IN THE MEAN TIME by Paul Tremblay

IN THE MEAN TIME by Paul Tremblay is a collection of weird short fiction that lives up to its title, offering readers fifteen sociopolitical tales that inform us of inner conflict as well as interpersonal conflicts, world-ending plagues, psychological horror, and inconsolable loss as they lead us down dangerous avenues where adaptability and resiliency are the only means of defense and survival. IN THE MEAN TIME unfolds in a merciless world not unlike our own, and yet distinctly different from ours – as different and distinct as the writing style and literary voice employed in the telling of these tales.

The first story-offering is titled “The Teacher” in which a high school teacher employs unorthodox methodology to instruct his students on the subject of violence. This story is one of my favorites. The rest of the stories in order of TOC are as follows: “The Two-Headed Girl” – in which a young child compensates for loss in a most unusual manner; “The Strange Case of Nicholas Thomas: An Excerpt from A History of the Longesian Library” – where readers of Tremblay’s novella CITY PIER: ABOVE AND BELOW revisit City in a tale about the mysterious balloons of Annotte that appear every nineteen years and wreak havoc on the residents; “Feeding the Machine” – a cautionary tale about denial and sublimating suicidal urges; “Figure 5” – a visually stunning, other-worldly story about the merging of art and plague, bringing to mind the Garten der Luste triptych painted by Hieronymus Bosch, another favorite of mine; “Growing Things” – in which two young sisters battle urban botany gone terribly wrong; “Harold the Spider Man” – gives us a recluse who keeps some unusual eight legged pets with odd appetites; “Rhymes with Jew” – a sociopolitical tale about class distinction; “The Marlborough Man Meets the End” – three brothers wage war on advertizing and the destruction of habitat; “The Blog at the End of the World” – an online blogger who details mysterious deaths occurring in and around her city; “The People Who Live Near Me” – psychological horror utilizing the unreliable narrator in a tale about projective identification and decompensation, my third favorite in this collection; “There’s No Light Between the Floors” – a nuanced tale with a nod to Lovecraft about the survivors of an apocalyptic event; “Headstones in Your Pocket” – a USA border patrol agent will stop at nothing to quell his haunted past; “It’s Against the Law to Feed the Ducks” – a riff on Shirley Jackson’s “The Summer People” about a family on vacation trying to cope with the disappearance of fellow vacationers; “We Will Never Live in the Castle” – another riff on a Shirley Jackson story, her famous and last novel WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE, in which a disenfranchised teenage boy sets up housekeeping in an abandoned amusement park after an end-of-the-world disaster has occurred, and lays siege to “Cinderella’s Castle”.

Paul Tremblay is the author of COMPOSITIONS FOR THE YOUNG AND OLD, his first collection of short fiction; two novellas titled CITY PIER: ABOVE AND BELOW and THE HARLEQUIN AND THE TRAIN; THE LITTLE SLEEP and its sequel NO SLEEP TILL WONDERLAND, two Chandleresque crime noir novels featuring protagonist Mark Genevich, the narcoleptic detective.

Learn more here.

RUBY SLIPPERS, GOLDEN TEARS edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling

