Horror: The 100 Best Books (35 page)

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I had always thought of Lisa Tuttle as a science fiction writer -- until I read "The Nest": in manuscript form, at the 1981 Milford writer's workshop. "The Nest" is now the final story in Lisa's "horror" collection,
A Nest of Nightmares
. One of its two nightmare images is the glimpsed figure of something manlike, black, and flapping like a garbage bag, a figure which appears from, and disappears into, the roof of Pamela's newly acquired, ramshackle country house; it seems to be constructing a vast nest out of detritus in the loft. At the end of the workshop session on the story, fellow writer Garry Kilworth re-entered the room wearing nothing but a black dustbin-liner, with appropriate head and arm holes. He leapt into Lisa's lap; she made nervous sounds. It was a very funny moment; it was also one of the most horrifying sights I have ever seen. That said, the spectacle was nowhere near as disturbing as the story itself. In "The Nest", the "monster" never appears on full stage. Everything that happens, or appears to be happening in the attic, is glimpsed out of the corner of an eye, or from a distant hill; Pam's sister Sylvia, who has agreed to share the house, is drawn to the loft, to the nest of rubbish, to the creature, but what happens to her there is reflected only in the sounds of her body being rhythmically moved against that attic's creaking floorboards. This is extremely effective and the stories in
A Nest of Nightmares
are, on the whole, strong, scary and impressive for just this controlled use of nightmare imagery. Lisa Tuttle is a writer who moulds
tension
to create the effect of horror, rather than shaping direct and horrific narrative image. And that tension is expertly drawn not just from the interaction of the main character with the supernatural but also by focusing on the main character and her "real-time" agonies. Nearly all the stories in the collection are centred around women. Nearly all the women are in pain. The pain is real, realistic and recognizable. Few of the characters are happy in their personal lives: men have left them; they have left men; fiancare fickle; dreams of sharing a new house founder on the question of privacy in life; one-parent families have career difficulties and guiltily acknowledge that they are neglecting their children ("The Other Mother"); suitors turn out to be corpses ("Need"); hosts in far-off, lonely towns become dedicated to belittling their author-guest out of simple jealousy ("Flying to Byzantium"). Add a secondary supernatural element: horses possessed by ancient shaman forces ("The Horse Lord"); Celtic goddesses, complete with boar avatars, who fulfil neglected children's needs ("The Other Mother"); dark men who prowl the house at night stealing dolls for nourishment ("Dollburger"), and you have a collection of stories that work on level after level, teasing out recognition of childhood (in particular those awful family mythologies which can be so frightening to a child), fear of the unknown, and guilty acknowledgement of familiar weaknesses in our own personal lives. This is horror at its best because it addresses more than the supernatural. It is good horror, too, because it acknowledges that nightmares are real only in a simple, subjective dimension. There
are
no ghosts, no living corpses, no skin-robed spirits of old ("Sun City"), no worlds created from imagination in which the imaginer gets trapped ("Flying to Byzantium") . . . not for
you
or
me
. . . but there
are
for the fevered, oppressed minds that might create them. Which is why "The Nest" and "The Other Mother" stand out so well as elegant psychological studies of disturbed minds: the attic, with its pile of rubbish, has become a haven for Sylvia, away from the cloying dependency of her older sibling; the white goddess is an actualizing of the guilt that has been so well suppressed by a mother's selfishness. The stories in
A Nest of Nightmares
work on a variety of levels, and are deeply disturbing. -- ROBERT HOLDSTOCK

Ashford, New Jersey. Donald "Duck" Boyd, a mixed-up adolescent, discovers that he has the power to wish into existence the animals whose pictures cover his bedroom walls. When Don faces down The Howler, a homicidal maniac who murders only teenagers, he manages to summon up a huge stallion who tramples the killer to death. Don takes the credit and briefly becomes a local hero, but is still subject to intensive persecution at school. His notoriety only gives the community's bullies another incentive to pick on him, and his parents -- his father is also his high school principal, which adds to the all-round awkwardness of his situation -- consistently fail to understand his problems. As his home and school life becomes unbearable, the stallion returns to carry out Don's increasingly angry and violent wishes. Although obviously influenced by the plot and background details of Stephen King's
Carrie
, Grant cites Bill Forsyth's film
Gregory's Girl
, a somewhat gentler picture of confused teenagers, as the inspiration for the novel.

