#BookReview ‘Dark Stars: New Tales Of Darkest Horror’ edited by John D Taff

About the book…

Created as an homage to the 1980 classic horror anthology, Dark Forces, this collection contains 12 original novelettes showcasing today’s top horror talent edited by John F.D. Taff.

Within these pages you’ll find tales of dead men walking, an insidious secret summer fling, an island harbouring unspeakable power, and a dark hallway that beckons. You’ll encounter terrible monsters—both human and supernatural—and be forever changed. These stories run the gamut from traditional to modern, from dark fantasy to neo-noir, from explorations of beloved horror tropes to the unknown—possibly unknowable—threats.

It includes tales by- Alma Katsu, John F.D Taff,  Priya Sharma, Usman T Malik, Josh Malerman, Livia Llewellyn, John Langan, Caroline Kepnes, Stephen Graham Jones, Gemma Files, Chesya Burke and Ramsey Campbell

One of the best conversations I ever had with my husband (him, a science and astronomy nerd and incredibly bright with it, me, not so much, my degrees focussed on the interior life of the human body from birth , death and everywhere in between) was when he explained the concept of star nurseries. I am not great at remembering the specific details, as what struck me so much was the notion that this place exists, where things don’t exist, until suddenly, they do. And all the little baby stars just ricocheting off each other -thankfully my other half does not read my nonsense or he would be shaking his head at my clearly woeful take on his science facts-bouncing and refracting light in a place where previously there was none.

This is, what I believe, John FD Taff has done. He has created this space and then let these 12 tremendous writers, including himself, show off their wares and boy they have such sights to show you.

Straddling the Atlantic like a menacing colossus, this modern take on the classic horror anthology, Dark Forces, brings some established, some new to me writers, and some whom I have only previously read in novel form so from the start, the concept and the list of contirbuters was immediately intriguing.

And , for us older folks who had cassettes and especially the yearly Now That’s What I Call…. double box sets, there is always, no matter how good the mixer, that one song you desperately try to fast forward without cutting into the next one. This book does not have that ‘I guess I’ll skip to the next story’ vibe in the slightest. Much like my imagined stars, they thematically serve each other incredibly well. It is a meaty 430 pages, including BTS snapshots of the stories themselves, author bios, a foreword and an afterword.

Here, you are reminded just why Stephen Graham Jones owns every format he writes in, be it blog posts, novellas, short stories or novels. His twist on the pandemic and the nature of experimentation without boundaries within the boundaries of the locked in household is truly chilling.

Caroline Kepnes brings her trademark disquiet and dread to a tale of stalking, of sisterly rivalry, and the burden placed on two girls by parents who regard them as, charmingly, ‘clunkers’. Body horror, a need to belong, to be wanted, and a devastating use of a word which I had never heard before, poulkies, all combines to make this anthology opener one that makes you put it down and walk around, shaking these ideas around your head a bit before you can move on.

Ramsey Campbell creates a vortex of fear trapped inside memories, trapped inside a life which is hiding in plain view. His picture of a man from birth to adulthood and beyond is startlingly different, incredibly vivid and ultimately, unforgettable.

Priya Sharma introduces a sister island to the one in Maw, collated in another Titan anthology, New Fears 2, and here, there are worse things than death, there is the sense of being forgotten, A doctor in mourning takes up a post on an island of very strange inhabitants, with an ancient and beguiling past…

Livia Llewellyn creates an entire vortex of nightmares cantered around a door in a basement where a woman on an endless task to escape her adult responsibilities, takes on a job to recover the university furniture. However, in the dark and airless rooms which contain the massive bolts of cloth and sewing machines needed to carry out this task, she finds a heat and a heat source that might be able to equal her own.

Chesya Burke creates a memorable jazz fused narrative around her title character, Trinity River whose life has been in opposition to her birth that took the life of her mother. Steeped in magic and music, she needs to learn the lessons that her grandmother is trying to teach her in her twilight years, before she is used as a conduit for some truly terrible force.

Alma Katsu re-invents and injects new blood, literally, into the tale of a vampire, or rather, the applicant for the position of vampire’s assistant. Where do you go when you have, literally, nothing to lose and have nothing to give to the world either? You begin searching down urban legends amongst the indigent population that you co-exist with, to locate a myth and propose a partnership.

