Baltimore, a vampire tale

Baltimore is a gothic tale about vampires sweeping the world during World War One and the one man who the vampires fear, Lord Baltimore. I had somehow gotten into my head that this was a graphic novel which it isn't. There are illustrations, but there is one in every five pages, not on every page.

You might think the book we be like Kim Newman's vampire stories. The feel though is very different. Newman's books read more like an alternate history. They take a question, what would it be like if vampires existed in the world, and then tell a story in a speedy thriller way. The humans in those worlds make peace with the vampires in their society. This book is much more dark. The world depicted is dimly lit with all sorts of terrors in the shadows and humanity may be on the way out.

Most of the book features characters other than Lord Baltimore. At the start of the book, Baltimore has summoned three men to aid him. While they wait, they share tales about their own experiences with the supernatural. Combined with the over arching tales of vampires and plagues stalking the land, the stories paint a picture of a troubled and alien Earth. The ending of the book is great as well.

Devil of Nanking

I had heard that Mo Hayder was one of the top writers of grisly horror-thrillers, so I was on the lookout for her books. I found a copy of Pig Island and gave it a try. I wasn't impressed. The writing was great and the book was bloated. Friends assured me that The Devil of Nanking was worth it. So I picked it up and it is.

The book ties (a bit improbably, but whatever) a young damaged British woman and an old damaged Chinese man. The man is rumored to be in possession of a film of an atrocity from the 1937 Rape of Nanking. The woman is obsessed with that act, for reasons she doesn't fully understand herself (but the wise reader knows she will learn.) Chasing the man down in Japan, she finds herself wanting work, which she finds as a hostess in a shady nightclub. Shady, because many of the guests are yakuza, Japanese gangsters. As it happens, all of these people are tied together.

While this book is a sort of thriller, it isn't one that keeps you guessing. About a third of the way through, you will be nearly certain how the book will end. That's fine, the punch of the book isn't in the guessing, but in the dread and tension that Hayder creates. Her characters remind me of those that Gillian Flynn creates, that is to say damaged and twisted. Rather than the middle American types we get in Flynn's books, here we have the oddballs of the expatriate community.

The terrible events of Nanking, which remain criminally little known in the West are at the center of the book. Hayder dedicates the book to Iris Chang, the Chinese-American writer whose book on the subject is a must read. Like Hayder's book it isn't very popular in Japan.

Yet more Laird Barron

I have been pleased enough with the Laird Barron short stories I have read to go seeking more. Yesterday I read Catch Hell, Barron's contribution to the Lovecraft Unbound anthology. The story starts in a pedestrian manner with a couple in a dying marriage heading off to a strange small town in the Pacific Northwest. It seems like the classic innocents in peril scenario, but it turns out these two aren't so innocent. It would seem they are fated for their, um, sticky end. This one is right up there with the great horrific endings.

Today I picked up Poe, a collection of Poe inspired tales which has another Barron tale. This one is edited by Ellen Datlow, the same person who edited the Lovecraft book.

The trouble with short story collections

Oh, I do love a good short story and based on the one I have read so far, Laird Barron can sure write a scary, nasty one. I read Old Virginia (which you can read here) which features many of my favorite story elements: wicked scientists, the CIA, battered tough guys, an ancient evil and a surprise connection to a historical mystery. All of it written briskly and creepily.

Great that it started the collection the Imago Sequence. If he had led off with something weaker, I might not have persisted. With short story collections, I find that each weak story makes me read a little faster and I then miss the nuances and details that make short stories enjoyable, so I think a good story is weak and read a little faster. Pretty soon I have given up on the book. So what to do? In this case, Steve read it first and told me the stories to read and which to skip. That is my kind of friend.

A Tale of Two Schreibers

There are two horror novelists whose books I avidly await. The first is Sarah Langan and the second is Joe Schreiber. Both write spooky stories that disturb not by creating revolting images, but by creating moods and suggesting terrible things. They are young and have just a few (solid) books to their credit, but Schreiber has two new books out. The books are in different genres, so I expected some variation, but I found the differences between them to be startling.

One book, Death Troopers, has a immediately engaging concept, but a weak payoff. The other, No Doors, No Windows, has one of the most hackneyed of concepts, but is riveting throughout. In Death Troopers, an Imperial prison barge investigates and abandoned Star Destroyer and finds it occupied by space zombies. Sounds cool, but doesn't go anywhere. No Doors, No Windows is a haunted house story about a hard luck family and the gothic horrors of small towns. It's been done a million times, but Schreiber's characters, plot peculiarities, pacing and writing rise to the top.

