The Midnight Diner is a speculative fiction series specifically interested in stories about faith, belief, religion, culture, spirituality, society, humanity and, above all, open to GOOD WRITING of SPECULATIVE nature. And, no restrictions on language or violence or sexual nature – as long as it serves the story.

Above all, the goal of this anthology series is to:

spec·u·late: 1.  to engage in thought or reflection; meditate; 2. to indulge in conjectural thought

And all the stories are:

spec·u·la·tive: 1. pertaining to, of the nature of, or characterized by speculation,  contemplation, conjecture, or abstract reasoning

So you can see what potential we have here at The Diner.  It’s a speculative anthology series.  Which means, LOTS of genres are/can be represented:

Action-Adventure

Horror (Creature Horror, Paranormal, Lovecraftian, Quiet Horror)

Mystery/Crime/Hardboiled

Science Fiction

Weird Fiction

Suspense/Thriller

Westerns

Weird Westerns

Archetypal

Twilight Zone

Which makes The Third Level, a collection of short stories by the late Jack Finney, a must-read for folks looking to submit to future editions of the Diner (and a must read for speculative writers in general). This collection boasts great stories about odd little occurrences: slips in time, dimension-bending, fortune-telling, and other “odd” events that take place in the out of the way, forgotten corners of the world.

Imagine Bradbury – but told straight.  Without some of the lyricism and wide-eyed wonder.  And this is what makes the collection so powerful: Finney very gently, subtly  ushers each story into the odd and the bizarre and the strange.

Many of these stories deal with time travel, but focus more on things like: fate, predestination, “what ifs”, social climate change, rather than method (again, making his work very much like Bradbury’s).

Also, several of the stories are like “flip-side” tales of the weirdness we read about every day in the newspaper. So there’s a newspaper story about an odd corpse found in an alley, wearing out-of-date clothing, ancient currency lining its pockets? Well, here’s the story theorizing how that happened (“I’m Scared”).

I highly recommend these stories for not only their imaginative nature, but because of Finney’s light touch.  These stories ease into their realms of weirdness, almost without the reader even realizing it, at first.  And there’s wonderful synchronicity in his work. In other words, when you sit back and consider how he ushered you into weirdness, it makes sense.

Like the young man who’s a misfit in his generation, a man “out of time” because of his love for old cars, who lovingly spends hours restoring an old car, an old car that none of his peers like (not even the gals), then goes driving along an old side-road itself over a hundred years old – and suddenly, in the middle of this confluence, he finds himself almost thirty or forty years in the past (“Second Chance”).

And he’s there for a reason. Which is another nice touch to a lot of these stories. There’s a reason or purpose – even if impersonal Fate – behind these little time hiccups.

The Third Level’s out-of-print, but there are a few places you can snag it at reasonable price, second-hand:

Amazon.com - $4.99

Abebooks.com – $5.00

Definitely worth every penny. Used book stores may have it, also. I highly recommend hunting up a copy.

Kevin Lucia is a Contributing Editor for Shroud Magazine, a podcaster for Tales to Terrify and a blogger for The Midnight Diner. His short fiction has appeared in several anthologies. He’s currently finishing his Creative Writing Masters Degree at Binghamton University, he teaches high school English and lives in Castle Creek, New York with his wife and children. He is the author of Hiram Grange & The Chosen One, Book Four of The Hiram Grange Chronicles, and he’s currently working on his first novel. Visit him on the web at www.kevinlucia.com.

Unfortunately, with all the busyness surrounding the end of the school year and vacation, I’ve let this series fall idle. Time to pick it back up, get things going again. To recap: I’ve been recalling several of the writers I’ve encountered over the last year and half that have really broadened my horizons in the horror genre.   As I’ve said before, I’m one of those folks who used to say: “Sure, I read horror – Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and Peter Straub. Maybe John Saul, too.”

And that was it.

About a year and a half ago, I embarked on a mission to encounter OTHER horror writers.  Why? A good reason can be found here, in Brian Keene’s Keynote Address for AnthoCon 2011, “Roots”. Because how can you create something new, if you haven’t studied what has come before? (Note: I also have no life, and would rather read than experience actual human contact with anyone outside my immediate family, so this works out very conveniently).

I decided to share my thoughts here, because – as I mentioned in my first episode of Horror List 101 at Tales to Terrify – it’s very easy to get stuck in a rut. Have a narrow reading selection, even in the age of the Internet, and with libraries, and all that.  If you don’t even know the questions to ask, you don’t know where to find the answers.  So, my modest hope is to point young writers in the right direction.  Especially writers hoping to submit to future editions of The Midnight Diner.

So, here’s this week’s much-belated selection.  Critically acclaimed writer, Al Sarrantonio.  As always, a little Wikipedia-fueled background.

Al Sarrantonio (born May 25, 1952, in New York City) is an American horror and science fiction author who has published, over the past thirty-five years, more than forty-five books and eighty short stories. He has also edited numerous anthologies and has been called “brilliant” and “a master anthologist” by Booklist.

