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darkling_talesI've been trying to save money lately, but when I found out that Tartarus Press were offering their anthologies Strange Tales and Strange Tales 2 as a £40 package, I decided to pounce. I believe they're making this offer to tempt the reader into buying their impending publication of Strange Tales 3, and I must admit their argument is pretty persuasive!
The first Strange Tales came out in 1992, edited by Rosalie Parker, who runs Tartarus Press with Ray Russell. I have to admit that Parker's choice of stories took me by surprise. I had expected stories of a fairly restrained, poetic nature, in keeping with most of Tartarus' back catalogue, but in fact a large proportion of the stories here are very gory and physically nauseating (e.g. Adam Daly's self-explanatory tale 'The Self-Eater'). I'm really not a fan of stories about people eating themselves, torturing women and suchlike, but fortunately there is also a good handful of subtler, more supernaturally oriented tales which goes some way towards balancing things out. Not all of these are wholly successful: Nina Allan is a talented author but I simply couldn't stomach the seemingly pointless misery of the doomed lovers' underground train ride in 'Terminus', and given my strong dislike of fiction rehashing real-life historical figures Tina Rath's 'Mr Manpferdit' (about Dr Johnson's fictional meeting with a centaur) probably never had much of a chance with me! (Though again, I can't accuse her of being a bad writer.) I was also a bit surprised to find only one story here that really brings to mind Robert Aickman, for me the definitive master of the 'strange story': William Charlton's 'Grand Hotel'.
But which stories would I recommend most? Perhaps 'The Descent of the Fire', by Mark Valentine and John Howard - one of a series of stories starring the Connoisseur, an occult detective in the Prince Zaleski/John Silence tradition. Some of the dialogue can seem a little stilted and the characters deliberately stuck in the past, but the plethora of interesting ideas involved (fire cults, mystical weathervanes and Greek mythology) saves it from falling into mere pastiche. David Rix's 'Number 18' is a more modern affair dealing with a girl's mental anguish following a traumatic meeting with a deranged neighbour. Rix's focus on the power of everyday objects that become imbued with evil (real or imaginary?) reminded me strongly of Ramsey Campbell's work, but his writing style is more refined. Dale Nelson's 'Shelter Belt' is one of those tales that will stand or fall on atmosphere, as the plot is a simple matter of a young boy from a family in flux who spends a lot of time in a clump of trees near his house. Luckily, Nelson's effort really stands, and the magic common to even the smallest areas of woodland comes through nicely. I am often disappointed by 'mood pieces' like this, but I thought 'Shelter Belt' one of the best tales in the book. John Gaskin's 'From Lydia With Love and Laughter' touches on ancient Greek mysteries and strives for a mingled air of unease and delight in the Buchan mould, with a fair amount of success. It's my favourite story in the book, though possibly not the very best in terms of style.
Despite these high points, I much preferred Strange Tales II. It came out in 1997, and I suspect Parker got busy during those five intervening years, since not only are the stories in this sequel more numerous, (17 instead of 14) they are generally better, and more varied in content and style. Several of the tales in here are absolutely top-notch, something I couldn't really say of the first Strange Tales. Quentin S Crisp's The Fairy-Killer, for example, has a magical atmosphere and kindles the reader's sense of wonder in a manner that may surprise anyone familiar with the extreme blackness of the contes cruels in his earlier collection Morbid Tales. It also benefits from one of the most realistic child characters I've come across in supernatural fiction. One review I read online complained that Crisp focussed too much on style and not enough on plot, but I found this plot quite satisfactory myself, and I've already praised his limpid prose style twice in these pages, so no need to say anymore about that! Crisp also deserves bonus points for spelling 'fairy' properly (and not writing 'faery' like a fifth-rate Wiccan.)
And there's more. Stephen Holman's 'Mr Poppy' provides a sharp change in register, as it achieves the difficult task of being funny, dark and original despite technically forming part of the dreaded 'Cthuhlu mythos' (normally associated with writing that is anything BUT funny or original...) The feat is even more impressive when you learn that it's Holman's first ever attempt at fiction! The pseudonymous 'Elizabeth Brown' hands in an unnerving strange story about the problematic resurrection of the past, with a pleasantly old-school flavour and tonnes of haunted house atmosphere. Christopher Harman's 'Dinckley Green' seems to have polarized online opinion a bit, but I loved it (it's another one about the euphemistically-named 'fair folk', set against an uneasy background provided by the hero's crumbling mental stability.) And while David Rix's 'The Magpies' was initially hard-going, my love of a good bird story and Rix's adept handling of his Dartmoor setting helped it take off in a spectacular manner. It's also a lot less gloomy than it may at first appear! I preferred this to Rix's story for the first Strange Tales.
