Here we are for the second round in reviews by Ray Rexer in the U.S. and Paddy McKillop from the U.K. (by the way these two good 'ole boys will be attending NECON this summer, so if you have any scores or markers to settle up - here's your chance!). Something new this time is a review of classic books that we feel you should read. Some are out of print, but as long as we have stock on these titles, we'll review them and give you an insight to some of our favorites that you might have missed in the last few years. This time out Ray and Paddy takes another look at David Schow's "Silver Screams" one of the best collections ever conceived. It's a beautiful baby Dave. Paddy takes a look at "Ash Wednesday" by Chet Williamson. As far as I'm concerned this is one of the most insightful horror novels I've ever read. Give Paddy a minute to explain his side of Chet's story.

We'll I'm going to let these bad boys out of their cage now - you see - it's feeding time again. [by Dave Hinchberger]

by
Ray Rexer

Okay, so here's the deal. It ain't easy being green, and it ain't easy reviewing books. There are a lot of very tough writers out there. Desperate survivors. You know the type. Adjective-encrusted men and women with great muscular fingers who bench press Olivettis one-handed while standing guard with sharpened pencils over their beloved manuscripts, standing guard and just daring some flying weenie of a book reviewer to step on their words.

It's the Liquid Paper diet that gets them cranky.

So a reviewer has to be just as tough. Rough and tough, as a matter of fact. Rough and tough and brave and bold - like Barnacle-Bill, the sailor. And that's me. Rough and tough, brave and bold.

So go ahead, punk. Knock my review. Make my day. 'Cause I ain't afraid. Not even a little bit. Nope. I ain't afraid of you and I ain't afraid of him and I...I...

...I ain't afraid of Rick McCammon, Richard Bachman, Richard Laymon. Ain't afraid of Raymond Feist, I ain't afraid of Ms. Anne Rice.

...I ain't afraid of Lisa Cantrell, Dean R. Koontz or Joe R. Lansdale, Mr. Edgar Allen Poe and Alan Sarrantonio.

...I ain't afraid of Skipp or Spector, Stuart Schiff or Sheri Tepper. Ain't afraid of Mary Shelley, ain't afraid of Ronald Kelly.

...I ain't afraid of William Blatty, Ray Bradbury, Tom Ligotti, Martin Greenberg, Janet Fox, Robert Weinberg, Robert Bloch.

...I ain't afraid of Mike McDowell, Hugh B. Cave or Matt Costello. Ain't afraid of David Schow, I ain't afraid of Joe Citro.

...I ain't afraid of Lester Daniels, T.M. Wright or V.C. Andrews, Mr. T. Chris Martindale, H.P. Lovecraft, H.G. Wells.

...I ain't afraid of F. Paul Wilson, Bill F. Nolan, Paul F. Olson. Ain't afraid of Peter Straub, I ain't afraid of Brian Hodge.

...I ain't afraid of George R. Martin, Nancy Collins, Raymond Garton. Ain't afraid of John Maclay, I ain't afraid of Chris Fahy.

...I ain't afraid of Steven Vance, Douglas Winter, Charles Grant, Mary Clark or Tanith Lee, Clive Barker, Ronald Dee.

...I ain't afraid of Thomas Tyron, Edward Bryant, Alan Ryan. Ain't afraid of Clare McNally, I ain't afraid of Wayne Sallee.

...I ain't afraid of Etchison or Ellison or Shaun Hutson. I ain't afraid of Stephen King - I ain't afraid of anything!

So there. Take that! And now on with the reviews.

* * * *

NIGHTLIFE, by Brain Hodge.

All Justin Gray wanted out of Florida was a chance to start a new life. That's all. Just a chance. He had screwed up badly back in St. Louis, bad enough to get the law involved, bad enough to lose his job, bad enough to lose his wife. It had been his own fault, he damn well knew, but it was over. It was time to start anew. The bad part of his life was over.

Yeah, right. Enter Brian Hodge.

Oh, the things these writers do to their characters, the things they get away with! There outta be a law.

