Today, something for almost everyone – a forthcoming M R James project, an unusual recent horror anthology, and a collection of dashing occult detective adventures. We are, dear listener, always staggering and a bit exhausted at this time of year, so feel free to skip around in the chaos below…
WHISTLE AND I’LL CHECK YOUR DICE ROLL, LAD
First, then, a quick nod to a role-playing game drawing on the themes and tropes in the stories of M R James. Casting The Runes is a new game of occult investigation, coming from The Design Mechanism in 2020, conceived of and written by author and journalist Paul St.John Mackintosh.
We are admittedly fond of old Monty, and do tease him with our tragic parodies when the mood takes us:
It could never be said of Mr Pillington that he exhibited the slightest interest in an invigorating stroll – or even that he would stir himself as far as the cathedral close on foot should a hansom to be had, if truth be told. That his young photographically-minded friend Emmanuel Treves had persuaded him to contemplate a walking holiday through Suffolk was therefore an astonishment to many in Buntlebury.
“It is… quite a large county,” Mr Pillington’s landlady confided, whilst measuring starch for her lodger’s collars. “Quite large indeed.”
Mr Pillington made no reply, for his mind was aswim with the visions which young Treves had placed before him. Ancient and curious mounds which had barely been catalogued by the Suffolk Archaeological Society; quaint parish churches which held certain inscriptions, each a warning to the inquisitive or simply the rather bored, and most of all, the bookshops of Suffolk. These, Treves assured him, held numerous folios of considerable arcane import, obscure yet canonical gospels, rare unexpurgated copies of the Scrapbook of Solomon, and so much more.
And thus it was, despite all protestations and glimmers of commonsense, that Mr Pillington and his companion left Buntlebury equipped only with an oddly inscribed whistle, a marvellously wrought figure of a cat from the cathedral pulpit, a stone carved with seven and a half eyes, a pair of rather heavy binoculars, and a sheet for any spare bed they might encounter.
“For indeed,” said Mr Pillington to the bemused station-master as they waited for the train to East Bergholt, “What harm can befall us? Why, I have seen the most charming mezzotint of the old manor house which will be our ‘base camp’, as you old soldiers might call it – and scarce any of the figures depicted thereon showed the slightest sign of having murdered any children…”
In the distant past we played, and ran many campaigns in, various different role-playing games, until the sheer time commitment and the practicalities of gathering older, working gamers became too much hard work. One of the pleasures was in trying out new systems, and shifting backgrounds from the classic high fantasy of Dragonquest and Powers & Perils, through science fiction such as Space Opera, to horror games such as Call of Cthulhu. Would we have wanted to play in the world of M R James back then? Probably not. For this has to be a realm of disquiet, subtlety, understatement and painstaking research, and when we were young, we wanted to smite things.
Nowadays, however, this idea has far more appeal. Mackintosh is an accomplished writer of strange fictions; he has a strong literary background, an understanding of the borderlands, and has put much effort into the necessary period issues, being a Jamesian enthusiast himself, so this all looks promising. From the Introduction:
“Casting the Runes is a roleplaying game (RPG) based on the GUMSHOE system for investigative RPGs, which was created by Robin Laws under the auspices of Pelgrane Press to model “stories where investigators uncover a series of clues, and interpret them to solve a mystery” – an apt description of much of the classic horror fiction of Montague Rhodes James (1862-1936). The unique character of James’s stories, and his own personality, which fed into his creation of the sub-genre of the “antiquarian ghost story,” are what inspired us to create this game.
“Here, player-characters, dubbed “Investigators” for game purposes, proceed step by step to unearth the unearthly, under the guidance of Game Masters, or GMs for short. (Some James fans may prefer to designate their GMs as Masters in keeping with many Edwardian schools and colleges.)