In 1976 Sarrantonio began a professional editing career at a major New York publishing house. His first short fiction, “Ahead of the Joneses,” appeared in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine in 1978, followed by a story in Heavy Metal magazine the following year. In 1980 he published 14 short stories. In 1982, after leaving publishing to become a full time writer, he began his first novel, The Worms, followed by Campbell Wood, Totentanz and The Boy with Penny Eyes. He quickly established himself in the horror field with such much-anthologized stories as “Pumpkin Head”, “The Man With Legs”, “Father Dear,” “Wish”, and “Richard’s Head,” (all of which appear in his first short story collection, Toybox). “Richard’s Head” brought him his first Bram Stoker Award nomination.

Sarrantonio is currently in the midst of a horror saga revolving around Halloween, which takes place in the fictional upstate New York town of Orangefield (novels to date: Halloweenland, Hallows Eve and Horrorween, the last of which incorporates three shorter Orangefield pieces: the short novel Orangefield, and novelettes Hornets and The Pumpkin Boy). Other horror novels include Moonbane, October, House Haunted and Skeletons. He has also written Westerns (West Texas and Kitt Peak), mysteries (Cold Night and Summer Cool) and science fiction (the Edgar Rice Burroughs-inflected trilogy Haydn of Mars, Sebastian of Mars and Queen of Mars, omnibused as Masters of Mars by the Science Fiction Book Club, 2006).

Sarrantonio was book reviewer for Night Cry magazine, the short-lived digest-sized offshoot of the Twilight Zone Magazine, and has been a critic and columnist for other publications. Because he has worn so many hats (novelist, short story writer, critic, essayist, editor, publisher, anthologist) and worked in so many genres (he has even edited three collections of humor, including The National Lampoon Treasury of Humor) his work, always interesting and often brilliant, has not, perhaps, gained the attention it deserves.

Ironically enough, I encountered Al’s later work in the Orangefield novels, before moving on to his earlier novels. If I remember correctly, I’d just finished Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes and was jonesing for some more spooky, cider-spiced, autumn-crisp Halloween-themed horror.  A quick search through Amazon turned up Halloweenland, Hallows Eve and Horrorween, so I snapped those babies right up.

And loved them.  Very clearly written in the spirit of Something Wicked This Way Comes, every word practically glowing with Bradbury-esque descriptions of autumn and Halloween (with an evil carnival to boot), the Orangefield books tell of this strange town in upstate New York that always gets a little “odd” during Halloween. That’s because the ancient demon Samhain is trying to break through the thinned veils into our world.

Lots of writers have tried to invoke Bradbury’s haunted, October magic. In my opinion, Sarrantonio is one of the few who’ve actually done it well, while maintaining his own style.  However, in some ways, the Orangefield novels read as homages of Bradbury’s Halloween.  Two more original – yet still Bradbury inspired – works are Totentanz and October.

Totentanz is basically Sarrantonio’s Something Wicked This Way Comes, though it has several unique twists – including an immortal prisoner of the carnival – that make it Sarrantonio’s own.  It still has all those classic vibes, though.  Of that evil carnival visiting town, offering up pleasures and delights and gifts and treasures…for a small price, of course. October, about an ancient, recurring evil that lives and breathes through others, hums with Bradbury’s soul, but the words and ideas are all Sarrantonio’s.

Perhaps my favorite work of his – so far- is The Boy With Penny Eyes, an eerie tale about a strange, emotionless boy…with copper-colored eyes.  He’s not quite right, this boy. Not quite normal.  Maybe not even completely human, and he knows things.  Things about us, deep inside.  And, he’s got a mission.  A purpose.  Of terrible, dread intent.

Best thing about Penny Eyes is the neat little switch Sarrantonio plays. Won’t go into too much detail, but he definitely leads you by the nose in one direction, then skilfully, smoothly flips everything on its head.

Unfortunately, as of this date I haven’t consumed as much of his short work as I would’ve liked to. I have one of his collections – Toybox – but just haven’t gotten around to it.  I did recently read one of his shorts, “The Only”, from the Charles Granted edited series Graystone Bay. Based on that story, I’ll definitely be digging into the Toybox soon (see what I did there?).  Also, two other novels of his I own that I was hoping to have read by now but haven’t are Skeletons and House Haunted.

Also, I’ve not been able to check out any of Sarrantonio’s edited collections, as of yet. I want to, because word has it he ranks right up there with Charles Grant as an anthologist. Portents and Stories are on my wishlist.  As someone who has a passing interest in being an editor himself someday (when I’m ready, and who knows when that’ll be), his edited collections are must reads, from all accounts.

Anyway, the king of October spookyness is Ray Bradbury, of course.  But the darker prince would be Al Sarrantonio, so his work is highly recommended. AND, like many veteran horror authors, Sarrantonio’s out of print work has come back in affordable ebook from through Crossroads Press. So snatch that stuff up for your preferred ereader today.

Kevin Lucia is a Contributing Editor for Shroud Magazine, a podcaster for Tales to Terrify and a blogger for The Midnight Diner. His short fiction has appeared in several anthologies. He’s currently finishing his Creative Writing Masters Degree at Binghamton University, he teaches high school English and lives in Castle Creek, New York with his wife and children. He is the author of Hiram Grange & The Chosen One, Book Four of The Hiram Grange Chronicles, and he’s currently working on his first novel. Visit him on the web at www.kevinlucia.com.

