Reyome Rants
It's the most...wonderful time...of the year...! (imagine this accompanied
by swelling orchestral music, bells, chimes, beatific choir, etc.)
Sure, it's a Christmas song, but do you know, I hum it as much during October
as I do during December. And why the heck not? It's Autumn, the
temperatures are moderating, the leaves are changing (finally, here in
Tennessee) and on that one wonderful day we get an extra hour of sleep.
Pity
you poor folks who don't get to set your clocks back. Sure, we pay for
it come Spring, but it's worth it.
And then there is that other wonderful day, and of course by now you know
I'm referring to Halloween. All Hallow's Eve, the feast of Samhain, if you
wish. Every year it's debated by Those Who Presume To Know just how
it should or should not be observed; you know, those nice folks representing
various governmental or religious organizations and the folks concerned
with the running of our local schools. Here it has worked itself out to a
wonderfully satisfying conclusion: the schools are closed the Friday after
Halloween for an in-service kinda day for the teachers. Not so hot for them
but great for my wife, who works in the cafeteria, and of course for the
kids. So they can go out and collect their sweet loot Halloween night
without fear of being too wound up to sleep and thus being thoroughly zoned
Friday morning before the usual day-before-the-weekend tests. And of course
the parents don't have to fuss with shuffling their groggy carcasses off
to school.
I have to work the day after, of course, but that's okay. I don't sleep
much these days without chemical assistance (age does truly suck) and thus
I'll
be awake to greet the dead as they come shambling to my door for their
treats. I'll be watching NOTLD of course (and if you don't know what
that
stands for, shame on you!) followed by I Bury the Living--an under
appreciated film and one I haven't seen in a while. Then Friday night my
wife and I will be visiting our local drive-in to see Halloween Resurrection
with the always amazing Jamie Lee Curtis. Great to see the
screen's finest scream queen back in harness. Mind you, Shell is not too
keen on slasher flicks but might be amenable to some between scenes off
the
screen romantic activity...which as we all know is as good a reason as
any to visit the drive-in.
Anyway. Halloween. Think about it, friends. Toss out all the quasi-religious
psycho garbage the thumpers trot out. Never mind the real
history of the day. I'm no scholar and I'm certainly not a student of pagan
festivals. All that really matters is slasher flicks and candy and the
complete license to act like a total moron and wake up the next day and
have everyone believe you're the sane person you pretend to be every other
day of the year. See? It IS the most wonderful time of the year.
So eat till you bust, drink till you're stupid (for some of us that doesn't
take all that long) and/or indulge in your chemical of choice. But do it
sensibly, lest you end up being one of the wraiths knocking on my door
next year, and I'm not talking trick-or-treaters, if you know what I mean.
So. On to the subject at hand, some reading material to keep you occupied
while you wait for the next skeletal hand to begin its rap-tap-tapping.
And
let's start with one you almost certainly had not considered, but one that's
brand new and well worth the read. Surprise! It's not a horror book at all,
and it has nothing to do with the genre. It's Beyond The Deep, by
William Stone and Barbara am Ende (2002, Warner Books, New York, 351 pp
HC, 26.95)
Outdoorsy folks probably know at least one of the authors' names, with
good reason too: Bill Stone is rather notorious as a hard-charging cave
explorer, "caver" in the parlance, and his mug has graced the cover of Outside
magazine at least once that I know of (I have that issue!). In the
past ten years or so he's been focused on one particular cave, Sistema Huautla,
in Mexico, currently the deepest cave system in the western hemisphere and
one of the very deepest in the world. Of course this is the story of how
it got to be that way, and the perils involved are what makes this book close
enough to horror to be reviewed in this space. Myself, I have been caving
for twenty some-odd years, not nearly as intensely as Stone and am Ende
and their ilk but enough to know what's really scary underground. What they're
doing down on the Huautla plateau is truly far out stuff, as close to being
in space as you can get without exceeding escape velocity. So much so that
Stone even has to invent and develop a sophisticated "rebreather" device
to use in water-filled passages thousands of feet below the surface.
This is harrowing material. The pucker factor is akin to that in the late
Sheck Exley's classic Caverns Measureless to Man (1995, Cave Books,
Dayton OH, 176 pp PB $21.95) but perhaps moreso in that the cave diving,
itself spectacularly hazardous, is only half the story. Just getting to the
dive sites is a major push way beyond most average cavers' abilities. The
interpersonal struggles are fascinating too; we get to see Stone's group
fracture to the point where only he and am Ende remain as available divers,
and end up being separated from the remainder of their splintered party
by over a mile of never before seen passage and half a dozen dives.
An old caving saw is, "You can't get buried no deeper no cheaper" and death
does pay a couple of visits, but ironically it's not particularly
frightening when it does surface (no pun intended.) No, this is one of
those cases where the journey really is the reward. You may not end up liking
Stone and his methods, but you can't help but admire him. In the final
summation, Beyond the Deep is simply stunning and highly, highly
recommended
even if you have no interest at all in caves or cave diving.
