Best New Horror 21
Jan. 3rd, 2011 01:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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Well, with 2010 just over it seems like as good a time as any to review the 21st Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, the latest book in the long-running series edited by Stephen Jones (see linked page for a list of contents). Last year's Best New Horror was exceptionally good, and I didn't really expect number 21 to live up to that standard. But in fact, the quality is still there. Its contents list almost reads like a round-up of all my favourite ghost story authors working at the moment - Reggie Oliver, John Gaskin, Terry Dowling and more!
The Oliver story, "The Game of 'Bear'", may be of especial interest to lovers of M R James, as it is a completed version of an unfinished James story. We all know how tiresome pseudo-Jamesian authors can be, with their unconvincing period lingo and excessive nostalgia, but Oliver actually manages a credible "impersonation" of James and I certainly didn't notice the join, if you know what I mean. It's not the most terrifying piece of Jamesiana I've ever read, but it's frightening enough and makes good use of that underused source of quiet horror, the Victorian cautionary childrens' tale. The Gaskin story "Party Talk" visits a Jamesian landscape of graveyards and mouldering relics that should on no account be brought into the house, but with a convincing twist of "womens' issues" making it read more like an updated Mary Elizabeth Braddon or Elizabeth Gaskell story (which is high praise!) Another great "old-school" story is "The Axholme Toll" by Mark Valentine, in which a reclusive writer delves into the past of the inland island of Axholme in Lincolnshire and its links with the murderers of Thomas Beckett. It contains several very creepy moments (all the more so for being rooted in historical fact!), but what makes it outstanding is Valentine's finely developed sense of the past (which never descends into syrupy nostalgia) and fund of weird local lore.
All the authors I've just mentioned are British, and indeed the Brits seem to have taken over this year, with the large majority of tales coming from my native land. However, there are a few tales from abroad, and several of the stories have a pleasantly exotic, travelogue feel about them. A couple are taken from a recent anthology called Exotic Gothic 3: Strange Visitations (which I may well have to buy!) Simon Kurt Unsworth's "Mami Wata" is an interesting rejig of an old Zambian legend situated in a modern-day Zambian mine, and Terry Dowling's "Two Steps Along The Road" offers a haunting visit to a remote corner of rural Vietnam, where one of fiction's less annoying "psychic investigators" is summoned to look into a case of possession. Meanwhile, Simon Strantzas' eerily beautiful "Cold to the Touch" takes us on a trek through the snowy tundra of the Arctic, where a devout Christian scientist finds his faith tested to the utmost by an enigmatic circle of standing stones. It's quite the world tour!
Fortunately, Jones has refrained from including the usual mediocre stories by Kim Newman and Neil Gaiman this year. But that doesn't mean the collection is entirely clunker-free! It is perhaps telling that the worst stories in the book have been written by the biggest names in horror. Stephen King and his spawn Joe Hill have collaborated to spew forth a truly wretched tale called "Throttle", which purports to be a homage to Richard Matheson's excellent story "Duel". It's nowhere near as good as "Duel", and is crammed with mawkish father-and-son sentimentality and nostalgia for, of all things, the Vietnam war. King has been getting very uppity lately, vehemently criticising other authors in a series of pot/kettle scenarios, and I think it's time he was put out to pasture. "Throttle" wouldn't have even got published if it hadn't had "King" on it. I don't like Hill much either, I think he's a misogynist and a lazy writer, but that's a whole other rant.
Equally disappointing is Ramsey Campbell's "Respects", about a lonely widow haunted by flowers in the wake of a young neighbour's death during a police chase. It's typical, predictable Campbell fare, and it is made more unpalatable than usual by the vicious stereotyping of the "chav" characters who harangue the widow in a horrendously two-dimensional fashion, spouting cliches left right and center. It's not the flowers that are the bogeyman in "Respects", it's the single mum and her brood of feral children, and I found the overt snobbery and hatred of the working class far more terrifying than anything else in the story! Campbell is another repeat offender who could really do with a rest, and he hits a new low with this tale.
More generally, I was disappointed by how small the book is this year! Perhaps it's a symptom of the destructive impact of the recession on horror publishing (genre imprints tend to be the first to get the chop when publishing houses start to fail..) But quality is more important than quantity, and it's good to see that the cream of the crop are still out there writing great stories! I would've liked to see a story by Steve Duffy, who has two new collections out, and there are a few too many appearances from stories I've read before in other collections, but the new stuff is easily good enough to justify the expenditure of the £5-£10 price! If I were you I would put Best New Horror 21 somewhere near the top of my wish-list!
