The Haunted Weblog

Friday, November 29, 2002

WTF? – Paula Guran has been “dismissed” as editor of Horror Garage? The cutting edge ‘zine started strong and just kept getting stronger, garnering awards, critical praise and devoted readers as it went along. Surely she was doing something right, but now the publisher has shown her the door and taken over himself. The next issue will be the last with her at the helm. I’m not seeing a whole lot of sense in this. Perhaps someday we’ll hear the whole story, but I’m not holding my breath.
Book 10:51 PM [+]
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Watching Watching the Nightingales – Episode six of Douglas Clegg’s eserial novel is out, and I’m still loving it. Clegg is often at his best when he is dealing with the myths and mythopoetics of childhood, and he really shows it here. Like young Alex I am now intrigued by the Nightingale family and can’t wait for the next episode to learn more.
Book 10:37 PM [+]
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Magazine Dancing – While I was laid up I had time to read the latest issue of one of my favorite magazines, Cemetery Dance. The fiction this issue (#40) was quite good, with a couple of nice ghost stories. I found Will Ludwigsen’s “The Trespasser” to be a nice twist on a familiar theme. There was an interesting interview with Poppy Z. Brite in which she said that she plans move away from horror in her longer fiction. This issue also has her last column for the magazine. There are the usual reviews (always a good source for finding new fiction), a fascinating interview with Robert Weinberg conducted by Darrell Schwitzer, Thomas F. Monteleone’s column (which is always a gas), and an essay by John Pelan. Every time I read Pelan I realize just how incomplete a reader I am. The man is surely dark fictions foremost authority, and I learn something every time I read him. If there was one thing I could change about the magazine, it would be the Stephen King News section. By far the largest single piece in the ‘zine, it is a gathering of ever scrap of news, rumor, or insight that can be found about horror’s most famous practitioner. Much of the news is pretty stale by the time the magazine hits the stands, and while Mr. King may be a fascinating figure, he’s just not that interesting. While such a thing has its place, that place is probably a newsletter or weblog, not horror fiction’s leading periodical. That’s just a quibble though. I’ll still be renewing my subscription this year.
Book 10:33 PM [+]
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The Sequel We’ve All Been Waiting For – Here is my favorite new book title. Reserve your copy now, it’s Hamlet II: Ophelia’s Revenge!
Book 10:13 PM [+]
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Parody Schmarody – (book notes) Did you ever read Bored of the Rings? The Harvard Lampoon’s parody of Tolkien is one of the funniest little books I ever read. Crude, adolescent, and now terribly dated, it was also witty, inventive, and most of all funny. With fond memories of that parody in mind, I was looking forward to Barry Trotter and the Unauthorized Parody by Michael Gerber. While it has all of the crudity and adolescence of it’s illustrious predecessor, it fall short in one major category. It isn’t all that funny. While the Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was a quick read at over 700 pages, Barry Trotter was a slow read at under 180. The book parodies the series, the writer, the business of publishing and moviemaking, marketing, and pop-culture fandom, but has very little to say about any of those things that is either original or funny. I can recall only two occasions when I thought the writer had been genuinely witty, but he so over played the joke, as if in fear that his readership would be too stupid to get it, that he bludgeoned all possible humor from it. Note for all future writers of literary parody: just messing around with the names and making the characters a bit shabby does not equal instant laughs.
Book 9:41 PM [+]
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I Guess I Have Potter-Mania (Finally) – (book notes) Here’s a question. Why would anyone read a review of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling? If the reader is a fan of the first three, he doesn’t need anyone to tell him about the fourth. If the reader did not like the earlier books then there is no point reading about the later ones. If the reader doesn’t want to read the books because they are fantasy/kid-oriented/magical-and-therefore-satanic/too popular to be good, then the reader is an idiot. What then is the point of reading on to the next paragraph?

