The Hidden (1987)

The Hidden (1987): written by Jim Kouf; directed by Jack Sholder; starring Kyle MacLachlan (Lloyd Gallagher), Michael Nouri (Sgt. Tom Beck), Claudia Christian (Brenda Lee), Clu Gulager (Lt. Flynn), Ed O'Ross (Detective Willis), Richard Brooks (Detective Sanchez), Clarence Felder (Lt. Masterson), and Chris Mulkey (DeVries): A great cult movie of the 1980's that should be as fondly remembered as The Terminator, but isn't. Plot revelations are part of the fun, so I'll only say that mismatched cop and FBI partners Michael Nouri and Kyle MacLachlan are terrific as they pursue a puzzling series of normal citizens who suddenly turn into crazy killers. 

A great cast of character actors helps elevate the movie, as do Claudia Christian's killer stripper, some extremely good creature effects, and a narrative that's lean and compact. Science-fiction historians can note the movie's extreme similarity to both Hal Clement's classic sf novel Needle and Michael Shea's 1980 novella "The Autopsy." Twin Peaks fans may note that MacLachlan's performance here seems like a practice run for FBI Agent Dale Cooper. Highly recommended.

Perdido Street Station by China Mieville (2000)

Perdido Street Station by China Mieville (2000): China Mieville's second novel takes us to the strange world of Bas-Lag and the strange, sprawling city of New Crobuzon. One could see Mieville as having gone back to the time before the genre divisions established by the commercial demands of publishing were in force, back to the early 20th century, when science fiction and science fantasy and dark fantasy were non-existent distinctions. 

New Crobuzon, vast and London-like and filled with humans and a wide variety of other sentient species, is one of those places where both magic and science work. It's a crowded, vibrant place that combines elements of Dickensian London and steampunk. It's also a partial dystopia thanks to its ruthless ruling class. There's freedom in New Crobuzon right up until the point one makes trouble for the government. The secret police are everywhere, quashing unionization and making deals with organized crime.

Mieville has a density of imagination that crams Perdido Street Station with memorable characters, species, and events. The plot is pure entertainment, the outlines familiar: a plucky group of misfits must battle a terrible enemy. Mieville's attention to detail makes that familiar plot hum, though, and his wild imaginings make it sing. His socialist concerns also make for some scenes unusual to fantasy and science fiction -- celebrations of the working class, a protagonist who's an overweight intellectual, and a fascinating off-beat coda that both defies and rewards expectations.

Is there a tradition Mieville works within? To some extent, yes. A world of both science fiction and fantasy is the world of the Mars novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs, among many others. Mieville's dense, often eclectic diction in concert with this mashed-up world of science and magic and the grotesque recalls the works of Clark Ashton Smith, Jack Vance, Tim Powers, Michael Shea, Fritz Leiber, and Michael Moorcock.

But this is all Mieville's world, in the same way that The Lord of the Rings is both high fantasy and its own Tolkien genre, all its own. That's how it works with great writers: they're a genre of one. The characters are compelling, flawed, and occasionally heart-breaking. There are asides and references that suggest the vastness of the world Mieville has imagined. There are terrifically exciting sections, including a climax that goes on for about a hundred pages without losing either momentum or invention. There's sorrow as keen as anything, genre or otherwise. There's an awesome super-Spider and a terrified ambassador from Hell. 

And there's a pack of truly terrible, superbly imagined  monsters, set upon New Crobuzon in a manner which recalls so, so many real-world governmental perversities involving drugs, guns, organized crime, and a corrupt political system. This is neither a world with a Chosen One nor a rightful king. And the heavy lifting, with all its costs, will be done by beings excluded from the heights of society. Some of them may even otherwise be terrible, terrible people.

There are flaws, of course, piffling for the most part. My one larger complaint involves Mieville's need to keep throwing in new species and new sub-plots, a need which results in a bit of clutter in the middle section. A relatively lengthy bit pitting one truly odd species against the monsters of  the novel is the apotheosis of this problem -- it advances the plot not one whit, and seems to be there because Mieville really, really wanted to introduce this cool, malevolent species and then pit it against the far more malevolent monsters.

In all, this is a great novel, regardless of genre. There's a keenness to it, even an anger at The Way Things Are Here, that nonetheless never becomes didactic, never detracts from the singularity of Mieville's fully realized, vibrant, awful Secondary World. Highly recommended.

More Whispers in the Dark

Whispers IV: edited by Stuart David Schiff (1983) containing the following stories:

A Night on the Docks by Freff: One of the oddest vampire stories I can think of, with echoes of the classic tale "Call Him Demon" by Henry Kuttner and C.L. Moore

Into Whose Hands by Karl Edward Wagner: Terrific, moody piece that draws on Wagner's experiences as a psychiatrist working in public mental health facilities. Maybe Wagner's most subtle piece.

