Review: North American Lake Monsters: Stories

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July 25, 2013
Book Reviews
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North American Lake Monsters: Stories
North American Lake Monsters: Stories by Nathan Ballingrud
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Nathan Ballingrud’s debut collection of short stories sank its claws deep into my brain and refused to let go until I’d read the whole thing. He writes clear, powerful tales, where the monsters in question flush out his characters’ humanity in traumatic clarity. Most of these don’t end well, but they’re all gorgeous pieces.

Often, the obvious monster of the story is not the worst monster. Take, for example, the story “Wild Acres,” where an early, bloody attack suggests an obvious sort of supernatural tale. Yet Ballingrud doesn’t go down that road, instead taking the reader through the emotional consequences of surviving the ordeal and the choices made during such an event. Or the eponymous “North American Lake Monsters” itself, where an unidentifiable beast washes up on the shore of a lake and yet remains only a lightning-rod metaphor for the things going on within the family that discovers it.

[Personal note here: I read that story with a mixture of adoration and sadness, as I recently submitted a story that featured almost exactly the same situation. Ugh. The outcome in my tale was far different, but it’s still quite frustrating to be scooped on a story I really liked.]

In another standout piece, “Crevasse,” about a sled team in Antarctica running into trouble, Ballingrud manages to concoct a Lovecraftian story that challenges even the best of Lovecraft’s work.

My favorite story in the collection is, unexpectedly, “Sunbleached,” which is a story about a young kid’s relationship with a vampire in his basement. I’m sick to death of vampire tales, and yet this one bowled me over. The details were captivating, and I still can’t shake the ending.

This collection represents some of the finest literary horror I’ve read since devouring Shirley Jackson’s short stories. I’m an instant fan of Ballingrud, and North American Lake Monsters is a powerful, disturbing beast.

View all my reviews

Running the Gauntlet? Or Waiting at the Gallows?

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July 23, 2013
12 Months, 12 Stories, Ed at Eleven, Writing
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I’ll be announcing some good news shortly (pretty much as soon as I can provide a link for it), but in the meantime I thought I’d post again with some thoughts on how things have been going this summer.

I’ve been writing. Actually, I’ve been re-writing. It started with Daukherville, but that mountain still seems steep to me. Ed at Eleven has reclaimed my attention, and for once the editing is going well. I’d love to have a draft finished by October, and it looks like it might actually happen.

Most importantly, it would be a real second draft, rather than yet another first draft. Have I learned how to edit? Has dedicating myself to shorter fiction served the purpose I’d hoped it would? Could be.

In the meantime, while I’ve fallen off my target of twelve stories in twelve months (I’ve hit four in six so far, so there’s still hope for catch-up), I still have three of the pieces out in the wind, awaiting rejection.

“Sprachlos” (a detective story involving literary forensics) has made it past the first readers at Cemetery Dance, which is delightful news in and of itself. I continue to wait for the form rejection, but Brian James Freeman, the managing editor of all things Cemetery Dance-related, has told us that anything rejected from this point on will have been seen by all the editors. Holy fuckballs, Batman. For me, Cemetery Dance is nothing short of a pie-in-the-sky market that I’ve dreamed of seeing a story in for decades. That I’ve made it this far really and truly is an honor.

“Seal” (about a nice day on a lake) has been submitted to Ellen Datlow’s Kickstarter-funded anthology Fearful Symmetries. As of their last update, 20% of the stories have been rejected, 4% have been kicked up to Ellen Datlow herself, and 50% have at least been read. The editors have stated that they plan to have all responses sent out by the end of August.

Finally, I submitted my most recent story, “The Broker,” based on an idea Amanda gave me about two ne’er-do-wells and their real estate broker, to Midnight Echo, which could be considered the Australian equivalent to Cemetery Dance, for their ghost-themed issue #10.

All three were written this year, and I believe in them all. Whether the markets above take them or not, I have a lot of hope that I can sell these pieces and step away from the lead balloon of my self-publishing efforts.

In other news, I’ve also collaborated with a talented filmmaker, Brian Lillie, on a screenplay for a short film that we submitted to this year’s Shriekfest.