When I was a child, mythology and fairy tales took up a huge portion of my reading time, informing me at a young age that tragedy is but only one of the many inescapable aspects of being alive in this world, and probably the greatest common denominator connecting humans to one another; and that in between our frequent bouts of grief we humans can sometimes experience paradoxical bliss - a truism oft times illustrated in fairy tales. So it was no small joy for me to read RUBY SLIPPERS, GOLDEN TEA...moreWhen I was a child, mythology and fairy tales took up a huge portion of my reading time, informing me at a young age that tragedy is but only one of the many inescapable aspects of being alive in this world, and probably the greatest common denominator connecting humans to one another; and that in between our frequent bouts of grief we humans can sometimes experience paradoxical bliss - a truism oft times illustrated in fairy tales. So it was no small joy for me to read RUBY SLIPPERS, GOLDEN TEARS: A Modern Book of Adult Fairytales, edited by the estimable team of Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, who have a long list of co-edited anthologies behind them as testament to their extraordinary talent for putting together wonderfully entertaining and emotionally provocative stories. Together, Datlow and Windling have edited several excellent volumes of classic fairy tales, interpreted and retold by some of the best story-tellers writing today - with RUBY SLIPPERS, GOLDEN TEARS standing tall as the third volume in their fairytale series. Datlow and Windling write in their introduction to RUBY SLIPPERS, GOLDEN TEARS: Three's the charm. Indeed it is. I cannot remember when I last enjoyed reading an original fantasy anthology as much as I loved reading RUBY SLIPPERS, GOLDEN TEARS, as each consecutive story I read made me shake my head in amazement and mutter to myself that this one must indeed be the best story thus far - until I moved on to the next story, then on to the one after that. The fairy tales are that good, with three of the tales poetic renderings of traditional themes. In fact, if I were to reference the poet Robert Graves I would have to say that the very foundation from which all true poetry originates is the primary constant throughout this book and for me to favor one tale over another would be misleading, since I loved them all. But if pressed I would choose the following: "Summer Wind" by Nancy Kress - a variation on the Briar Rose fairy tale in which the Wyrd Sisters hold together the fabric of creation unseen; "The Death of Koshchei the Deathless" by Gene Wolfe - a clever riff on the Oedipus theme and the eternal dance between creatrix and creation; "The Real Princess" by Susan Palwick - a disturbing tale in which something far worse than the-pea-under-the-mattress determines the balance; "Match Girl" by Anne Bishop - a heart-wrenching tale about sexual abuse and survival; "The Fox Wife" by Ellen Steiber - a visually stunning story about shape-shifting in late nineteenth-century Japan; "The Traveler and the Tale" by Jane Yolen - an SF fairy tale in which visions perceived and myths deliberately sown cross boundaries and shape the future; "The Printer's Daughter" by Delia Sherman - a perfect closing fairy tale for an extraordinary book! Rounding out RUBY SLIPPERS, GOLDEN TEARS, and equally as stunning as the aforementioned stories, are "Ruby Slippers" by Susan Wade - a sardonic riff on the Red Shoes ballet and the Wizard of Oz, á la Hollywood; "The Beast" by Tanith Lee - in which Psyche meets up with a serial killer, in this dark take on "Beauty and the Beast"; "Masterpiece" by Garry Kilworth - with Rumpelstiltskin as Mephistopheles exacting his due; "This Century of Sleep or, Briar Rose Beneath the Sea" by Farida S. T. Shapiro -an eloquent and visually inspiring poem about the earth; "The Crossing" by Joyce Carol Oates - another variation of Sleeping Beauty in which a woman returns home to find a bizarre dreamscape awaiting her; "Roach in Loafers" by Roberta Lanne - an amusing riff on "The Shoemaker and the Elves" meets "Puss in Boots" (Chinese take-out included); ""Naked Little Men" by Michael Cadnum - a whimsical tale about the discontented Shoemaker and his frustrated wife; "Brother Bear" by Lisa Goldstein - a Native American flavored version of "Goldilocks and the Three Bears"; "The Emperor Who Had Never Seen a Dragon" by John Brunner - in which a humble painter of dragons outsmarts a cruel and stupid ruler; "Billy Fearless" by Nancy A. Collins - a quirky take on the Brothers Grimm's "A Tale About a Boy Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was" with "The House on Haunted Hill" thrown in for good measure; "The Huntsman's Story" by Milbre Burch - a tragic and short tale based on "Snow White"; "After Push Comes to Shove" also by Milbre Burch - a poetic rendering of Hansel and Grettel; "Hansel and Grettel" by Gahan Wilson - a modern tale of narcissism and cupidity; "Waking the Prince" by Kathe Koja - a tale of disappointment and denial as Sleeping Beauty switches gender roles; "The White Road" by Neil Gaiman - a chilling poem in which western Europe's shape-shifting Mr. Fox is much, much more than he claims to be. RUBY SLIPPERS, GOLDEN TEARS closes with a section on recommended reading for those who wish to read more about fairy tales and their origins. I cannot say enough in praise of RUBY SLIPPERS, GOLDEN TEARS, except read and judge the anthology yourself. I think you will find it most favorable. Highly recommended!

THE LIGHT IS THE DARKNESS by Laird Barron

THE LIGHT IS THE DARKNESS
by
Laird Barron


A Review
7 September 2011

Modern day gladiator Conrad Navarro has Daddy issues of the Biblical kind, and Dad is not a sympathetic character. In fact, none of the characters in this tale of stygian darkness can be described as sympathetic as they act out their betrayal from a specific yet mutable hell tailor-made for world domination by the Old Ones. With a stylistic nod to William S. Burrough’s NAKED LUNCH, Barron takes us on a non-linear odyssey through what, on the surface, resembles the mad landscape of a schizophrenic’s inner world, and it is not until the very last page that we fully understand the horrific objective in this tale of deliberate madness.
THE LIGHT IS THE DARKNESS allows readers to briefly revisit Barron’s former stories The Imago Sequence, Six Six Six, Proboscis, -30-, and Old Virginia, to name a few, and garner a clearer understanding of “the Bigger Picture,” in which Barron has included the flip side of the savior theme. This said, abandon all hope, ye who enter here, for here you will not find redemption. The beginning is the end and the end is the beginning as the worm turns and Ouroboros devours its tail. Readers who have already ventured into horror literature, especially those of you already familiar with Laird Barron’s brand of Lovecraftian Mythos (if not, may I suggest you read his excellent collections THE IMAGO SEQUENCE and OCCULTATION) are in for some shivers.
Wealthy industrialist Cyrano Kosokian sponsors genetically engineered gladiator Conrad Navarro in a global underworld fighting ring that makes legal cage fighting look like a church quilting bee, as these gladiators fight to the death, just like they did back in the good old days of sovereign Rome. But our protagonist Conrad is distracted from his customary rigorous training for these championship bouts because he is obsessed with the disappearance of his FBI sister, Imogene “Genie” Navarro. Conrad suspects Genie is a victim of the mysterious Dr. Drake, an aged geneticist who specializes in eugenics experiments and torture, and embarks upon a mission to find Imogene, or at least find out what happened to her.
What Navarro finds instead is the meaning of his life.
For more information on Laird Barron’s novel, go here: http://www.bloodletting-press.com/tag/the-light-is-the-darkness/
If you are a Laird Barron reader, this is a must read.