2012 review.

With a couple of exceptions I've enjoyed everything I've read this year so it wasn't a straightforward decision working out which were my favourite works of fiction of 2012. The bulk of my reading was short stories so it seems appropriate to start with that format for this review.
Choosing the single best story I read this year was the most difficult decision considering the size of the field of competitors. Before proclaiming the "winner" (there are no awards associated with this, simply my undying appreciation) there are a couple of honourable mentions to be made, two of which come from the pen of Gary McMahon, a great writer who has proven over the last few years that quantity and quality are not necessarily inversely proportional to each other, in his case quite the opposite applies. The first is in his collection Tales of The Weak and The Wounded and is Diving Deep, the second from the recently released To Usher, The Dead and is The Good, Light People - both stories transcended the words on the page, addressed profound issues in a way that left me breathless, moved in a way that I couldn't quite put my finger on, absolutely the best way to be moved. Stephen Bacon's Daddy Giggles was a superbly written story that addressed its dark subject matter in a non-expoitative way and which brought home the tragedy and horror in a suupremely effective way. My favourite individual story of the year though has to be Ray Cluley's Night Fishing  from Shadows and Tall Trees 3. I waxed lyrical about the story in an earlier review here and can say that I'm still as impressed by the story now as I was then.
With respect to single author collections, kudos again to Gary McMahon's Tales of The Weak and The Wounded which I think is his best collection since How To Make Monsters, and a nod of appreciation to Conrad Williams' Born With Teeth, an astounding collection of literary horror stories where I gained as much pleasure from the writing itself as the plots and narratives. My favourite collection however -and the single most enjoyable reading experience of the year, has to be Stephen Bacon's stunning debut collection Peel Back The Sky. My full review is here and I once more urge you to buy this book which displays the considerable talents of a writer who is destined for great things.
Visions Fading Fast was edited by Gary McMahon and was a collection of novellas that displayed how effective a medium it can be. Standout for me was Nathan Ballingrud's Wild Acre, another story where the tone and writing transcended the words on the page. Spectral Press goes from strength to strength, their line of Spectral Visions novellas have so far been of the highest quality and until very recently, John Llewellyn Probert's The Nine Deaths of Dr Valentine was top of the list for my favourite novella of 2012.
That was until a week or so ago when Mike O'Driscoll's TTA Press novella Eyepennies came through the letterbox. This is an outstanding piece of writing. To describe it as a contemplation of life, death and music kinda works but this is so much more. It's beautifully written and the non-linear structure reflects perfectly the confusion within the narrator's mind. It's as near perfect a piece of writing I've read, intensely disturbing and yet somehow moving. Read it if you possibly can.
The decision on my favourite novel was a close run thing too. That man McMahon crops up yet again but I'm sneakily disqualifying his two Concrete Grove novels as they're part of a trilogy that kicked off in 2011. That said, Silent Voices and Beyond Here Lies Nothing are wonderful books, excellent on their own merits but the trilogy as a whole truly deserves to be called a classic. Runner up for best novel - though only just - is Adam Nevill's Last Days. This is quite possibly the scariest book I've ever read. Hardened as I am to horror stories (or so I like to think) after 30 odd years of reading them, this book still manged to scare the shit out of me. My review is here. (Pigs will fly, I thought, before a book manages to scare me again).
The best novel of the year in my opinion however, is Simon Bestwick's tour de force of horror The Faceless. This book pressed so many of my buttons it was scary. Actually it was scary, bloody scary. Great writing, great story. My review is here.
It's been a good year for horror. Although it may still be struggling for acceptance in the "mainstream" the quality of the writing produced by the many small (and medium-sized) presses is second to none. Despite the onslaught of e-books, many publishers are still  producing high quality products (hard copies if you will), notably Pendragon Press and the aforementioned Spectral Press. The chapbook is making a bit of a comeback, another pleasing development. (My personal favourite of 2012 being Mark West's What Gets Left Behind - Mark's another writer I hope is destined for great things next year).
Here's to an even better 2013.
Merry Christmas!