Death Troopers has weak characterization, relies on the Star Wars universe to carry much of the background and is marred by far too much exposition. No Doors, No Windows has a number of interesting characters, some cliched to be sure, but symphatheically and often surprisingly handled. The difference in the writing is just shocking. It feels lifeless in Death Troopers, while vigorous in No Doors, No Windows. Sadly, I think that Death Troopers might be the future of Schreiber's books (he already has a prequel in the works.)

Death Troopers has a sales rank of 430, while No Doors No Windows has a rank of 89,965 (as of this writing). I can't blame him if he churns out more of these Star Wars books. My only hope is that the people who find him thanks to Star Wars move on (and buy) his much better horror books.

Pixu

Well, I'm glad I didn't spend any money on Pixu: Mark of Evil. For whatever reason I am drawn to both horror novels and horror comics so Pixu, a hardcover graphic novel no less, seemed like a good choice. It seemed a bit too short to buy, so I went to the library. Good for me.

My main complaint is how insubstantial the story is. If you your focus is on the pictures (or art if you must) you will get more mileage than I did. I however want story and there isn't much. Here it is. Five people live in a spooky apartment building. Only one is a good person, some are OK and some are evil. Bad things happen to them quickly, but we don't care a whole lot because they aren't developed.

The authors, mostly artists, would rather communicate with images than words, but in a book this short, nothing really cohered. There are some unpleasant themes as well, mostly child abuse, but the authors went a little too far in the direction of suggestion. There also a sense of unreality about the entire thing, that was probably meant to be creepy but ended up making it less engaging.

The new Stephen King

Reading about the new Stephen King (due out around Thanksgiving, a nice gift to booksellers) I was struck by how retro it seemed. The book is long at over 1000 pages. It involves a strange threat (a dome suddenly appearing overhead) to a small Maine town. In the face of adversity, the citizens exhibit varying amounts of good and evil ( you can count on a fair helping of venality as well.) Sounds like his epic horror books like the Stand and It, that he wrote back then.

It turns out it sounds retro for a reason. King initially drafted the book back in the 80s. He took another stab at it later and is now finally satisfied with it. Boffo, I say. Under the Dome sounds great to me.

Stay out of the swamp

Our two spookiest states are Maine and Louisiana. Maine has the creepy fog covered craggy coasts where you just know a lizard creature is waiting to pull you into the depths. Then there are the forests, the people with the crazy accents and the Stephen King and Lovecraft stories. Louisiana has the dank bayous filled with gators, snakes and all manner of bugs and is a bad place to hold National Guard exercises. Let's not forget the voodoo, the crazy accents, the drive through bars and the fact that the sea is swallowing the Delta. Louisiana though doesn't quite have the horror story base that Maine does.

Deborah LeBlanc is doing her part to fill in the gap. She has written four novels set in the creepy backwoods and waters of the Sportsmen's Paradise and the latest is Water Witch. A water witch is someone gifted in the ways of dowsing, or finding water. Dunny Pollock, born with an extra finger, can find all manner of objects including missing people. Living in Texas, her sister summons her to the Lousiana bayous to find two missing children. She does go but then has to confront evil forces unleashed by a poorly performed native American ritual.

The book has lots of bloody violence, the supernatural and children in peril. It also is steeped in the local culture, which LeBlanc apparently knows well. Here's to LeBlanc for making Lousiana a place more likely to give me nightmares.

Could have been better

So I finished the Strain last night. Overall I give it an OK grade, thanks to a strong start and a weak finish. The book starts with a 777 landing at JFK with nearly everyone on board dead once the wheels stop rolling. A CDC epidemiologist is called in to investigate and he soon learns that something dark and nasty is afoot. The authors build up the tension nicely, with the vampire strain creeping out into the city, and thanks to some powerful assistance to the vampire, the world won't listen.

The problem is the end which becomes quite formulaic. The redshirts are very clearly redshirts and the final battle of this first volume of the trilogy is like many other vampire, or monster, books you have already read. The epilogue gives hope for something more novel and exciting in the second volume.

