In a doomed attempt to catch up with the review books we have in hand, today we cover some English stuff. Our prime pick is The Snow Witch, by Matt Wingett, plus we mention the speculative works of Allen Stroud and Jilly Paddock. No deep weird or dogs this time, because we’re pressed against the Occult Detective Quarterly wall, beating our little fists at too many other jobs. So see what you think of these…

---

The Snow Witch: The Book of Our Mood at the Moment

Sometimes we read review books which we adore, but we know that they’d appeal to only certain folk. We might say something is recommended on the basis of quality or originality, or because of the particular literary corner in which it sits – and we’re often looking at the degree of horror or weirdness in the work. Sometimes the book has a style which is so interesting that aspects of plot become less important, and so on. It varies.

This time we’re going to recommend a book on the basis that we think that almost everyone would get something out of, and we won’t give it a label. We will say that it has a degree of horror, but very much the horror of human behaviour, not the graphic sort. It has fantasy, but a subtle working thereof, without grand sorcerous showdowns. It’s contemporary in setting, but harks back to the roots of belief and earlier practices. And you might see it as a myth or fable, but couched in the language of today.

Matt Wingett’s The Snow Witch is about a young woman, originally from the Balkans, who visits a city during one English winter. She plays the violin to earn her way, and in the process her life intertwines with that of the locals. Simple, really.

Less simple are the personal losses, inadequacies and desires of those locals. From the brutality of relationships to the heartache in families, especially that of mothers, Wingett paints a genuine and empathic picture of real people struggling with their lives. He understands our need for hope and magic, and how we fail to grasp it sometimes. Amongst the small ensemble of characters, he also delivers a man who is so flawed and empty of compassion that the occasional potential for sympathy is washed away utterly by the end of the book.

For those who seek fantasy, both magickal and symbolic strands are interwoven with the above, including the protagonist’s inheritance from the Snow Witch’s mother, and the powerful fox motif which slinks through the book. For those who seek horror, Wingett also provides images that disturb – atrocities in the Balkans, brutalities and betrayals of the heart far more terrible and effective than chainsaws or zombies. Despite both of those comments, you can still read The Snow Witch simply as a fascinating  story of people’s lives.

The Snow Witch is clever, moving, well written and extremely readable. An outstanding book for a winter’s night.

http://amzn.eu/bADzoxk

http://a.co/0LYF4sy

---

The English Connection

As we’re being a bit English today (an accident of timing), we’re including coverage of Allen Stroud’s new book The Forever Man, reviewed by Dave Brzeski. Dave is the Hard Man of the Occult Detective Quarterly editorial team, known for sending story submissions back to me with just “Fell asleep after three paragraphs,” scrawled on them. The antithesis to my agonised and over-lengthy decision-making process.

What you may not know is that his partner, Jilly Paddock, has been quietly putting out speculative fiction for some years. Jilly is not a publicist, and rarely promotes herself. However, the greydogtales Editor-in-Chief (who also takes the photos to save you from greydog’s appalling efforts) reports that they are very enjoyable, and that she always looks forward to the next one.

They range widely, but many have a pulp-detective feel combined with more modern science fiction, a pleasant duality. You can check out Jilly’s work through Amazon – here are a couple of examples.

The Spook and the Spirit in the Stone

http://amzn.eu/89KnOtU

http://a.co/jh4Q0ET

“A nine year-old girl is abducted on a backwater colony world. Bad enough, but Sophie Crispianou is the daughter of the Terran Ambassador and the step-niece of Earth’s President, and the kidnapper has struck before, leaving his previous victim dead. Finding the child falls to Detective Inspector A. Afton Lamont and her new partner, Jerome.

“The Earth authorities don’t trust the local police to solve such a high profile case and send in some help from Terrapol, an agent with psionic abilities—a spook. Giselle is beautiful but deadly, a mind reader and possibly much more, and her only goal is rescuing the lost child, regardless of the consequences. Can this unlikely team find Sophie and save her before tragedy strikes? Deep in an abandoned mine at the edge of the city, something lurks, something old and evil, woken by the tears of a scared little girl and the cruelty of her captors…”

Dead Men Rise up Never

http://amzn.eu/1X5m5po

http://a.co/4ZPXaOM

Jilly’s next book, StarChild, will be out soon.