There are also a number of stories that, while falling short of greatness, nonetheless provided me with a very happy half-hour or so, including Adam Golaski's thoughtful pastoral 'What Water Reveals'. Mark Valentine returns with 'Carden in Capaea', a maddeningly enigmatic but effortlessly stylish fantasy that I prefer to his Connoisseur stories. And I've already mentioned Joel Knight's 'Calico Black, Calico Blue' in my review of Mammoth Best New Horror 19, so won't dwell on its Aickmanesque delights here!
The disappointments are few in number. I had hoped for more from Barbara Roden, since she runs Ash-Tree Press, one of the best independent horror fiction publishers around, but 'The Hiding Place' just made me want to shrug by the end of it. Anne-Sylvie Salzman's 'What the Eye Remembers' and Roger Dunkley's 'Mea Tulpa' appeared wilfully complicated, arty and hard to understand, though it's possible I may be saying more about my own lack of culture than their writing skills by admitting this! And Angela Slatter's 'Sourdough' was merely an annoying twinge of Angela Carter-lite with irksome characters (though Slatter's writing is admittedly less sloppy than Carters'.)
All in all, however, Strange Tales II is quite an achievement. It has a consistency of quality I've not seen in many other collections, and the good writing is often very good, while none of the stories are truly awful. It feels like a real banquet of strange and wondrous fiction, often scary, but equally often enchanting, and all those critics who sniff at genre fiction (as opposed to 'real' literature) should be made to read this!
And of course, it goes without saying that both books are beautiful on the outside - lovely creamy paper, a silk ribbon bookmark, striking cover art, elegant fonts and all the usual perks of a Tartarus book. They may not be cheap, but they're usually well worth the price in my opinion :) There are also a couple of other reviews here: Strange Tales reviewed at Infinity Plus and Mario Guslandi's thoughts on Strange Tales II.
The first Strange Tales came out in 1992, edited by Rosalie Parker, who runs Tartarus Press with Ray Russell. I have to admit that Parker's choice of stories took me by surprise. I had expected stories of a fairly restrained, poetic nature, in keeping with most of Tartarus' back catalogue, but in fact a large proportion of the stories here are very gory and physically nauseating (e.g. Adam Daly's self-explanatory tale 'The Self-Eater'). I'm really not a fan of stories about people eating themselves, torturing women and suchlike, but fortunately there is also a good handful of subtler, more supernaturally oriented tales which goes some way towards balancing things out. Not all of these are wholly successful: Nina Allan is a talented author but I simply couldn't stomach the seemingly pointless misery of the doomed lovers' underground train ride in 'Terminus', and given my strong dislike of fiction rehashing real-life historical figures Tina Rath's 'Mr Manpferdit' (about Dr Johnson's fictional meeting with a centaur) probably never had much of a chance with me! (Though again, I can't accuse her of being a bad writer.) I was also a bit surprised to find only one story here that really brings to mind Robert Aickman, for me the definitive master of the 'strange story': William Charlton's 'Grand Hotel'.
But which stories would I recommend most? Perhaps 'The Descent of the Fire', by Mark Valentine and John Howard - one of a series of stories starring the Connoisseur, an occult detective in the Prince Zaleski/John Silence tradition. Some of the dialogue can seem a little stilted and the characters deliberately stuck in the past, but the plethora of interesting ideas involved (fire cults, mystical weathervanes and Greek mythology) saves it from falling into mere pastiche. David Rix's 'Number 18' is a more modern affair dealing with a girl's mental anguish following a traumatic meeting with a deranged neighbour. Rix's focus on the power of everyday objects that become imbued with evil (real or imaginary?) reminded me strongly of Ramsey Campbell's work, but his writing style is more refined. Dale Nelson's 'Shelter Belt' is one of those tales that will stand or fall on atmosphere, as the plot is a simple matter of a young boy from a family in flux who spends a lot of time in a clump of trees near his house. Luckily, Nelson's effort really stands, and the magic common to even the smallest areas of woodland comes through nicely. I am often disappointed by 'mood pieces' like this, but I thought 'Shelter Belt' one of the best tales in the book. John Gaskin's 'From Lydia With Love and Laughter' touches on ancient Greek mysteries and strives for a mingled air of unease and delight in the Buchan mould, with a fair amount of success. It's my favourite story in the book, though possibly not the very best in terms of style.