I suppose I have come to dislike the small band of heroes holding back the tide of darkness model of fantasy/science fiction/horror. Perhaps it isn't even dislike, but a sense that if you are going to do it, do it some way new or terribly exciting, which the ending did not do.

Too much vampire bizness, reading late at night

So I am still on vacation, but we leave tomorrow for Portland. I finished Fangland this week and wish I could have brought the other vampire book I am reading, the Strain, along as well. That one was too heavy for the travels and I dislike travelling with library books anyway. These two very different books once again illustrate all that can be done with the vampire story.

The Strain, which I haven't finished, is a tale of Vampire Apocalypse. In the book, vampires are a disease and a weapon that threatens to overwhelm the world. The pacing is rapid and the feel is cinematic. Characters, such as they are, serve mostly to create tension and to allow the plot to move forward. One thing to note is, at 80% through, this book is part of one of those trilogies which is really one novel cut into three parts. Nothing wrong with this, but you can expect to be left hanging, or desperately wanting more.

Fangland is an updated version of Stoker's book complete with a victim/avenger character named Harker, Evangeline in this case. Evageline is a producer for a 60 Minutes like newsprogram. She heads off to Romania to interview a crime figure who turns out to be something far worse than a gangster. Later, said criminal begins to infiltrate the offices of the newsprogram.

This book takes the metaphorical/symbological approach with the battle of vampire vs. human serving as the philosophical battle between those fixated on the wrongs of the past and those who want to move ahead. Sex, frequently a subtext in vampire books, is front and center in this one, but in a morally ambiguous sense. Harker herself is burdened by sin, but is in the end redeemed. You can read this one as an allegory about life in the media or as the triumph of life over death. Either way, it's good.

I think the vampire story is so flexible because each author can pick their mix of sex and violence. The form allows for, and maybe even demands, both, but the authors can make one or the other dominate. In the case of the Strain, it is nearly all violence, with a sense of sexuality driving the villain. Other vampire novels have highlighted the murky line between sex and violence, but Fangland is interesting because it sets sex and violence in direct opposition.

Make up your mind, decide to walk with me

I have a love-hate relationship with horror novels. It is mostly hate, as it is a debased genre, but I keep trying. I saw a fair bit of notice about Robert Masello's Blood and Ice, and I somehow got it into my head that it was a bit of supernatural horror along the lines of the Relic, a book mostly and unfortunately known for the bad movie version. That is not the case.

Relic is all about creepy atmospherics, a terrible nasty beasty and then a bit of mystery as well. Blood and Ice has two good spots for atmosphere, 19th century Crimea and modern day Antarctica, but this book is really an adventure story, where the characters face a series of challenges and deal with them down quite nicely. Masello tells the 19th century story and the modern day one in alternation, and while the initial mystery isn't really much of one (if you can't the nature of the problem by page 5, you haven't read many of these books), there are a number of small ones. It also has a bit of romance, where lost love is healed. If it had been tightened up by about 100 pages, it would be just right for the adventure story fan.

Well, I am not an adventure story fan. When I read these sorts of thrillers, I prefer psychological breakdowns, horrific circumstances and environments and muddled endings where the meaning of victory and survival is not clear. So this one wasn't for me. Your mileage may vary.

Finally a horror novel I can love

Last year I read Sarah Langan's The Keeper and was quite taken with it. You can read my thoughts about that one here. That book was quite good, but I thought that Langan held back a bit in what she was writing. There is no holding back in her latest, The Missing. If you like supernatural horror with a sense of scale, this is your book.

The book starts with kids from the Corpus Christi, Maine school going a field trip an abandoned town. Now this was a tad unbelievable. I can't imagine parents signing off on a field trip pass to an abandoned town site that was recently investigated by the EPA. That momentary break in the suspension of disbelief was quickly overtaken by the pace of her narrative and the sense of impending cataclysm.

On said field trip, the trouble making kid avoids getting back on the bus and while investigating the ruins, uncovers something terrible. That terrible something then begins to threaten the town of Corpus Christi. As the evil spreads and consumes the town, we see the wicked ways of the all the town's social classes. Langan casts a fairly jaundiced eye on nearly all of her characters.

With her socially critical view, her suggestion rather than the depiction of violence, her Maine small town setting and her dark ending, you can't help but compare her to Stephen King. If you like the early, small-town-pays-for-its-wicked-ways novels of King, you will like and maybe even love this.