Shortly after Justin arrives in Florida he is introduced to a new drug called Skullflush, a pale green cocaine-like powder supplied by a royal sleazecake by the name of Tony Mendoza. Mendoza has obtained the drug - through channels - from a primitive tribe in South America. He has no idea what it will do. But boy, does he find out. And so does Justin, who's apparently not quite through paying penitence for his past sins. This is one drug Justin should have just said NO to, but Hodge wouldn't let him (oh, those writers!) and Justin does a line. Serious weirdness ensues. In a scene straight out of "An American Werewolf in London," the nightclub Justin's at begins to operate in the red, so to speak. Seems you just can't keep a good party animal down!

The drug is part of a six-kilo stash Mendoza controls. A lone "Yanomamo" warrior by the name of Kerebawa comes to Florida to retrieve the drug - at any cost. It is his mission, his promise to a dying friend who knew how disastrous Skullflush would be to the outside world. Kerebawa is a super character in this book, a lot of fun to be with as he searches for the drug - known to him as "hekura-teri" (the village of demons). In his quest, Kerebawa creates havoc for the local drug cartel. Good deal! Just wait until you see how he interrogates a drug lord by the name of Escobar. Man, oh man, it put me off fried foods for a week! And I love fried foods.

Such is the price of good fiction.

Anyway, Kerebawa eventually teams up in Florida with Justin and Justin's love interest April Kingston, and they become two men and a babe, a fighting force to be reckoned with. Kinda. Don't expect things to get too cutesy here; Hodge just doesn't operate that way. This particular "love-triangle" is not the thing Hallmark cards are made of.

Then again, neither am I. But that's another story.

Nightlife is a well researched novel which finesses the reader with detail. I learned a lot about the primitive tribes of South America...but in a subtle way. It's also a book well balanced with humor. Guess what a Yanomamo warrior means when he bares one eyeball at you by pulling down the lid? Yup, that's right: Take a flying leap, Jack! Now guess what "Beshi" means? Oops, sorry. I can't tell you that. This is a family catalog.

I can tell you, however, that Nightlife made me "beshi" for more books by Brian Hodge - and no, it did NOT make me "beshi" for Brian Hodge. A party between the pages.

* * * *

PITFALL by Ronald Kelly

The people of Sulphur Springs, Texas, have a little problem on their hands. And feet. And necks. A furry little problem, that is, and this furry little problem has needle-sharp teeth and jack hammer jaws. It's eighteen deadly inches of whirling dervish, fast, ferocious and full or raw fury. Known as "pit-devils", or the diablo hoyo, these vicious little beasts were born to be wild.

And wild they are!

The pit-devils were brought to Sulphur Springs by good-ole-boy Lester Liles and his faithful sidekick Dewey Whitlock. After being put out of the dogfighting business (quite violently, by the way), Lester and Dewey take a little jaunt down to Mexico to check out reports that some very strange creatures are being used down there for sport-fighting. After seeing these creatures in action, an amazed Dewey asks one of the locals just what in tarnation they are. "They are just what they appear, Senor," the local replies. "Demons straight from the depths of Hell." Well, that's pretty much all it takes for Lester and Dewey. Their greedy, beady little eyes light up and they fall in love (with the pit-devils, not each other). Dogfights be damned! It's pitdevil time in Sulphur Springs. These babies are gonna make them rich! These babies are gonna make them famous!

These babies are gonna make them sorry.

Yes, the pit-devils do get loose in Sulphur Springs, no secret there. The burden of protecting the town should fall on the shoulders of Sheriff Felix Booth. But he's a nasty, dickless sort of guy, badge-heavy and brain light. No good in a crisis, really. Enter Bowie Kane, Sulphur Springs' token Apache. Bowie's a fine character, a brave and patient man who has taken years of abuse from a handful of bigoted locals - including the sheriff. He's also the only person who knows the true origin of the pit-devils and the only person with any chance at all to defeat these little buzz-saws before the town of Sulphur Springs becomes the town of Bloody Springs.

