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<\/a><\/p>\nNewCon Press Novella Set 2<\/h2>\nReviewed by Dave Brzeski<\/h2>\n
One of my oldest and best friends pointed me at these fascinating novella sets that NewCon Press were publishing a few years back. I\u2019ve since picked up most of them in paperback, or Kindle format \u2013 some supplied by the publisher as review copies. I am deeply jealous of those who can afford the gorgeous slipcased sets of four hardcovers, as they are a work of art unto themselves.<\/p>\n
The covers of each set are done by the same artist as one large painting, encompassing all four books, as can be seen in the accompanying illustration. Other than that, the stories are not connected, other than by a fairly broad overall concept. Set One, which I have yet to get to, are all related in some way to the planet Mars. Set Two has a slightly vaguer concept \u2013 that of dark horror\/thriller, which seemed very much in keeping with the tastes of the Old Grey Dog and I, and so I decided to cover that one first\u2026<\/p>\n
The gorgeous portmanteau cover is by Vincent Sammy, not a name I was familiar with, but one I will certainly remember.<\/p>\n
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Title: Case of the Bedevilled Poet: A Sherlock Holmes Enigma<\/h2>\nAuthor: Simon Clark<\/h2>\n
My expectations were quite high here. Having had the great pleasure of editing a story by Simon Clark for the anthology \u2013 Shadmocks & Shivers: New Tales Inspired by the Stories of R. Chetwynd-Hayes<\/em> \u2013 I knew his writing was of a high standard. I was certainly not disappointed.<\/p>\n Jack Crofton is a published poet living in London during the Blitz. He managed to avoid enlisting in the armed forces by taking a job as a scriptwriter for the sort of short, patriotic films that were funded by the government in an attempt to keep up morale back home. Someone, or something, wants Jack dead, and more than that, it intends to make him suffer first.<\/p>\n Drunk, terrified after being threatened and chased by a violent soldier who resents his avoidance of battle, he tries to find someone who will listen to him. Things get stranger by the hour, as the people he encounters keep repeating the same mantra \u2013 \u201cI\u2019m going to be your own personal Monster. I\u2019m going to make you suffer. And suffer you shall before you die.\u201d<\/p>\n He takes refuge in a pub, where he finally finds a couple of old gentlemen willing to listen to his story. They offer to help, in exchange for a bottle of Whiskey \u2013 they claim to be Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson!<\/p>\n The next day, he puts it all down to the extremely drunken state he\u2019d been in, and throws the piece of paper he\u2019d been given with the address of the two old men in the wastepaper bin\u2026 but an accident at work, followed by yet another person repeating that same mantra, has him decide to seek out the help of Holmes and Watson after all.<\/p>\n Clarke\u2019s vivid descriptions of the horrors suffered by the people of London during the Blitz are genuinely terrifying; I\u2019ve rarely read anything scarier. Jack\u2019s situation gets progressively weirder and more dangerous, as Holmes discovers exactly who is trying to kill him, and why. It\u2019s equal parts mad science and supernatural. It\u2019s never established with certainty whether or not the two old men were, in fact, Holmes and Watson. The readers are left to make up their own minds on that point, but it really doesn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n It was probably twenty years ago now, that it occurred to me that the original fairy stories, the dark tales of The Brothers Grimm and others, before they were Disneyfied and made palatable to those who believed children should be shielded from the darker side of life, would make for some interesting dark fiction.<\/p>\n Evidently I wasn\u2019t the only person to have this thought, as over the next few decades, many reimagined fairy tales\/folklore based novels began to appear. In fact they became a bit of a trend \u2013 even the TV and Movie industries jumped on the bandwagon. The problem was that I didn\u2019t really like a lot of it. So much of it was firmly along the lines of YA paranormal romance. Not that I haven\u2019t found some excellent reads in that genre, but the market has been flooded with it of late\u2026 and it wasn\u2019t quite what I\u2019d envisioned back when I first considered the possibilities.<\/p>\n Alison Littlewood has achieved something quite remarkable here. Cottingley<\/em> is an epistolatory novella, entirely told in the form of letters from Lawrence H Fairclough, initially to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, then to Mr Edward L Gardner \u2013 member of the Theosophical Society and author of Fairies; A Book of Real Fairies<\/em> (1945) and Fairies: The Cottingley Photographs and Their Sequel<\/em> (1945). The fact that the replies from Mr Gardner are not included, only referred to, neatly removes the necessity of attributing fictional writings to a real person. Epistolatory books can often be very tedious to read. Much as I love Bram Stoker\u2019s Dracula<\/em>, I can\u2019t deny that the early chapters, consisting as they do mainly of letters between various characters, almost defeated me. This is never an issue here. Not only has Littlewood managed to emulate the period style without sacrificing readability for authenticity, she does it entirely in the form of letters.