Out of Copyright by Ramsey Campbell: Droll bit of supernatural revenge by Campbell, working in a very literary version of his EC Comics revenge mode.

Elle Est Trois, (La Mort) by Tanith Lee: I think this is the prolific, multi-talented Lee's crowning achievement in short works. It's really an essential piece of dark fantasy/horror.

Come to the Party by Frances Garfield: Fun short from the writer also known as Mrs. Manly Wade Wellman.

The Warrior Who Did Not Know Fear by Gerald W. Page: Odd choice, as it's really a piece of a longer work of heroic dark fantasy, a piece without an ending. Still enjoyable.

Fair Trade by William F. Nolan: Another short exercise in the EC vengeance mode, with Nolan doing spot-on dialect for the first-person narrator.

I Never Could Say Goodbye by Charles L. Grant: Mysterious.

The Devil You Say! by Lawrence Treat: More humour than horror.

Diploma Time by Frank Belknap Long: Interesting ghost story from long-time writer Long, with one of his typically jarring moments in which he eschews transitions, though here it's intentional.

Tell Us About the Rats, Grandpa by Stephen Kleinhen: Minor bit of gross-out horror.

What Say the Frogs Now, Jenny? by Hugh B. Cave: Unpleasant insofar as the female victim of sexual harassment is somehow made out to be the antagonist of the piece. I don't think that was Cave's intent, but it's a really ugly, somewhat cliched story.

The Beholder by Richard Christian Matheson: Unusually supernatural story for the master of shocking short-short stories.

Creative Coverage, Inc. by Michael Shea: Bleak comedy about corporate malfeasance. Really, really, really bleak.

The Dancer in the Flames by David Drake: Evocative piece draws on Drake's time in Viet Nam, but uses a somewhat clumsy 'footnote' ending to fully explain what has happened.

The Reflex-Man in Whinnymuir Close by Russell Kirk : Lovely period piece/pastiche by the always elegant Kirk.

In all: recommended.

New Cthulhu: The Recent Weird: edited by Paula Guran (2012)

New Cthulhu: The Recent Weird: edited by Paula Guran (2012) containing the following stories:

"The Crevasse", Dale Bailey & Nathan Ballingrud; "Old Virginia", Laird Barron; "Shoggoths in Bloom", Elizabeth Bear; "Mongoose", Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette; "The Oram County Whoosit", Steve Duffy; "A Study in Emerald", Neil Gaiman; "Grinding Rock", Cody Goodfellow; "Pickman’s Other Model (1929)", Caitlin Kiernan; "The Disciple", David Barr Kirtley; "The Vicar of R'lyeh", Marc Laidlaw; "Mr. Gaunt", John Langan; "Take Me to the River", Paul McAuley; "The Dude Who Collected Lovecraft", Nick Mamatas & Tim Pratt; "Details", China Mieville; "Bringing Helena Back", Sarah Monette; "Another Fish Story", Kim Newman; "Lesser Demons", Norm Partridge; "Cold Water Survival", Holly Phillips; "Head Music", Lon Prater; "Bad Sushi", Cherie Priest; "The Fungal Stain", W.H. Pugmire; "Tsathoggua", Michael Shea; "Buried in the Sky", John Shirley; "Fair Exchange", Michael Marshall Smith; "The Essayist in the Wilderness", William Browning Spencer; "A Colder War", Charles Stross; "The Great White Bed", Don Webb.

Editor Paula Guran's mandate here is focused -- the best Lovecraftian stories of the first 11 years or so of the new millennium. If there's a disappointment here, it lies in something that's only going to be immediately apparent to a reader who buys a lot of Lovecraft-influenced anthologies and collections.

However, as I imagine a high percentage of people who read this sort of thing do just that, I'll note the disappointment: too many stories taken from the same original anthologies (eight of the stories herein appear in just three other original anthologies) and a fairly significant overlap (four stories) with the 2011 anthology The Book of Cthulhu, the mandate of which was to collect Lovecraft-influenced stories from the last thirty years or so.

In a pinch, I'd suggest going with The Book of Cthulhu. Its overall quality is higher, though that's obviously a factor of a longer span of time to choose from. Furthermore, choosing a lot of stories from other anthologies strikes me as somewhat problematic -- I've got several of these stories in three anthologies already, a pretty heavy load for a story published in, say, 2008 to be carrying. This may indicate taste rather than laziness, but it feels like laziness. And a couple of the multiple stories from other anthologies really sort of stink. Others are a stretch for the anthology, especially for one with a big picture of Cthulhu on the cover.