***

Once in a while a real blockbuster of a horror novel hits the bookstalls.
The Pet
falls into this category and it is one of the few books in recent years which has left a lasting impression with me. Sometimes the "big" book with its hype and 500 or so pages does not live up to its reputation; all too often size seems to be the criterion and when one gets down to reading it one is sadly disillusioned. The work is padded out for the sake of it and instead of a scary bedtime read guaranteed to give you nightmares it soon has your eyelids closing, and more than likely you will wake up the next morning, tread on the book as you leap out of bed and try to remember where you got to. You can't because it is but a hazy memory of incidents unrelated to the main theme and in all probability you won't try again. But not
The Pet
, you won't sleep over this one because you won't be able to put it down until you have finished it, and when you have finally reached page 343 you won't dare to sleep! It would be unfair to the reader for me to dwell too much on the plot; suffice to say that the Howler, a Jack the Ripper-type killer who murders teenagers, has moved into the village of Ashford, New Jersey. I think that a small community as a setting for any book has a greater impact than a city one. If the author has done his job, and Grant certainly has, you feel that you are part of that small community, an unseen observer, and there is always the lurking fear that the Howler might seek YOU out! Grant is also a master of the sudden unexpected shock, a vital ingredient in any horror novel; however gruesome a book, however shocking, that necessary element is lacking if the next move is telegraphed. There is plenty in this book to make you jump, however hardened a reader of the horror genre you are. I bought
The Pet
for two reasons. First, I am an admirer of Charles L. Grant's work and guessed it would be good. Secondly, I had enjoyed
Pet Sematary
by Stephen King and the word "pet" had suddenly taken on a new meaning for me. Of course, there is no similarity between the two books -- I did not for one moment expect there to be -- but I suspected that Grant's novel might just top my league of favourite horror novels. The characterization is strong and the reader at once identifies with the characters. It could all just as easily be happening to YOU, not to some silhouette who flits in and out of situations and you don't even know what he or she looks like. You know them almost as well as you know yourself, and their terror becomes very much your terror. The style is appealing. Grant's short sentences create a sense of pace. The whole atmosphere of a book can be lost if the style is pedestrian. If a lengthy book is racy then it will grip you because the author has not had to pad it out. He has not needed to; the plot is full, there is no room for irrelevant sub-plots. We move on from one macabre scene to the next with barely a pause for breath. Today's horror readership is discerning. Gone are the days when a mediocre novel could go to a reprint. Only the best is acceptable and
The Pet
is certainly among the front-runners. Having finished reading it, I was left with much to think about. Uneasy thoughts. But that's the way it should be. -- GUY N. SMITH

America, after a cataclysmic nuclear war. Swan, a scarred nine-year-old, has mystic powers which could provide a new hope for the ravaged world. However "Friend", an evil force who can assume many forms, is out to prevent Swan from saving anyone. Swan and "Friend" both pick up allies and associates, with ex-wrestler Josh and bag-lady Sister Creep opting to fight for Good, and Colonel Macklin, a rabid militarist, and Roland Croniger, a young man with delusions of knightly splendour, on the side of Evil. Longer even than Stephen King's similarly themed
The Stand
,
Swan Song
is an epic which combines nuclear nightmare with fantastical adventure, and is McCammon's most ambitious work to date.