Gemma Files, fast becoming a favourite of mine, recreates a police procedural but this time adds extra in the form of a gender flipped necromancer, Lala Mirwani.  They rival the Harry Dresden’s, the Anita Blake’s of this world by using blood magic, calling on the blood of the corpse to solve the mystery of the murdered person in front of them. It’s a mystery, an enigma, a John Constantine flavoured tale-the use of the word ‘luv’ was always heard by me in a Liverpudlian accent, he is a character who lives rent free in my head for life and I am not mad about it! Leaning more towards the Clive Barker-esque end of the spectrum of fiction, Gemma’s is one of the truest, clearest voices in modern horror at the moment.

John FD Taff creates a Mist-esque situation of a man and his child, on the road, leaving home after the death of his wife, their son’s mother, from a cruel and hideous cancer. His depictions of the rage of the dying woman haunt me. And the misunderstanding of the fellow traveller with whom he is trapped in the service station with, due to bad weather, creates a situation where death and divorce are not strictly speaking on different sides of being alive. Death may have taken Peter’s wife, and Gus’ mother from them, but that doesn’t mean she has to be happy about it, or leave her son behind…

Josh Malerman writes a Stranger things-esque tale of four men who find themselves hunting a witch, a woman who has haunted them since their childhood. They each have grown up and have tattoos on their arms to remind them of something, But what it is and why they are standing around a grey hole in the middle of a forest is anyone’s guess…if only one of them could work out how Mrs Addison is still around and what she wants of them after all this time…

If I was pushed to say a favourite story from this book, and let me be clear I would not be happy about this line of query, my answer would be Challawa by Usman T Malik. His characters’ sense of dislocation, of longing to belong and the way that their needs supersede the cultural significance of burial places in other countries, is so very prescient and timely. The privilege with which certain-let’s say it, white people-portions of the world trample over others with a sense of ownership whilst, non ironically trying to ‘find themselves’ is so exquisitely examined here. The  way in which central narrator, Karima, goes to Peshwar, to cremation grounds being co-opted into a plan for her husband and brother in law’s company, and becomes entwined with the ghost stories told by her tour guide is unforgettable. In the space between belonging, wanting to belong, and being dislocated from her family’s country of origin, stories begin to take root of ash brides, cursed grounds, subjugation and murder. And in the telling of the tales, you become pulled into, and become part of the tale. Until you are subsumed by it and what you think you wanted becomes a transformative action. Truly chilling, righteously angry and quietly dignified, I could not find fault with the story at all and am eagerly looking for more opportunities to read Usman’s work.

The final tale is a two hander between Kate, a woman who believes her brother has been murdered, and Walter, the man she fully suspects of having done it. A conversation held on a frozen lake creates a tightwire tension threaded through this tale. You have the moving water, under ice, filled with living creatures and yet that water could kill either of both of those above it. Both narrators are driven by hunger for justice, one lays out their reasoning for their actions, another for justice in the face of implacable guilt. Greed, sense of importance and need to mean something to another person, whether they want it or not, are key factors in driving the villain of the peace and honestly, I could feel my scalp contracting whilst I read John Langan’s tale, and the hairs pulling themselves on end as a protective mechanism.

I know, factually, that the goose bumps on my arms and the crawling sense down my backbone are physiological responses to external factors, this can easily be proved. So what is it that reaches out of the page and creates a physical response to psychological factors? That, my friends, is pure talent.

About the editor…

John F.D. Taff is a multi-Bram Stoker Award short-listed dark fiction author with more than 30 years experience, and more than 100 short stories and seven novels in print.

He has appeared in Cemetery Dance, Eldritch Tales, Unnerving, Deathrealm, Big Pulp and One Buck Horror, as well as anthologies such as Hot Blood: Seeds of Fear, Hot Blood: Fear the Fever, Shock Rock II, Lullabies for Suffering, Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories, Behold!, Shadows Over Main Street 2, Horror Library V, Best of Horror Library, Dark Visions Vol. 1, Ominous Realities, Death’s Realm, I Can Taste the Blood and Savage Beasts. His work will appear soon in The Seven Deadliest and I Can Hear the Shadows.

His novels include ‘The Bell Witch’ ‘Kill-Off’ and the serialized apocalyptic epic ‘The Fearing’. Thunderstorm Books and Grey Matter Press will release a one-volume version of The Fearing in 2021, in limited edition hardcover, soft cover and digital. Short fiction collections include ‘Little Deaths-The Definitive Collection’ and ‘Little Black Spots’, both published by Grey Matter Press.

Taff’s novella collection, ‘The End In All Beginnings’, was called one of the best novella collections by Jack Ketchum and was a Stoker Award Finalist. His short “A Winter’s Tale” was also a Stoker Finalist.

Links-http://johnfdtaff.com/

Twitter @jihnfdtaff @TitanBooks