In the end it's a showdown as TAZ and BANDIT and the whole fun loving pit-devil gang battle tooth and nail (mostly tooth) with Bowie and the few brave people who join him in the fight for ultimate survival. It's a lot of fun. And the blood doesn't leak out of pages of the book.

At least, not much.

Pitfall, by Ronald Kelly. Eat it before it eats you.

* * * *

THE UNSEEN, by Joseph Citro

Hey! Which way did the Winny-go?
I don't know, man, I don't know.
Hey! Which way did the Winny-go?
Yer gonna hafta ask Mr. Joe Citro.

So ask away. Don't be afraid. Joe's gonna tell you the answer to this...and a whole lot more. It seems something, lurks in the deep woods of Eureka, Vermont. Something scary and unknown, something hidden in legends and bundled up in bad dreams. Something Unseen: But not for long, noooo, it's not gonna remain unseen for long. Not if good old Joe Citro has anything to say about it.

And he does, of course. Lots. Read on.

The chain of events that unleashes the Unseen is set off unwittingly by Barley Spooner, local geezer and character of some note. Harley finds some pretty unusual rocks on his property and entertains thoughts of instant riches, believing he can sell the rocks to a nearby university for big bucks. But you, me and Jordy Verrill all know that selling rocks is risky business at best. The Unseen knows it also. And the story begins.

August 17, 1988. Eureka, Vermont. Claude "Lunker" Lavgne lumbers dazedly into the Newsroom Bar. Claude, normally a brick of a man, is visibly shaken. "I seen something in the woods today," he tells barkeep Roger Newton. His eyes are glazed, his face bone-white. His bad times far from over.

Two days later, while stumbling home from the same bar, Keenan Whittaker thinks he hears something "rustling in the puckers." And he's right. But is this thing in the puckers, the same thing Lunker Lavigne saw? Maybe yes, maybe no. It's a moot point to Whittaker, who ends up broken and battered, bruised and puke-splattered anyway. Not a real fun night for Keenan. And he's one of the luckier ones.

Take Leslie Winthrop, for example. Tall, gorgeous and as out of place in Eureka, Vermont, as "a mouse in a pitcher of milk." Leslie gets to meet the Unseen face to face...in a glass-shattering sort of way. Ouch!

Or youngsters Stacy Drew and Jarvis Lavigne, two friends who lose a big part of their childhood to the Unseen.

And then there's old man Cooly Hawks, an ageless black man who knows the backwoods of Vermont quite well. Maybe too well. He knows its lore and much, much more. He knows how the tip-top twig of a hemlock tree always points east. He knows how to make a signal fire out of the hanging bark of an old yellow birch tree. He knows, the legend of Berhelson's gore. He knows...The Unsen.

And so should you. The Unseen is filled with secrets, a horror mystery that is ultimately unique in it's premise. It's loaded with great characters, it's fun, it's easy, it's a book that should not be left, well...unseen.

The Unseen, by Joseph Citro. Pick it up, turn the pages, absorb the words and have some fun!

* * * *

MIDSUMMER, by Matthew Costello

First off let me apologize. I had every intention in the world of taking notes while reading this book. Honest. Notes I could later refer to while writing up this review. Notes filled with pertinent information, entertaining tidbits, amazing insight and the like that I could use to spice up this review. But I didn't. I took no notes. I forgot.

Sorry, sorry, sorry.

However, the reason I forgot to take notes is an honorable one, I think. I just got so absorbed in Midsummer that it never even crossed my mind. I got taken away by the book. I lost control. Costello had me for 307 pages (without so much as a kiss, by the way). But that's honorable, isn't it? To be taken away like that by a good book? Honorable, yes indeed. And rare.

Ah, but all is not lost. Notes or no notes, I do remember Midsummer. It's one of those books that stays with you, hangs around and haunts you for a while.

It begins on February 11th, five below zero but midsummer at the South Pole. Antarctica. The anus of the planet, according to Lieutenant Alan Ward, a volunteer at Project Ice Box, a special Naval Research Station set up there to study a tantalizing rend in the ice.