One of the wonderful discoveries I made in perusing the Whispers anthology series was Manly Wade Wellman‘s “Silver John, the Balladeer.”  As always, a little background first:

Manly Wade Wellman (May 21, 1903 – April 5, 1986) was an American writer. While his science fiction and fantasy stories appeared in such pulps as Astounding Stories, Startling Stories, Unknown and Strange Stories, he is best remembered as one of the most popular contributors to the legendary Weird Tales, and for his fantasy and horror stories set in the Appalachian Mountains, which draw on the native folklore of that region. Wellman also wrote in a wide variety of other genres, including historical fiction, detective fiction, western fiction, juvenile fiction, and non-fiction. Karl Edward Wagner referred to him as “the dean of fantasy writers”. ^[1]

Wellman was a long-time resident of North Carolina. He received many awards, including the World Fantasy Award and Edgar Allan Poe Award.

Three of Wellman’s most famous reappearing protagonists are Silver John, aka John the Balladeer, the wandering backwoods minstrel with a silver-stringed guitar; the elderly ‘occult detective‘ Judge Pursuivant; and John Thunstone, also an occult investigator. (from Wikipedia)

Now, it’s fair to say I’ve barely scratched the surface when it comes to Wellman’s work. All I’ve read is a sampling of his “Silver John” stories. Silver John, however, is a fascinating character.  Here’s a bit about Silver John himself:

Silver John is a fictional character from a series of fantasy stories by Manly Wade Wellman. Though fans refer to him as Silver John or as John the Balladeer, the stories call him simply John. He is an example of the loner hero.

The stories are set in the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina. The time is never explicitly given but seems to be the middle of the twentieth century. John is a wandering singer who carries a guitar with silver strings. He is a veteran of the Korean War and resembles a young Johnny Cash. He frequently encounters creatures and superstitions from the folk tales and superstitions of the mountain people. Though John has no special skills or weapons (other than basic Army training), his courage, wit and essential goodness always allow him to triumph over supernatural evils. He has an implied mystic link of some sort to John the Baptist, and much of his personal philosophy can be traced to a “primitive”, Gospel-based, Christianity. He is widely read, and it is implied that his knowledge of folk legendarium is of Ph.D level. On one occasion he is “employed” by the State Department to investigate on their behalf a possible instance of Satanism.

The stories are rich in the customs and lore of the region and many of the folk songs John sings are authentic as well. Wellman did introduce some original songs and legends but his creations blend seamlessly with the traditional material. Whereas Tolkien integrated Northern mythology into his mythos, and C.S. Lewis the European Fairy Tales of yore, Wellman’s stories are drenched in the folktales and songs of old Americana; the haunting stories of the slaves and the tall tales of the Revolution, strange beasts, witch-women, and dark apparitions. As famed author Karl Edward Wagner wrote: “These stories are chilling and enchanting, magical and down-to-earth, full of wonder and humanity. They are fun. They are like nothing else you’ve read before.”

The short stories of John have been collected three times, as Who Fears the Devil? (1963), John the Balladeer (1988), and Owls Hoot in Daytime and Other Omens (2003). In addition, there are five novels about John. Wellman was planning an additional novel, to be titled The Valley So Low, but died before writing it. The title would be used for a collection of his stories, instead. (from Wikipedia)

I first encountered Silver John in the story “Where Does She Wander?”, in one of the Whispers anthologies.  It was a revelation.  Here was “genre-blending” long before it became a buzz-word and fad. And how? Because Wellman was tapping into myth, legend and folklore – and I think it’s safe to say that fantasy and horror both spring from those roots.

And John is a wonderful character.  A man wandering the countryside, eschewing complicated, “modern” and “sophisticated” life in pursuit of a quiet and simple one.  Full of arcane knowledge and a deep spirituality and faith in God, John lives simply and peacefully.

While dispatching demons and spirits and gremlins and beasties of folklore along the way, of course. He’s an iconic character, and more than one author – Brian Keene, being one, with his fan-favorite character, Amish mage Levi Stolzfus – has claimed him as an inspiration.

My first Silver John experience was the collection of short stories, Who Fears the Devil? What I really enjoyed about this is its linked nature: all the stories proceed in order as John makes his way across the countryside, and each stop along his way, he encounters some monster or demon or even a moderately Lovecraftian entity.

Wellman’s knowledge of Appalachian folklore is astounding. I’ve heard that he commanded lots of respect in scholarly/literary circles, and I don’t doubt it.

The next book I read was After Dark, in which Silver John stands against a tribe of alien humanoids who are seeking to infiltrate the human race. They look like us – except for an extra long pointer finger – act like us, but practice strange alien magic, and wish to slowly “breed out” humanity.  So in this book, we see Silver John’s ultimate flexibility – he fights demons, witches, warlocks, mages, spirtes, ancient beings and aliens, too.

What I’ve really enjoyed about Silver John are his principles.   That may see a little old-fashioned and idealistic, but then again, I’m an idealistic sort of guy. I’ve never been very fond of either post-modernism or nihilism, and even though flawed characters can be engrossing, it’s also nice to read about characters you sincerely WANT to root for.  Folks who stand for something.  Silver John is one of those characters.

