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Book Review: Dark Screams: Volume 6 edited by Brian James Freeman and Richard Chizmar

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Dark Screams: Volume 6 edited by Brian James Freeman and Richard Chizmar

Hydra, 2017

ISBN: 9780399181931

Available: Kindle edition

Freeman and Chizmar have curated stories from Stephen King, Lisa Morton, Nell Quinn-Gibney, Norman Prentiss, Joyce Carol Oates, and Tim Curran for this short-story anthology. Every one of them is a fast read, each with its own unique edge.

King’s “The Old Dude’s Ticker” is a different spin on Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart.” Richard Drogan is a Vietnam vet working for this old dude whose eye, that vulture eye, is driving him insane, man.  Drogan knows the old dude needs to die.

“The Rich are Different”, by Lisa Morton, tells the story of Sara Peck, who wrote a successful novel about the elite of society. When the family she based the story on wants to meet her, Sara discovers secrets far more twisted than her imagination could conjure. This was probably my least favorite short story out of this collection, but it was still quite good.

In Nell Quinn-Gibney’s “The Manicure”, a young woman getting her nails done professionally for the first time finds that her mind keeps wandering to the past. Her memories merge with the present, and her manicure turns out to be less relaxing than she hoped for. The tension-building in this story was incredibly effective.

In “The Comforting Voice”, by Norman Prentiss, Josh and Cheryl are expecting. Cheryl is in the process of reconciling with her abusive father, Lewis, which Josh does not support. When  Lewis arrives, he is diminished; cancer has ravaged his body and effected a change in his demeanor. When the baby comes, she adores her grandfather, and he is the only one who can calm her screaming fits. What no one thinks about is who will take on that mantle when Lewis is gone. Who will have the comforting voice, and what will they say?

I love Joyce Carol Oates’ work, and “The Situations” did not disappoint. It should be mentioned there is animal and child abuse referenced in this story. In Oates’ story, there are certain lessons children must learn, and if they do not follow the rules, they must bear the scars of their punishment. When the children question Daddy, they learn the most important rule of all.

The last story in this anthology is “The Corpse King”, by Tim Curran. Clow and Kierney are resurrection men just trying to make an honest living. When Sherily warns them not to set foot in the North Burial Grounds, what’s a body to do? I’ve always loved the setting of Victorian slums and the subject of resurrection men. This novella will be added to one of my favorites of this type of story. Curran doesn’t miss a beat when it comes to the atmosphere and substance of the Victorian gothic.

Freeman and Chizmar selected some great stories for this anthology. It has a little bit of something to please most reading preferences. I’m looking forward to the next installment of Dark Screams. Recommended.

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

Contains: animal abuse, child abuse, blood, brief mention of sex

 

 

Women in Horror Month: 5 Books By Women Writers That Horror Readers Might Not Know (But Should)

Far be it from me to dictate an entire canon of works (at least today) but there are definitely some books by women authors that deserve to be known better than they are, and they often get shorted because the story of Mary Shelley and Frankenstein is pretty amazing, so everybody writes about her. There are lots of great women writers who aren’t Mary Shelley, though, and I can only claim to have read a few of them, despite my intention to do better. Here are some books you might have heard of but passed on for some reason– or maybe they are unknown to you.

1.) Beloved by Toni Morrison.

Toni TheMorrison is a great American writer, so I hope most people at least recognize her name. Beloved was made into a movie, so it’s you may at least know of that. The story concerns Sethe, an escaped slave, living in Ohio many years after her escape, in a house haunted by a ghostly child.  To say more than that is to give away what was (to me, anyway) the breathtaking, visceral shock of some of  the book’s later events. Morrison uses a nonlinear writing style, and the events move back and forth in time, so this is not a quick, light, beach read. But it is certainly one that will leave an impact.

2.)  The Keep by Jennifer Egan

The Keep is a nested story, with a story about a character situated in a Gothic trope– visiting an acquaintance who is renovating a castle with Gothic terrors and trappings, which is also a playground for bored people who want to imagine they are living in the Gothic… and all of this is framed by yet another story. The Keep does not tie up all of its loose ends, so if that bothers you, be warned. It’s really hard to describe this in just a few sentences without giving up some of the surprises in the plot, but suffice it to say that it is suitably creepy and unsettling. I’d save this for when you have plenty of time.

3.) The Castle of Los Angeles by Lisa Morton

The Castle of Los Angeles won a Stoker award in 2010, and was mentioned in the second edition of The Readers’ Advisory Guide to Horror. Two of our reviewers chose to review it independently of each other, and both of the reviews were glowing. Despite her reputation as a horror writer, though, it is possible that you might not have come across this book, because it was published by a small press, Gray Friar Press, that does not (to my knowledge) seem to exist anymore. Cemetery Dance has republished it as an ebook, but hard copies appear to be only available used, so you would probably have to be looking for it specifically, or be blessed with serendipity, to come across it. The Castle of Los Angeles  takes place in a haunted theater, the Castle. While it uses many Gothic tropes, Morton makes them her own, and her eccentric mix of characters and their reasons for living in the Castle make it a unique contribution to the haunted house genre. It is a treasure for lovers of quiet horror.