To Usher, The Dead

To Usher, The Dead is a beautifully produced book from Pendragon Press and is a collection of stories from Gary McMahon featuring his character Thomas Usher, the conflicted hero of the novels Pretty Little Dead Things and Dead Bad Things.
The stories, fourteen in all, take place prior to the events that unfold in the two novels, a kind of "Usher, the early years" if you will, and provide a back-story for the character, tracing his development and charting the changes he undergoes as his psychic abilities uncover the dark truths hidden behind the veneer of reality. It's true abyss-staring stuff here and yes, as the stories progress, the abyss does a lot of staring back...
The opening story Late Runners is really quite benign, especially when compared with some of the stories that follow, a gentle story that is sad yet touching and introduces Usher's abilities as a benign force.
There are some traditional ghost stories in here, Reflections, for example that deals with a mirror that may, or may not be haunted, and there's a welcome nod to the Banshee in Even The Wind Fears but as the book progresses the darker elements begin to appear and as it draws to a conclusion it's obvious that Usher regards his gift as more of a curse than a blessing.
There's an absolute belter of a story in this very strong collection. The Good, Light People is one of those stories that leave me with goosebumps when I've finished reading them. It wasn't till I'd finished the book that   I saw that there were notes on each of the stories and  that Gary himself thinks this is the best story he's ever written. It could well be. It's profound and disturbing, addressing the issue of faith in a thought-provoking and utterly terrifying way. It's a turning point too in Usher's progression, ending on an epiphany of sorts, one which will define his life from here on in.
To Usher, The Dead is another fine collection of stories from Gary McMahon. I loved the two novels, put them on a par with the Concrete Grove trilogy, and these stories are a wonderful addition to those two books, adding to the character of Usher and introducing the themes and ideas that are brought to fruition in the novels.
A few typos aside (and a TOC that seems to gone somewhat awry with its page numbers) this is a beautifully produced book (I particularly like the black page marker). The stories date back to 2005 but this collection as a whole reinforces the fact that Gary McMahon is consistently one of the best, if not the best writers of contemporary horror fiction around.
Absolutely, thoroughly recommended.

Ward 19

Probity  n. honesty, uprightness, integrity

Proberty  a. horror writing in the style of grand guignol, with a rich vein of dark humour.

There's no such word as proberty of course, but there should be. John Llewellyn Probert has carved out a niche for himself in contemporary horror writing that surely makes him worthy of his own adjective. (The campaign starts here...) Ward 19 is the latest offering from the master of the finely crafted horror story and is another thoroughly enjoyable trip to the darkside.
It's the first of what I'm hoping will be a series featuring CID coroner Parva Corcoran. It's set in St Margaret's Hospital and concerns the activities of a serial killer whose M.O. involves removing strips of skin from his victims. It's a novella and as such involves packing a lot into a short running time, necessitating the use of much exposition and it's to John's credit that he manages to achieve this without it coming across as clunky and annoying.
The medical terminology rings absolutely true and I had to smile when I read about the white sheets draped over the boxes used to transport bodies to the mortuary in an attempt to disguise them, the same thing is done in the hospital I work in and no, nobody is fooled...
The plot rattles along at a cracking pace (although, it has to be said, doesn't involve a great deal of investigation) and is just gruesome enough without being simply gross. The killer is suitably deranged as are their motives and there's plenty information given on Parva's back story to intrigue the reader.
The "cover" of the novella is a joy to behold, (part of me wishes hospitals really did look like this instead of the bland shopping malls the PFI culture has created - if they did it would certainly reduce the number of malingerers...) so it's a shame the story's only available electronically (here) as it would make an impressive addition to anyone's bookshelf.
Ward 19 was a joy to read and I look forward to more adventures for Parva. For a long time to come...

