Pre-Order The Five

I've read a lot of books, and I've met a lot of writers. That has left me a little jaded, a little aloof from the heat of fandom. However, there are a few writers who turn me into your basic fanboy. Stephen King, of course. The incomparable Joe Lansdale. And Alabama's own Robert R. McCammon, who has written books that can stand up to the best the genre has to offer. I've been a fan of his since the beginning of his career, and you can check out my reviews of Usher's Passing, The Night Boat, They Thirst and Mystery Walk on this site to see how I feel. It's been nearly twenty years since McCammon published a novel set in contemporary times, but the wait is almost over. His new novel The Five will be published in May or June and can be pre-ordered now at Amazon. This is a momentous occasion, and if you are a McCammon fan, you should plan on getting this one. If you are not a McCammon fan...you should be.
.

Usher's Passing

Told you there would be more…

One of Edgar Allan Poe’s most memorable stories was “The Fall of the House of Usher”, a story of the end of a decadent family. In 1984, Robert R. McCammon (Mystery Walk, The Night Boat, They Thirst), a fan of the story wrote a “sequel” to the story called Usher’s Passing, which continued the Usher story into the modern day. Lately, I’ve felt a great dissatisfaction with what has been published of late, and have found better results in revisiting past classics.

In McCammon’s version, the events of Poe’s story were true, but the cataclysm at the end did not end the Usher line. The doomed Roderick Usher had a brother, Hudson, who continued the name, as well as the family business, which is munitions. In the 1980s, the family is ruled by patriarch Walen Usher from the vast family estate Usherland in rural North Carolina. Walen has three children: Boone, a dissolute libertine with a cruel streak, Kattrina, a beautiful model with a drug habit, and Rix, a tortured horror novelist (!) trying to break free of the family name and legacy. Like all members of their family, they suffer from Usher’s Malady, a transient hyper-acuteness of the senses, which can be incapacitating, and ultimately kills them. It is Walen’s time to go, and as he lies dying, his children gather, partly to see who will run the family after him.

The North Carolina woods around Usherland are a dangerous place. Children go missing, taken at harvest time by the Pumpkin Man, and Greediguts, a giant panther that walks on two legs with a tail like a rattlesnake stalks the night. Nearby Briartop is the former home of coven of witches, and the empty (of humans) Usher Lodge is a trap to the unwary. Rix, the black sheep (or, maybe, in this case the white sheep) of the family, tries to discover the secrets of his family and his evil ancestors, and in so doing, learns just what is going on with the strange events in the area. He will not like what he finds, and it all comes to a head at Halloween.

This was McCammon’s sixth published novel, and the second after he found his true voice (McCammon has been famously ambivalent about his first four books, although I think they are just fine.). With the Pumpkin Man, Greediguts, witches, and other supernatural elements, there would seem to be too much going on for one novel, but McCammon has the talent to handle it. As always, he does a good job of bringing the characters to life, and essentially updating the Poe story to the modern age. There are many other allusions to the works of Poe (“The Bells”, “The Raven”, “A Cask of Amontillado” and others) for those who are interested in such things.

McCammon was probably second only to Stephen King among horror writers in the 1980s, his name fading a bit in the consciousness of horror readers after he took a decade off from writing. The best of his work, and Usher’s Passing is in the upper tier, probably just a little lower than Swan Song or Boy’s Life, easily trumps almost anything being published today (at his worst, he is at least the equal of recent output). Usher’s Passing has not lost any of its strength, and is an excellent novel to read at Halloween (or any other time.)
.

The 14 Best Horror Short Stories of All Time!

As always, these are actually my favorite short stories of all time rather than the greatest. You don’t climb to the top of the heap of bloggers by observing truth in advertising.

If you are a regular blog reader (and if you are, thank you) you know I like lists, and if you aren’t, look at the sidebar and you’ll see. For some time, I’ve been planning a list of short stories to accompany the other poorly-received lists, but it was too daunting a task, as there are too many to choose from and the list varies from moment to moment. It’s also too important, as short stories have formed the true backbone of the horror genre. Recently friends began bugging me to produce one, so I figured “What do I have to lose?” So here it is.

The ground rules first. These are my own opinions, and you are free (and encouraged) to disagree, and to do so in the comments. Please feel free to give vent to any vitriol you may feel, although once again, “dipshit” has become a way too overused epithet. To keep the list somewhat manageable, and to keep my head from exploding, I limited the stories to one per author, so it wouldn’t be a list of the best Stephen King or H.P. Lovecraft stories, or every short piece T.E.D. Klein has written. I also made arbitrary judgments on novellas. Instead of using word length measurements, if a novella “felt” like a short novel rather than a long short story, it was disqualified. Therefore, no appearance by “The Mist”, one of my favorites.

Why 14 stories instead of 10? This was as far down as I could cull it, so I hedged my bets and cheated.