***

Robert Bloch once wrote that the most frightening thing was "the clown at midnight", the smiling face of innocence hiding whatever evil we care to imagine.
Swan Song
is in several ways a novel about masks: the mask of make-believe society under which man tries to hide what he has done to the world and himself, and the mutation mask nine-year-old Sue Wanda ("Swan") grows on her mutilated face, turning her into an abomination. Meet the adversaries for the final Armageddon: a sick nine-year-old who is slowly changing into a monster, and is aided by a group of weird characters, and a sadistic and utterly crazy creature which acts like a clown. Good survives under a mask of horror, while Evil wears a clown's mask: the Man with the Scarlet Eye, the Man with Many Faces, our old friend Satan himself. Robert R. McCammon has taken on the most ambitious theme of dark fantasy: the ultimate confrontation of Good and Evil, using mankind as pawns. A theme worked to death by countless others, but McCammon manages to make it something unique and special, keeping his readers entranced through all the 956 small-print pages of this meganovel of multiple disaster. There are hundreds of plot twists, but what keeps the reader turning the pages is the way McCammon blends mood and atmosphere with characters which are alive, no matter how bizarre they are. The post-nuclear war setting has its drawbacks: some of the situations are familiar stuff (the Survivalists, the warring armies, the crazies and cultists), but McCammon manages to give new flavour to old concepts, and turn them into something original. The occult themes (the powers of the spiked ring, the mental communication by "dreamwalking", all leading to the quest of Swan and her friends) are developed parallel with the more "realistic" adventures and horrors in the post-war societies. McCammon shows all his strength in characterization: the first several hundred pages show us the cataclysm and destruction, including some really remarkable scenes, but mainly they serve to introduce the many people who will aid Swan unselfishly, unaware of the importance of what they are doing. These are scenes of great power, tragedy and compassion, but also scenes of utter horror: McCammon doesn't shy away from graphic descriptions, and some are real stomach-turners.
Swan Song
may be called fantasy or even SF, but it delivers more than its share of gory horror and straight terror. The survivors first have to learn to stay alive and then learn that survival alone means nothing if it means losing their humanity, compassion and hope. This feeling extends itself to the adversary: the Man with Many Faces (who is never really called Satan) is evil incarnate, and he knows it. This gives him his power: a terrifying shape-changing being, feeding on its own insane hatred of mankind. At the same time, however, this self-knowledge hurts him, constantly showing him what he can never be, and this makes this sociopathic and murderous creature at the same time a pathetic, sad and lonely being. When Swan's change is completed and the mask goes off her face, we not only witness a symbolic revelation of the beauty of the "inner face" of mankind, but also a mystical transformation which transcends her humanity. The very earth becomes a real power which cleans itself of the horrors inflicted by the stupidity of mankind. This is utter abomination to the Man with Many Faces: no longer is he just fighting his old opponent (there are a few references to his past, and to God) but the power of life itself. A "God" of a kind makes a rather unexpected stage-appearance, but the final fight is not between God and Satan but becomes the struggle of mankind cleaning itself of its inborn evil.
Swan Song
is a rollercoaster ride into a world of terror and horror, but also of wonder and beauty, a story which is cruel and compassionate, a novel of eternal struggle, and eternal hope. -- EDDY C. BERTIN

This collection demonstrates why Ramsey Campbell has been hailed as Britain's foremost horror writer. Assembling the pick of Campbell's earlier collections --
The Inhabitant of the Lake and Less Welcome Tenants
(1964),
Demons by Daylight
(1973),
The Height of the Scream
(1976) and
Dark Companions
(1982) -- plus other outstanding pieces from various original anthologies and magazines,
Dark Feasts
represents the author's own choice from the first 25 years of his writing career. Campbell began as a self-confessed disciple of H. P. Lovecraft ("The Room in the Castle"), gradually expanded within the Lovecraftian vein to find his own subjects ("Cold Print", "The Voice of the Beach"), and then emerged as a distressingly original voice in his own right. His speciality is urban
Angst
and horror as supernatural nastiness stalks the inner cities ("The Man in the Underpass", "Mackintosh Willy", "The Midnight Hobo", "Boiled Alive"), but he also includes EC comic-style black jokes ("Call First"), several evocative stories about childhood ("Apples", "The Guy", "fust Waiting"), and dark visions of a twisted religion ("The Words That Count", "The Hands").