Now, here’s that review…

---

The Forever Man

by Allen Stroud

Reviewed by Dave Brzeski

I don’t suppose I could write about something else? No? Y’see, the thing is, I went into this book cold. Didn’t really know much about it. I thought it looked a bit occult detectivey, and I’m quite into that sub-genre at the moment, so that’s what drew me in. So, is it an occult detective novel? Not really: ok, it does have some police officers investigating a very strange murder. The main protagonist, Doctor Andrew Pryde has the misfortune to have been sitting in the reference library with his nose in a book, when a corpse turns up. First he knows about it is when he looks up and notices the police. Obviously they suspect him, so he needs to investigate to try to clear himself.

Then there’s this scruffy, loner type, Ronald Gibbs. He’s investigating a series of missing people, all involving books. He has a group of like-minded types he talks to on the internet. Once they’ve finished confronting each other with knives, Ronald needs to convince Andrew that his problem is connected. Then it all starts to get a bit complicated.

Is that enough? Could you not just go read the book on my recommendation? Trust me, too many spoilers will just detract from your potential enjoyment.

All right, dammit, I’ll tell you just a little more. It involves alternate universes, and sacrifices and magic—or is that science we don’t understand yet? Damned if I know. It really is very complex—I’m not even sure that it’s just a coincidence that Stroud opens his foreword with a quote from Arthur C. Clarke, even if it isn’t the one about magic and science. There’s stuff hidden in the text of books, powerful stuff. There are also gods—or are they just people we don’t understand yet? I have no clue.

I suppose you could call it a police procedural, crossed with a fantasy novel. I don’t know why you’d want to, but if you feel the need you could. I detected a few possible influences. Neil Gaiman for one—and even a touch of Douglas Adams, albeit it’s not a comedy.

Do I have any criticisms? Well, for one thing the story is hardly over—I already told you it’s complex. It left me with far too many questions that I need answering. I suspect I may well have to reread this one before reading any follow-up. There had bloody well better be a sequel! I know where you live, Allen Stroud—ok, I don’t but I can easily find out…

Now you can all just stop pestering me and go read the damn book, all right!?

http://amzn.eu/0sWU4SK

http://a.co/11rbLUc

---

Occult Oratory

We made our basic goal! Our mega-anthology ODQ Presents is on, with a predicted publication date of March 2018.  Now we’re looking for a little bit extra to get every single story accompanied by a specially commissioned illustration of its own.

Don’t forget that you can use the Kickstarter Campaign simply to pre-order the eformat or print of the anthology, and that everyone who backs it gets the free epub or Kindle version of Willie Meikle’s ‘Eeny-Meeny-Miney-Mi-Go’ novelette.

Check out the latest update here, and do back us if you can.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/280674519/occult-detective-quarterly-presents/posts/2061946

---

Next time on greydogtales, something weird from somewhere else in the world, and all sorts of other nonsense. Call back for literature, lurchers, and life…

A short tale of the conjure-woman Mamma Lucy and the passing of a man, for no other reason than that it happened…

---

Mr Aloysius Clay

Once, when Mamma Lucy seemed young and the days seemed mellow, a man whipped his two-horse carriage through the streets of a small Georgia town. It may have been in Barrow County, though some say it was Gwinnett. Only the dead would remember the details.

The horses, two grey mares of good parentage, were none too happy at this haste or the whip on their flanks. They threw their heads back, whickering when they were struck, and as the carriage turned too fast onto the road out of town, they baulked. In the middle of the road stood a tall black woman in a print dress, one eye white as curds and gold as honey.

The man cursed mightily as the carriage skidded across the road, close to overturning. He drew the horses to a halt next to a broken hitching rail, and leaping from his seat he advanced on the woman, whip in hand. He was a fine man whose rich, embroidered weskit barely buttoned over his paunch, a fine man with silk in his weave and folding money in his pockets. The black woman was a stranger, and a poorly dressed one at that, patched and shoeless.

“You could have killed me,” he said, his brow dug deep like a plough furrow. “You ignorant–”

“Maybe you shouldn’t a’been whippin’ them on so hard,” The woman spoke without respect or insolence. “Every beast knows kindness.”

Red cheeks above burnside whiskers, he swore and laid his whip on her instead, cutting cheap cotton and raising a weal across her belly. She stumbled back, and though she made no cry, she dropped her battered carpet bag at the blow.

He raised his hand a second time, then saw he had an audience. The two brick-shouldered men on the corner were giving him a sour look, even though she was a coloured, and a gaggle of bonneted ladies were coming up the street. He scowled and turned away to yell at the horses.