1. “The Colour Out of Space” by H.P. Lovecraft. In my mind, this is one of the few stories that continues to give me chills. I re-read it every year in October.
2. “Sticks” by Karl Edward Wagner. I’ve spoken of my admiration for Wagner before, and this is probably his best.
3. “Who Goes There?” by Don A Stuart (John W. Campbell, Jr.). The basis for the movies The Thing From Another World and The Thing, I read it at a young age, and its central theme of paranoia about the true identity of those around you continues to resonate.
4. “Night They Missed the Horror Show” by Joe Lansdale. Lansdale has written a number of great short stories, but this tale of two young rednecks who should have watched The Night of the Living Dead is his best.
5. “Nightcrawlers” by Robert R. Mccammon. “Something Passed By” was a close second, but I love this story of a man truly haunted by the war in Vietnam, and the unlucky diner patrons who get to share that with him. “Charlie’s in the light!”
6. “The Voice in the Night” by William Hope Hodgson. Hodgson was the great master of sea-swept horror, and this is probably his best short story.
7. “The Girl with the Hungry Eyes” by Fritz Leiber. Leiber is probably best remembered as a science fiction author, but he wrote in a number of genres, and his forays into horror are second to none. This story of an artist’s model who is a psychic vampire is my favorite.
8. “The Road Virus Heads North” by Stephen King. King has written a lot of great stories, and most people would pick one of his early works as his best, But this story of a man doomed by the purchase of an ever-changing painting sticks with me. I’ll always wonder what was in the paintings that were burned.
9. “The Ash-Tree” by M.R. James. A classic story from a nearly forgotten writer.
10. ‘The White People” by Arthur Machen. The dark sage of Wales framed this story as the diary of a young girl. Probably one of the most influential horror stories ever written.
11. “The Willows” by Algernon Blackwood. The world around us as the source of menace. One of H.P. Lovecraft’s favorites.
12. “The Yellow Sign”, by Robert W. Chambers. The centerpiece of Chambers’ great collection of short stories The King in Yellow shows how horror can come from that which is not explained. (The sign itself is never described, and it’s effects are only loosely explained.)
13. “Black Man with a Horn” by T.E.D. Klein. Any of the stories from the far-less-than-prolific Klein that were published in Dark Gods (a must-read) or the story that became his novel The Ceremonies, “The Events at Poroth’s Farm” would qualify, but this is marginally my favorite of them. Beware the Tcho-Tcho.
14. "Pigeons From Hell" by Robert E. Howard. The creator of Conan wrote some fine horror stories, and this is generally seen as his best.


If you haven’t read any of these, and you are a fan of horror, I suggest you seek them out. Then come back and tell me how wrong I am.
.

Mystery Walk

Back in the 80s, at the onset of the horror boom, publishers were looking for the next Stephen King, a horror writer who could grab the public’s imagination (and deliver the sales) as King had. No one really succeeded in matching the King, but the author who came the closest was Robert R. McCammon. I always read horror novels in October to ramp up for Halloween, and this year, decided to include a couple of “sure things”, classic novels I had read before and liked. One of the choices this year was McCammon’s Mystery Walk, which I first read on its original paperback publication, but haven’t re-visited since.

There are a couple of reasons that I am predisposed to like this book, other than McCammon being one of my favorite authors. First of all, I was living in Birmingham, where McCammon also lives, during the time he wrote his best work. (I met him on several occasions at signings and the like, and he was always gracious.) The other is that the book is set in Fayette, Alabama, which happens to be my hometown. To my knowledge, this is the only work of fiction using Fayette as a location.

Billy Creekmore, a half-Choctaw boy living in Fayette County, received an unusual inheritance from his mother: The ability to see the restless dead. Even more important, he has the ability to help the spirits leave their pain behind and pass on to the next world. This talent has made the Creekmores needed in their rural area, but has also made them shunned and feared. It has also given them a fierce opponent, a demonic Shape Shifter which uses the tormented dead for its own evil purposes, and therefore doesn’t want to let them go.

The Creekmores also have some human enemies. A prominent evangelist, J. J. Falconer, hails from Fayette, and has a son, Wayne, the same age as Billy, who has the power to heal. The Falconers view the Creekmores as competition, and want to put a stop to them.

Billy’s journey through life – his “mystery walk” – takes him from Fayette to a traveling carnival, to Chicago, and back home. As he grows into a man, he learns to accept and deal with his power, and to see his enemies for what they are. The road leads to an ultimate confrontation, both with his ancient spiritual enemy, and the more earthly Falconers.

Objectively, Mystery Walk is not McCammon’s strongest book. It reads somewhat like a trial run for his masterpiece, Boy’s Life, sharing that book’s time period and rural Alabama setting. I felt the impact of the book was somewhat diluted when Billy hits the road, as he never seemed as real a character in Chicago as he did in Fayette, and wish the book’s focus had remained there. Mccammon does use the book to make some social commentary about life in the South back then, mostly as regards to racism and religion, but I wish he'd done a little more.

But second-tier McCammon is still head and shoulders above most writers’ best work, and this is a very good novel. I wouldn’t recommend it as the starting point for someone new to McCammon’s work, but I would advise readers not to miss it.