As far as reviews of books go, you might have noticed a drop-off in frequency (i.e., that they’ve pretty much stopped altogether). I’ve made the decision that to do them (and do them as I was, with no fear of posting negative reviews) is no longer professionally acceptable. I will still post a review if I read something I truly love, or if something is the work of an old master, no longer publishing, but my negative thoughts I will now keep to myself (and immediate friends, who no doubt will hear all my rants).

Also, I’ve been reading a ton of short stories from a lot of writers I like, but I haven’t been able to claim that I’ve finished many collections or anthologies or even magazines, as I tend to skip around like a madman. (Mandler asks: Do madmen skip around? I say: Ah, go fuck yourself.) I’m seeking out a lot of great voices that are new to me, and I’ve found a few (Sarah Langan, David Nickle, Laird Barron, Livia Llewellyn, Helen Marshall, and Nathan Ballingrud to name a few of my new favorites from the last year and a half or so), but I’m pretty much in the middle of all their books. I never desired to speed read, and I never made the effort to learn, so I still read rather embarrassingly slowly, probably just slightly faster than someone reading it aloud. Maybe that makes me a bit of a numbskull, but hey–I like sticking close to the words. I see little reason to rush through sentences.

So that’s where things stand. I’ll update as the rejections make their way in, but for now it looks like the waiting game is the game for me.

The waiting game … and the writing game.

I promised myself last year that I would never let the total number of rejections catch up to my number of submissions.

It’s a promise I’ve kept ever since.

Call it progress.

A Self-Publishing Primer (From a Not-Very-Successful Self-Published Writer)

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April 25, 2013
Commentary, Nonfiction, Writing
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Preface

The following is a slightly modified version of a piece I wrote up for an MFA class that was kind enough to want to talk to me about my self-publishing adventures. I’d been meaning to write a blog post along these lines for a while, so I’m glad I finally had an excuse to get these thoughts written up. I present them with all appropriate disclaimers: these are merely my thoughts and opinions, based on my subjective experience, and they may prove only that I didn’t know anything at all about self-publishing. Yet in the hopes that they are helpful for others, here they are.

 

I. What I Got From Self-Publishing

The language around the growing number of powerful self-publishing options strikes me as either far too apocalyptic or annoyingly evangelical. Readers are too savvy not to notice signs of mediocrity, and becoming a bestselling author is just as much of an uncommon event for a self-published writer as it is for one traditionally published.

Yet still! Attending a writers’ meet-up recently in New York, I heard a self-published author say things like, “Put your book on Amazon, get ten friends to give it positive reviews, and guess what? Magic happens. Your work starts selling.” She claimed her chick-lit book was earning her thousands of dollars a month. It felt like we were being told there was gold in them thar hills.

Advice from lottery winners about the ease of winning the lottery may not prove accurate on a larger scale.

Of course, it’s also true that my experiences may be equally unusual. Certainly for some writers, like Amanda Hocking and E L James, the vein was rich indeed. I likewise have no doubt that David Mamet and Stephen King and any other already-known name will make trainloads of money on the ebook market. But not everyone found the Colorado Lode when they went west, and not everyone will become a self-publishing success story. I’ve made under two hundred dollars during the last nineteen months of my self-publishing life, which is better than nothing (I will most certainly take it!), but nowhere near life changing.

Magic, alas, did not happen for me.

Honestly, though, if you’re in this for the money (whether from traditional or independent publishing), you’re probably in the wrong business. Get into finance. Learn to code iPhone apps. Open a business and buy for a dollar and sell for two. Anything else, really. Just don’t be a writer. Most writers I know suffer a lot and earn not that much.

What I did get from self-publishing was the energy to write again. I dumped all my old stories that had been rejected for years and years (that I still for whatever reason adored enough not to throw out) into a collection and hit the publish button. It cleared the table. After that, I had nothing to do but write new stuff. And I won’t lie: having self-publishing as a fallback measure makes me feel safe. Whatever I write, I can publish.

I also got a piece of fan mail. It was the first and only one I’ve ever received, but what a moment. We’ve since become good friends, and that’s definitely the single best thing that’s happened as a result of my decision to self-publish.

