‘Forever Always Ends: Robert Aickman’s Visions of Afterlife’ (part one) by Joel Lane
‘The Baroque of the Void: A Fantastic Fiction of the Austrian Idea’ by John Howard
‘John Cowper Powys: Celtic Colossus and Eminence Grise’ by Adam Daly
‘A Sombre and Unique Beauty: The Stories of Helen Simpson’ by James Doig
‘Fate as a Character: H. Rider Haggard’s Secret Currents’ by Thos. Kent Miller
‘Under Review’ by Reggie Oliver
‘Late Reviews’ by Douglas A. Anderson
‘Camera Obscura’ by John Howard

For more information, check out the Wormwood page HERE

Tim Parker Russell

Tim would like to receive previously unpublished ghost stories suitable for a general audience. Although stories should offer more than a “pleasing terror”, they should not contain anything too graphic or gratuitous. Stories should be between 2,000 and 7,000 words. Closing date for submissions is 31 December 2012. Authors will receive two copies of the published book. Copyright remains with the author.

For submission information see HERE

More info can be found HERE

All submissions must be original and not previously published, length beween 2,000 and 10,000 words, and the closing date is 31st July 2013. Please send submissions as an rtf attachment (preferably) to rosalieparker@btinternet.com.

The first Strange Tales volume won the World Fantasy Award in 2004, and the follow-up volumes have all been well-received. All three can be purchased together here at a special offer price.

Reviewed by Matthew Johns

Receiving a book from Tartarus Press always feels like a special occasion – you can feel the quality of these beautifully bound books with ribbon book mark.  Their simple yet stylish dust covers hide previously unknown delights and treasures.

This particular one is a collection of translated tales from the pen of Marcel Schwob, written between the late 1800’s and early 1900’s in French.  It begins with a lengthy, but fascinating introduction from the translator, Iain White, which details Schwob’s life and influences and then launches into a tale of the Strigae, or vampires. Some are told as parables, such as “The Fat Man”, in which a happy, but very fat man lets a very skinny doctor live with him who terrifies him with tales of diabetes into giving up all his earthly delights and instead feeding them to the doctor, who doesn’t stay skinny for long.

Many of these tales are ageless, and while the old-fashioned language may be seen as a barrier to some, it is worth soldiering on through the book to enjoy some very Poe-esque tales.

Reviewed by Sandra Scholes

Part two of the Lovecraft article World Gone Wrong is in this latest issue byJoel Lane. He elaborates on the former master of the macabre’s life and works. In Wormwood No 17 I wondered how long it would take for him to mention the Cthulhu mythos, and I was beaten-yet in this issue all the stories we have come to know and admire him for are mentioned. Here Lane tries to break down all the component parts of Lovecraft’s stories and novels in an effort to understand him, and what made him the writer he was.

There is much that can be said of the featured writers in this magazine, Wormwood does what it states; it contains literature that is fantastic, supernatural and at times very decadent, and on that subject, the old hell raiser Aleister Crowley gets mentioned later on in Reggie Oliver’s Under Review where he discusses and reviews four books that could be of interest to the discerning reader.Crowleywas one of the most notorious and decadent figures of the twentieth century. His setting up of his own occult order, and the rumours that came from his exploits make him the kind of person that would have been at home in today’s celebrity scene, and  there is no doubt he would have appreciated being a part of it. Reggie succeeds in turning the rumours about his life into truths, citing many of the men and women who knew him best.Crowleywas certainly a memorable figure who, like many of today’s celebrities, dabbled in drugs, drink, women and the occult. What inCrowley’s day would have been taboo is now fast becoming the norm today among starts. Reggie masters the art of blending his four reviews into one series of paragraphs without you knowing at first, leading you onto the next novel to be interested in.

Wormwood No18 has articles and reviews that will suit everyone interested in fantasy and the supernatural. The majority of the articles and reviews in this publication are of old novels from various writers, it is only later in the book that new novels are being reviewed. As already mentioned, there is theCrowleyarticle; Aleister Crowley The Biography by Tobias Churton, and Studies in Horror Film by Daniel Olson.

Everyone has plenty to comment on the novels from the past twenty or thirty years and they seem to be timeless, and admired by many who understand the genres. Mark Valentine has done a great job of gathering the ideas for this latest issue, and many, I think will enjoy it.