When dust and carriage were gone, one of the onlookers shuffled closer. He glanced at her torn dress, paused, and then tried some words out to no one in particular.

“Got me a few taters in the house. Boiled up a mite too many.”

Mamma Lucy smiled, showing more teeth than one of the grey mares. Following him no great distance to the edge of town, she set herself down behind his shack and began to take a needle to her dress. He went inside, and when he re-appeared, he had a bowl of potatoes and greens which he put beside her.

“Name’s Samuel Ellis,” he said.

“Mamma Lucy.”

He was clearly trying to weigh up her age and her place, but he couldn’t get there. After eating, she washed up in a tin bowl and watched the man chaw.

“Ain’t many like you round here,” she said. “Bein’ so easy on coloured folk.”

He looked away, awkward at her directness. “Some is, some ain’t. Most are in the hand of that Mister Aloysius Clay you jes’ met, even the preacher. He lays on white folk too, when he has a mind. Owns the lumber yards, the ferry and the fields. And the Banner-Herald, so as it says durn much what he thinks.”

The woman nodded. “Met a few like that. Cain’t say you sound fond o’the man.”

Samuel winced. “Best not talk thataway, specially on account of…” He looked at her dark arm, not that far from his. “He rides out some nights, they say. Iffen you know what I mean.”

She did. Even so, it wasn’t her path to be an angry woman, only a watchful one, so she said nothing to that. Her belly hurt where the whip had landed, and her feet were moving her north, on account of an itch between her shoulder-blades. Georgia would be a long time healing, she reckoned.

There was nothing between the two of them, sat there behind a one-room shack, save a Samaritan’s instinct. Whether that came from the Good Book or a good heart, made no difference to her. After an easy enough silence, he bade her fortune, and went off to the fields, back to his work as an overseer for Clay.

Seeing the sun had a mind to move low, Mamma Lucy wove roots and a few fingers of dust into a flannel bag. She slipped that under his porch, and headed out of town.

Samuel, a man who never used the stick whilst doing his job, married well a few months later, much to his surprise.

***

Must have been thirty years later when Aloysius Clay was set to meet his Maker – or someone from a warmer place. He lay on goose-down and cotton, cotton better than any print dress, with his two fine sons at his side and a gaggle of servants waiting in the bedchamber or the hallway outside. Most of them prayed, but few of those prayers held anything good for their master. There was a white hood and robe in his study, and the only cross he really liked had a way of burning in the night.

Clay breathed slow and hard, a walrus in his dying. James, his eldest, had a head full of debts and what might be in his father’s safe; Eli wanted off and away, as soon as he could throw his handful on the old man’s grave. To be swimming in rare waters like Boston or New York, that was his hope. Neither was half as tainted as their father, though both had a way to go from the old man’s shadow.

Not long after ten that evening, James lifted his head. He heard talk at the door downstairs, and he had no argument with a break from the vigil, so he went down. By the fancy-carved front door stood a maid, hopping from one foot to the other, and a gangling black woman in a faded dress.

“Came to see Mr Clay,” she said, husky tones on the Georgia night. “We go way back.”

He thought of effrontery and nonsense, but there was a strange eye on him, and a wisp of something else in the air, like sage burning on a cold hearth.

“It’s fine, Sara.” Puzzled at himself, he led the woman up the grand stair, and into his father’s place of dying. The black butler, who had pressed close to the wall, took a look at the newcomer, after which he crossed himself and left the room; others slid back, unsure.

“You ‘member me, Mr Clay.” It didn’t sound like a question. “Mamma Lucy, they call me these days. Did back then, thinkin’ on it.”

Aloysius Clay opened mean eyes, crusted round with a man’s last hours.

“I don’t owe anything, especially to you damn coloureds.” His words were laboured but clear.

“Ain’t here to collect, son. There’s another on his way for that.”

Eli sucked in his cheeks, hearing the way the woman spoke. He looked at his brother James, who shrugged. The old woman sat down on the edge of the bed, a fluid movement before the brothers could do anything. She stroked the counterpane.

“Mighty fine quilt for a fine man. Well now, last time I saw you, you was madder’n a wet hen, using the Lord’s name for this an’ that, ready to be skinnin’ me and those two fancy grey mares. Black or grey, didn’t matter to you what colour a soul was wearin’.” Her big teeth shone around the room, yellow as candle-light. “But that was a while ago. Came to tell you a word or two, afore you pass.”