This is Langan's second novel and she has two more on the way. Right now it looks like she could be one of the greats.

Ghost on the beach

We went to the Oregon Coast this weekend. The coast in January is normally dark and rainy with some chilling wind for good measure. Instead it was sixty degrees and we spent hours on the beach. Bizarre. While the weather was more than we could have expected, a little of the old dark and dreary would have suited one of the books I read. Susan Hill writes ghost tales in the 19th century mold. Her Man in the Picture features dark alleys, ancient academic bachelor libraries, curses and English country homes. The focus of the story is a painting which brings horror to those that possess it.

The book reads like an MR James story with a mix-in of the 70s trippy horror movie Don't Look Now. It feels like it could have been written by James, but it has a peculiar and mysterious ending that feels more modern. The ending itself is a question mark. It was possible that one of the narrators was lying or that the curse itself had changed by the end. Or maybe the evil was much darker than I understood. The book is short at 150 pages and will be popular with those who long for an old school ghost tale.

The smell of death is all around

I have been looking for some new horror writers, and on a recommendation I tried Jack Ketchum. I read his short story collection called Closing Time and I thought it was pretty good. Ketchum is best known for ultraviolence and his fans are especially enamored of the Girl Next Door, which is based on the real life murderer Gertrude Baniszewski. Closing Time is more subdued, although the stories frequently revolve around the sudden shock of violence in ordinary life. I liked quite a few of them and will be looking for his Peaceable Kingdom, another short story collection.

Something was missing though as I read. I realized that I kept waiting for the supernatural elements. When I look at the horror novelists that really grab me, like Lovecraft and King, they all focus on cosmic or supernatural horror. My favorite horror movie? The Exorcist. I am clearly an escapist when it comes to horror. Ketchum is focused on the evil that men do. For that sort of thing, I tend to prefer crime novels. Still for those wanting a close look at cruelty, Ketchum is a good bet.

Not much fun

Well, it had to happen sometime. The little recommendation tags strewn about the stacks of Powells have always pointed out winners, but the highly recommended Conrad William's the Unblemished didn't work for me. I never got to the apocalyptic part, which means I have may missed some great bits, but I doubt it.

While the characters, aside from a particularly nasty pair of villains, aren't terribly memorable, much of the imagery is all too memorable. I thought I had read all that was possible in terms of violent human depravity, but Williams serves up some of the most horrific images I have ever encountered. If you are looking for this sort of thing you will find it here.

My interest in horror has been revived by the likes of Joe Schreiber and Sarah Langan, but this one deflated my enthusiasm a bit.

Troubled times had come to her hometown

I'm a sucker for the doom befalling a town story. They provide the author with the chance to showcase humanity's good and bad sides, although horror novelists love to emphasize the latter. So the Keeper was on my try list. I'd seen Sarah Langan promoted at Powell's which was a good sign. Like science fiction it is difficult to judge a horror book by its cover or by its blurbs. The spine of the book said it was suspense rather than horror, which I also took for a good sign, hoping it was code for well written horror.

The story isn't terribly original, in fact it reminded me quite a bit of the Shining, but I enjoyed reading it. The story is set in a decaying Maine milltown know as Bedford. The most peculiar resident is Susan Marley, a nearly mute local beauty gone to seed. She both methaphorically and eventually actually is the the nexus of all the town's misfortune and bad deeds. She is tied to the closed mill, scene of a number of crimes and host to the town's dark memory.

This is supernatural horror, a type I tend to prefer, but if you dislike ghost stories, this one is most definately not for you. While the story follows King in a number of ways, she ends the tale with a much more hopeful than King. In his stories, good never triumphs, it merely survives. Here we have a more optimistic take.

I am trying to think about why I liked the book and it came down to the basic sense of wanting to know how it ended. Langan populates Bedford with a number of (mostly weak and doomed) characters and I wanted to see how they fared in the coming doom. Langan also draws out the conclusion which kept the read interesting. I plan to read the follow up book.

You can never quarantine the past

Like a ex-smoker turned into a hectoring prohibitionist, my over-indulgence in the world of horror novels as a youth makes me attack them, out of shame I suppose. I once combed low rent paperback exchanges in hopes of finding the likes of Guy Smiths Crab series, which as you might guess was about giant crabs attacking various coastal locales. The US cover was relatively benign, but the more lurid British cover makes a nod to the pervasive prurience which no doubt appealed to my adolescent mind.

