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Book Review: The Devil and the Deep edited by Ellen Datlow

The Devil and the Deep: Horror Stories of the Sea edited by Ellen Datlow

Nightshade Books, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-59780-946-7

Availability: Hardcover, paperback, audiobook, Kindle edition

 

On the surface, it seems like a good idea.  A collection of short horror stories with the ocean as a common theme, written by authors with solid track records.  Unfortunately, it fails to live up to its premise.  In terms of story quality, there are roughly four treasures and a few nice baubles, but you have to dig through a lot of sand to find them.

These stories all come in at around 20 pages, so there isn’t a lot of space for character development or backstory, and things often happen for no reason.  That’s part of what makes writing short stories challenging.   But, you still need to create an interesting plot and make sure that each event ties into another, using limited space.  The stories here that qualify as treasure do that very well.  Christopher Golden’s ‘The Curious Allure of the Sea” is a perfect example.  A young woman finds a necklace bearing a unique symbol on her dead father’s boat.  She has it tattooed on her arm, and soon many different living (and sometimes dead) creatures are flocking from everywhere to be with her, and sometimes attack her.  The weirdness escalates, and she is soon forced to make difficult choices to try to save her own life.  This story is a perfect example of how to write an excellent short story.  You never get an explanation for why her dad had the necklace, or what the symbol means, but who cares?  Details like that can be skipped as long as the story makes sense and moves along, and it does.  Golden keeps in just enough to keep the plot rolling, and anything else is cheerfully tossed over the side.  Seanan McGuire’s “Sister, Dearest Sister, Let Me Show You to the Sea,” and Brian Hodge’s “He Sings of Salt and Wormwood” also do an excellent job of getting in fast, blowing the reader away, and getting out without any unnecessary filler.  Michael Marshall Smith’s “Shit Happens” also deserves praise. It’s an excellent story, and written in an off-kilter, hilarious way that reminds me of how Stephen King used to write for some of his oddball characters.  People don’t have sex, they are interested in “activities that would have a bedstead banging against a cabin wall into the small hours.”  Advice on hot sauce consists of  “some of those local brand bad boys will put you in a world of sphincter pain.”   It’s a great horror story, and the author’s hilarious way of narrating it will have you laughing out loud at times.

As for the other stories, a few are decent, but the rest suffer from the same problem: a lack of coherence in the plot.  They aren’t sleek, fast jetboats: they are more like a collection of parts thrown together to get from one harbor to another.  The authors do have some very original ideas and the tales start well, but then they get too metaphysical and abstract, which drags the story down.  Quite often, you will get to the end of a story and find yourself asking “what just happened?” The stories go in a sensible fashion for a while, then wander off the deep end into nonsensical events.  It’s a shame, because many of the stories had promise, but wound up as unrealized ideas, leaving this reader annoyed.

If you have the money to spare, it may be worth picking this one up for the few gems. Otherwise, the reader would probably be best to pass on this one.

Contains:  violence

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

Editor’s note: The Devil and the Deep: Horror Stories of the Sea is on the final ballot for the 2018 Stoker Awards in the category of Superior Achievement in an Anthlogy.

 

Posted on April 15, 2019 by , Reply

Book Review: Haunted Nights edited by Ellen Datlow and Lisa Morton

Haunted Nights edited by Ellen Datlow and Lisa Morton

Blumhouse Books, 2017

ISBN-13: 978-1101973837

Available:  Paperback, Kindle ebook, Audible, and audio CD

Haunted Nights collects sixteen previously unpublished tales of Halloween. It is co-edited by Ellen Datlow, a highly respected genre editor, and Lisa Morton, an authority on Halloween. Haunted Nights presents stories of related holidays as well (e.g. All Souls’ Day and Día de los Muertos).