“I don’t–”

“You surely don’t, Mr Clay.” And she spoke that word or two, plain for any to hear.

Though she didn’t hold much with looking too far forward, there were times when it was needed. She spoke of trees that wanted to die of shame at what they carried, of war in Europe again, and black men bleeding out next to white men in the snow. She spoke of new days, and folk who sat and drank where they needed to, not where they were told, days when the colour of lips didn’t change a kiss. Of men and women who no longer needed to carry the hates that Clay had grown in his fields…

There was a fair amount more, and no one managed a movement or murmur until she’d finished. James and Eli thought of their father’s white robes, and of how it was time to be shot of them – James maybe with guilt, Eli with relief. Cousin Amy, who’d been to more than one fortune-teller at the fair, knew she’d heard truths you didn’t get though turning cards, and swore off those gaudy stalls for life.

“It won’t be right,” said Mamma Lucy, stroking her worn carpet bag. “There’ll be loss, and murder, and mistakes. But the plain fact is, Mr Clay, if it ain’t quite right, sure as the Lord you’ll still be wrong. Dead, and dead wrong.”

He lifted himself on one elbow, then fell back, unable to speak. She smiled, and it was a gentle smile.

“Been to the crossroads, Mr Clay, and had me a talk or two. Ain’t got no bad feelin’ left for you, but every soul serves a purpose. When you go down, and you surely are going down, you’ll be carryin’ those words with you. There’s folk long passed who need to hear this. Cain’t do no harm, may do some good for once.”

His eyes widened, and he drew in one long breath. His family and servants waited, but it was clear he wouldn’t be taking another. Mamma Lucy nodded.

“Said my piece, and now it’s yours.” She closed the dead man’s eyes with her big thumbs, and straightened up, looking the others over. She spotted Clay’s lawyer by the papers he carried, and the perspiration that struggled down his temples.

“You won’t be needin’ to lay him deep,” the old woman to the lawyer. “He ain’t no doubt as to where he’s a-headin’.”

The lawyer swallowed, and sweat made the ink run on his papers. He knew far too much of Clay’s business, and wanted shot of it all. There was a girl he’d met in Atlanta…

Mamma Lucy’s clouded left eye turned on the two sons. “Some here’ll listen; some won’t. But do or don’t, ain’t no call for any o’you to be Mister Aloysius Clay.”

And that was the third time that the conjure-woman walked through Georgia.

John Linwood Grant 11/17

---

---

Thanks for visiting. Before you go, don’t forget to check out the Kickstarter campaign for Occult Detective Quarterly Presents, an exciting anthology of longer supernatural  fiction. A free novelette for every backer, and lots of good rewards…

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/280674519/occult-detective-quarterly-presents?ref=card

Commenting on other people’s books seems easy, doesn’t it?  But how do you learn to turn it into a fine art? Serious readers in their countless dozens rely on that acclaimed journal the Wolds Tractor Review to analyse and discuss groundbreaking works of horror and speculative fiction. The Review, established in 1906, still comes out several Fridays a year, and lines of people can often be seen queueing outside its offices early on those mornings. Sadly, the Post Office moved years ago, and they then have to go elsewhere to collect their pensions.

The book section of the Wolds Tractor Review is considered by a number of literary critics to be second only to Which Chicken? in its incisive coverage of weird fiction. Placed conveniently at the back of each issue between ‘Used Sump Oil for Sale’ and ‘Celeriac – The Lord’s Gift to the Incontinent’, the book section can run to as many as three column inches some weeks. It’s also the first part of the journal to be grabbed, especially during the dysentery season.

So why not pick up a few tips from them? Today we’re reprinting extracts from three of the WTR’s most influential reviews, some of which shocked a nation (Nepal, we think).

---

REVIEW: “When Fish Go Bad”

The Shadow Over Innsmouth by Mr H Lovecraft

By ‘Xenophon’, Wolds Tractor Review, June 1943

“We were surprised to discover this American work, an expose of the declining tourist trade at our once-great seaside towns. Mr Lovecraft highlights the problems of inadequate regional transport, poor customer service and alcoholism, including an investigation into shabby hotel accommodation.

“Despite the honest attempts of local fishing folk to scrape a living, Innsmouth Town Council has utterly failed to consider such possibilities as a sea-life centre, amusements or a historic trail. Nor have they encouraged hot-dog stands or ice-cream sellers, with the consequent fall-off in visitors.