Despite these high points, I much preferred Strange Tales II. It came out in 1997, and I suspect Parker got busy during those five intervening years, since not only are the stories in this sequel more numerous, (17 instead of 14) they are generally better, and more varied in content and style. Several of the tales in here are absolutely top-notch, something I couldn't really say of the first Strange Tales. Quentin S Crisp's The Fairy-Killer, for example, has a magical atmosphere and kindles the reader's sense of wonder in a manner that may surprise anyone familiar with the extreme blackness of the contes cruels in his earlier collection Morbid Tales. It also benefits from one of the most realistic child characters I've come across in supernatural fiction. One review I read online complained that Crisp focussed too much on style and not enough on plot, but I found this plot quite satisfactory myself, and I've already praised his limpid prose style twice in these pages, so no need to say anymore about that! Crisp also deserves bonus points for spelling 'fairy' properly (and not writing 'faery' like a fifth-rate Wiccan.)
And there's more. Stephen Holman's 'Mr Poppy' provides a sharp change in register, as it achieves the difficult task of being funny, dark and original despite technically forming part of the dreaded 'Cthuhlu mythos' (normally associated with writing that is anything BUT funny or original...) The feat is even more impressive when you learn that it's Holman's first ever attempt at fiction! The pseudonymous 'Elizabeth Brown' hands in an unnerving strange story about the problematic resurrection of the past, with a pleasantly old-school flavour and tonnes of haunted house atmosphere. Christopher Harman's 'Dinckley Green' seems to have polarized online opinion a bit, but I loved it (it's another one about the euphemistically-named 'fair folk', set against an uneasy background provided by the hero's crumbling mental stability.) And while David Rix's 'The Magpies' was initially hard-going, my love of a good bird story and Rix's adept handling of his Dartmoor setting helped it take off in a spectacular manner. It's also a lot less gloomy than it may at first appear! I preferred this to Rix's story for the first Strange Tales.
There are also a number of stories that, while falling short of greatness, nonetheless provided me with a very happy half-hour or so, including Adam Golaski's thoughtful pastoral 'What Water Reveals'. Mark Valentine returns with 'Carden in Capaea', a maddeningly enigmatic but effortlessly stylish fantasy that I prefer to his Connoisseur stories. And I've already mentioned Joel Knight's 'Calico Black, Calico Blue' in my review of Mammoth Best New Horror 19, so won't dwell on its Aickmanesque delights here!
The disappointments are few in number. I had hoped for more from Barbara Roden, since she runs Ash-Tree Press, one of the best independent horror fiction publishers around, but 'The Hiding Place' just made me want to shrug by the end of it. Anne-Sylvie Salzman's 'What the Eye Remembers' and Roger Dunkley's 'Mea Tulpa' appeared wilfully complicated, arty and hard to understand, though it's possible I may be saying more about my own lack of culture than their writing skills by admitting this! And Angela Slatter's 'Sourdough' was merely an annoying twinge of Angela Carter-lite with irksome characters (though Slatter's writing is admittedly less sloppy than Carters'.)
All in all, however, Strange Tales II is quite an achievement. It has a consistency of quality I've not seen in many other collections, and the good writing is often very good, while none of the stories are truly awful. It feels like a real banquet of strange and wondrous fiction, often scary, but equally often enchanting, and all those critics who sniff at genre fiction (as opposed to 'real' literature) should be made to read this!
And of course, it goes without saying that both books are beautiful on the outside - lovely creamy paper, a silk ribbon bookmark, striking cover art, elegant fonts and all the usual perks of a Tartarus book. They may not be cheap, but they're usually well worth the price in my opinion :) There are also a couple of other reviews here: Strange Tales reviewed at Infinity Plus and Mario Guslandi's thoughts on Strange Tales II.