There's a disaster of some magnitude during Alan's duty. Something goes violently wrong at the project site, at the ice fissure being studied by NSF scientists, a fissure that just may lead to parts of the Antarctica Continent unseen for 40 million years. A fissure that just maybe should've been left alone.

Alan survives the disaster and moves back to his hometown of Stonywood to live - in a dead sort of way. The Navy has him placed under surveillance by Brian McShane, an assistant Navy Prosecutor who has no idea why he's supposed to be watching this guy. But in the Navy...ours is not to reason why, ours is just to do or die.

Or die. Keep that phrase in mind. It'll come back to you while reading this book.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in Stonywood, young Josh Tyler is coming of age. Josh is pivotal to this story. A young man with artistic talent and budding precognitive ability. A young man new to country life. A young man who's hormones start to flare after he meets cute Clara Skye, a girl destined to lead him into adventure. And adventure they do find. Before long, Josh gets to have his head pushed down into the squishy remains of a maggoty deer by the town bully, and then almost gets swallowed by a seemingly malevolent mountain cave.

And that's before the bad stuff even starts.

Bad stuff like Ann Mayhew, a pretty waitress who one day eats a squirrel. Bad stuff like Nancy Skye, Clara's toss-pot mom who performs an obscene bump-and-grind routine on an unconscious man at the hospital where she works...and later finds herself dying for a cigarette. Literally. Bad stuff like a whole town going whacko with some strange disease and a festive carnival turning into something straight out of Night of the Living Dead, complete with an out of control ferris wheel full of hysterically puking kids and a bunch of bad, bad people loping and groping about with stringy things wiggling out of their faces.

Now that's entertainment!

And that's just what Matt Costello wanted it to be. Entertainment. And entertainment it is. Matt had fun with this book so you could have fun with it. So go ahead. Have some fun. Read it. Oh, and while you're reading it, don't bother taking notes. Really.

Leave that kind of stuff to us professionals.

Midsummer, by Matt Costello. Catch it before the sun goes down...for good.

* * * *

THE CIPHER, by Kathe Kola

This is the first offering from Dell Publishing in their brand new ABYSS line of books, cutting-edge horror novels slated to "rescue the genre" from the glut of second-rate drivel out there. A noble undertaking, for sure. Brian Hodges's Nightlife (see review above) is also an ABYSS title and the two books share two things in common. First, they're both unique - no hackneyed themes here. And second, they're both good.

Hey, maybe Dell's on to something here.

The Cipher is a love story, a "menage-a-trois," of sorts. The story of Nicholas, Nakota and the Funhole. Nicholas is a failed poet who lives in, a dumpy apartment and works at a video rental store. Nakota is his girlfriend, sharp-boned and sharp-tongued, a regular hardcase to whom Nicholas more or less kowtows. The Funhole is trouble. Big trouble. The rend in the relationship, so to speak.

Nicholas discovers the "Funhole" in a crummy unused storage room in his apartment building. It's a living black void on the floor, a circle maybe a foot or so in diameter that leads to nowhere. A portal to never-neverland...or beyond. A hold with no legitimate reason for being. And it soon obtains a perverse hold over our hero and his girl. Nicholas is afraid. He wishes he'd never met the Funhole, wishes he'd never made the bizarre discovery. He'd like to get away frog it but he just can't sees to shake free of the mysterious hold it has over him. Nakota, who also has a hold of sorts over Nicholas, is enthralled by the damn thing. She wants to know more about it, wants to play with it, wants to experiment with it.

So she does. First, she places a pickle jar filled with bugs near the lip of the Funhole and waits. The insects soon wriggle and contort and change into corrupt parodies of their former buggy little selves before they drop and die. An extra head here, spider legs on a roach, wings where wings weren't before, but hey, they're just bugs, right? And Nakota thinks the change has made them beautiful. Even if they are dead. She is excited; Nicholas is disgusted and their relationship takes a turn for the worse.