I started this blog series not only for a general horror audience – and for my own whimsy – but also for those interested in submitting stories to future editions of The Midnight Diner. Eventually, I’ll detail in greater length just what the Diner is, how it’s – in my opinion – a quality publication, run by quality folks, pay irregardless.  And one of the reasons why Diner editor Scott Garbacz allowed me this space to post about horror was to educate those who’d like to submit to the Diner in the future.

For you folks, Manly Wade Wellman’s “Silver John” character is an excellent place to study the genre, the type of archetypal, iconic character we’d like to see more of here at the Diner.   A principled character relying on simple truths, God, and his knowledge of the arcane to battle against evil.  And the stories are so well written, rich, and full of substance.  Some of the “Silver John” books are little pricy and hard to track down, but well worth the effort.

**Update: Several reasonably-priced collections of his work can be found at Night Shade Books.

Kevin Lucia is a Contributing Editor for Shroud Magazine, and a blogger for The Midnight Diner. His short fiction has appeared in several anthologies. He’s currently finishing his Creative Writing Masters Degree at Binghamton University, he teaches high school English and lives in Castle Creek, New York with his wife and children. He is the author of Hiram Grange & The Chosen One, Book Four of The Hiram Grange Chronicles, and he’s currently working on his first novel. Visit him on the web at www.kevinlucia.com.

The next writer I encountered – for the first time, about a year and a half ago – was J. N. Williamson.  As usual, a brief bio below:

Gerald Neal Williamson (April 17, 1932 – December 8, 2005) wrote and edited horror stories under the name J. N. Williamson.

Born in Indianapolis, IN he graduated from Shortridge High School. He studied journalism at Butler University. He published his first novel in 1979 and went on to publish more than 40 novels and 150 short stories. In 2003 he received a lifetime achievement award from the Horror Writers of America. He edited the critically acclaimed How to Write Tales of Horror, Fantasy & Science Fiction (1987) which covered the themes of such writing and cited the writings of such writers as Robert Bloch, Lee Prosser, Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury, H. P. Lovecraft, August Derleth, William F. Nolan, and Stephen King. Many important writers in the genre contributed to the book. Williamson edited the popular anthology series, Masques. Some of his novels include The Ritual (1979), Playmates (1982), Noonspell (1991), The Haunt (1999), among others.

I first encountered J. N. Williamson’s name in award-winning author Gary Braunbeck’s memoir (a must for all horror writers) To Each Their Darkness.  He recommended several of Williamson’s novels, and at the time I was searching out “old school”  horror writers, so I went out and hunted up several of Williamson’s novels in various second-hand stores.

And I’m not exactly sure how I feel about Williamson’s work. So far,  I’ve read four of his novels (also several of his short stories in the Whispers anthologies), and the quality of prose varies greatly from each novel.  However, there is ONE I’d recommend for everyone who wants to write horror,  but I’ll save that for last.

The Ritual is probably my “favorite”  of all the others. Very similar to The Exorcist, it reads quickly and is actually quite suspenseful in places, and offers some interesting speculations on possession, astrology, historical madmen, and the coming of the antichrist.  The only problem I found with this novel is a quirk typical of many J. N. Williamson novels, but also, to be fair, other horror novels too:  the-pat-explaination-for-something-bizzare-that-just-happened, explaining-the-whole-weird-experience-away-so-our-characters-can-blunder-even-deeper-into-trouble.  Many of his novels do this, which really stretches my suspense of disbelief just a bit too far.

Next is The Longest Night, a pretty unique haunted-house novel that was decently engaging, considering its length, and its pace moved along well, also.  In this case, the suspense of disbelief wasn’t stretched too far – was actually just right – but the third-person omniscient POV (for me, anyway) sprawled all over the place. It really undercut the tension, because it seemed like we knew what everyone was thinking, all the time, at the same time.

Premonition, somewhat of a sequel to Ritual (again featuring parapsychologist Martin Ruben), also moved quickly, and had some interesting mythic elements,  but two things hurt this one: SO MUCH KINKY SEX. I mean, seriously. At times, I wasn’t sure what type of novel this was – horror or an “adult” novel – and two: the plot lost all cohesion and fell apart in the end.

The Black School started decently…but this one, I must admit, I couldn’t finish. One thing that hurt it: the characterization felt WAY off.  Characters reacting to things way out of proportion, under-reacting, or not reacting at all.  Plus, this one suffered the same flaw as The Longest Night and The Ritual – his tendency to preface EVERY chapter with a quote.  One before Part One or Part Two works, but every chapter? Got to be a bit much, after awhile.

And the sad thing is, I really wanted to like The Black School. Seemed to have some intriguing mythology in its back-story, but the characters reactions just didn’t make sense, after awhile.

I haven’t read enough of his work to make a real judgement of this yet, but I wonder if Williamson was simply a better short story writer than he was novelist.  The short stories of his I’ve read are nice and tight.  His story “Privacy Rights”, in Whispers IV, was absolutely heartrending.  And while his novels feature a nice turn of phrase here and there, eventually the stories always lose cohesion, the plot suffers, and the prose slips from serviceable and adequate to downright clumsy.