<\/p>\n Along the way she manages to provide a perfectly reasonable sounding explanation for how Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the extremely rational Sherlock Holmes, came to present what appear (at least to the modern eye) to be obvious fake photographs as evidence of the reality of fairies.<\/p>\n While Body in the Woods<\/em> is certainly very dark and creepy, the weird elements are all strictly real world. It\u2019s no less powerful for that. Claire did something that was\u2026 inadvisable in her past and because of that she owes Dean a favour. She\u2019s made other bad decisions before in her life, but this time, she somehow finds herself agreeing to something insane. The phrase, \u2018digging herself a hole\u2019 comes to mind, and it certainly fits more and more as the book progresses.<\/p>\n Dean has \u2013 every review I\u2019ve seen has given this bit away and it is in the title of the story, so I can\u2019t worry too much about spoilers here \u2013 convinced her to help him dispose of a body in the woods near her house. He denies having killed anyone, but is very reluctant to give details.<\/p>\n This, as you\u2019d expect, does nothing for her mental state. To add to the pressure she has a persistent mould problem in the house she\u2019s working on doing up while her partner is away for work. The story is interspersed with flashbacks that give some idea of how she came to be in a position where she\u2019d agree to this somewhat extreme favour.<\/p>\n The body is eventually found, of course. A local, whose wife disappeared, is suspected, but there\u2019s no proof. Eventually things get back to normal \u2013 except for Claire\u2019s still fragile mental state. The ending is quite subtle. I had finished the novella in the not so small hours of the morning, by which time I was extremely tired. It left me thinking about it for a day and finally led me to reread the final chapter the following night, to make sure I understood it properly. I\u2019ve since perused a few reviews on Goodreads on the suspicion that some readers might not quite get it. I was correct in this assumption.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a very clever piece of writing, that needs you to pay attention, but it\u2019s well worth it.<\/p>\n We return to a more folk-horror theme for the fourth book in this set of NewCon Press novellas. Gerry Summerfield has recently taken up a position as the local veterinary in the small farming village community of Abbotsford. It\u2019s at best a stop-gap, until he gets the chance to move to a practice in a bigger town, or city. The people are nice, though and he can cope with being elbow deep in the back end of cows for a while at least. But that nice Mrs Marchant in the local shop hints that The Dark Days are returning. Frankly, he should have packed up and left right there and then, but maybe he hasn\u2019t read the same stories and seen the same films as we have.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a very well-written, quick and enjoyable read. I started it after midnight, with the intention of picking it up the next day, but soon found I\u2019d finished the whole thing in one sitting.<\/p>\n The only criticism I have is this\u2026 the story is somewhat familiar. As I hinted above, we\u2019ve likely all read, or seen it before. I actually reviewed a book fairly recently that covered the same ground. It doesn\u2019t take many pages before we know exactly how things will pan out, and there are only two possible endings. The protagonist survives, or he doesn\u2019t. Having said that, Caselberg simply tells it better than most. It\u2019s less clear cut. The villagers are not evil \u2013 they simply do what they have to to survive. They don\u2019t bring it upon themselves due to greed, or stupidity, their situation is simply what it is.<\/p>\n Do I recommend it? Actually, yes\u2026 just don\u2019t expect any surprises.<\/p>\n In conclusion, I can\u2019t recommend this collection of novellas highly enough. I look forward to reading the others. NewCon Press are currently on Set 7.<\/p>\n NewCon Press can be found here: <\/strong>www.newconpress.co.uk\/<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Something for those interested in Arthur Conan Doyle and Cottingley, Holmesian variants, folk horror, or just… scary stuff. One of our regular reviewers, Dave Brzeski, covers a four-novella release from NewCon Press (all can be bought separately). NewCon Press Novella Set 2 Reviewed by Dave Brzeski One of my oldest and best friends pointed me … Continue reading NewCon Press – Four Novellas for All<\/span> <\/a><\/p>\n
\nTitle: Cottingley<\/h2>\n
Author: Alison Littlewood<\/h2>\n
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\nTitle: Body in the Woods<\/h2>\n
Author: Sarah Lotz<\/h2>\n
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\nTitle: The Wind<\/h2>\n
Author: Jay Caselberg<\/h2>\n
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