A Long, Strange Trip
a Firebrand Fiction review by Robert J. Santa

I don't write a lot of horror. I like to read it, and books like Necroscope by Brian Lumley and It by Stephen King rate right up there for me in terms of being able to disturb me. I read anthologies, magazines, novels, and I tend to enjoy most of the horror I read.

I just don't write it very much.

The reason is probably that I don't think I can be very scary. What frightens the average person? I dunno. Me, I'm pathologically scared of bridges, so I, of course, live on an island (might have to rethink that strategy). The handful of stories in the horror genre that I've written had two things in common: their subjects were ones that I felt were disturbing (write what you know, right?) and the endings were of the "twist" variety. Too many times I've read horror stories where the ending seemed predictable, usually where the protagonist dies.

This isn't scary to me and is probably why I love the writing of H. P. Lovecraft so much. You see, his protagonists didn't always die from the horror they witnessed, and they had to live with their warped psyches for the rest of their lives. Dying is the easy way out.

So, as an exercise in trying to improve my darker writing, I looked at three horror publications, with mixed feelings when I was done. I went to the bookstore and picked up the latest issues of Dark Wisdom and Cthulhu Sex and had Surreal generously mailed to me by one of the editors.

Dark Wisdom Issue 9 is subtitled "The Magazine of Dark Fiction." This periodical started as a combination of Lovecraftian fiction and gaming-related material but has recently removed the gaming elements. It still contains interviews, film and book reviews, and poetry. I feel I am woefully under-read to appreciate well crafted poetry, and I will refrain from any comment on the five pieces in this issue.

The magazine's first piece is "The Methuselah Stone" by Jay Caselberg who had been previously published by Dark Wisdom. In what I feel is perhaps an odd selection for the lead fiction piece, the story of Kardell plods from beginning to end in his obsession then use of the titular object. Certainly the protagonist affects a change in his environment, yet this change doesn't seem to be more than a vignette. Dark Wisdom does not purport to be a tried-and-true horror magazine, and this piece holds only the barest of dark elements. Even after a second reading, I wondered why such a slow-paced and seemingly uninvolved piece was setting up the rest of the magazine.

"She Climbs a Winding Stair" by Scott Nicholson did a better job with the tone, through the eyes of a travel writer spending some days on an abandoned island that is also a registered park. A young girl finds the narrator in the empty town, pulling him into a rescue mission to save a foundering boat and the town men who tried to help. Combination ghost- and love-story, Nicholson does a thorough, but still predictable, job with this story.

At this point I wondered also about the Lovecraftian reputation Dark Wisdom has, when I read "Chamber of the Gods" by Gord Rollo and Brett A. Savory followed by "Acceptable Losses" by Simon Wood, both excellent tales. The first piece centers around Sims, a pilot coming away from almost crashing his jet. But he's kept his blackout and paralysis a secret from his friend who recognizes Sims' stress and suggests a trip to an isolation tank. Inside the sensory deprivation chamber, the pilot encounters an ugliness that the authors portray very well, with a solid ending. Wood's piece about a World War II team that cleans up dead bodies after battles starts off as what could be historical fiction until the protagonist has his latest conversation with the protoplasmic thing that has been giving the Allies psychic strategic advice. Easily the best piece in this issue.

"The Tattletail" by Ian Rogers was a funny piece about a boy who summons a demon for elementary school show-and-tell. This, in itself, is not strange at all, for the boy solicits advice from his father as if he were doing no more than making a greenhouse to grow bean sprouts in styrofoam cups. Yet when we learn the demon takes on the form of whatever it eats, the story gets interesting, with a strong ending rounding everything out. This is a close second to "Acceptable Losses" and only loses out because of its humor element, oddly-placed for a magazine featuring dark fiction.

The remaining pieces fell short for me. The thoroughly predictable "Larry Slaughter and the Order of the Beatniks" by Alfred Taylor is a standard vampire piece (surprise! - they eat the protagonist). "The Wood, the Bridge, the House" by Marie Brennan is a Red Riding Hood flash piece that makes the wolf a dark spirit of some kind (surprise! - it eats the protagonist). "Sleight of Nature" by Darren Speegle follows a woman who encounters Druid-like ghosts searching for their "magus" to send them home (surprise! - she's the magus)."The Wind" by James S. Dorr and "Terror from Middle Island" by G. Durant Haire and Stephen Mark Rainey didn't hold any not-so-surprise endings, but didn't wow me just the same. They were good stories, just not great.