Reviewed by Mario Guslandi

In addition to the commendable task of reprinting in elegant hardback editions classical gems of the past, Tartarus Press during the years has been also devoted to discover and launch  new literary talents . Fine examples are Mark Samuels, Quentin S Crisp and Angela Slatter, just to mention a few.

The author of the new Tartarus collection, Jason A Wychoff, is an American writer whose work, so far, has never appeared in print, not even in magazines. Therefore, this represents an incredible and fortunate discovery because the sixteen tales featured in the volume offer an extraordinary treasury of weird fiction of high literary value.

The title story, “Black Korse” is an offbeat, mysterious piece  told in a perfect narrative style, revolving around a horse inherited by a man who has with the animal an ambivalent, complex relationship.

“The Highwall Horror” is an uneasy  tale which would have pleased both Franz Kafka and Dino Buzzati, where a man discovers an alien, impossible reality behind the wall of his office, while “Intermediary” is a tense story where an archeological expedition in the Andes results in a tragedy brought about by greed.

In “The Bells, Then The Birds” a haunted town is retraced by a young man following the source of a melancholy folk song, while in the puzzling but enticing “The Trucker’s Story” some people unaccountably lose a portion of their lives.

“The Night of His Sister’s Engagement” is a fascinating  piece imbued with an enchanted, dream-like atmosphere, in which minor events taking place around a lake acquire a threatening meaning.

“The Mauve Blot” – where an inadequate mother tries to cope with a new job and her children’s care after leaving a gambling husband- is an excellent mainstream story slightly spoiled by the unconvincing intrusion of a paranormal aspect.

Much more accomplished is “A Willow Cat in Meadowlark” an insightful , unnerving tale featuring a young woman fleetingly become the beneficiary of a dead woman wrongly identified as her mother.

The atmospheric “Hair and Nails” is a story of black magic where a treasure buried in a cemetery by a deceased undertaker is finally unearthed.

Among so many great stories my own favourite remains “Knott’s Letter” the charming report of an unlucky, tragic expedition on the Sasquatch’s trail  across forbidding mountains and hidden caves.

This is an astonishing debut book by a superb writer, whose stories remind us how rewarding and bewitching good fiction can be.

Reviewed by Sandra Scholes

Unlike many small press publications that feature short stories and a good dose of editorial content, Wormwood has articles and reviews on a number of novels. The ones for this, their seventeenth edition are written by what can only be described as a mixture of well-known and almost forgotten authors. Though almost everyone must know some of the works of HP Lovecraft, others, for example might not have heard of Ernest Bramah or Donald Armour. That aside, Wormwood has some very interesting articles that deserve recognition.

One of the positive aspects of this book is the articles give so much to the reader about the lives of the writers, and that emotion at the time they were writing their best works. Some had awful upbringings, and this was what shaped them to become the writers they were in their day. HP Lovecraft had a childhood illness that caused him to be housebound most of the time. This gave rise to his interest in books, and reading, but it also gave him a negative, insular view of the world outside he simply did not know of, and as a result feared. Joel Lane, author of The Terrible Changes and The Witnesses are Gone goes into great detail about Lovecraft’s works and how they define the man.

There are six articles of the past masters of literature, and they all detail not just the novels themselves but the settings they were in, and the lives these writers must have lived. Everyone’s favourite, the vampire is mentioned in Reginald Hodder Author of The Vampire, where James Doig tries to take us through the elusive life of Hodder, a relative of the man who started one half of the book publishers Hodder and Stoughton. Not much is known of his life other than he wanted to write books similar to others already out there which were previously successful, such as Bram Stoker’s Dracula. His novel tells of a different kind of vampire, yet the title alone at the time might have convinced the public to buy it.

The rest of the book concentrates on fiction reviews both large and small of the latest novels, and ones that the readers might have overlooked. Wormwood can be viewed as an excellent study companion if you are at college or university, or it can be good light reading for those interested in reading about their favourite authors.

About the book:
‘This first collection of tales by Rosalie Parker contains eight stories that explore the uncanny in the modern world. As Glen Cavaliero observes in his introduction, “like all good stories of the preternatural, these in The Old Knowledge have a subversive effect.” In them, “the world of logical, predictable reality is seen to be at risk from rejected modes of knowledge which can thwart the materialist and victimise those innocents who stumble into another order of reality.”