For those who are too stubborn to stop, I’ll continue to bloviate. Yes, I quite liked this latest installment of the amazingly popular series. Since I just got around to reading it now I’m obviously not one of those Potter-fanatics who live only for the next book. But after reading this one I may be a bit quicker about picking up number five. Ms. Rowling, a student of classical literature, knows that the proper place for the climax is the middle. This book, the middle of the series, seems to be the dramatic keystone. The previous books seem to have been leading up to this one, where Harry confronts his nemesis. This is something of a cliff-hanger in that while the story has a definite ending, it promises great change, a new darker direction as the war with Voldemort becomes a more overt, serious theme. Indeed, the final chapter is entitled “The Beginning.”

Befitting the beginning of a more mature phase in the story, the characters are beginning to mature. Ron and Harry are starting to notice girls for the first time, and there is a suggestion that Ron might soon begin to notice that Hermione is one of them. Rowling handles this difficult stage in her character’s developments deftly, as the near-adolescents seem both more self assured and more confused. Harry, Ron, and Hermione are wonderful characters, people I want to spend time with. Like Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, or Holmes and Watson, the characters exist separate from their adventures in the minds of their readers, as evidenced by the enormous amount of fanfic you can find on the web. I think the attachment that people have to these characters might become a problem for Ms. Rowling. The story has obviously taken a darker turn. Murder, torture, and other evils seem to be in our friend’s future. I’m not entirely sure that the fans will want to see such unpleasantness.

A lot of people have commented on the length of this novel. At 734 pages in paperback this is the longest single-volume children’s novel I’ve ever seen. This is not a problem – Ms. Rowling’s writing is as engaging as ever, the reader is drawn from adventure to adventure, happy to tag along for the ride. Sure, cuts could have been made. The “Rita Skeeter” sub-plot was obviously woven into the novel so the author could take a couple of well placed (and surely well deserved) shots at the journalists. The character could have been cut out of the novel entirely with no difference to plot. A few other things could have been trimmed out, but it would still have been a pretty long book. This seems natural, as this is likely the pivot upon which the series will turn. I like this new, darker direction, and am looking forward to seeing what’s next.


Book 9:15 PM [+]
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Drink Your Own Bath-Water! – Take a beer bath. I just love this idea.
Book 8:50 PM [+]
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Thankful – Hi everybody. Hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving. Mine wasn’t bad at all. What am I thankful for this year? Well, I’m thankful that there are still places where people believe in the world of the invisible, and that magic is a real part of everyday life. It has been a few centuries since we in the West have so believed, but in south west Africa it is perfectly normal. What if you were a politician who lost an intra-party election? Naturally you would suspect sorcery. You live in a modern, civilized country, so you’d take your opponent to court. And you might just win.
Book 8:46 PM [+]
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Lately, It’s Just One Damn Thing After Another – Last week I was ill. Nothing serious, but I don’t think I’ll remember 2002 as my favorite year. I’ve been recovering from infections, diseases, torn muscles, and various ailments since last winter. I am sick of being sick. Anyway, now that I am up and almost back to strength, it seems that Cara Mia has fallen ill. Again, nothing serious, but I’ll be spending what time I have helping her, so I won’t have time to update this blog for a few more days. My apologies to those of you who stop by looking for my usual pithy comments, but I am temporarily out of pith. I will be back shortly.
Book 7:23 AM [+]
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Watching Watching the Nightingales – Douglas Clegg’s latest eserial is up to episode five, in which the narrator remembers his childhood. Clegg delivers childhood reminiscences beautifully, conveying not only the simplicity and wonder of it, but also the terror, anxiety, and longing of it. Our hero has a scar on his forehead, but somehow I don’t think there will be any kindly old wizards to come to his aid. Harry Potter this is not.
Book 10:39 PM [+]
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We Can Ignore The Little Monsters the Other 51 Weeks – Today begins Children’s Book Week. I plan to commemorate it by reading the fourth Harry Potter book. Great fun those. I try not to laugh out loud while reading it on the train, as people tend to give my pitying looks. “The poor old simpleton,” they seem to be thinking, “into his dotage, giggling to himself over a kiddie book.”
Book 10:37 PM [+]
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Unreality Television – It’s not like America has a monopoly on crap TV. A Japanese program recently hired a guy to dress up as a monster (specifically a Kappa) and live in the woods near a small town to terrorize the locals. The producers filmed it and broadcast monster sightings, increasing the level of anxiety. Hilarity ensued. Since unimaginative American TV producers are always looking to buy or steal a new idea, look for a “Bigfoot” variation on this in the near future.
Book 8:22 PM [+]
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Truth is Truer Than Fiction – I imagine civilization began around a campfire with the tribe trading stories. From those stories the people learned the lore of the hunt, the best way to find tasty veggies, and what to listen for when you think there might be a predator stalking you. Those stories inspired action and thought, which led to other stories, and on and on. Thus began culture. I can’t prove any of that, but it does make a good story. Anyway, our minds are built to understand through stories. It is our best way to learn. Odd, isn’t it? Fiction is really an extended lie, a string of falsehoods brought together to form a greater truth. Often we can learn better when the truth is delivered through fiction than through a simple statement of fact. Some professors have figured this out, and we now see a growth in the use of pedagogical novels (NY Times, free reg. req.) in the classroom.
Book 8:00 PM [+]
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Dark Games – (book notes) The Hour Before Dark by Douglas Clegg begins with a brutal murder. The victim suffered for hours, tortured with precise savagery that is almost too horrible to contemplate. Knowing that, you might think that this is one of those slice and dice horror novels, a conte cruel that focuses on terror of the body. On the contrary, this novel plumbs the terrors of the mind. The story is told by Fergus “Nemo” Raglan, son of the victim. Nemo is met at the airport by his brother and together they return to their home, a quirky old house called Hawthorn where their father lived with their sister. It is on one of the coastal islands of Massachusetts. The small-town island and the house itself create an atmosphere that is variously claustrophobic, comforting, and mysterious. Not since Roderick and Madeline Usher’s house first developed a small crack in the plaster has a house been more closely identified with a literary family. With its odd layout, myriad locked chambers, low ceilings, family history, and secrets, Hawthorn is a reflection of the Raglans. If this is a haunted house, it is haunted by the people who live in it and the pain of their past.