That having been said, his strengths: his stories had lots of passion. Conveyed an immense emotional feeling.  And because of that, I’d say there’s one novel of his every horror writer should read, what I believe is his best: Don’t Take Away the Light.

Of all his novels, this one reads the best, boasts his most solid prose (from what I’ve experienced so far), and also seems intensely personal, taking childhood traumas and nightmares, giving them a supernatural vehicle.  For that reason, I’d recommend this read for all horror writers, because it’s one of the best exercises I’ve encountered in taking “personal” horrors and making them into excellent stories.

So, all in all – hunt up J. N. Williamson’s short stories.  Definitely snag a copy of Don’t Take Away The Light.  Get his anthology series, Masques. I’ve got one of them, and when I’ve read a few, I’ll be sure to offer my take on those, also.

Kevin Lucia is a Contributing Editor for Shroud Magazine, and a blogger for The Midnight Diner. His short fiction has appeared in several anthologies. He’s currently finishing his Creative Writing Masters Degree at Binghamton University, he teaches high school English and lives in Castle Creek, New York with his wife and children. He is the author of Hiram Grange & The Chosen One, Book Four of The Hiram Grange Chronicles, and he’s currently working on his first novel. Visit him on the web at www.kevinlucia.com.

I had planned on a different post entirely -  “Part 4 -  J. N. Williamson By Way of Gary Braunbeck” – but another thought has been dwelling on my head this week, so I decided to blog about that, instead.

And before I say anything else: I’m nobody.  Have very little to give credence to what I’m about to say.  Very lukewarm to modest publishing credits, a love of  horror, genre, and weird fiction, and an all-consuming desire to read.  That’s it, and this series isn’t an expression of my superiority or expertise, but a sharing of discoveries along my own path, as I’ve discovered them.

Given that, I feel the following is an important topic, for any horror writer interested in submitting to future editions of The Midnight Diner, and for young horror writers in general.

And that’s the overwhelming importance for horror writers to actually read a broad sampling of horror at some point in their career.  It’s something that has become, for some reason, a lot more important to me lately.  We’ve heard and read often the opinion of established and rising authors alike that it’s important to read outside your chosen genre, and this is very true.  I’ve stated often enough how grateful I am for a job – teaching high school English – that exposes me to a wide variety of the classics every year.  Because good storytelling is just good storytelling, after all.

But I’ve become convinced that someone calling themselves a horror writer should not only be immersed in the history of the genre, but also be aware of trending works.  Young horror writers should all be reading in their genre, in it’s past and present.

And I’m not exactly sure who I’m blogging this to, really.  Maybe me.  Maybe the former me, maybe to young horror writers just starting out in the genre who are like that former me.  I called myself a “horror” writer, because I read Stephen King and Dean Koontz (still do!). When I felt really daring, I read Peter Straub, and on occasion, John Saul. But that was it.  My knowledge of the horror genre was so very shallow, which affected the kind of horror I tried to write.   Worse, I think maybe I’d seen more horror movies than I had read horror novels & short stories, and it showed.

I remember the first story I submitted (not sold) to the first edition of The Midnight Diner.  It was bad, folks.  Combined all the worst elements of the Blade movies, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, every vampire/vampire-hunter movie I’d ever seen, and some comic books I’d read.  And it got rejected. No, check that: it got trashed.  As it should’ve been.  But apparently the editor thought maybe some promise existed there, so he invited me to submit again.

So, I decided it was time to write a kind of horror story I’d never tried before.  I noticed the Diner had a Cthulhu category, so, for the first time, I read up on a category of horror I had previously known only a little about.

And, wow.

I may’ve discovered Lovecraft and Cthulhu late in life, but it made a difference.  Just reading several of those short stories, researching the mythos nudged my ideas into new, different directions.  Out of that, I produced the first story I ever sold – “The Way Station” – which netted me decent money, also an Editor’s Choice Award.

So maybe I’m writing this blog to a young writer now – maybe someone thinking of submitting to future editions of the Diner – who has been writing the same zombie or vampire or werewolf story, over and over. Or, (as I eventually found out), rewriting that same Lovecraftian/Elder Gods/Ancient Ones story over and over.  Maybe I’m saying to them: “Read more horror. New horror. Old horror. Weird fiction.  Folktales, myths. Mix it up. Diversify, and push your ideas in new directions.”

Another important reason to read a lot of horror – all forms, past and present – is to weed out ideas that may be overworked, and at least confront us with the reality these stories have been done before, and need to be retooled in new ways.  For this, I reference Brian Keene’s keynote address for AnthoCon 2011, “Roots:”

A horror writer should know the genre’s history for several reasons. First and foremost, they should know it so as not to repeat the mistakes of its past. They should draw upon that history, letting the books and stories that have been written in the past inspire and inform and shape their own work. You know that novel you’re working on about Nazi ghosts haunting a tank? Graham Masterton beat you to it back in the Seventies. If you’re writing about vampires, you’ve probably read Dracula — but did you also read the works of Les Daniels, or Salem’s Lot, They Thirst, Vampyrrhic, or Lot Lizards? Maybe you saw Ramsey Campbell at a convention and were told he is one of the most important living authors, but you’re not sure why. This is unacceptable. Maybe (and most importantly) you want to become a better writer by studying and understanding the various styles of writers that came before you. The only way to do that is through reading.