Shadows & Tall Trees 4

Issue 4 of Shadows & Tall Trees from Michael Kelly's Undertow Books is now available. I came late to this impressive series of publications with Issue 3 being my first but was so impressed with it that I had no hesitation  in taking out a subscription for future editions, anticipating more high quality tales of "quiet" horror.
I'm happy to say that my expectations have been more than met by issue 4 which contains eight more examples of top notch writing.
It's another beautifully produced book with another stunning cover, this time courtesy of Sarolta Ban - a cover that definitely resonates with me as I live in a fairly rural part of the country and am currently surrounded by  literally thousands of crows and jackdaws as they flock together to roost in the fields that surround my house. Fortunately they're not as big as the ones depicted on the cover but I do feel like I've wandered onto the set of Hitchcock's The Birds every time I go out.
This is a fine collection of stories and all are classic examples of how subtlety and suggestion can be as terrifying - if not more so - than all out, in your face shock and gore. Metaphors and imagery are used to excellent effect within these pages, particularly so in Robert Shearman's Bedtime Stories for Yasmin which confronts a deadly serious topic in a story that reads like a fable and in one of the stand-outs of the issue Senbazuru by V.H. Leslie, a beautifully written tale set in Nagasaki at the end of the Second World War. A tale of isolation and despair, the recurrent themes and imagery that run through the story are incredibly effective, the first person narrative adding to the ambiguity of what may or may not actually be happening.
The other stand-out story for me is the first in the collection, What We Mean When We Talk About The Dead by Gary McMahon. This is probably the "quietest" horror I've read from Gary but it's an extremely effective piece of writing. It tells of the visit of social worker Liz to the Everley household and the discovery of something quite unexpected. There's a downbeat, melancholic tone to the piece which absolutely suits its subject matter. It's scary, undoubtedly, but it's also thought-provoking, raising questions as to what exactly does happen when we die, how confusing that could be... Most of all, I found it incredibly sad, which shows the power and skill of the writing.
Michael Kelly has once again assembled a stunning collection of stories. Anyone seeking out high quality, thought-provoking, literary horror need look no further than Shadows & Tall Trees. 

The Nine Deaths of Dr. Valentine.

I'm often asked "why do you like horror?" Actually, I'm not. Even within my massive circle of friends, neither of them has ever asked me. However, if anyone did ask, I could confidently answer that it's all my grandmother's fault for it was she who introduced me to the world of horror when she bought me, as a Christmas present, Denis Gifford's A Pictorial History of Horror Movies. Quite why she thought this was a suitable gift for a ten year old I'll never know but I'm so glad she made that slightly controversial choice of gift as it did indeed open up a whole new world for me, one I've lived in for the near-on 40 years since. It's a great book and, being a pictorial history, planted many images in my subconscious that have remained there ever since. The book obviously had a similar effect on John Llewellyn Probert - he mentions it in his notes which accompany the hardback edition of the latest Spectral Visions novella from the consistently reliable and impressive Spectral Press. John mentions too the BBC2 horror double bills, another formative experience I share with him, one which introduced me to one of my favourite films of all time Night of the Demon and also one of the worst films I've ever seen, Night of the Lepus - a terrifying tale of giant rabbits that's every bit as crap as it sounds.
All this inane rambling is by way of introduction to the novella itself, which is a loving homage to those glory days of horror when incredibly complicated, highly contrived on-screen deaths were, well, entertaining rather than just gross and exploitative like today's Saw and Final Destination franchises. (Dear God, I feel so old...)
Having read many of John's short stories previously, The Nine Deaths of Dr. Valentine appears to me the perfect book for him to have written, an ideal means of displaying the obvious affection he has for a type of horror that has (sadly, I guess) become relegated to little more than nostalgia. The plot - which cracks along at a fair old pace - revolves around a series of murders in Bristol, investigated by the world-weary DI Jeffery Longdon, a brilliantly drawn character who has all the best lines in a book crammed full of dark humour and who provides just the right amount of grounding for the frankly bizarre events described in the book. The tone of the writing is pitch-perfect, it would have been easy to write a pastiche, take the mickey out of the whole thing (a trap I felt Christoper Fowler's Hell Train, enjoyable as it was, fell in to), but John avoids this with consumate ease. His love of the genre shines through the writing and the whole thing is played "straight" as were the original films, this isn't a post-modern revision. I enjoyed this book as much as I enjoyed the films that inspired it.
The Nine Deaths of Dr. Valentine is another fine addition to the Spectral back catalogue, maintaining absolutely the high standards already set by its other publications. It's the most enjoyable thing I've read in some time. Horror can be fun, there's no shame in admitting that, and if proof were needed of that statement then look no further than this page-turner of a novella. As with all the best stories about deranged killers carrying out incredibly complicated and bizarre murders, the scene is well and truly set for a sequel. Dr Phibes rose again and managed to do so in a way that was more entertaining than his first outing. Here's  hoping that Dr Valentine is similarly inclined...

What Gets Left Behind.