But who cares about all this preamble. Everyone has a chance to win the lottery. So say you want to give it a shot.  Here are a few things that I’ve learned from my experience.

 

II. What You Might Want to Pay For and What You Might Not

Be suspicious of anything that costs you money. This especially applies to anyone who wants to print your book or format it. DO NOT PAY THESE PEOPLE! With a little effort, there’s no reason you can’t do most of the formatting yourself.

Also do not do what I did and pay for things like:

* ISBNS: I bought ten of them. Used two when I didn’t have to. Now they sit there. Need some?

* Banner ads on websites, or ads anywhere: Guaranteed to not get you the exposure or generate the revenue you’re looking for.

* Too many proof copies: A silly mistake I made, but I was excited. I ordered a box of improperly formatted books. The truth is that you should use the online tools well, and only order one proof copy at a time, because you will make mistakes and no one really wants the broken books.

Also, I never paid for any reviews, nor do I think buying one from a place like Kirkus is a good idea. It costs more than you’re likely to earn, and I’ve read too many stories about people who paid for them and saw no increase in revenue. You’d do better to give your $5K to charity.

What I would pay for, if I could afford it:

* Professional cover art: By far, one of the most important things you can have is a great cover. I don’t. Not really. And guess what? My books don’t sell.

* Proofreading / Editing: It’s so expensive, but it might be worth it. I didn’t go down this road, but a lot of others have. Nothing beats a good editorial eye. Personally, I didn’t have the money to pay for an editor (or anything else, for that matter), so I adopted a practice of reading every story aloud until I could get through it twice without changing a word. I also recorded these readings, so I could listen to the stories on my daily commute. I caught a lot of mistakes, and every time I did, I realized how fallible I really and truly am. Good editors are the stuff of dreams. Someday, I hope to have one.

* Writing classes and books: The best investments you could ever make.

 

III. How to Do the Technical Stuff

All ebooks are essentially stripped-down HTML–the cleaner the better. Basically, my process for converting a document to an ebook is to write it in Word, save it as a Web page, open it in Calibre (free ebook conversion software that I’ll provide a link to), and convert it into an epub that I upload wherever I need to.

Where it gets tricky is if things go wrong in the conversion process. Usually, this happens due to some garbage Word throws in there. So if you’re really having trouble, I’d suggest formatting your book or story as a basic webpage (using Notepad or some other basic text editor that won’t throw in a lot of crap formatting), using the following formatting:

Start with basic HTML.

<html>

<head></head>

<body>

<h1>Wrap chapter titles in header tags, like the ones here.</h1>

<p>Wrap all paragraphs in paragraph tags, like the ones wrapping this line.</p>

<p>Some more fanciness: <strong>Put any bold words in strong tags.</strong> and <em>any italicized words in em tags.</em></p>

<p>After you have your document formatted like this, close out the html.</p>

</body>

</html>

That’s all you need to do to format a document properly. From here, Calibre should be able to do the rest for you, whether you need your document converted to a .mobi file for Kindle, or an .epub for just about everyone else. (And for what it’s worth, I always had more success uploading epubs to Kindle rather than .mobi files, which is sort of funny.)

Calibre allows you to attach a cover image to your book, as well as tweaking some basic information about it (though don’t get worried about this, as I don’t know if any of the other publishing platforms take the information Calibre puts in there seriously).

In Calibre, my process is generally to convert to epub, but I set a couple of special options.

* Structure Detection: In this window, I enter the following in the field that reads “Insert page breaks before (XPath expression)”:

//h:*h1

What this does is create a section break before any of those chapter title tags I recommended earlier that can be interpreted by the table of contents auto-generator. This makes for easier navigation on an e-reader.

* Table of Contents: To complete the process, check the box under this window for ‘Force Use of Auto-Generated Table of Contents’

And that’s really all I do. I encourage you to play around, experiment, and test! Calibre comes with a mock ebook reader, which is okay, but almost all the platforms have some kind of previewing mechanism, which I encourage you to download and use.