As with any collection, there are going to be some stories that hit and some that miss. I enjoyed three of the pieces in this issue, felt two were okay, and didn't care for the other five. Did I feel the three good pieces overwhelmed the others so much that I would give two thumbs up to this issue of Dark Wisdom? I'm afraid not.

I took a few days off then picked up the decidedly strange Cthulhu Sex, Issue 24, Volume II. Billing itself as "The Magazine for Connoisseurs of Sensual Horror," I decided to look up the writer's guidelines to prepare myself for what I would see between the pages. "All submissions to Cthulhu Sex must contain a major thread of at least one of the three themes in the subtitle Blood, Sex and Tentacles. Most of our works are dark in tone, horrific in thought and streaked with sensuality." Hmm, what had I gotten myself into?

The issue opens with a letter to the editor, a rambling, phonetic homage to Cthulhu and minions, translated into English by the letter writer. Strange, interesting, and illustrated (as is much of the magazine) by renowned Mythos artist Allen Koszowski. Still going hmm, I turned the page.

And I encountered a poem. There are several in this issue, following "Acid Man" by Karen L. Newman. Please reread my above statement regarding poetry. All I can say is that I read all the poems and was left flabbergasted by this one in particular, which I'm sure was Newman's intention. I still don't know whether it was good or not and will again refrain from further comment.

The first fiction piece is "Twitter" by Ralph Greco, Jr. It centers on the nurse that "kidnapped" a furry, living object removed from a woman who had "birthed" three earlier and stillborn versions (they grew on various parts of her body, not in the traditional sense of birthing). She and her boyfriend sell the creature to a circus freakshow. If the odd letter to the editor and odder poem can be discounted as opening the tone for the magazine, this piece does an outstanding job of combining horror and sexual elements. In particular, check out the Koszowski illustration near this story's end that features a smaller Cthulhu perched on a branch like a Wizard of Oz flying monkey.

Ronald Damien Malfi's "All the Pretty Girls" wonderfully follows. A serial rapist and murderer is the story's protagonist, though the center of the piece is a 1962 Mercury Comet S-22 Coupe stranded deep in the forest. It certainly helps the piece that it is illustrated by Cameron Gray's twisted depictions of corpse-like women and children. While seeing murders through the eyes of what can only be a psychopath may be a cliché in horror writing, both the ending and the writing style make this a read well worth the time invested.

"One Breath" by veteran horror writer Monica J. O'Rourke opened in a way that made me skip to the next story. I didn't enjoy the opening paragraphs and initially felt this piece was going to be an experienced writer's experiment with style. After reading everything else, I returned and found this story to be outstanding. Witchcraft, love and sacrifice all come together in a way that ends with true horror. No wonder O'Rourke is as published as she is; the story is amazing, and she is a great talent.

Not so amazing is the flash piece that follows by Brian Pedersen, "Alive and Squirming." Its premise is about switching phone companies, with a predictable ending that did little to inspire me.

All I can say about "Indulgence" by Kurt Strouse is: yuck. But yuck in a good way. While stories about addiction can never really have happy endings - nor truly surprising ones for that matter - they do when they don't start out that way. Well done and very yucky. I loved it.

The finishing piece is "Mister Binkles and the Highly Adaptable Future" by Adam P. Knave, who has quite possibly the greatest bio ever printed: "Increase your bust size cheap mortgage Adam P. Knave new Rolex lives in NY you've been selected www.hellblazer.net lowest approval rate don't miss out adampknave@gmail.com Cialia Viagra Valium cheap rent today buy penis extender low rates own home and car today." He's also written a fine story about the titular teddy bear-like toy given to the son of Reynolds, the team leader for History Revival Team 17 (a totally unnecessary addition to the story, I assure you, for this piece works today as it would a hundred years from now). Empowered with global internet access and artificial intelligence, Mister Binkles does more than care for his charge in a toy-loves-boy way. Well done, indeed. Add the comic artistry of Adam Johns and his Hex character (which is present throughout the issue), and this piece resonates with childlike flavor.