The Raglan siblings can all remember the day that their mother abandoned them as children. They remember being raised by their father, a tough troubled war hero who had survived torture to return home and make a family. They remember the game that their father taught them to get over the pain they felt when they missed their mother, the Dark Game that they played together in the old smokehouse. They remember it had power, it let them see the unseen, and they remember that it was to be played in the hour before dark, but never after dark. What they don’t remember is the week after their mother left. All three of them know that there is a space in their memory, a gap that cannot be filled.

Day by day, page by page, the reader is pulled along as secrets are revealed. The secrets of the smokehouse, where they were punished as children, where the game was played, and where their father was murdered. Secrets of the old house, secrets of their own minds, secrets of their past, and secrets of the Dark Game. The family and their friends are fascinating and complex people and their story is told with vigor and style. It had me guessing all the way through with each new revelation or event bringing the reader closer to the terrifying hidden truth. There were times when I got to the end of a particularly remarkable passage and simply had to put the book down, unable to go on without reflecting on what I had just read. I tend to read a lot on trains, so while reading the last third of this book I imagine my fellow passengers thought I was suffering seizures, so often did I drop the book to my lap and stare off into space, slack-jawed with astonishment. This is the best horror novel I have read this year. If you haven’t started reading Douglas Clegg yet, start now.