One last tip: If you really want to get into the nitty-gritty of an ebook, download a free one without any copyright protection on it, open it in Calibre, right click and choose ‘Tweak eBook.’ From there, click the button to ‘Explode Book’ (a delightful option), and you will be able to browse all the little bits and pieces that make up a valid ebook.

 

IV. Resources & Links

Calibre – http://calibre-ebook.com The single best tool for converting almost every kind of document to any other kind of document. A must for anyone turning things into ebooks.

FlightCrew – https://code.google.com/p/flightcrew The epub validator I use, however you can find and experiment with a number of them online. Just don’t pay for one.

Createspace – https://www.createspace.com My choice for creating a physical book to sell on Amazon and Barnes and Noble (and for just getting a cheap copy printed for yourself!). There’s no minimum number to buy, and a paperback copy of your book (designed by you!) will remain permanently in stock all over the place without you needing to spend a dime. I cannot stress enough how absolutely cool print on demand services like this really are. CreateSpace is affiliated with Amazon, so linking your ebook to your paperback is a piece of cake.

Smashwords – http://www.smashwords.com – A great overall site, which I don’t use. I might, someday, just to reach a few more markets. I like their coupon-generation ability, and their royalty rates can sometimes be higher, however exposing your book to Amazon through them is a bit trickier than I think it should be. Be sure to read their ‘Secrets eBook,’ which contains excellent tips on the self-publishing game – http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/145431

Lulu – http://www.lulu.com A decent clone of Smashwords, if for some reason you don’t like Smashwords.

Kindle Direct Program – https://kdp.amazon.com Amazon’s self-publishing portal. Easy to use, tricky to truly master, but Amazon is certainly where the bulk of my sales have been. It’s accounted for 99% of my sales. So if you’re going to self-publish, don’t ignore them.

iTunes Connect – https://itunesconnect.apple.com/WebObjects/iTunesConnect.woa The portal to publishing your book on Apple’s iBookstore, where I’ve made the least amount of money.

Nook Press – https://www.nookpress.com The portal to selling your work on Barnes and Noble’s website.

Duotrope – https://duotrope.com For people looking to go the traditional route, or find the perfect little niche market to sell a reprint of a story they’ve self-published, this site (which requires a bit of money but is worth every penny) is one I’ve found indispensable. A rich database of markets and their response times, Duotrope puts anything I ever saw from Writer’s Market to complete shame. Thanks to this site, I usually have anywhere from 3-12 pieces out for rejection at any given time, and I’ve made a personal pledge to myself to never again let the number of responses outnumber the number of submissions I have in the wind.

 

V. About Amazon & Pricing Strategies

Amazon likes to push you into a little exclusivity agreement. The sales pitch is that Amazon users can read your book as part of the Kindle Owner’s Lending Library, and that any copies borrowed in such a way will earn you a portion of a monthly pot of gold (usually somewhere between 500,000 and 1,000,000 dollars). It does end up being a little more than you’d usually make on the 35/70% royalty, and it seems better for Kindle owners, who don’t have to pay for your book. You also get five days every ninety days you’re in the program to offer your book free of charge to Amazon customers, which can generate a lot of exposure.

The catch is that you can’t sell your book anywhere else.

In the end, I guess I’ve made so little from the other markets that it shouldn’t bother me to only sell through Amazon.

But it does. It’s the principle of the thing. Exclusivity rubs me the wrong way. I don’t like any organization that seeks to limit the audience for a book. Sure, Borders or Barnes and Noble would no doubt sell more copies of a book than Book Marcs (an old bookstore I spent a lot of time in), but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t want to let Book Marcs stock it.

Of course, Barnes and Noble have aligned themselves on the side of exclusivity in the self-publishing wars, as well, stating in the past that they wouldn’t stock any physical copies of books produced by Amazon.

I hate it all.

As for my favorite part — the five days you can give you book away to customers — you can get that without going exclusive. Simply do what I did and offer it for free somewhere else, like Barnes and Noble or iTunes. Amazon will figure out you’ve set a lower price somewhere, and they’ll start giving your book away to everyone under their “Free Price Match Guarantee” until you change your anti-capitalist ways.