While I enjoyed all of the stories in Haunted Nights, a few stood out from the others. In “With Graveyard Weeds and Wolfsbane Seeds,” Seanan McGuire weaves a great haunted house story that switches perspective between the dead and the living. Mary can’t abide the teenagers who disturb her house, especially on her birthday, but she knows how to take care of her house, and the intruders. Stephen Graham Jones presents a tale of familial loss and a disturbing return in “Dirtmouth.” Jonathan Maberry’s “A Small Taste of the Old Country,” set in 1948, proves revenge can be served warm and comforting. Garth Nix always delivers an excellent story, and his entry in this collection does not disappoint. In his tale, “The Seventeen Year Itch,” the new hospital administrator disregards all of the warnings from staff about patient Broward and the incessant itch he feels compelled to scratch every Halloween. “A Kingdom of Sugar Skulls and Marigolds” by Eric J. Guignard is set during Día de Muertos rather than Halloween. A misspelling on a sugar skull leads to an eventful night for a man in mourning. Paul Kane’s “The Turn” takes the perspective of multiple characters, and is surprisingly well done in such a short story. Tom Nolan has never gone out on Halloween, but the urgent call from the hospital about his dying grandmother drives him outdoors on the most haunted night of the year.

This collection belongs on the bookshelves of readers who love Halloween and other ghost-related holidays. Other authors in this anthology include Joanna Parypinski, Kate Jonez, Jeffrey Ford, Kelley Armstrong, S.P Miskowski, Brian Evenson, Elise Forier Edie, Pat Cadigan, John Lanagan, and John R. Little.

Contains: blood, bullying, homophobia, rape, sexual content

Recommended

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

Posted on August 15, 2018 by , Reply

Book Review: Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant

Into The Drowning Deep by Mira Grant
Orbit Books,2017
ISBN-13: 978-0316379403
Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook, audio CD

Mermaids? Scary? If you’re familiar with Mira Grant(aka Seanan McGuire), author of the Feed series, you know she’s capable of some horrific storytelling. In Into the Drowning Deep, the sequel to her novella Rolling in the Deep, Grant has reinvented a creature that most people don’t take seriously into a terrifying monster. The novel is scientifically based, utterly plausible, and rich in characterization– and it will make the reader cringe every time a dark corner is turned. Into the Drowning Deep is as frightening as Aliens and as mind-bending as Jurassic Park, with the lyrical prose only Grant is capable of writing.

The plot goes something like this: Imagine, an entertainment corporation that seems part reality-show machine and part “Umbrella Corp,” sent a cruise ship into the heart of the Pacific, towards the Mariana Trench, in search of a fictional beast they believe will steer millions straight through televisions into their pockets. Except, of course, something goes wrong and everyone on board goes missing. Only a secret video and splatters of blood remain.

Victoria is a marine biologist whose sister was one of the victims on that first boat. Now, Imagine wants Victoria to be a part of the second voyage, to prove that mermaids actually exist. She’s grouped with a college professor who’s devoted her life to cryptozoology, the woman’s husband and Imagine guru, a pair of deaf twin sisters who are geniuses in their given fields, and a plethora of other characters. Not one of the secondary personalities is poorly drawn; everyone has a backstory that works here without it overwhelming the story.

The ship has its own mysteries, and things obviously go wrong, but not in a typical “bad horror movie” way. The creatures find them and all hell breaks loose, but not in a manner that’s expected. Fans of Grant’s Feed series know that blood and gore will not be avoided, yet it is not exploited, either. Despite the carnage, the cast and crew of the ship remain committed to solving this sci-fi horror mystery of the hows and whys of the mermaids, and not just surviving them.

With very few parts that lag, Into the Drowning Deep rolls through the currents fast and hard, pushing the reader to keep up. While deftly pacing the story so the reader knows what’s going on and why, Grant also captures the lives of the characters in a manner that most cannot. Even the unlikable people evoke sympathy from the reader, and the suspense is genuine because of it. While not as hardcore and explicit as Michael Crichton, the science rings true. It is fascinating, teaching the reader about the mysteries of the deep sea and what we don’t know– yet.  Recommended.

 

Contains: gore, violence, sex.

 

Reviewed by Dave Simms

Posted on May 26, 2018 by , Reply
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