Book 3:26 PM [+]
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I’ve Got the Story Right Here – I’m sitting around minding my own business when my computer tells me I’ve got mail, so I give it a peek and it’s from Nick Mamatas, a writer of growing reputation whom I’ve corresponded with before. The note says that Horrorfind has published a story by him. I want to read it, but I can’t on account of a crap game that requires my presence at Good Time Charley’s back room. After taking care of this obligation, which turned out to be considerably less lucrative than had been hoped, I turn to the story. Nick describes it as what might happen if Damon Runyon were to write the Left Behind series. So I read the story, and it is a gasser. It is funny, but also disturbing, and has a much harder edge than you might expect. Go ahead, read it, if you’ve got the moxie.
Book 10:56 PM [+]
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Opus Corpus – Jolly old Professor Gunther von Hagens is at it again. The mad scientist and artist who preserves, slices, poses and displays dead people now says that he will perform the first public autopsy the U.K. has seen in 170 years. If you are unfamiliar with Dr. Hagens’s work, here is a picture. The one on the right is the formerly living person. The demonic fellow wearing the hat is the good doctor. I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like.
Book 10:12 PM [+]
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Leatherneck Literature – I am pleased to see (via Bookslut) that the Marine Corps encourages reading. I am not surprised that their recommended reading list is focused on military stuff. I am pleasantly surprised to see fiction on the list, including Heinlein’s Starship Troopers. I am even happier to see that Marines will be reading Mao, Che Guevara, and most importantly General Giap’s How We Won the War.
Book 7:22 AM [+]
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The Dead Are Not Very Polite – Not particularly chatty either.
Book 7:04 AM [+]
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Bustin’ Makes Me Feel Good – The group of 50 ghostbusters heard something in the old haunted mill. Moans. Bumps in the night. Video cameras and flashlights at the ready, they cautiously advanced . . . oh this is just so stupid, but there is an adolescent brat hiding somewhere in my brain that laughed out loud.
Book 9:25 PM [+]
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In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

-- John McCrae

Book 9:03 AM [+]
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Looking a Gift Horse In the Mouth – As you know (if you read this weblog) Douglas Clegg is writing a serial novel that he is sending out to his newsletter’s subscribers. It is a fairly brave move, as we all get to see what amounts to a first draft. The first four episodes of Watching the Nightingales are out, and the fifth is scheduled to arrive soon. So far it is pretty good. The beginning reminds me somewhat of his newest novel, The Hour Before Dark (which I just started reading) in that both are homecomings caused by the death of a family member. The fourth installment was perhaps a bit too exposition heavy, but it is well written and intriguing. Clegg says that he will later publish the novel as a book. It might be interesting to see what changes he makes. If you want to get in on this free novel deal, there is still time. Just go here and subscribe to his weekly email newsletter. Then you’ll get the fifth installment when it comes out. It will include a link to the archive so you can get caught up. Hurry though. He won’t keep it online forever.
Book 4:16 PM [+]
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Her Eyes Seem To Follow You – Here is a pretty cool and fairly creepy story about a haunted house, or possibly a haunted painting, in San Jose.
Book 1:29 PM [+]
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Better Late Than Never – (book notes) October is my favorite month, and Halloween is the coolest holiday. Whether you want some mood reading for next year’s celebration or just want to keep the spirit of the season alive all year, October Dreams is the perfect book. I’ve never particularly liked theme anthologies. After a while you start to get a little sick of the theme, and often the impact of the story is blunted because you already know that the theme will have to work its way in. If you are stuck reading Hissing at the Moon, an Anthology of Classic Were-Cat Stories you might begin to figure out what’s going to happen before the protagonist does. A Halloween theme is different, because it is sufficiently broad so that there can be a great diversity of stories. Some are grim and nasty, some are lighter and less gruesome. Cemetery Dance editors Richard Chizmar and Robert Morrish have chosen well. Most of these stories are original, some are recent reprints, and there are a few classics thrown in for good measure. Along with the stories there are a few excellent essays. Paula Guran provides a history of the holiday, Gary A. Braunbek takes a look at Halloween themed films, and Stephan Dziemainowicz discusses stories about the big day.

If you are going to read this next October you should probably plan on starting early in the month. This is a pretty big tome, and will keep you in the spirit for a while. I usually have a problem with really big anthologies. After a while I start to burn out. Good short fiction can be pretty powerful, and if I’m are drinking just the straight stuff without the occasional chaser, my thinking starts to get a little fuzzy. This book avoids that by throwing in little change-of-pace “My Favorite Halloween” essays between the stories. These pieces are written by well known horror writers and are almost as good as the fiction. They range from touching to tragic and from horrifying to hilarious.