4.) Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

If you are purely a horror reader you might not have come across the brilliant Connie Willis, who is primarily known as a science fiction writer. Among her other works, she has written a loosely connected series of books about historians in an alternate future who use time travel in their research. In Doomsday Book, history student Kivrin’s research trip to the Middle Ages is derailed when the tech running the machine collapses, having entered incorrect coordinates that send her to the time of the Black Death. The tech turns out to have contracted an unknown and deadly disease that spreads rapidly through the area, and the time travel lab is quarantined due to suspicion that the disease escaped from the past when Kivrin went through, trapping her there. This isn’t horror in the traditional sense, but the reader is a witness, through Kivrin, to the despair and terror caused by the Black Death. The parallel plot of the quarantine during the spread of the unknown disease in the future is more science-fictional, but Willis does not pull her punches, and she doesn’t seem to have compunctions about killing off characters you’ve grown to care about. The story builds over the course of the novel, and it is exhaustive in its detail, so you have to be patient, but it is so worth poking your toe outside the horror genre to delve into the horror and consequences of the spread of an epidemic disease.

5.) Nameless: The Darkness Comes by Mercedes M. Yardley

While she has published short stories and novellas before, this is Mercedes Yardley’s debut novel, and the first book in her Bone Angel trilogy. It’s relatively new, having just been released in December. We just reviewed it here, and when I asked my reviewers for a book by a top woman writer in the horror genre, this is the one that was suggested.  Luna, the protagonist, can see and speak to demons. When her niece is kidnapped by Luna’s brother’s ex-wife, a demon named Sparkles, the game is on! Described as “whimsical”, “gritty”, and “macabre”,  this novel, while technically an urban fantasy, gets high marks from lovers of horror as well.

 

I hope you’ve had a great month of reading women horror writers this month– but don’t stop now! Enjoy!

Women in Horror Month: A Look Back

An enormous amount of content was produced by and about women in horror during Women in Horror Month, 2014. I linked to a lot of this content via our Facebook page  However, since a lot of people don’t visit our Facebook page, I’m going to provide a list of links to places I visited and shared during the month that are related to WiHM(I really recommend that you visit there often, because not only will you get all kinds of awesome content that comes my way, but there are also links to all our blog posts– not just this blog, but the one for Reading Bites, and the one that notifies you of new reviews. So it’s a great way to see everything current).

Enjoy!

Mary Shelley Letters Discovered in Essex Archive-– The Guardian, January 15

Flowers in the Attic: The Value of Young Reading Perspectives-– Kelly Jensen, BookRiot

The Ghost of V.C. Andrews: The Life, Death, and Afterlife of the Mysterious “Flowers in the Attic” Author—  Kate Aurthur at Buzzfeed. For the first time, the family and colleagues of the author speak out to provide a fuller picture of her life.

The Literary Gothic— A web guide to biographical information on early supernaturalist authors, set to close down in June

Please Don’t Bring Me Flowers— Allison Peters, BookRiot

20 Black Women in Horror Writing— Sumiko Saulson. Essential reading for the month of February, for multiple reasons. Saulson also published a short ebook on black women horror writers in February of this year, available for free at Smashwords.

Women in Horror Recognition Month Facebook page

Gothic Pioneer Ann Radcliffe May Have Been Inspired by Mother-In-Law— The Guardian, January 30

Women Who Write Lovecraft by Silvia Moreno Garcia of Innsmouth Press

RA for All: Horror— Becky Siegel Spratford asks who your favorite woman writer in horror is.

Ania Ahlborn’s interview with J. Lincoln Fenn

The Rise of the Women in Horror Movement: Admirers, Haters, and Everything In-Betweeners at Brutal as Hell

Statistics on genre writer submissions by gender at Tor UK, by editor Julie Crisp. Crisp’s statistics demonstrated that women submit fewer manuscripts than men, at least at Tor UK, so sexism by the publisher isn’t the only factor at play.

Women in Horror Month: Girls Can Kill, Too!— Bloody Disgusting

Writing female protagonists, by Lisa Morton– HWA blog

Genre-blending from Mary Shelley to the present by J. Lincoln Fenn– HWA blog

Horror Roundtable on Sexism— HWA discussion. Read the comments section– it’s very interesting!

Women Destroy Science Fiction Kickstarter— Lightspeed Magazine. In spite of everyone’s insistence that all-women issues are not desirable, this Kickstarter campaign to fund an all-women writers’ issue of Lightspeed Magazine was so successful that the people at Lightspeed expanded to include issues called Women Destroy Horror (published as an issue of Nightmare Magazine) and Women Destroy Fantasy (published as an issue of Fantasy Magazine). The campaign is over, but this shows there is clearly a demand for work by women writers. Look for the special issues later this year!

Mary SanGiovanni on her personal experiences as a woman writer of horror.

Creating female protagonists, by Lisa Morton (again, although not the same piece)– RA for All: Horror

Women in Horror Month: Pseudonyms and Author Anxiety— KC Redding-Gonzalez

Rabble Rouser Wednesdays: On the Issue of Misogynist Writers and Readers by Paula Ashe

Hugh Howey on Self-Publishing

Mark Coker responds to Hugh Howey

Tonia Brown on her personal experience with self-publishing

What’s Wrong With Female Werewolves in Popular Culture? at Darkmedia

Women in Horror Month Archives 2014— Darkmedia

Spreading the Writer’s Word— A daily spotlight on a book by a woman writer of horror

Siren’s Call Publications— download their free ezine devoted to Women in Horror Month

60 Black Women in Horror by Sumiko Saulson— free download to this guide at Smashwords.

 

There is some great stuff at those links and I hope you will take the time to explore them. I hope you had a great time learning about women in horror, and especially women in horror fiction, during the month of February. Don’t think that just because the month is up that it’s time to stop, though! Keep your eyes open for news on how Monster Librarian plans to keep women writers visible over the next several months– it will be a challenge to keep it up with the Stokers coming up and all kinds of reviews to edit, write, and share, but it’s totally worth it. So welcome to March– another month set aside to recognize women’s contributions to the world. Let’s see where it takes us!