Next Nakota brings a mouse to the Funhole and watches eagerly as an even more drastic (and somewhat more explosive) metamorphosis takes place. Later she offers up something even more substantial, something she got from a friend at the morgue, and oh, what results! Again, Nicholas is disgusted. But Nakota doesn't care, she has big big plans for her and the Funhole. She has found a new love.

But then good ole Nicholas has to mess things up by sticking his hand into things. His right hand. Accidentally. Right into the hole. And with just this taste, just this little love bite, the Funhole has found its true love: It wants Nick and nobody else but Nick. But even Nakota, who's mad and jealous and feels cheated that she wasn't chosen to become queen of the abyss, so to speak. Nicholas, in the meantime, doesn't feel cheated at all. He feels trapped. He feels sick. He feels confused. But most of all, he feels miserable.

And so does his hand. Bad things happen to this poor boy's hand. Icky things. Awful things. Drippy things. Enough nastiness there alone to prove what Nick had always known: things are never so bad that they can't get worse.

But don't worry. It's only a book. Sure, my hand started to hurt right after I read The Cipher, and yeah, it is looking kinda funny, especially around the palm. Soft. And guishy. But that's just a coincidence. The Cipher is only a book. A good book, yes, and a unique one, to be sure. But only a book.

Anyone got a bandage?

The Cipher, by Kathe Koja. Read it, enjoy it, figure it out for yourself.

* * * *

SILVER SCREAM, edited by David J. Schow

Wow! Enough said? Pretty much. It's all that has to be said about a book this good. But at the very least it bears repeating, so I think I'll say it again. Wow! Yeah, it really is all that has to be said about this book.

I'll say more, however. You knew that.

Silver Scream has been around for a while, sure, I realize that. It was published in hardcover over two years ago and some of the stories in this great anthology go back further than that - one by Robert Bloch was originally published way back in 1969. So what! This book will stand the test of time and those of you who have not yet read it, please do so now. I'll wait.

See, I told you. It's a great book.

Silver Scream is a theme book, twenty tales of terror at the talkies, so to speak. Twenty tales by such horror greats as Barker and Bloch, Boyett and Bryant. By Williamson, Wilson, Winter and Wagnor. By Sheckley and Spector, Garton and Garris, Matheson, Lansdale, McCammon and more. The beat just go on and on and on Twenty times. A beat that's hard to beat, so to speak. A beat you can really get behind and boogie to. Twenty wonderful, toe-tapping tales of terror guaranteed to make you smack your lips and cry for more. There's simply not a bad story in the whole lot and if someone tells you differently, they're lying!

I love this book.

Now let's talk about some of the stories. CUTS, by F. Paul Wilson. Oooh. This one's just too painful to talk about for long. Just imagine what it would feel like if piano wire was wrapped ground one of your lower legs and slowly tightened. Now imagine that happening to you for no apparent reason. Imagine the thin indentation in your skin forming out of nowhere, a perfect circle just above your foot. Imagine that foot turning a sickly gray form lack of circulation. Imagine the slowly seeping blood. Imagine the pain. Enough said.

SINEMA, by Ray Garton. "Brett Deever had been looking for his dog, Gabby, for half an hour when he found, instead, a hand." So goes the first line in this gory, graphic and very good Garton story. It seems that in Manning, California, where young Brett lives, the Seventh-day Adventists rule. This, of course, means no movie theaters, which to Brett means no fun. What can a nine-year-old boy then do for entertainment? Hmmm. Think video cameras and knives. Think blood. Think screams. Get the picture?

NIGHT THEY MISSED THE HORROR SHOW, by Joe R. Lansdale. This one's as funny as it is horrific. I felt bad for laughing at such grief...well, maybe not bad. Not exactly. I guess I felt less than proud. Maybe that's it. Nah. I felt good, I'm sorry to say. I laughed when Leonard and Farto decided, just for fun, to drag a dead dog around behind their Chevy Impala. I laughed when the White Tree boys ganged up on a kid named Scott and tried to play human pinball with him. I even laughed at the antics of Pork and Vinnie, two vile, lowlife, fat, ugly murdering bigots. I'm sorry. I couldn't help it. I laughed. Hey, it's not my fault. Lansdale wrote the damn story.