I gave my book away for several months, until it occurred to me that people would have almost zero inclination to read a book they picked up for free. So now I charge $.99, which makes me look only slightly more reputable.

Pricing your book is a gentle art, which you should play around with. Experiment. Track sales. Change it up or down, and never assume the answer to greater sales is to cut the price. Sometimes, a higher price signifies better quality, and the Amazon $.99 bin starts looking like a garbage can, or just another pile of ignorable slush.

Which for the most part is exactly what it is.

 

VI. How to Promote Your Book (i.e., Social Networking is a Waste of Time, and read something other than this primer)

Twitter and Facebook are not the tools you should use to market your book. They do not work, and hounding your followers or your friends will get you LESS attention, rather than more. So forget about it.

I also have limited faith in the power of a blog. Also, shouldn’t you focus on writing stories rather than blog posts, anyway? [asked the writer, in a post on his blog.]

Promote your book by giving it a good title that accurately describes what it’s about, a great cover that conveys the tone and looks professional, and a carefully crafted description that makes people want to read your book and is coded with words important for search engine optimization.

Yeah. And I have no idea how to do this part of it. I’m terrible at it. Instead, I’m going to point you to a book I read that convinced me I was doing everything wrong:

http://www.amazon.com/Blogging-Facebook-Guerilla-Marketers-ebook/dp/B007XVWEIU

It’s a good book that I should read again and do a better job of learning from, and it supports some of the more contentious points I’ve made in this primer, which I hope you’ve found useful.

That said …

 

VII. A Special Offer for Everyone (While My Time Lasts)

Even with all these resources, I often ran up against challenges (often with the technical, idiosyncratic formatting issues that prevented the book being listed with iTunes). Luckily, I have a background as an Internet applications developer, so I was able to troubleshoot. The solutions were often simple tricks, easy to implement if you know how, and I encourage you to at least try to learn how to do it yourself before paying someone hundreds of dollars to do something that only takes a few minutes.

For that reason, I’d like to offer myself as a resource if any of you have technical trouble self-publishing ebook versions of your stories. Please, don’t hesitate to send me an e-mail with any and all questions, technical or otherwise, at daukherville [at] gmail [dot] com, or ask a question in the comments below. I might not have a good answer for everything, but I’m more than happy to share everything I do know.

And good luck out there! I hope you become hugely successful writers–self-published or otherwise.

Give ’em hell.

A Review in 100 Pieces: The Century’s Best Horror Fiction, 1905: R. Murray Gilchrist’s “The Lover’s Ordeal”

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March 10, 2013
100 Days 100 Stories
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Recently, I purchased The Century’s Best Horror Fiction, a beautiful two-volume set of short horror stories, edited by John Pelan and published by Cemetery Dance Publications. I feel like something this epic deserves special treatment, and so I’m challenging myself to read one story a day for the next 100 days, posting reviews as I go. Tonight, I read a tale chosen from the year 1905: R. Murray Gilchrist’s “The Lover’s Ordeal” …

Cool story with an excellent set-up of someone saying to his lover that he wished she’d challenge him to some great ordeal to prove his worth. She challenges him to spend a night in a haunted house. So he goes, happily. I like that a lot: the idea of the hero riding with good cheer to a haunted house. I’d definitely do that, and it felt quite realistic to me.

I’ll stop here, because this is a really short story. It’s really good, despite some mythological liberties that I wasn’t entirely on board with.

The last line is outstanding.

Giving this one 4/5 stars, for brevity and charming realism, and for really bringing it home in the final moments.

A Review in 100 Pieces: The Century’s Best Horror Fiction, 1904: Arthur Machen’s “The White People”

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March 8, 2013
100 Days 100 Stories
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Recently, I purchased The Century’s Best Horror Fiction, a beautiful two-volume set of short horror stories, edited by John Pelan and published by Cemetery Dance Publications. I feel like something this epic deserves special treatment, and so I’m challenging myself to read one story a day for the next 100 days, posting reviews as I go. Tonight, I read a tale chosen from the year 1904: Arthur Machen’s “The White People” …

Arthur Machen’s more familiar to me as the author of “The Great God Pan,” which Stephen King claims is one of the best horror stories ever written. Since that story was originally published in 1890, I guess it just missed the cut for the collection of the twentieth century’s best horror fiction. It turns out, that’s okay, because “The White People” is another excellent Machen story.

