Weird Murmur

Adam "Bucho" Rodenberger, "Into Dust" in Under a Black Rainbow  (2023). "People are still having sex."  ㅡLaTour Some of the best speculative fiction has a way of bringing to light the paradoxical features of our nature. Many of these murmurs point to the tensions at the heart of who we are, and "Into Dust" gives us a peek at the paradoxical sinew that simultaneously holds us together and tears us apart. Puritanical efforts to control sexual appetites rarely result in sex being controlled; instead, the control just becomes sexualized. Similarly, that psycho-sexual mechanism is at work in our protagonist. That which is neglected, ignored, and remains unused will gather dust, and when sex becomes dusty, the dust just becomes sexualized.   

  Algernon Blackwood, "The Falling Glass" in Tongues of Fire: And Other Sketches  (1924). Read the story here on the Internet Archive . Cosmic horror is at its best when it is less about the immediate danger posed and more about the horror/awe evoked by the thing's very existence. This often emerges because of its unfathomable scale, total indifference to us, and/or incomprehensible otherness. While thunderstorms are often used in horror to invoke fear based upon the danger they pose to life and limb, Blackwood taps the weather for a different kind of horror. These massive natural forces, not in the least concerned about the things we value, continue to humble us and stand to remind us of our insignificance.

Kaaron Warren, "The Smell of Waiting" in  Screams From the Dark , ed. Ellen Datlow (Tor Publishing Group: 2022). This story has a different take on returning the dead to life. Life isn't something to be restored, but rather, death is a thing or a presence that can be taken away. Of course, once you've taken it away, you've got to store it somewhere! What did you think about the role that Andrea played in the process as opposed to the role that the dog played in the process?

Stephen Graham Jones, "Children of the Night" in  Screams From the Dark , ed. Ellen Datlow (Tor Publishing Group: 2022). This is a story involving the literal collision of subculturesㅡbigfoot hunters, truckers, and monsters.  Tol's theories and speculations about monsters are wonderfully absurd, but the truth is stranger and even more ridiculous. When monster kinds cooperate with one another, we don't have a chance against them.

A. C. Wise, "Crick Crack Rattle Tap" in  Screams From the Dark , ed. Ellen Datlow (Tor Publishing Group: 2022). Rattle Tap is a wonderfully frightening monster! And if we discover that this monster isn’t hiding behind the curtains, that might actually be scarier than the alternative, for we might be Rattle Tap. I love the thoroughgoing ambiguity of this story. It is not uncommon for horror stories to play up ambiguity, inviting the reader to provide an interpretation of the story’s events. But here, something deeper is going on. The ambiguity itself is used to reflect the protagonist's own state of mind or point of view. Kiersten is in the same epistemic state regarding what is really happening (and what happened in the past) as we, the reader.

Glen Hirshbert, "Devil" in  Screams From the Dark , ed. Ellen Datlow (Tor Publishing Group: 2022). Sometimes, we go looking for monsters; we seek adventure and ". . . that delicious before-we-had-brains dread of being stalked." The story is about creating such an adventure, the nature of memory, and storytelling itself. We shade our experiences through the context of our surroundings and create monsters from things that are bigger, hidden, and not fully understood. This feels like memories! 

Chikodili Emelumadu, "The Special One" in  Screams From the Dark , ed. Ellen Datlow (Tor Publishing Group: 2022). You don't have to be a Victor Frankenstein to create a monster. Parents (helped by oppressive institutions) can do it without the need for all of that science. With that said, the responsibility for Joy's actions doesn't fall only at the feet of her parents. After all, when it came to Joy's upbringing, ". . . in billions of households around the world, other parents were telling their offspring the exact same thing." And, she did realize greatness; however, it came in the form of the ill-famed and notorious. 

Caitlin R. Kiernan, "Strandling" in  Screams From the Dark , ed. Ellen Datlow (Tor Publishing Group: 2022). We are beings that are in the process of dying. For a brief time, we are strandlingsㅡfish out of water that have breached for one awe-filled glimpse of the sun, a brief momentary peek, and then we will return to the dark loneliness of non-existence.  "I was alone before we met. I'll get the hang of it again."  

Garry Kilworth, "Flaming Teeth" in  Screams From the Dark , ed. Ellen Datlow (Tor Publishing Group: 2022). I always appreciate subtly strange stories; it is why I like Aickman and Murakami so much. In "Flaming Teeth," Kilworth gives us a few small signals that the world in which the story is set is not quite the one you and I are familiar with, but it is close enough that you might not notice at first glance.  The manner in which giants are acknowledged to exist by the world at large is one of the details that makes this world different. The light touch with which this departure is handled works well. This sets up an additional element that makes the story strange; readers come to expect that when characters encounter a monster, part of their shock and horror is them coming to grips with the fact that the thing can exist at all. But a setup that avows the presence of giants subverts that expectation.  Another strange touch to this particular story is just how noncha...

  Norman Partridge, "The Island" in  Screams From the Dark , ed. Ellen Datlow (Tor Publishing Group: 2022). This story impressively wrings effective horror from iconic monsters that you might have thought so familiar as to have lost their potential as vehicles of engaging fiction. The personification of the island is brilliantly handled, and the unfolding of the island's story within the story of imprisoned monsters, shipwrecked vampires, crustaceans from space, and many other creatures works to pace revelations that fuel the reader's imagination. The story is fun, violent, and full of action while maintaining a severe sense of deep weirdness delivered through wonderfully expressive prose.