MORE SINNED AGAINST, by Karl Edward Wagner. Starring drugs, sex, porno movies and an innocent girl who's used, abused and dropped by the love of her life. But just remember, paybacks are hell. Oh, yeah.

NIGHT CALLS THE GREEN FALCON, by Robert R. McCammon. I wish I had never read this story because then I'd always have something great to look forward to. Did that make since? Anyway...long ago Cray Flint played the Green Falcon in a series of cliff-banger movies from RKO studios. Today, he plays a janitor at the local Burger King. He is old and broken and living in a run down apartment complex. But be may just get one more shot at life, one more crack at vitality. There is a murder at the complex, one in a series of brutal serial killings terrorizing the city. Something has to be done. Someone has to save the day. Hey! This sounds like a job for (superhero music here) the Green Falcon!

SIRENS, by Richard Christian Matheson. Girl. Pretty. Actress. Wakes. Terror. Assault. Blood. Ambulance. More.

PILGRIMS TO THE CATHEDRAL, by Mark Arnold. This story (as are so many others in this book) is worth the cover price all by itself. It's the tale of big gentle Earl Bittner, who buys a long defunct drive-in theater, not to resurrect, not originally at least, but just because he needed a place to veg out, grow seedier and park his butt without being hassled. The drive-in, known as the ZONE, soon becomes a haven of sorts to wanderers, ex-hippies, derelicts and the like. Earl doesn't care; hell, he's got abandoned cars for accommodations and a six-gallon laundry tub full of perpetually simmering and replenished chili. Room and board. Who could ask for anything more? Well, there is more. Lots more to this story.

And lots more to this book. And it's all great. So if you haven't read it, if you don't own this book, call Hinchberger right now and tell him you need it! You want it! You gotta have it! After be calms down you can explain to him that it's the book you want. The book. You won't be sorry.

Silver Screams, edited by David J. Scbow. Now playing at the Overlook Connection.

* * * *

Cemetery Dance magazine, edited by Richard T. Chizmar

Quality stuff, through and through. Full-color cover art by Charles Lang, he of Swan Song fame. Interior art by such notables as the two "AK's" Alfred Klosterman and Allen Koszowski. Great features; great fiction, great graphics and an honest to goodness regular printing schedule! Published quarterly with a print run of about 2,500, Cemetary Dance does it all. And does it all quite well.

CD features a type of horror story Editor Chizmar calls "dark mystery," nail-biting suspense that challenges the emotions and stretches the limits of ones imagination. I just call it good. In CD you can find the likes of Joe R. Lansdale, R.C. Matheson, William F. Nolan, Ray Garton, Richard Layton, Ed Gorman, James Kisner and others whom you just know are gonna be good. No surprises there. But you can also find some lesser know prizes, writers you may never have read before but whom you will surely read again. Brian Hodge, Jack Pavey, Norman Partridge, Ronald Kelly, Barry Hoffman, David Duggins and many more. This alone is reason enough to subscribe.

But there's more. Regular features that set this magazine leagues above many others. A high powered line-up of first-rate columnists. Chris Lacher is "Uncensored" in a column that could and often does include anything. Lori Perkins talks about her "Dreadful Pleasures," books she just plain loves to love. Joe Citro has begun featuring "People in the Shadows," with interviews of important yet underrated figures such as Stanley Wiater (Joe, ever the considerate guy, even tells us how to pronounce Stan's last name). Ed Bryant, a man of many books himself, takes on the book review column for CD and does so with gusto! I defy anyone who reads his review on S.P. Somtow's Moondance not to go out and get that book. T. Liam McDonald "Profiles in Terror" the true superstars of the genre, starting with Chet Williamson, F. Paul Wilson, and Dan Simmons. A.R. Morlan does a fun two-page horror quiz each issue, such as the recent "The Return of the Son of the Nit-Picky, Utterly Trivial, Totally Picayune Horror-Fantasy Movie Quiz - Part IV."

The Overlook Connection Spring 1991 #14, pp. 46-51