Nonetheless, there are some corkers here, both too often repeated ("The Oram County Whoosit" is a terrific tale -- so terrific I've now seen it in three different anthologies) and relatively new to this anthology (the offerings from old pros Michael Shea and John Shirley are especially gratifying). Shirley's almost reads like a Cthulhu Mythos story semi-sarcastically super-collided with a Young Adult novel. Shea's story about Clark Ashton Smith's blobby toad-god addition to the Lovecraft pantheon (subsequently described by HPL in At the Mountains of Madness) is squishy and, thankfully, not the over-anthologized, excellent "Fat Face".

Neil Gaiman impresses with a Sherlock Holmes/Cthulhu Mythos crossover, but not only was it in a fairly high print-run anthology, the story also appeared on Gaiman's website free of charge for several years. China Mieville's terrific "Details" also appeared in an anthology that, ten years later, remains in print.

There's a problem of over-fishing the same ponds over and over again. Ponds filled with the Deep Ones. What is it with all the stories about people who identify with Lovecraft's Deep Ones? Yeuch. Alan Moore was on to something with Neonomicon. Lightly recommended.

Cthulhu Everlasting

Black Wings of Cthulhu: 21 Tales of Lovecraftian Horror: edited by S.T. Joshi (2011) containing:

"Pickman’s Other Model (1929)" by Caitlin R. Kiernan
"Desert Dreams" by Donald R. Burleson
"Engravings" by Joseph S. Pulver, Jr.
"Copping Squid" by Michael Shea
"Passing Spirits" by Sam Gafford
"The Broadsword" by Laird Barron
"Usurped" by William Browning Spencer
"Denker’s Book" by David J. Schow
"Inhabitants of Wraithwood" W.H. Pugmire
"The Dome" by Millie L. Burleson
"Rotterdam" by Nicholas Royle
"Tempting Providence" by Jonathan Thomas
"Howling in the Dark" by Darrell Schweitzer
"The Truth about Pickman" by Brian Stableford
"Tunnels" by Philip Haldeman
"The Correspondence of Cameron Thaddeus Nash" annotated by Ramsey Campbell
"Violence, Child of Trust" by Michael Cisco
"Lesser Demons" by Norman Partridge
"An Eldritch Matter" by Adam Niswander
"Substitution" by Michael Marshall Smith
"Susie" by Jason Van Hollander

An excellent anthology of all-new stories inspired by H.P. Lovecraft, edited by Lovecraft expert S.T. Joshi. Joshi wisely didn't limit his writers to the Cthulhu Mythos, or even to explicit references to Lovecraft's work. Instead, there's a more general mandate of the weird and the cosmic (or 'cosmicism') at work here, though the explicitly Cthulhuesque is also welcome.

There really isn't a bad story in the bunch, and there are a number of standouts. Laird Barron's "The Broadsword" works within Barron's own Children of Old Leech mythology of terrible doings behind the walls of our world. Norman Partridge serves up a monstrous invasion within a narrative that works within the hardboiled parameters of the novels of James M. Cain and Jim Thompson. Ramsey Campbell has some fun with Lovecraft's near-obsessive letter-writing, while the protagonist of Jonathan Thomas's "Tempting Providence" seems to meet the ghost of HPL...or is something much more cosmic and sinister going on? Oh, that three-lobed burning eye!

One of the interesting things about the collection is that three stories -- "Pickman’s Other Model (1929)" by Caitlin R. Kiernan, "Inhabitants of Wraithwood" W.H. Pugmire, and "The Truth about Pickman" by Brian Stableford -- all deal with Lovecraft's transitional-phase short story "Pickman's Model" in various ways. It's a story that was adapted in a mediocre fashion for Night Gallery, but it's also probably the Lovecraft story with the most-quoted final line. Hell, Joanna Russ turned that line into the title of a story!

HPL's original story is transitional in the sense that while it looks ahead to the Cthulhu universe in which horror is all around us, waiting to be discovered, it also uses beings -- Lovecraft's version of ghouls, to be specific -- which are treated in a somewhat more whimsical, less horrific fashion in Lovecraft's Dunsanian novel The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath, in which they actually aid the narrator during his voyage through the Dream Lands. These stories offer radically different takes on the original material: the authors definitely don't think the same way about the stately ghouls of Boston.

In any case, Joshi offers a pip of an anthology here, complete with a useful introduction. At least five of these stories (by my count) have already been anthologized in various 'Best of' and Cthulhu compilation volumes, which is pretty good for a book that's barely a year old. And the cover of the paperback is sweet. Highly recommended.