“The classic ghost story, replete with “malevolence and terror, the glare of evil faces, ‘the stony grin of unearthly malice,’ pursuing forms in darkness, and ‘long-drawn, distant screams’,” in James’s words, is the mood we’re aiming at. And for the occult detection element, read on…”
Release of the game is to be supported by a Kickstarter campaign in January 2020. You can download an excellent preview pdf which tells you loads more about the game here:
casting the runes free preview
Further news and updates will be found at: https://thedesignmechanism.com
THERE WERE GIANTS IN THOSE DAYS, BUT IT’S OK, WE SHOT ‘EM
Onto the December release of Joshua M Reynold’s new collection, Monmouth’s Giants (18thWall, 2019), Volume One in the Case Files of the Royal Occultist. A number of readers may be familiar with the Royal Occultist – a position rather than a person – and with the many stories of Charles St Cyprian and his assistant Ebe Gallowglass. This collection starts, appropriately, with the first chronological tale of St Cyprian, who eventually becomes apprenticed to the Royal Occultist of the time (Thomas Carnacki), and is later the post-holder himself. Josh once said of him:
“Charles St. Cyprian is Rudolph Valentino by way of P.G. Wodehouse’s Bertie Wooster—impeccably dressed, hand-some, and a bit of a twit. He is a slim man in his late twenties, with an inordinate fondness for the sartorial creations of Savile Row…”
But he’s not that much of a twit, in reality – he has his dark and cunning moments as well. These stories are always a great read. If St Cyprian brings style, wit and knowledge of the occult, Gallowglass brings obstinacy, inventiveness and her range of large-bore weaponry. They’re quite the pair, and there’s a very interesting note hidden away in the book:
‘Fane of the Black Queen’ was written specifically for this collection, as a way of tying up Nephren-Ka’s story in suitably epic fashion. This story is also the first Gallowglass-centric story in the series. She’s a harder edged character than St. Cyprian, and less prone to explaining things, which noticeably changes the tone of things. There are fewer jokes, and more deaths. Foreshadowing, perhaps, as to what her tenure as Royal Occultist will be like…
Monmouth’s Giants contains thirteen stories, with five being new in print for the collection – ‘The Charnel Hounds’, ‘The Faceless Fiend’, ‘Wendy-Smythe’s Worm’, ‘Deo Viridio’ and ‘Fane of the Black Queen’. A jolly good catch for the winter nights, and unlikely to disappoint.
You can also go straight to the 18thWall Productions site:
The late Sam Gafford and greydog had the pleasure of publishing Josh’s Royal Occultist stories a number of times – the title story appeared in Sam’s Carnacki: The New Adventures, whilst together we published the adventures ‘Orbis Tertius’, ‘Terror on the Links’ and ‘The Bascomb Rug’ in Occult Detective Quarterly (now Occult Detective Magazine). A new St Cyprian and Gallowglass tale should also be appearing in next year’s anthology Sherlock Holmes and the Occult Detectives, edited by John Linwood Grant, from Belanger Books.
Greydogtales interviewed Josh here:
http://greydogtales.com/blog/joshua-reynolds-royal-occultist-with-a-warhammer/
UNDER A WORRYING MOON
Back to disquiet, though not generally in a Jamesian sense. Our final mention is of an anthology that we haven’t had time to finish, and yet which offers such promise that we had to include it. Nox Pareidolia (Nightscape, 2019), edited by Robert S Wilson, is the sort of wide-ranging anthology which reminds us why we read weird fiction, and probably why some other people don’t – a massive collection of challenging yet rewarding tales.
Nox Pareidolia has no earnest introduction about ‘the field’, nor any authors’ notes. This is fitting. Many of the tales inside are illusory, elusive, and deliver no final judgement. There are stories which will rightly wow some readers, and stories which sit on that odd edge of simply being curious.