You need to read fiction that has inspired and informed and shaped the genre into what it is today. Like those 28 Days Later-style zombies? I bet you’ll love Jim Starlin’s Among Madmen or Simon Clark’s Blood Crazy. Perhaps you enjoy the exploits of occult detectives such as F. Paul Wilson’s Repairman Jack, Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files, or my own Levi Stoltzfus. But have you read Manly Wade Wellman’s Silver John the Balladeer stories or William Hope Hodgson’s Carnacki the Ghost Finder? Like John Carpenter’s The Thing? Yeah? But have you read John W. Campbell’s Who Goes There?

When I heard Brian give this speech at AnthoCon last year, I thought: “Geez. It’s like he’s talking to me, four years ago.”  So maybe that’s who I’m talking to, now.

Another reason why I believe it’s important to read lots of different kinds of horror is that its tradition, its history is one of the things that makes the horror genre special.  This is something I knew instinctively, but honestly hadn’t really thought about much before this past year.

My recent quest to build my knowledge of the horror genre and its history certainly brought these thoughts to the forefront, but it was some recent nonfiction reading – Noel Carroll’s The Philosophy of Horror – that crystallized my thoughts in the following passages.  First, he calls horror a “post-modern art”, because post-modern artists:

“…whether for purposes of political criticism or for nostalgia, postmodern art lives off its inheritance….it proceeds by recombining acknowledged elements of the past in a way that suggests that the root of creativity is to be found in looking backward (emphasis mine)” pg. 211

“…the contemporary horror genre….differs from previous cycles (of horror) in certain respects that also bear comparison with the themes of postmodernism.  First, works of contemporary horror often refer to the history of the genre quite explicitly.   King’s IT reanimates a gallery of classic monsters; the movie Creepshow by King and Romero is a homage to EC horror comics of the fifties; horror movies nowadays frequently make allusions to other horror films while Fright Night (the original, thanks) includes a fictional horror show host as a character; horror writers freely refer to other writers and to other examples of the genre; they especially make reference to classic horror movies and characters.” (pg. 211)

“…the creators and the consumers of horror fictions are aware they are operating within  a shared tradition, and this is acknowledged openly, with great frequency and gusto (emphasis mine) pg. 211

“Read, read, read. Read everything — trash, classics, good and bad (of horror), and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out of the window.”

So at this point a little over a year ago, I’d discovered the work of T. M. Wright and Charles Grant in my quest to educate myself in the history of the horror genre.  My next discovery was the Whispers Anthologies, edited by Stuart David Schiff.  A little bit about the Whispers Anthologies, below:

Whispers was probably the most widely respected and one of the most ambitious of the new horror and fantasy fiction magazines of the 1970s. It became at least as visible and nearly as influential as a series of mostly original anthologies in the 1980s.

Named after a fictitious magazine referenced in the H. P. Lovecraft story “The Unnameable”, Whispers began as a modest attempt by editor and publisher Stuart David Schiff to produce a modest semi-professional little magazine that hoped to revive the legendary Weird Tales in a small way. It went on to be an ever more elaborate and well-produced showcase for much of the best dark fantasy fiction and artwork of the 1970s.

Among the fiction writers featured in the magazine were Manly Wade Wellman, Fritz Leiber, Robert Bloch, Ramsey Campbell, and Karl Edward Wagner. David Drake published much of his early fantasy fiction there. Among the artists to contribute were Stephen Fabian, Lee Brown Coye, Vincent Napoli, and many others, both legends in their own right and younger stars. The magazine won the first “Howard” or World Fantasy Award for non-professional publishing in 1975, though it was clearly on a professional level in editorial content and production.

Beginning in 1978, an anthology series, drawing on some of the best work published in the magazine and mixing some new material, was published in hardcover by Doubleday and then in paperback by Playboy Press, soon after absorbed by Berkley/Putnam, which began a trend of parallel publication of increasingly infrequent issues of the magazine and a string of anthologies with an ever larger proportion of original fiction. A total of six anthologies were published through 1987, and later a “Best of” volume was published in 1994.

Schiff also launched a book-publishing arm, Whispers Press, in the latter 1970s, which produced elegant and well-illustrated volumes. After a sampling from Whispers was published in the Gahan Wilson-edited First World Fantasy Awards volume, Schiff and Fritz Leiber co-edited the Second World Fantasy Awards volume for Doubleday.

(from Wikipedia)

I discovered Whispers from the source himself: the editor, Stuart David Schiff who, wonder of wonders, lives in my area.  In short: bestselling authors and genre veterans Tom Monteleone and F. Paul Wilson were visiting and conducting workshops with my Creative Writing students at my school.  One night, they invited me to come hang out with them and “their friend Stu”.  That night was unlike any other I’ve experienced since, hanging out with the greats of the genre.  I wax overly philosophical about my evening here.  Suffice  to say, only days later, I was tracking down the Whispers anthologies all over the ‘Net.