The story starts with a conversation between two men, Ambrose and Cotgrave, about the nature of evil. Ambrose details his theory that true evil is a rare thing and that most people are as incapable of it as they are incapable of being considered saints. Evil, to him, is something rare and lonely and transformative. To further explain his argument, he lends Cotgrave the diary of a young girl, which then serves as the bulk of the narrative.

The story the girl tells is quite bizarre, and I’m still coming to terms with it. The girl is caught up in a mystery surrounding a place she has found where there are a great many strange stones and a large round mound of earth. Odd things happen when she visits, and it almost seemed to me that she was eventually going to turn into the old woman in Samuel Beckett’s Ill Seen Ill Said, wandering around rocks in the gloom until she died. There’s also an echo of Machen’s tale in Guillermo del Toro’s fantasy film, Pan’s Labyrinth, as both stories have a lot to do with the power of a young girl’s imagination.

Ultimately, “The White People” seems to relate somehow to witchcraft, although to claim that that’s all the story is about is to reduce it too much. Visionary, artistic, and troubling–this one really worked for me, and I think it’s one I’ll come back to again and again.

Giving it 5/5 stars, for being extraordinary.

A Review in 100 Pieces: The Century’s Best Horror Fiction, 1903: H. G. Wells’s “The Valley of Spiders”

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March 7, 2013
100 Days 100 Stories
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Recently, I purchased The Century’s Best Horror Fiction, a beautiful two-volume set of short horror stories, edited by John Pelan and published by Cemetery Dance Publications. I feel like something this epic deserves special treatment, and so I’m challenging myself to read one story a day for the next 100 days, posting reviews as I go. Tonight, I read a tale chosen from the year 1903: H. G. Wells’s “The Valley of Spiders” …

Three men enter a valley, chasing a runaway girl. I’ll let you guess what kind of creature soon attacks them.

What I won’t do is spoil the beautiful way in which the spiders (oh, oops, sorry–I just gave it away! damn!) arrive. Wells came up with some striking visuals in his stories, and “The Valley of Spiders” likewise impresses. It’s creative and fresh even a hundred years later.

Likewise, the story, which could otherwise seem like a plot-centered adventure stories, does some nice things with its characterizations. The final two scenes overlap the behaviors of men and spiders, while also offering some dramatic interplay between pride and cowardice. The themes come together well in quite a short amount of time.

Wells pulls off a bit of an interesting trick here, too, by having the actual heroes of the story are more or less nowhere to be seen for the duration of his tale (unless, like me, you’re the type to route for the spiders). Part of the suspense has nothing to do with the fate of the men we’re reading about; as things get worse for them, curiosity increases as to the fate of the people these men are pursuing. When Wells resolves the mystery, he does so with characteristic grace and economy.

Some of the description of the more action-heavy scenes left me cold, but overall, this is another really solid story.

Giving it 4/5. Classic spider mayhem!

 

 

A Review in 100 Pieces: The Century’s Best Horror Fiction, 1902: W. W. Jacobs’s “The Monkey’s Paw”

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March 6, 2013
100 Days 100 Stories
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Recently, I purchased The Century’s Best Horror Fiction, a beautiful two-volume set of short horror stories, edited by John Pelan and published by Cemetery Dance Publications. I feel like something this epic deserves special treatment, and so I’m challenging myself to read one story a day for the next 100 days, posting reviews as I go. Tonight, I read a tale chosen from the year 1902: W. W. Jacobs’s “The Monkey’s Paw” …

Tonight was not my first time reading this classic short story, and I always want to like it more than I do. Yes, I respect the craft; the writing is decent enough, and I admire the little flourish of beginning with a chess game lost (chess being one of those games where it is important to think ahead, look before you leap, etc., etc.), which I think was lost on me the first few times I read this story. The prose is clean, the details evocative, and you have to at least give some points to any story where a character is described as being “armed with an antimacassar.”

Oh, domestic weapons!