It’s the nature of the vehicle – a train you ride to see what turns up on the journey, not one to get you to a comfy hotel where you can put your toothbrush down neatly next to the complimentary soap. Were there any such destination in Nox Pareidolia, the place would be long abandoned, your room a gaping maw of inconsistencies, and the soap would stare at you as it writhed and rotted in the basin… hang on, what were we saying? Blimey, that gin was strong…
The contents page itself gives you a feel for what you might have in store – strange tales of disquiet and misleading perceptions, by talented contemporary authors:
- WATCH ME BURN WITH THE LIGHT OF GHOSTS by Paul Jessup
- IMMOLATION by Kristi DeMeester
- HER EYES ARE WINTER by Christopher Ropes
- 8X10 by Duane Pesice and Don Webb
- BAG AND BAGGAGE by Greg Sisco
- THE DREDGER by Matt Thompson
- HELLO by Michael Wehunt
- GARDENING ACTIVITIES FOR COUPLES by Alvaro Zinos-Amaro
- LIES I TOLD MYSELF by Lynne Jamneck
- THE UNKINDNESS by Dino Parenti
- MERGE NOW by Kurt Fawver
- when we were trespassers by doungjai gam
- RUM PUNCH IS GOING DOWN by Daniel Braum
- UNMOORED by Sean M. Thompson
- JUST BEYOND THE SHORE by Elizabeth Beechwood
- THE SCHOOLMASTER by David Peak
- THE PAST YOU HAVE, THE FUTURE YOU DESERVE by K.H. Vaughan
- HERR SCHEINTOD by LC von Hessen
- THE ROOM ABOVE by Brian Evenson
- SINCERELY EDEN by Amelia Gorman
- WILD DOGS by Carrie Laben
- THE MOODY ROOMS OF AGATHA TATE by Wendy Nikel
- SALMON RUN by Andrew Kozma
- THE LITTLE DRAWER FULL OF CHAOS by Annie Neugebauer
- WHEN THE NIGHTINGALE DEVOURS THE STARS by Gwendolyn Kiste
- FAR FROM HOME by Dan Coxon
- BIRDS by Zin E. Rocklyn
- STRIDENT CALLER by Laird Barron
- THE TASTE OF ROT by Steve Toase
- VENOM by S.P. Miskowski
- IN THE VASTNESS OF THE SOVEREIGN SKY by S.L. Edwards
That title may help, as well. Pareidolia: the tendency for incorrect perception of a stimulus as an object, pattern or meaning known to the observer, such as seeing shapes in clouds, seeing faces in inanimate objects or abstract patterns, or hearing hidden messages in music.
And so with Nox, you have a night (or many nights, because this is a hefty anthology) of something which was once identified with psychosis. The disturbed and disturbing relationships between reality – if there is such a thing – and perception. Of some of the randomly picked stories we have read so far, we can at least tease:
‘Unmoored’ by Sean M Thompson is a flutter of true disquiet, even of fear, if you’ve ever known anyone whose mind is failing due to dementia, and wondered what that meant for the You that is, and the You that might be to come. It’s probably among the most worrying stories in the book, not because it takes you to strange imagined landscapes, but because it sits you in the living room, next to the framed photographs, and then it shreds you. Being so personal, it lingers.
S L Edwards delivers ‘In The Vastness Of The Sovereign Sky’, a politically-sourced narrative which this time concentrates less on the explicit horror of the broader politics and explores more the internal world of the protagonist, to provide a particularly effective ending. One of his best.
Gwendolyn Kiste delivers… Gwendolyn Kiste, which is more than some writers achieve in a lifetime. ‘When The Nightingale Devours The Stars’ is a slice of inexplicable events and explicable emotions, demonstrating once again her ability to build warped and wonderful bridges between the two.
Laird Barron’s ‘Strident Caller’ is blunt, brutal and very effective; Michael Wehunt swims into far different waters with a complex and fascinating piece, ‘Hello’, which plays with the reader, the genre, and social media. From a lesser writer it would be a enjoyable, referential conceit; from Wehunt, it achieves a heightened and serious complexity which weaves together Lionel Ritchie songs (yes, really), invented – or discovered? – fragments of fiction, and then other living horror writers, in order to break down all walls. The more grounded in real life the story becomes, the less you can be sure of reality:
“But at the same time there’s the feeling that I’m a writer being written—a man’s depiction of a female horror author, with the thoughts he would ascribe to her. It’s the softest tingle on my skin, the softest catch in the throat when I breathe…”
Intricate, disturbing and well worth reading.
Oh, and Nox Pareidolia is fully illustrated with numerous striking plates by Luke Spooner, enhancing the mood even more. If you want to know what’s really going on in weird fiction, you should go get this book.
Nightscape Books are also running a special offer on their books until the end of the year (probably most useful for our North American listeners):
We shall certainly return on and off over the winter break, though if there’s good walking weather for the doggies, we might have to make the best of that as well…