to have a strong feminine viewpoint. The next, ‘The Country-side’ (1917), about a parson’s wife who is driven to investigate a villager who is both a crone and a wise-woman, while simultaneously her husband is being unfaithful, concentrates on the women’s perspective. Mary Webb’s 1924 novel Precious Bane has a lot in common with the story. Then ‘Hodge’ (1921) will provoke comparisons with a more modern book: after many mournful wanderings on the Somerset Levels a brother and sister release a caveman from the mud and realise that he is lost: the sea is not where it was in his antediluvian lifetime. Once Hodge, the name given to the caveman, appears I couldn't help thinking of Stig of the Dump, though Mordaunt is far more downbeat. The penultimate story, ‘The Four Wallpapers’ (1924) again has a known theme but played in an unusual way: the layers of wallpaper in a Spanish villa have recorded the shocking events of their time, but peeling them back from the outside in, because the most recent layer was put on last, means Eva Erskine learns the denouement before she has perceived the cause.
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Review from BSFA Review 17 - Download your copy here.
Witch Bottle by Tom Fletcher
(Joe Fletcher Books, 2021)
Reviewed by Kate Onyett
A witch bottle is a protection against evil that is buried at the doorway to secure the home. This is old belief and older magic, and with these Fletcher weaves a strange, folkloric horror tale through the surprisingly claustrophobic byways of the north country. Despite a wilderness as wide and wild as any viewed by the Romantics, dread comes clenching along the miles of walled-lined lanes, and we cannot look away.
Like rats running a maze, watched by some lurking presence, the narrow streets are a metaphor for life; the repetitive journeys, keeping heads down, just ‘getting by’. We rarely break out of our rut unless challenged by something extraordinary. Even without the supernatural, Fletcher shows the waste and sadness of lives lived on just one looping pattern with few rewards.
When Things Get Dark edited by Ellen Datlow
(Titan Books, 2021)
Reviewed by Jeremy Nelson
Jackson’s work has undergone a much-deserved renaissance in the world of film. The critical success of Netflix’s 2018 miniseries The Haunting of Hill House has opened the doors to a number of projects inspired by Shirley Jackson’s work and life. When Things Get Dark brings the same spirit to the short story form, with a table of contents brimming with talent.
Datlow makes it clear in her introduction that she sought more than mere pastiches of Jackson’s work and wanted contributors to “distill the essence of Jackson’s work into their own work, to reflect her sensibility.” In that spirit, none of the stories draw from Jackson’s personal life.
Coffinmaker’s Blues: Collected Writings on Terror by Stephen Volk
(Electric Dreamhouse, 2019)
Reviewed by Geoff Ryman
I was sent this book to review by the publishers at the author’s request.
When I was 12, like Stephen King, I graduated from Famous Monsters of Filmland to another newsstand journal, Castle of Frankenstein. The photos may not have been as good, and the text looked like it had been typed not typeset, but it was a satisfying read. Contributors like Lin Carter or Richard Lupoff wrote like horror films and fiction had value.
Coffinmaker’s Blues by Stephen Volk may feel for some like a collection of good blogposts. For me, the collection re-created the sensation of reading my favourite mag—respectful writing about something people disrespect.
The Book of the Baku by R.L. Boyle
Reviewed by Steven Doran
R.L. Boyle was born in Leeds. She studied there (Classical Civilisation), sang, played football, and today still lives in Yorkshire where she enjoys genre fiction, 80s movies and countryside comforts. Her debut novel mixes dark, social realism with YA horror, written in the great tradition of children going to live with estranged family and discovering something supernatural.
Sean is the book’s young hero. He leaves behind a children’s home and the poor estate he grew up on to live in with his wealthy grandfather. Years earlier Sean’s mother died in circumstances we’re left to wonder about, and which left him unable to speak. Yet his grandfather’s home—carpeted, smelling of home-cooked lasagne and stocked with books and art supplies—promises safety and comfort, and a chance to recover from trauma in his past.
Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
(Jo Fletcher Books, 2021)
Reviewed by John Dodd
Vampires are real.
They’ve been around for a very long time, but the humans of the world only came to realise they were there in the latter half of the twentieth century. Unlike the classic vampires, these get older with time, instead of being frozen perfectly in the state they were when they were turned, and depending on the type of vampire they are, they can’t actually turn humans into more vampires themselves.
Mage of Fools by Eugen Bacon
(Meercat Press, 2022)
Reviewed by Jamie Mollart
Firstly, I’m ashamed to admit that before picking up this novel I didn’t really know much about Afrofuturism. Wikipedia defines it as “a cultural aesthetic, philosophy of science and philosophy of history that explores the developing intersection of African diaspora culture with technology.”
The term was first defined by American critic, Mark Dery, in his 1993 essay ‘Black to the future’ and (according to Barnes and Noble) includes novels such as The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin, Binti by Nnedi Okorafor, and The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead.
Mage of Fools has made me want to delve further into the genre, because put simply, it’s a brilliant book.
Something More Than Night by Kim Newman
Reviewed by Estelle Roberts
Set in a gloriously insane late 1930’s Los Angeles, this latest addition to the Newmanverse is an extremely entertaining horror/noir piece of fiction. No vampires here, and only a very oblique reference to Drearcliff Grange, his Malory Towers for unusually gifted young women. There are monsters, though, fictional, human and real.
The two main protagonists are hard drinking writer of detective fiction, Raymond Chandler and William Pratt, better known as Boris Karloff. Drawn together because of, among other reasons, their British connections, the pair begin investigating strange occurrences in the city. Chandler actually has a private detective’s licence. They are eventually hired by Joh Devlin, an investigator for the DA’s office, to work on a case that appears to go to the sleazy heart of Hollywood.
Velvet Was The Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Reviewed by Anne F. Wilson
This novel is set in Mexico City during the early 70s, in the aftermath of the Corpus Christi Massacre of June 1971, seen through the eyes of two bit-players. The CIA-supported government is being challenged by left-wing students. Elvis is a member of the Hawks, a group of thugs whose aim is to harass and hinder journalists reporting on the protests. Maite is a secretary, asked to cat-sit by a neighbour who has disappeared. The narrative teases us as the two almost meet several times but are whirled apart by events.
Maite is turning 30, bored by her job, unconfident in her appearance, and easily bullied by her co-workers. She makes up stories about her love-life to avoid their pity. Dumped by her last serious boyfriend, she finds solace in romance comics, and practises a small-scale kleptomania whereby she steals trivial items from acquaintances that she admires, hoping magically to absorb the owners’ capabilities.
A World of Women by J.D. Beresford
(MIT, 2022)
Reviewed by Dan Hartland
There is something odd about reading this new edition of J.D. Beresford’s 1913 novel, A World of Women (originally published in Great Britain as Goslings). In it, a zoonotic virus travels the world from an apparent source in China, is met at first with denial and then incredulity, wrecks economies in the process, until finally techno futurists announce its potency is waning and the survivors look queasily towards an uncertain future. This is an experience described in Astra Taylor’s introduction to this MIT Press volume: she has read the novel twice, once while sheltering-in-place during Hurricane Sandy and once during the lockdowns of the COVID-19 era. This shapes her experience of the novel.
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