“The investigator is ill-equipped to deal with seaside activities at any level, seeking advice from the town drunk rather than Tourist Information, and criticising local dress habits. During this process, as a ‘townie’, he upsets the Innsmouth inhabitants, who seek to chastise him for his prejudiced view of coastal life. We confess that we did not entirely understand the ending, which seems to imply that the young man relented and was considering some sort of diving school as a way to re-establish the town’s fortunes.

“The author displays his usual interest in everyone breeding with everyone else, regardless of family relationship, suitability or even species. Due to some prurient element remaining to him, he neglects to provide any useful information on gestation periods, anatomical details or best veterinary practice, and so we regret that the text is of no practical use in the Wolds.

“As for style, Mr Lovecraft is a lustrous and unashamed admirer of the adjective, a quality which has so far proved extremely useful to us in several office crosswords.”

---

REVIEW: “A Ring at the Door”

The Lord of the Rings by Mr J Tolkien

By ‘Alcibiades’, Wolds Tractor Review, December 1955

“A potential masterpiece, sadly marred by repeated references to an uninspiring race of stunted, self-absorbed gluttons. Despite the availability of high quality aquiline transport systems, or the fact that most of the journey could have been done via coastal shipping routes, several of these rural dunces undertake an unfeasible ramble across the most dangerous terrain they can find. Along the way they are greeted with joy by numerous peoples who have apparently never met anyone short. We must assume that Mr Tolkien suffered at the hands of taller boys in his school-days, and that they regularly raided his tuck box.

“Over many pages, during which many noble and ancient things die or are severely diminished, we are treated to some unlikely spectacles, such as a nation of horsemen deciding that their best career move would be to charge elephants (an action which proves to be unnecessary anyway). Shortly after, all evil is vanquished by setting fire to some jewellery.

“The world is left in the hands of a group of unrepentant (and shockingly uncritical) monarchists, who make it clear that no one should visit Gluttonland unless forced to by diplomatic obligations. Most of the remaining noble and ancient things run away, presumably  relieved to  get out of there.

“We quite liked the character Saruman, who seemed to be one of the only people who knew what he was doing, but neither he nor any of his assistants made explicit mention of tractors.”

---

REVIEW: “A Blue-Eyed Boy”

Dune by Mr F Herbert

By ‘Xenophon’, Wolds Tractor Review, October 1965

“This stirring epic might have been a useful resource for those already gardening on a light, sandy soil, and thus aware of the need for long-term planning and special nutritional needs. It is a shame that the characters have limited agricultural experience, and appear to belong to another work entirely, something about feuding medieval families who discover that little-known Arabic neighbours with better-fitting suits have been hiding on their allotments.

“In brief, a member of the aristocracy moves to a planet only suited to large scale carrot cultivation. Once established there, after several drug-induced episodes he  decides to call himself after a rat and destroy the order of known society, during which process he gets worms. This is a surprisingly British touch from Mr Herbert, which he follows up on by including mention of nuns, wet towels, poor dental work and the opportunistic marrying of princesses.

“A substantial volume, it may appeal to both ecologically-minded students and those who are too stoned to know what day it is. However, the book falls short in delivering the necessary details about spice harvesting for novices, with no mention of yield per acre, use of pesticides against spice beetles etc. It is therefore of little value to the farming community.

“We must add that the scene where harvesters are lifted from their work is clearly modelled on an incident near Malton during the storms of 1963, when an RAF rescue helicopter was required to assist Mrs Martha Guthrie* of Spleen Beck Farm, whose potato fields had flooded. We stop short of claiming plagiarism, though astute readers can see the original for themselves in our bumper Christmas issue for that year.”

*The reviewer ‘Xenophon’ was revealed in 1978 to be Mrs Martha Guthrie.

How many people today have heard of Professor Ernst Stellmacher, author of Insekten-Archäologie für Frauen (1873)? Very few, we imagine. And yet it is to her that we owe most of what we know about the traditional myths and legends of the Christmas Wasp. This stalwart collector of North European myths once held a pivotal role in the field of folk-lore studies. Courted by antiquarians across Europe, Stellmacher was born not Ernst, but Steffi, and spent most of her life passing as a man in order to prosper in the universities of the nineteenth century.

Continue reading Folklore and Origins of the Christmas Wasp →