The fiction itself is excellent with not a serious clinker in the bunch. Highlights (and there are a lot of them) include “The Black Pumpkin” by Dean Koontz, a good scary supernatural adolescent fantasy, “Lantern Marsh” by Poppy Z. Brite, a clever variation on Linus’s Great Pumpkin story, this one with will-o’-the-wisps, and “The Whitby Experience” by Simon Clark, a gruesome tale with a slowly building sense of dread leading to a devastating conclusion. “Gone” by Jack Ketchum is a true horror about the greatest loss anyone can suffer. “Yesterday’s Witch” is a marvelously nasty confection by Gahan Wilson. In John Shirley’s “Mask Game” the players learn ugly truths about themselves. “Heavy Set” is a classic by Ray Bradbury. Caitlín R. Kiernan’s “A Redress For Andromeda” again combines her lyrical writing style with a Lovecraftesque story of cosmic weirdness. If she keeps this up we’ll have to start calling it Kiernanesque. “The Circle” by Lewis Shiner is about people who get together every Halloween to tell spooky stories, and a former friend who places them in his story. Tim Lebbon’s “Pay the Ghost” is a devastating story of a family destroyed. “Buckets” by F. Paul Wilson is probably the most controversial story in the book. It tells truths that most people would rather not contemplate. “The Trick” by Ramsey Campbell is about little girls and the old lady that all the local kids think is a witch. She has her revenge with a horrible trick of her own. The price of the book could be justified by “Porkpie Hat,” a novelette by Peter Straub, all by itself. It is about an old blues man and one devastating Halloween night that shaped and stained the rest of his life.

I really could have mentioned just about all the stories in the book as highlights, the level of quality is so great. This is surprising since this is such a large anthology. I found only one story to be not quite up to standard the standard set by the rest. Jam packed with tricks and treats, October Dreams is the one best anthologies I’ve read in quite a while.