And, like Charles Grant and T. M. Wright, these collections proved to be eye-opening in the extreme.  Because here’s the thing: this is an unsubstantiated, off-the-cuff opinion, but it seems very much that with the exception of Ellen Datlow’s anthologies, and “Year’s Best” horror anthologies, the only other quality horror anthology (yes, I’m cutting out many  small press anthologies in that statement)  consisting of simply horror stories is the Horror Library, published by Cutting Block Press and edited by R. J. Cavender (and this blog series is very much about exploration, so if anyone knows of current quality genre anthologies I’m skipping, please feel free to comment!).

The rest today all seem to be themed anthologies.  And while reading one or two of those is fun, the stories in Whispers just about SHAMED THEM ALL.  Because they were simply fantastic stories.  Of all kinds.  Varied, diverse…and damn good.

I’ve read Whispers 1, Whispers 2, Whispers 3, Whispers 4 and Whispers 6.  And I found that, by and large, those stories far outpace most current short fiction.  In the Whispers series I discovered the likes of Karl Edward Wagner, Ramsey Campbell, Hugh B. Cave, Dennis Etchison, David Drake, Fritz Leiber,  Russell Kirk, Manley Wade Wellman, Alan Ryan, Steve Ransic Tem, Tanith Lee and encountered many of the folks I’d just been discovering at that time: Charles Grant, J. N. Williamson and others.

And again – maybe I’m reading all the wrong current anthologies – but what seems to make Whispers special is their simplicity: these are simply collections of great stories, selected by an editor who KNEW good fiction.  A themed collection is nice to read now and then, but every single story working off a similar theme gets old after awhile, and it seems like today’s market is absolutely choked with them.  Whispers, for me, provided a much needed breath of fresh air: simply a collection of astounding stories.

Sadly, all these volumes are out of print. I found my mine pretty handily on secondary markets like Amazon and BN.com and used book stores, however, for good prices.  Hopefully, these will someday be republished in ebook form for a new generation.  Until then – if you’re serious about writing good genre short fiction,  and serious about submitting good genre fiction to future editions of The Midnight Diner, especially…hunt up some of these bad boys, pronto.

Last week, I opened my “Modest History of Horror” with author T. M. Wright. And again, in continued clarification: this is really an exploration of MY encounter with horror writers other than Stephen King, Dean Koontz and Peter Straub, rather than an exhaustive, actual history of horror. For a nice quick sketch of horror fiction history, Brian Keene’s keynote address at AnthoCon 2011, “Roots”, serves nicely.

In any case, we move on to the very next author I “discovered” late in the game, Charles L. Grant. Below, a biography:

Charles Lewis Grant (September 12, 1942 – September 15, 2006) was a novelist and short story writer specializing in what he called “dark fantasy” and “quiet horror.” He also wrote under the pseudonyms of Geoffrey Marsh, Lionel Fenn, Simon Lake, Felicia Andrews, and Deborah Lewis.

 Grant won a World Fantasy Award for his novella collection Nightmare Seasons, a Nebula Award in 1976 for his short story “A Crowd of Shadows”, and another Nebula Award in 1978 for his novella “A Glow of Candles, a Unicorn’s Eye,” the latter telling of an actor’s dilemma in a post-literate future. Grant also edited the award-winning Shadows anthology, running eleven volumes from 1978-1991. Contributors include Stephen King, Ramsey Campbell, Al Sarrantonio, R.A. Lafferty, Avram Davidson, and Steve Rasnic and Melanie Tem. Grant was a former Executive Secretary and Eastern Regional Director of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and president of the Horror Writers Association. His story “Temperature Days on Hawthorne Street” was adapted into an episode of Tales from the Darkside entitled “The Milkman Cometh” in 1987.

Grant wrote 12 books (9 novels and three collections of four related novellas with interstitial material) set in the fictional Connecticut town of Oxrun Station. (See the starred titles below.) Three of these were intentionally pastiches of classic Universal and Hammer horror films, and feature a vampire, a werewolf, and an animated mummy. There is a loose continuity running through the Oxrun Station books, with characters from one novel making minor appearances in others. (Wikipedia)

First of all – what can I say? Hard to condense everything into a simple blog entry. I know this: I wish I’d met the man. From what everyone has told me, he was kind, generous, thoughtful, helpful, a consummate professional. All I can do is share what his writing has come to mean to me.

The first novel of his I read was The Black Carousel. Ironically, his last Oxrun Station work. Instantly, I fell in love with his prose. It had Bradbury’s sensibilities…but leaner. More subtle. Much tighter. But still capable of a faint lyricism near to poetry. And hey, it was about a dark, possibly malevolent carnival coming to a small, country town. As a Bradbury lover and annual devotee to Something Wicked This Way Comes, I was hooked.

And there’s this mood in Charles’ work. Melancholic. Wistful. Sad, but never really cynical. And, believe it or not, I can be a pretty melancholic guy. Also, between reading T. M. Wright and Charles Grant, I felt like – as a writer hopeful – that I’d come home. That this was something concretely in the horror genre that I felt the desire to write.