Would I buy another copy of Cthulhu Sex? I already bought a subscription. While I am a prude when I write - which is just about the opposite of what I am in real life - the sensual/sexual aspect of this magazine was tastefully done, if that word can be used in this context. If this issue is an example of what I will see in the future, I look forward to the next several issues.

I did not just receive the latest issue (#4 - soon to be released #5) of Surreal but also #3, and I read both back-to-back. I wanted to get a flavor for the magazine, which might set this review apart from the others (having never before seen an issue of either Cthulhu Sex or Dark Wisdom, or Surreal, for that matter). What struck me immediately about issue #4 was the cover art, a shadowed photograph of what I believe is a trapdoor spider. The legs are easily visible, as is the webbing on the ground, yet the rest is hidden in darkness. It is an outstanding introduction to the magazine that whet my appetite for the fiction inside.

I wasn't surprised to see six pieces of fiction, or the two poems, but I was when I saw three interviews. Graham Masterton, Angeline Hawkes-Craig and Max McCoy all share their diverse horror fiction knowledge and were quite fascinating. Also of profound interest was an article (one of four) about the real world of zombies, by Shannon Riley. This amount of nonfiction in a magazine put a different twist on the fiction than the other two publications did, almost as a way to blend the pretend horror with what could be considered real. It was like reading a watercolor painting, where the borders didn't necessarily start and stop at a certain point. I liked the effect a lot, and I hope to see this in future issues of Surreal.

The opening story was Patricia Russo's "Tymon." Narrated about the relationship between a young girl and a possible boyfriend who may do anything he wants with her except love her, I found the story well done in a way that is hard to describe. I felt like I knew the ending was going to be done in a certain way (and I wasn't disappointed), though when the ending came along, I wasn't let down. Her credits list her with several upcoming stories in equally respectable markets, and I look forward to seeing more of her writing.

The same can be said of "Beauty Is" by Kim Richards. This piece is about a door-to-door makeup salesperson named Lettie who knocks on the wrong door one day. A zombie answers, yet she goes on with the sale despite the risk. The story seemed like it held too much of a setup, and once the surprise was revealed also seemed like it went on too long. But the story felt right in another way that is difficult to describe without reading it. From a purely academic standpoint, I would say both Richards' and Russo's stories could use significant rewriting, but I wasn't wholly displeased with the stories themselves. Did I like them both? Yes. Did I feel there was room from improvement? Also, yes. Considering however, the hit-and-miss nature of horror and dark fiction in general, starting this issue with two stories I enjoyed certainly was an auspicious sign.

"Retribution" by Rinda Elliot broke from the formula in that the story's meaning, revealed literally in the last three sentences, did nothing to give me that warm, fuzzy feeling of having enjoyed reading it. A similar feeling took me with "Faithless" by Jason Sizemore. This short fiction piece also saved its meaning until the end, where a church group turns out to be snake worshippers. It just wasn't a big enough payoff, even to make a bit of flash fiction seem worth the effort.

Shift gears again with "Johnny" by William Malmborg, horrifically illustrated in pen and ink by Alex McVey in a way that couldn't have set up the piece better. "Don't go in the cellar" warns Cheryl, the girl being babysat by the protagonist, in the opening line. While another short piece taking only two pages of the magazine, and also holding what may be considered a predictable ending, Malmborg pulls off the writing with an excellently dark flair.

"Jack Peddlar" is the protagonist in Erin McKay's story of a traveling salesman in ye olden times. He returns to a village to find it ravaged by plague. Again, the ending seems predictable, but the strong writing keeps this piece from falling flat on its face. Was it a great story? No, but it certainly qualified as good, which is better than most.

Both issues I read of Surreal walked the above-average line for fiction, which is, in my humble opinion, head and shoulders above what many horror writers are putting out. While I don't anticipate taking any of these stories on long walks down memory lane, I enjoyed reading them and will add Surreal to my list of magazines to see on a regular basis. This is a solid effort. All things considered, I liked it. 'Nuff said.

Maybe I'm just jaded or my expectations are too high, but most of what I read in these magazines didn't creep me out the way I believed horror markets should. Yet they held up their end and helped me ascertain what the world of horror writing is like by people who aren't Lovecraft, Lumley or King. Some of these stories may have been predictable, and others may have seemed a little weak, yet they all held one thing in common: they were better than the horror I currently write.

And that was the scariest of all.

Firebrand Fiction Reviews: all content © 2006, Robert J. Santa