Midnight Masquerade by Greg Chapman

IFWG Publishing Australia 2023

ISBN: 978-1922856432

Available :  paperback, Kindle edition (pre-order, ships Oct. 31)

Buy: Bookshop.org | Amazon.com

This is my first encounter with Greg Chapman (and I’m sure it won’t be the last).

The present collection, assembling both previously published material and brand new stories, has been, to me, an enticing reading experience. 

In her introduction to the book, Lisa Morton states that Chapman’s  spiritual father is Clive Barker, and this already explains many things. But Chapman has a voice of his own, a narrative voice able to scare and to delight, never ordinary and never boring (which nowadays is a rarity, at least for me).

Reviewing this collection is both an easy and a difficult task at the same time. You have to read it to understand what kind of writer Chapman is.

So I will simply mention the stories which, to me, really stand out. And I will avoid the use of adjectives such as “unusual”, “offbeat”, “bizarre”, “astonishing” etc., although they keep coming to my mind.

“The Last Night of October” is a tense and quite  terrifying novella, although it may be a bit overlong to fully maintain suspension of disbelief until the very end.

“Second Coming Circus” features a priest facing an abnormal situation which is totally beyond his understanding, while in “Octoberville”, a traveling agent has a car accident in the outskirts of a very peculiar town.

“Vaudeville” is a very imaginative tale, blending fantasy and reality, taking place in a forest populated by half-alive, half-dead monsters, hungry for young people’s flesh.

A new collection by Chapman is scheduled for 2024. I’m already eagerly looking forward to it.

Reviewed by Mario Guslandi