But the truth is, I resent this story a little. The plot involves the hideous results of a family making three well-intentioned wishes on a shriveled monkey’s paw after being warned not to by the person who brings it into their house. It reminds me of the standard situational comedy model, where a TV show’s characters could concoct all sorts of crazy plans to better their lives, but the viewer always knew that nothing would ever work and that next week everyone would still be right where they started. Or, if not sitcoms, it reminds me of all the hundreds of clones of this story I read in the old EC Comics. Wishes never work out in fiction, and there are few tropes more irritating to the intellect; if I could have a wish, it would be that all characters who make wishes on monkeys’ paws could make smarter wishes. Instead of saying, “I wish for 200 pounds,” say, “I wish to find a forgotten sack of two hundred pounds on my front lawn and for no one to be hurt or harmed or emotionally scarred in the process.” But no. Every character wishes for things that are easily done in horrible ways.

But I  guess the point is conveyed: be careful what you wish for, indeed!

Still, the events of the story seem overly manipulative to me in a way I don’t appreciate. The end is a foregone conclusion, and it’s more frustrating than fun to read about the failure of these characters to think just a little bit ahead.

I give this story 3/5 stars, with apologies for bringing my own personal baggage into a classic tale.

A Review in 100 Pieces: The Century’s Best Horror Fiction, 1901: Barry Pain’s “The Undying Thing”

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March 5, 2013
100 Days 100 Stories
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Recently, I purchased The Century’s Best Horror Fiction, a beautiful two-volume set of short horror stories, edited by John Pelan and published by Cemetery Dance Publications. I feel like something this epic deserves special treatment, and so I’m challenging myself to read one story a day for the next 100 days, posting reviews as I go.

Tonight, I read a tale chosen from the year 1901: Barry Pain’s “The Undying Thing.”

What a way to begin a collection! This story is outstanding.

I’m unfamiliar with Pain’s work, so I had to look him up. I’m not surprised at all to find that he was primarily a humorist. There are a great number of delightfully funny lines in “The Undying Thing,” despite a somber beginning, and its tone reminds me a lot of The Haunting of Hill House, where the only thing that matches the excellence of the spookiness is the wit of the characters.

“The Undying Thing” spans several generations, moving through time with beautiful ease. It’s an effortless story to read, which surprised me given its age. A family is cursed because of a choice made during a time of crisis. Lord Edric, the third baronet in the Vanquerest line, tries to rid the family of an abomination, but, as such things often do in tales like this, it is not so easily discarded. For decades, it haunts the village, until it becomes local folklore to be considered over drinks at the local bar.

Pain creates well-rounded characters in precious little time, and they’re all quite likable. Even the biggest curmudgeon at the bar has a few admirable qualities and is given a moment to shine. While the end may seem somewhat rote and the sum total somewhat ordinary at this late date, the execution of it is damn near perfect.

Giving this story 4/5 for being classic horror, really well told.

February’s Story Drafted, So How Do I Feel? (Plus: Reading at Black and White on Sunday)

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February 27, 2013
12 Months, 12 Stories, News and Events, Short Fiction
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First of all, for any readers of this blog in the NYC area, I’ll be going to Black and White (86 E. 10th St, btw 3rd and 4th Ave.) to participate in the readings starting at 8pm this Sunday. Who knows what I’ll read.

But who am I kidding. I think I know all my readers by name, and most of you live out of state.

More importantly, last night I compiled all the pieces of the first draft of “Seal,” which is the second short story in my 12 months, 12 stories project for 2013.

Today, I’ve been wondering how I feel about it. I think I feel good, but I can’t escape a crippling sense of depression. Maybe it’s my standard post-partum; maybe it’s something else. I feel super-critical of the piece right now (the story centers around a mom who doesn’t want to be a mom, and writing a horror story about that strikes me now as potentially terribly sexist, which was exactly the opposite of my intent), and perhaps the sadness of having fallen short of my own goals is what’s at work on me right now.

Or maybe I’m just tired. It’s been a long couple of days.

But now I’m going to let this one sit and go back to “Sprachlos” for another draft before March comes around the corner and I start work on “Special Formats Processing.”