In “The Rain”, Geraldine heads North for a holiday she hopes will provide a welcome break from her busy city life, only to suffer a complicated and enigmatic distortion of her usual world-view. The narrator of “In the Garden” strays into new pastures while explaining her theory of gardening (this story was chosen for inclusion in the Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 21). In “Chanctonbury Ring”, the well-meaning protagonist, helping a lady in distress, gets rather more than he bargained for. The temporary schoolteacher in “The Supply-Teacher” elicits altruism from her class, whilst, in “The Old Knowledge”, a group of archaeologists called in to excavate a prehistoric round barrow have to negotiate local interventions. In “The Cook’s Story” a Gothic country house provides the setting for a modern tale of mystery.

Do not expect blood-and-guts, wraiths or revenants: these stories hold a different kind of terror. “Their unostentatious magic is of an insidious kind; and like the protagonist of the title story, is liable to exert itself in disconcerting ways.” ‘

Cover art is by Ray Russell.

The volume contains: “Author’s Note”, “Beside the Shrill Sea”, “Feng Shui”, “In Arcadia”, “Evil Eye”, “Miss Marchant’s Cause”, “Tiger in the Snow”, “Garden Gods”, “The Black Cathedral” ,”The Boy in Green Velvet”, ”The Golden Basilica”, “Death Mask”, “The Seventeenth Sister”, “The Copper Wig”, “The Dreams of Cardinal Vittorini”. Each story has an illustration by the author.

Tartarus Press

Limited to 350 copies, Tales of Love and Death is a sewn hardback priced at £32.50/$50 including p&p. It joins Tartarus’ other Aickman volumes We Are for the Dark (with Elizabeth Jane Howard), Dark Entries, Powers of Darkness, Sub Rosa and Cold Hand in Mine.

Full details at the Tartarus website HERE

Wormwood Issue 18

Full details, including pre-order information, are available HERE

They are currently seeking original fiction which draws on Machen’s life and works. All profits generated from the sale of this anthology will be donated to the Friends of Arthur Machen. Entries may be of any length and multiple submissions are welcome: however the editors would appreciate it if any potential contributors would let them know in advance that they are working on something for consideration. The final submissions deadline is 30 March 2013.

For full submission guidelines see the Hieroglyphic Press website HERE

Jason is a new American author, writing in the tradition of the spooky/strange story, although his work is very contemporary. This is his first ever venture into print.

“This new collection of sixteen tales uncovers the strangeness within everyday America, the fable in the familiar. ‘The Highwall Horror’ sees an office worker discover the portal to an alien cathedral in a cubicle wall; in ‘Panorama’ an artist’s agent examines his client’s deserted masterpiece; a young man follows a forgotten song to the haunted town that spawned it in ‘The Bells, Then the Birds’; a young mother escapes her wastrel husband only to become lost in a perilous swell of freedom in ‘The Mauve Blot’; and in ‘Black Horse’ an inherited steed brings uneasiness and worse to its new owner.”

Full details HERE

Reggie Oliver

A Tartarus Press interview with Reggie Oliver can also be found on YouTube HERE.

Reviewed by Mario Guslandi

Since Reggie Oliver, a well known actor and playwright, decided to try his hand at writing dark short fiction, his tales have been already providing material for four  published collections.

By now Oliver is rightly considered one of the very best among the current authors of horror, supernatural and ghost stories, endowed with a knack for superb storytelling, the ability to create enticing and plausible plots and to draw credible characters in a few pages. Understandably his stories are often set in the world of theatre, where the author feels more at home.

Oliver’s narrative style is elegant but solid, sometimes unassuming, but apt to subtly disquiet and unnerve rather than scare with gore and violence.

The latest collection (the fifth) by this extraordinary author assembles a bunch of excellent tales which confirm his uncommon talent as a teller of creepy, uncanny stories. Some of the stories have already appeared in various anthologies, others are original to this volume.

Most of the included material is well worth mentioning, from “The Philosophy of the Damned”, where the arrival of a mysterious impresario and his company in a small town to perform a weird play becomes the allegory of a terrible, devilish reality, to the creepy and delightful “Mrs Midnight” casting a new light on the Ripper Murders by portraying an unconventional doctor turned into a music hall entertainer.

“A Piece of Elsewhere” is a truly unsettling piece about a young boy who, while  spending a little time at his aunt’s house , discovers frightening, paranormal aspects of  reality, while “Countess Otho” is a complex, supernatural tale depicting a number of dark events taking place  behind the stage curtains.

