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Mary Williams
Sep. 4th, 2009 03:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
joysilenceDo any of you know anything about Mary Williams? She's a prolific author of supernatural novels and short stories (as well as historical romances) who wrote steadily from the late 70s up to her death in 2000. I recently stumbled on one of her collections, The Dark God (1980), via the 'if you liked this you'll also like these...' section of the Fantastic Fiction website. But despite her impressive output, she remains an obscure figure, at least on the internet. All I could really find about her was this obituary by Richard Dalby (yes, him again!), which provides details of her life, which was certainly rich in variety. The former ballet dancer and journalist wrote a small number of novels and poetry as a young woman, but seems to have waited until she was 72 before coughing up her first piece of supernatural fiction. After that, however, there was no stopping her! The great majority of her work was written in her 70s and 80s.
The Dark God is composed of the eponymous novella and a handful of short stories. ( What I Thought )
Williams' late arrival on the scene may be partly responsible for her obscurity. In the circumstances, I would love to be able to say I'd discovered a hidden jewel of an author, a brilliant writer unfairly overlooked by the industry. Sadly, Williams' talents are a bit modest for that. I noticed in Dalby's obituary that he carefully avoids making any reference to the quality of her work, and this could be partly out of tact, since Williams does have her flaws and was never in the big league of horror writers. Still, if her writing is slightly trashy at times, it's a fun sort of trash, and I can imagine some people reading her novels as a 'guilty pleasure'. In fact I may well end up checking out more of her work myself, since her story collections and novels can be had online for a matter of pence - though having been a horror fan for nearly 20 years, I think it's probably a bit late for me to start feeling 'guilt' of any kind, given some of the rubbish I've ploughed through in the past ;)
The Dark God is composed of the eponymous novella and a handful of short stories. ( What I Thought )
Williams' late arrival on the scene may be partly responsible for her obscurity. In the circumstances, I would love to be able to say I'd discovered a hidden jewel of an author, a brilliant writer unfairly overlooked by the industry. Sadly, Williams' talents are a bit modest for that. I noticed in Dalby's obituary that he carefully avoids making any reference to the quality of her work, and this could be partly out of tact, since Williams does have her flaws and was never in the big league of horror writers. Still, if her writing is slightly trashy at times, it's a fun sort of trash, and I can imagine some people reading her novels as a 'guilty pleasure'. In fact I may well end up checking out more of her work myself, since her story collections and novels can be had online for a matter of pence - though having been a horror fan for nearly 20 years, I think it's probably a bit late for me to start feeling 'guilt' of any kind, given some of the rubbish I've ploughed through in the past ;)