Book 1:09 PM [+]
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They Saved Ulrike Meinhof’s Brain – German scientists may have saved the brain of dead Baader-Meinhof terrorist Ulrike Meinhof to see if they could determine a physiological source of her evilness. Perhaps they kept it in a jar marked Abbey Normal. Oh those wacky German scientists.
Book 10:50 PM [+]
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Yet More Inspiration For People Who Write Horror Stories – Oh the problems and travails of being the leader of a small religious cult. New members don’t exactly grow on trees, so when one of your old members dies you have something of a problem. There is only one logical course of action – bring your late follower back from the dead. Of course, resurrection isn’t very easy, even for you. It takes time. And bodies have an unfortunate tendency to putrefy. People complain about the stench, the cops drop by and take the body away, just as you were about to finally bring her back from beyond. If figures. Maybe now would be a good time to start a recruitment drive.
Book 10:31 PM [+]
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The Villains Always Have the Coolest Threads – Chinese police show off their new uniforms – and suggest that all this butch harshness may just be their way of overcoming other shortcomings.
Book 7:48 AM [+]
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Making the World Wide Web Safe For All Good Boys and Girls – Congratulations to the people of South Australia. Their parliament has just passed a bill that will use the magic wand of censorship to eliminate all web content that they deem unsuitable for children. The South Australia parliament can now stand with pride beside other despotic pacific rim governments. When it comes to criminalizing web content they will take a back seat to no one. Potty mouthed evil doers beware! Australia has a big bar of soap and they know where to shove it.
Book 6:21 AM [+]
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It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like . . . – Aaah! Christmas is coming! Run, run!
Book 11:10 PM [+]
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Secret Ingredient – What is that taste? Cilantro? Truffle Oil? No, it’s human femur, harvested from the local cemetery. It seems chefs in Ecuador have been using my favorite cookbook. Mmm. I’m positively esurient.
Book 10:39 PM [+]
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“What I here propound is true” – Even big fans of Edgar A. Poe have a hard time reading Eureka. A long, rambling speculation on the origin of the universe and an inquiry into the nature of reality itself, Poe variously described it as the most important thing he had ever written and as a mere poetical work and artistic fancy. He believed that the mind of the poet was more sensitive and finely attuned than that of the average man. He was also confident of his superior intellectual ability, and no doubt felt that this combination in his highly charged brain would be sufficient to imagine the true nature of the universe by the power of artistic impression and ratiocination alone. Long dismissed as both hubris and pointless speculation, useful only as a window into the disordered mind of a genius, the informed reader of today does tend to notice one thing that critics of the past would have been unaware of. He was amazingly close to the truth. As this article in the New York Times (free reg. req.) demonstrates, Poe was more than a century ahead of his time.
Book 6:56 PM [+]
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Oh Canada! – Let’s hear it for the Canadians. If an American horror magazine like Cemetery Dance or Weird Tales hit a milestone the mainstream media would ignore it completely. When Rue Morgue magazine has a fifth anniversary it is treated like the cultural milestone that it is. Not one but two news outlets did stories on the big event. Congratulations to the critically acclaimed Rue Morgue and to Canadian culture for recognizing the uniqueness of the dark arts.
Book 6:10 PM [+]
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Voldemort Tracked To Inner Mongolia – A few months ago we first heard news of a fake Harry Potter sequel being sold in China. It seems the fakers have been pretty busy, as there are now several new sequels. Wouldn’t you want to read Harry Potter and the Crystal Vase, Harry Potter and the Golden Turtle, or Harry Potter and the Leopard-Walks-Up-To-Dragon? While it is probably no better than fanfic, it might be fun to read about Harry’s first date with Hermione, Harry meeting Gandalf, or Harry being drenched in magical sweet-and-sour rain. Perhaps we should brush up on our Chinese.
Book 9:18 AM [+]
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The Amazing Death-Defying Culture Grows Up – Here is an interesting article in yesterday’s New York Times (free reg. req.) about our culture’s changing attitude toward death. I have occasionally fulminated against our tendency to deny the final reality, to hide death and unnaturally separate it from our lives. Things now seem to be changing for the healthier. Perhaps our society is finally growing up. The piece refers to a photographic exhibition called “Grave Matters”. If you’re interested but can’t get to the Berkshires of Massachusetts to check out the museum, you might want to take a look at the book.
Book 8:53 AM [+]
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Unnatural Habitats – It had to happen. We have theme parks, theme parties, and theme restaurants. Now we can go out with theme funerals. Sure, it might be a bit tacky, but the idea does have a certain appeal. A book lover could have the funeral parlor made up to look like a library. A bird watcher might have an arboreal setting with recorded bird calls. A NASCAR fan’s send off might be a bit trying for those of us who don’t like cars all that much, but it would certainly be memorable. I know people who might want to be laid out in a mock-up of the starship Enterprise’s torpedo room, and I know what a baseball fan’s last request might be. The only people who might have trouble with this would be our friends the goths. Would a funeral-themed funeral be too much, even for them?
Book 10:57 PM [+]
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Wrinkled Pages (book notes) – A little change of pace never hurt anyone, so I thought I’d mention one of my favorite books that is pitched to younger readers, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. When I was a child I spake as a child and read as a child, but when I became an adolescent I put away my childish things. When I became an adult I realized that only an idiot puts away his childish things forever. After all, I was an incomplete reader even as a little tyke, so I have a lot of catching up to do. As such I occasionally check out well regarded kids books that I missed or were published after I had lost my youth (shockingly careless of me). A Wrinkle in Time is a science-fantasy about children on a quest to rescue their father. Meg, a teenager, Charles Wallace, her brother, who is an extraordinarily intelligent toddler, and their friend Calvin learn that father is being held by a great evil bent on controlling the universe. A surprisingly sophisticated (for a book intended for children) science fictional concept is soon introduced – the use of a tesseract as a means of faster-than-light travel. By slipping through a fourth dimensional wrinkle they are able to go to other planets in their search. They are guided by supernatural beings who, while partisans in the war against evil, are unable to actually fight the villain themselves and can only provide help from afar. This is a fairly standard fantasy trope, used, for example, by J.R.R. Tolkien in The Hobbit when Gandalf must absent himself to take care of other business while Bilbo and the dwarves make their own way to the mountain. The kids face the enemy, learning the power of individuality and creativity as opposed by the forces of conformity and control.

While the book is structured as a parable (influenced I think by C.S. Lewis) the lessons never get in the way of the story. The plot is fast paced and engaging and the characters are likeable and interesting. If everyone around you says that you are too old to read a kid’s book and you are afraid that reading it will make you look different, then you must read this book. You are never too old to learn a childhood lesson.

Book 10:27 PM [+]
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