A somewhat more traditional book to read during this festive season is
J. N. Williamson's superlative collection Dark Masques (2001, Pinnacle,
New York, 508 pp $6.99) which goes straight to the top of the Reyome Anthology
Reading Rant. Holy spit (swap the consonants as you prefer)!!! Or unholy.
This is some great stuff, but that's only to be expected, as it collects
Williamson's first two landmark Masques collections from 1984 and 1987 into
one stunning volume. You may be familiar with some of the titles; you certainly
know the authors: Ray Russell, Gahan Wilson, Ramsey Campbell, Joe R. (for
retching, as in truly sick!) Lansdale, Richard Matheson, Richard Christian
Matheson, and of course the dynamic duo of the genre circa the mid eighties,
Big Steve King and Robert R. McCammon.
Long time short story fans will likely already have read many of these
stories. In fact, I had just finished rereading McCammon's collection Blue
World and the leadoff hitter in Dark Masques is "Nightcrawlers,"
about a Vietnam vet who is all too literally haunted by his past. I read
it again
anyway; it is a heckuva kick start to a powerful collection. I cannot possibly
list all of the great stories here, but I will mention a few: RCM's
"Third Wind," about an obsessive runner who becomes too obsessive.... I
was that way once, so I could relate. Fortunately I got over the illness;
Matheson's protagonist doesn't. Oops, gave that one away, no? Think plod
plod plod plod into the distance ad infinitum.
That's followed immediately by Gene Wolfe's "Redbeard", about a house with
more than one secret. Gripping and atmospheric. And that is immediately
followed by David Silva's "The Turn Of Time", which will really take root
in your subconscious, if you know what I mean, and if you don't, be assured
you will.
F. Paul Wilson's collection Soft And Others is one of my all time
favorites, and the title story is included here. Again, I don't mind
rereading
something this good, and neither will you. And for the ladies, there's
Dennis Hamilton's "The Alteration," which left me with my legs tightly
crossed. Yow. This is followed by William Nolan's "Trust Not A Man.," and
probably not coincidentally either. For further familial bliss, enjoy Mort
Castle's "If You Take My Hand, My Son," which has a twist ending that's
got to be experienced to be appreciated.
Another story with a twist is also the hands-down winner of the Sickest
Title award for this collection: Thomas Sullivan's "The Man Who Drowned
Puppies." Eegah. Makes your stomach church, this one does. But for
utter depravity, nobody does it better than the inimitable JRL, Joe R. Lansdale,
who checks in with "Down By The Sea By The Great Big Rock," which is sick
enough, and even this gem doesn't come close to the utter retch fest that
is "Dog, Cat, and Baby." There aren't enough expletives to describe this
one. And all this intensity is crammed into less than two full printed
pages. You've got to admire a writer who can do so much with so little. I
read this one to my wife and she blanched. Heck, I felt positively filthy
after reading it, and just to make sure I'd grasped its subtle nuances to
their fullest, I read it again. Needless to say, I loved it. If Lansdale
doesn't have a fan club, he should. Perhaps I need to start one.
There are a few things I take issue with: in a collection of this sort
I really do like to get the anthologist's opinions on why the particular
story
was selected, and maybe a quickie bio of the author. This isn't done here.
And there are a couple of oddball stories that frankly seem a bit
out of
place. But I can look past this sort of indiscretion when the other 450
pages or so are so outstanding. Better still, the one included tale from the
pen of the rightly lamented Charles Beaumont is itself worth the price
of admission--at once bizarre and heart warming. Really. Run, do not walk
to
your favorite bookseller and snatch a copy of this while you can.
Now then. One of those aforementioned seemingly-out-of-place stories in
Dark Masques is Dennis Etchison's "Somebody Like You." Coincidentally,
the last book I'll look at for this issue is Etchison's own collection, entitled
The Death Artist (2002, Leisure, New York, 282 pp $5.99) and I'm
afraid this book just can't pass my Necropsy Halloween muster, simply because
it doesn't scare me. Okay, so perhaps I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed,
and perhaps I need a writer like Lansdale whose approach to horror is more
along the lines of the overt (or perhaps clawhammer-blatant!) Etchison's
work is at once atmospheric and psychological, and following something as
intense as Masques I reckon it's only to be expected that I would
find it
disappointing.
Taste is a funny thing, and I've been accused (often accurately) of not
having any. Your own tastes will almost certainly vary, and if you enjoy the
obscure, you may well enjoy The Death Artist. And to be fair, in
its own way I myself found it appealing. "Deadtime Story" and "Call Home"
are rather effective tales, and "When They Gave Us Memory" will stick in yours
for some time. "Inside The Cackle Factory" closes things out nicely
and hopefully does not reflect the actual state of television today.
So The Death Artist is certainly enjoyable, well written and quirky.
Hell, if you enjoy David Lynch films you'll probably eat this stuff up.
But is it
scary? Nahhhh.