A couple of nit-picky notes, of interest to no one else: I don’t know if McCammon did much research on Fayette when he wrote the book (there was no real need) but he got a detail or two wrong. First of all, the description of Fayette County High (my alma mater) is all wrong. Secondly, reference is made to the “Fayette County High Bulldogs”. At the time of the novel, we were known as the “Fighting Tigers” (I think they’ve dropped the “Fighting” part of the name now, since it is considered wrong these days to fight for anything). Again, these are things anyone who wasn’t from Fayette wouldn’t care about, but I guess I have to be true to my school.
.

Razored Saddles

Razored Saddles was one of the seminal anthologies of the 80s (first published in 1989) and one of the few I missed on the first go-around, so I was understandably stoked when I finally obtained a rather expensive copy of the original hardback. I was also excited that the anthology was edited by a favorite author, Joe R. Lansdale (with Pat LoBrutto). And finally, there was the subject matter.

When I was a kid and comic books were the center of my reading universe, one of my favorites was a book called Weird Western Tales. This was a blend of horror material and the western genre, with cowboys fighting ghosts, zombies, and the like. The best known continuing feature in this vein was Jonah Hex, about a hideously disfigured gunfighter (Lansdale himself wrote two great story arcs for Jonah Hex in the late 90s). Razored Saddles was ostensibly in this milieu, so I had looked forward to it. Lansdale hisownself referred to it as the first “cowpunk” anthology.

All anthologies are somewhat up and down, with a variety of different authors with differing takes on the theme, and I was prepared for this to hold true here, but I expected it to be generally good, with great writers like Lansdale, Lewis Shiner, Howard Waldrop, and others. The book started off well, with a Robert McCammon story, “Black Boots” about a gunman fleeing an unkillable foe. But the pleasant vibe dissolved in a haze of New Wave SF blandness. The majority of the stories ignored the weird western idea in favor of flat uncompelling narratives. It did pick up near the end, with “Yore Skin’s Jes’s Soft ‘n Purty” by Chet Williamson, but most of the stories were a major letdown. Lansdale himself has written a number of outstanding western/horror hybrids, so if that's what you're looking for, I'd suggest seeking one of his collections. To me, Razored Saddles was a missed opportunity.

The Night Boat

I’ve been a huge fan of Robert R. McCammon since early in his career. He was one of the stars of the horror surge of the 80s, and it is our loss that he no longer writes in the genre. At one point, he was probably second only to Stephen King among horror fans, and he was pushing King for the top spot when he abruptly took an extended sabbatical from writing, after a disagreement with his publisher. (On an irrelevant note, I’ve met McCammon a couple of times, since we lived in the same city for a while, and he is a genuinely nice guy. As I have found writers generally to be, although Alexander Solzhenitsyn was a definite exception to that. But I digress.) The Night Boat was one of his first four novels, which he semi-disowned after a while, thinking he did not come into his own as an author until Mystery Walk. As a result, this book and the other three (Baal, Bethany’s Sin, and They Thirst) have been mostly out of print for a while. I would agree that McCammon’s writing took a great leap upward with Mystery Walk, becoming much more polished and assured, and delving deeper into his characters. However, I still feel the early books are well worth seeking out, and while they may be lesser McCammons, are still better than mostwriters.

The Night Boat is the story of a man named David Moore. After a boating accident killed his wife and child, he fled to the fictional Caribbean Island of Coquina, where he runs an inn. One day, while scuba diving in the waters just off the island, he dislodges a WWII-era depth charge, which explodes. The explosion dislodges a Nazi submarine buried throughout the years under the silt, and it rises to the surface, where it drifts toward the island, eventually beaching itself in the harbor. Unfortunately for the residents of the island, the crew of the submarine was placed under a gypsy curse after shelling the boat docks of the island during the war, and its crew has been condemned to exist as the living dead. Now released, the zombified Nazis wreak havoc on the island. Don't ya just hate when that happens?

This is not an overly deep book. It won’t change your life or make you re-evaluate your existence. But, c’mon. Nazi zombies attacking from a haunted submarine? Who can resist that? Although some of the characters are a little bit cardboard, it is still pretty well written. If Mr. McCammon doesn’t wish to claim it, I sure wish I could.

They Thirst

In 1981, Robert R. McCammon, a young writer from Birmingham, Alabama who had published three solid three very solid but undistinguished horror novels, produced the vampire novel They Thirst, his breakthrough novel. It would propel him to great heights of popularity, finally landing McCammon second only to Stephen King among horror writers. Sadly, he quit writing in 1992, only recently returning with historical novels

I read it when the first paperback edition was released, and I’ve just finished reading it again. It holds up well. The book is something of a companion to King’s great Salem’s Lot, taking the central premise of Salem’s Lot – that if every vampire fed every night, and every victim also became a vampire, their numbers would increase geometrically, and humans would soon be overrun – and transferred it from a rural setting to urban Los Angeles. While not as strong as King’s book, it has the same sustained dread, as the human characters try to figure out what is going on against the backdrop of a rapidly ticking clock.

If the book has one problem it is the deus ex machina quality of its finale. Still, if horror novels are your thing, you need to read They Thirst