The Oliver story, "The Game of 'Bear'", may be of especial interest to lovers of M R James, as it is a completed version of an unfinished James story. We all know how tiresome pseudo-Jamesian authors can be, with their unconvincing period lingo and excessive nostalgia, but Oliver actually manages a credible "impersonation" of James and I certainly didn't notice the join, if you know what I mean. It's not the most terrifying piece of Jamesiana I've ever read, but it's frightening enough and makes good use of that underused source of quiet horror, the Victorian cautionary childrens' tale. The Gaskin story "Party Talk" visits a Jamesian landscape of graveyards and mouldering relics that should on no account be brought into the house, but with a convincing twist of "womens' issues" making it read more like an updated Mary Elizabeth Braddon or Elizabeth Gaskell story (which is high praise!) Another great "old-school" story is "The Axholme Toll" by Mark Valentine, in which a reclusive writer delves into the past of the inland island of Axholme in Lincolnshire and its links with the murderers of Thomas Beckett. It contains several very creepy moments (all the more so for being rooted in historical fact!), but what makes it outstanding is Valentine's finely developed sense of the past (which never descends into syrupy nostalgia) and fund of weird local lore.
All the authors I've just mentioned are British, and indeed the Brits seem to have taken over this year, with the large majority of tales coming from my native land. However, there are a few tales from abroad, and several of the stories have a pleasantly exotic, travelogue feel about them. A couple are taken from a recent anthology called Exotic Gothic 3: Strange Visitations (which I may well have to buy!) Simon Kurt Unsworth's "Mami Wata" is an interesting rejig of an old Zambian legend situated in a modern-day Zambian mine, and Terry Dowling's "Two Steps Along The Road" offers a haunting visit to a remote corner of rural Vietnam, where one of fiction's less annoying "psychic investigators" is summoned to look into a case of possession. Meanwhile, Simon Strantzas' eerily beautiful "Cold to the Touch" takes us on a trek through the snowy tundra of the Arctic, where a devout Christian scientist finds his faith tested to the utmost by an enigmatic circle of standing stones. It's quite the world tour!
Fortunately, Jones has refrained from including the usual mediocre stories by Kim Newman and Neil Gaiman this year. But that doesn't mean the collection is entirely clunker-free! It is perhaps telling that the worst stories in the book have been written by the biggest names in horror. Stephen King and his spawn Joe Hill have collaborated to spew forth a truly wretched tale called "Throttle", which purports to be a homage to Richard Matheson's excellent story "Duel". It's nowhere near as good as "Duel", and is crammed with mawkish father-and-son sentimentality and nostalgia for, of all things, the Vietnam war. King has been getting very uppity lately, vehemently criticising other authors in a series of pot/kettle scenarios, and I think it's time he was put out to pasture. "Throttle" wouldn't have even got published if it hadn't had "King" on it. I don't like Hill much either, I think he's a misogynist and a lazy writer, but that's a whole other rant.
Equally disappointing is Ramsey Campbell's "Respects", about a lonely widow haunted by flowers in the wake of a young neighbour's death during a police chase. It's typical, predictable Campbell fare, and it is made more unpalatable than usual by the vicious stereotyping of the "chav" characters who harangue the widow in a horrendously two-dimensional fashion, spouting cliches left right and center. It's not the flowers that are the bogeyman in "Respects", it's the single mum and her brood of feral children, and I found the overt snobbery and hatred of the working class far more terrifying than anything else in the story! Campbell is another repeat offender who could really do with a rest, and he hits a new low with this tale.
More generally, I was disappointed by how small the book is this year! Perhaps it's a symptom of the destructive impact of the recession on horror publishing (genre imprints tend to be the first to get the chop when publishing houses start to fail..) But quality is more important than quantity, and it's good to see that the cream of the crop are still out there writing great stories! I would've liked to see a story by Steve Duffy, who has two new collections out, and there are a few too many appearances from stories I've read before in other collections, but the new stuff is easily good enough to justify the expenditure of the £5-£10 price! If I were you I would put Best New Horror 21 somewhere near the top of my wish-list!