Now, don’t get me wrong – I encountered these writers as I was writing/finishing Hiram Grange & The Chosen One, and that certainly wasn’t “quiet horror”. And, writing Hiram was fun. Definitely dark adventure fantasy, something I’d want to return to. However, I recognized something in Charles’ work that I wanted to see in my own work someday.

But even then, I don’t think I got the brilliance of Oxrun Station.  That was coming, however.

I moved on from The Black Carousel to For Fear of the Night and Stunts.  Now, I loved both of these works as well… though Stunts is one of my least favorite of his – if you can even call it that – only because it felt like a strange novel.  Two completely different stories jammed together.  But what was really starting to make me fall in love with Grant’s work was  this: the stories centered on the human experience.

There were “monsters”, sure. But not necessarily monsters you could beat. And this is probably where the categorization of “dark fantasy” comes in, because Charles’ work deals primarily in the frailty and fragility of humanity in the face of forces it cannot comprehend, much less fight.  But he wasn’t Lovecraftian, by any means.  These characters were so well portrayed, so deeply drawn. And so wonderfully flawed.  In many of Charles’ stories, the existence of these supernatural, paranormal forces are simply a given.  But they aren’t monsters to be bested and destroyed by the end of the novel.

They were testing agents.  These novels were proving grounds for humanity.

And lots of times, the humans just weren’t strong enough to win the day.  But Charles’ work has never felt hopeless or nihilistic to me.  And trust me, I’ve read lots of that stuff.  They were melancholic.  Sad.  Maybe even gloomy.  But there was hope in there.  Maybe the “laughing in the dark” kind of hope…but isn’t that the kind of hope we have to rely on, so often?

After that, I discovered another series that landed me solidly in Grant’s corner, even before I become enthralled with Oxrun Station, and that was his Millennium Quartet series – basically, his story of the world’s end.  The first book in that series was Symphony, which introduced me to one of my favorite characters, Reverend Casey.    A humble man, a reformed hoodlum-turned preacher.  Who finds himself tasked with facing down what are essentially the four horseman of the Apocalypse.

Now, THIS is an “end times” book I can get down with.  Because it was about the people.  About their strengths and weaknesses, and Casey’s own disbelief that God could use someone like him. And, of all his novels at that point, it featured the “happiest” ending of them all, with perhaps the exception of In A Dark Dream – which definitely is one my favorite Grant portrayals of family. I’ve also read the second book in the series, In The Mood, and am looking forward to finish the series.

And now – Oxrun Station.  12 works in total, all set in the same town. Three novels, wonderful pastiches of the classic horror tropes of vampires, werewolves and mummies.  Five novels and four 4-novella collections…all connected.  All about a mysterious town where strange things happen. People go missing.  Disappear.  “Leave town”.  Some people survive their dark adventures, but then are so scarred, they never share their stories.

It’s nearly impossible to put into words how wonderful the Oxrun series is.  The strongest of them, by far, are the collections of novellas, if only because they’re framed by a first person narrator – a writer living in Oxrun who very easily could be Charles himself, from my reading.  And, as true to the rest of the stories: we never exactly find out what is wrong with Oxrun Station.  These mysteries are never really solved.  But it’s sorta – in my guess – not about that, really.

It’s about the people. About their nightmares and fears, about their frailties. And about those who survive, who – in a quote from The Black Carousel – are “holding on”.  A year ago last Spring, on vacation, I purchased all the novella collections, and read them in one week.  And was left breathless, thinking I’d discovered the greatest thing ever.

I think his best two novels, however, are works very different from the ones I’ve outlined above.  They are The Nestling and Raven.  The Nestling is simply a great, more traditional quiet horror/thriller about an Indian curse that’s killing people in a small Midwestern town, in a conflict between the Americans and the modern Native Americans living over land rights.   It’s still got Grant’s signature style – things rustle behind you quietly…

…whispersoft….

…but it’s an excellent commercial thriller. And his treatment of the Indians in this is top notch.  You’d think he wrote about them all the time.

Then comes The Raven, one of the most brilliantly-paced thrillers I’ve ever read.  Again: excellent, razor-sharp character studies, and the story deals with the most inevitable force in the universe: Death.

And there are no chapters.  In the whole novel.  Because the story takes place all in one night.  His pacing here is masterful. I think I may’ve read this all in one day.

What else can I say? Not much that would even come close, and this blog is already too long.  One thing I can do is this: NECON EBOOKS and Crossroads Press is working to bring all of Charles’ Grant’s work back into print.  You can already purchase several of the titles in ebook form here for NECON and here for Crossroads Press.  If you’re a serious horror writer or reader that’s look for a little more substance in your reading diet, please – explore Charles Grant’s work.  Soon.

*Photo by Peter Coleborn.

Kevin Lucia is a Contributing Editor for Shroud Magazine, and a blogger for The Midnight Diner. His short fiction has appeared in several anthologies. He’s currently finishing his Creative Writing Masters Degree at Binghamton University, he teaches high school English and lives in Castle Creek, New York with his wife and children. He is the author of Hiram Grange & The Chosen One, Book Four of The Hiram Grange Chronicles, and he’s currently working on his first novel. Visit him on the web at www.kevinlucia.com.