I generally looked for the more bizarre books. I eagerly read the likes of James Herbert (I particularly liked the Fog,) and Graham Masterson. Masterson's Devils of D-Day was quite something. It involved the US Army using demon controlled tanks to defeat the Germans.

The undisputed master of the disturbing is Shaun Hutson. These books are the literary equivalent of Ilsa She-Wolf of the SS, or maybe even Salo, gleeful romps through torture, sadistic violence and sexual torment. Hutson is the sort of fellow who calls his blog "Shaun's Shit." His topics are wide-ranging from vampire zombie attack, killer slugs, druid evil, terrorists and so on. What sets him apart is his brutally vile depictions of death and destruction. I'd like to tell you that I was repelled in horror and went out and worked in a soup kitchen to repent. No, I gave it to friends who also ate them up. I can't really recommend these books to anyone unless you are a teen looking for something a bit (OK, quite a bit) more disturbing than usual.

Watch this Hutson interview (with a young Vinnie Jones) where he seems fairly normal.

Too much horror business

The vast majority of horror novels are not mediocre or even bad, but fully execrable. Given to the worst writing in nearly all of publishing, disturbing fascination with acts of violence and sadism and an utter disregard for a reader's intelligence, most people would rather pick up a Sweet Valley High story than anything found in the horror section. That's unfortunate because there are horror novels that don't make you hate humanity for allowing these literary abominations to see print. Here are but a few.

Stephen King, in particular late 70s, early 80s King. King's books are the rare airport reads that are worth a damn. Yes, they are stacked next to pages of airy nonsense, but his books are actually quite good. While his books are marked with graphic violence, the true focus and value of his books is the examination of the petty and not so petty evils lurking just below the surface of humanity and society. And they are very often great stories to boot. The Shining, Salem's Lot, and Pet Sematery are well worth any reader's time.

Eat the Dark by Joe Schreiber. This one is creative and frightening without a recourse to gross-out violence to make it "scary." I particularly like how the hints of nastiness he gives that create lingering feelings of dread.

The Ruins by Scott Smith. This one is controversial to say the least. Many people hated it, especially the way the victims fail to see ways of escape. I liked it as a grim picture of people slipping into despair.

Ghost Story by Peter Straub. If you ever go to those paperback bookshops that sell beat up copies of popular fiction, you will find lots of Straub. Despite his good sales, I think he is overshadowed by King and perhaps lumped in with Dean Koontz. Do not make this mistake. While I think Straub's books vary in quality, this one is every bit as good as the best of King.

Dark Harvest by Norman Partridge. Partridge has been writing horror novels for over a decade and this most recent one is quite strong. It is short, but it is an effective and nasty story.

Impacted on the surface

I had seen a lot of Internet buzz about Scott Sigler's Infected, so I put a library hold on it. Sigler started as a horror story pod cast author and Infected is his first dead tree book. While I will give a book I purchased or was given about 100 pages to prove itself, library holds get 50 pages at best. I gave Infected about 50 and put it in the back to the library pile. While it has some inventive and gag-inducing gore scenes, the writing is middling (which puts it ahead of most horror, admittedly) and the characters are uninteresting. This one may please gore-hounds, but others should look elsewhere.

Another reason I put this one down is that among the opportunity costs was holding off on reading the second half of Steven Erikson's mammoth Reaper's Gale. If you have been anxiously checking the Web for updates on the next George R.R. Martin, you should give Erikson a look. While his books lack the characterization of Martin and the byzantine political machinations, they are better on exploring the role and uses of power. And there is lots more ass-kicking.

One I didn't like

For quite some time I was looking for a reasonably priced copy of the out of print Full Moon Over Babylon. The novel gets high praise from the Amazon reviewers and a lot of love on GoodReads as well. I'm glad I only paid four bucks for my copy since I thought it was a rather run of the mill story, with turgid prose and nothing scary about it.

The narrative structure is a stand out. A down on its luck Southern family sees its members die one by one. You'd have to not pay attention to know who the bad guy is as soon as you meet him. I think that the author was going for a Jim Thompson sort of villain, but there is little insight, just irrational behavior from our baddie.

The scares come from ghosts, which I don't find scary (devils yes, ghosts no) and the threat to the family. There is some social criticism of how the powerful can manipulate their world to their liking. Oh well.