What Gets Left Behind is the latest chapbook from Spectral Press who are consistently publishing some of the best horror around at the moment. High standards have already been set in this series of chapbooks (this is number 7) so the question is whether this new story by Mark West maintains those standards. The answer is a resounding yes, something that will come as no surprise to anyone who's read any of Mark's previous work which I compare favourably to that of Stephen Bacon, sharing as it does a subtle, understated quality, brilliantly capturing the feelings and emotions of the characters within the stories.
What Gets Left Behind tells the story of Mike Bergen who has returned to his home town of Gaffney ostensibly to attend a works conference nearby. The true reasons for his return run much deeper however, Mike is there for closure, to put the ghosts of the past to rest so to speak, after a childhood tragedy.
The middle section of the story recounts those childhood events and demonstrates a great strength of Mark's writing with his ability to paint a truly nostalgic picture of childhood summers which seemed to last for ever, the days when it rained memorable because we had to entertain ourselves indoors...
This section however raises my only criticism of the story, the criticism being that it just wasn't long enough. True, I wanted to wallow in nostalgia a little bit longer but aside from that I felt that this section was a little rushed, cramming a lot of narrative into a short space. This is of course a short story and had to be tailored and edited to fit the chapbook format. I do feel though that the story does deserve a longer treatment, the events in the Gaffney of the 1980's would definitely benefit from another visit, the "Rainy Day Abductor" (whose activities impact on Mike's own tragedy) is a character whose story could definitely be expanded on. Gary McMahon is currently turning his Spectral entry What They Hear In The Dark into a longer format, I'd love to see Mark do the same with What Get's Left Behind.
What gets left behind in this case is guilt, the guilt that Mike feels over what happened to his best friend all those summers ago. "You can't go home again" so says Thomas Wolfe, and in Mike's case these are wise words that he should have heeded. Fortunately for the reader he doesn't, allowing a climax that is just ambiguous enough to raise the question of whether it is truly a supernatural tour de force or simply guilt and memories combining in a terrifying psychological cocktail. Either way, it's brilliant.
What Gets Left Behind is another great piece of writing from Mark West and another (absolutely standard maintaining) quality production from Spectral.

Dark Melodies

Dark Melodies is a collection of short stories from William Meikle and is published, in a variety of formats, by Dark Regions Press. On his website, William describes himself as a writer at the "pulpy end of the market" - a genre that is, in my opinion, unfairly looked down upon. Horror, in particular, is a broad church - which is why I enjoy reading it so much. I enjoy the stories that hold up a mirror to society, using metaphors to comment and even sometimes educate but I also enjoy a good old monster story, of the kind that got me into the genre in the first place. Genre writing is frowned upon by those who think it panders to the masses, that it is easier to write than higher works of great literary merit. Bollocks, frankly. It could be argued that the "literary" novel is a genre in itself, following its own conventions and rules. Irrespective of genre, there is good writing and there is bad writing. Dark Melodies is good writing. Very good writing.
There are eight stories in the book, six of which are original to the collection. As the title suggests, the stories share a common theme of music. They share much more though. The book is cleverly constructed - like a symphony - with motifs and themes recurring throughout. The music in these stories is a key to unlocking another world, a theme explored most notably in The Unfinished Basement, The Death of Sergeant Macleod and the opening story in the collection The Tenants of Ladywell Manor - a pastiche of Pride and Prejudice which introduces cosmic horror to 19th Century society in a thoroughly entertaining way.
The story also introduces the phrase "lost to the dance" which then re-occurs in all of the other stories,  a clever device to create another link between them, akin to the main theme of a symphony being repeated in its different movements.
There are other linking devices too, the piano in The Persistence of Memory may or may not be the same one found in The Unfinished Basement (and may, or may not have been fashioned from a Navy ship in The Tenants of Ladywell Manor). The music, or rather the tune that is played to bring about mysterious and terrifying consequences, may be the same in every story - perhaps The Death of Sergeant Macleod..? A manuscript, detailing an earlier, disastrous encounter with the "other" world features in The Unfinished Basement and provides evidence for Meikle's Private Investigator Derek Adams to uncover the truth in a fittingly exciting - and thoroughly entertaining - conclusion to the book in Rhythm and Booze...
A couple of the stories, The Chamber of Tiamat and The Mill Dance, are more stand-alone, less linked to the overarching theme. I guess they're the key changes, the middle eight...
William Meikle is a new author to me but on the strength of Dark Melodies I will certainly be seeking out more of his writing. It's a while since I've been so entertained by a collection of stories. Dark Melodies was a pleasure to read -and I don't mean a guilty pleasure. It's a collection that struck a chord with me and I heartily recommend it.