Among a series of excellent stories, some are, quite simply, outstanding, such as “Mr Pigsny”, a captivating cross between a gangster story and a spiritual meditation about afterlife, “Minos or Radamanthus” describing the last, unearthly encounter between an old, stern schoolmaster and one of his pupils, and “The Brighton Redemption”, a tragic tale of sin and redemption with a strong ghostly undercurrent.

Due to the extremely high quality of the book it’s hard to single out a favourite story, but my preference goes perhaps to “The Giacometti Crucifixion” a splendid mix of crime and supernatural, which frames an extraordinary Jamesian tale entitled “Quieta Non Movere”

It is a shame that Oliver’s fiction has appeared so far only in books published by distinguished but small imprints, hence in limited print runs. He certainly would deserve a much wider audience and recognition.

Reviewed by Matthew Johns

Another beautifully bound tome from Tartarus, this tells the story of the drunken womaniser Hans Schneider.  A medical student who kills a fellow student in a duel, he is banished to a remote hospital, deprived from the pleasures of the flesh he desires and working for the enigmatic Dr Lavenza.

The hospital turns out to be more than it initially appears, with many inmates undergoing pioneering medical treatments from the talented, yet mysterious doctor.  As the story progresses, we learn that he is related to the legendary Victor Frankenstein, who was more than just a legend.  The monster that he created has followed his descendants making them try without success to create him the bride he was promised.

Upon finding Dr Lavenza’s laboratory, Schneider’s initial thoughts are of touring the world, charging admission fees to see Dr Lavenza’s marvellous combinations of cadaver flesh and science, including legs that can walk without a body attached to them and a disembodied hand that can grab, hold and shake other hands.  As he is taken into the doctor’s confidence, he realises that his limited, capitalist viewpoint is flawed.  Not everyone or everything can be bought or blackmailed.

The characters within this book are complex and very well written; Lees does an excellent job of depicting the world and ideals of the early 1900’s.  Tension mounts throughout the novel, building towards the inevitable conclusion.

Wormwood #17

Contents:
World Gone Wrong: H.P. Lovecraft’s Mythology of Loss (part one) by Joel Lane
Songs of the Archangel: Halcyon & Other Poems of Gabriele d’Annunzio in English by Daniel Corrick
Reginald Hodder: Author of The Vampire by James Doig
Ernest Bramah’s Max Carrados: The Sightless Supersleuth by Gary G. Garner
Donald Armour’s Swept & Garnished: A Rediscovered Masterpiece of Supernatural Horror by Robert Eldridge
Lilies Among the Thorns: An Overview of American Decadence by rj krijnen-kemp
Some Notes on Aickman’s Plays by Douglas A. Anderson
Under Review by Reggie Oliver
Late Reviews by Douglas A. Anderson
The Horror by Arthur L. Salmon
Camera Obscura by Mark Valentine

We Are for the Dark will be officially launched at the Halifax Ghost Story Festival, at which will be screened rare TV adaptations of Howard’s “Three Miles Up” (from We Are for the Dark) and Aickman’s “The Hospice”. To book tickets for that event please go HERE

Tartarus say: “We believe that this will be the definitive Gautier collection, using Lafcadio Hearn’s classic translations, with newly-commissioned translations for the remaining supernatural tales which have not been previously collected.”

Full details from the Tartarus website.

There’s a wide range of settings and tones among the 17 stories here, but they all have a few things in common. They are evocative, well-written, with a wonderful sense of place. There are no pulpy shocks or nasty tales here. The mood here is greyer, more unsettling, muted. These stories concentrate on the creation of mood, rather than narrative thrust. Handled well, this can be truly unsettling. In some hands, however, it seems coy; the stories becoming so elliptical that they are nothing else. On more than one occasion, there is the sense that the author shied away from a ‘satisfying’ ending, but to what purpose we’re not entirely sure.

The highlights, however, are spectacular. They include Daniel Mills’ Sanctuary Row, Elizabeth Brown’s A Woman Of The Party, and A.J. McIntosh’s Melting. It’s a dreamscape of a collection, where not everything makes sense, and one is surrounded by horrors one can’t name. I shall be re-immersing myself in it soon.

Strange Tales III, ed. Rosalie Parker, Tartarus Press, 2009, £30 hardback.