Those guys on the other side of the Atlantic are just as twisted as we are, as evidenced by the 21 stories in BRITISH INVASION, a Cemetery Dance horror anthology edited by Christopher Golden, Tim Lebbon and James A. Moore, all of whom know the territory well.
The title of INVASION suggests a new or recent influx of Brits, where in reality, as Stephen Volk notes in his introduction, they were there first. The UK invented horror. Witness Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, H.G. Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson, M.R. James and so on — British one and all. This collection focuses on the current crop, however, and while its member may not achieve the heights of their forefathers, there’s no mistaking there’s talent here.
In my opinion, the best story is right up front, with Gord Rollo’s “Lost in a Field of Paper Flowers,” in which a teenage boy is abused so roughly by his father that it puts him in a coma. With the help of someone the kid meets in his catatonic state, revenge on not-so-dear old Dad is rightly achieved, in a twist end that chills.
Allen Ashley examines a relationship in disrepair in “The Spaces in Our Lives,” but it’s a bit of a letdown as its ending isn’t much of one, leaving the reader with no satisfactory conclusion. This is a shame, judging from the brilliant work he put together in THE ELASTIC BOOK OF NUMBERS, an under-the-radar gem which is one of my favorite anthologies of all time.
Things venture into more blatant terror territory with “The Crazy Helmets,” in which Paul Finch’s protagonists experience car trouble near a German graveyard where not everything is at rest. Get ready for goo.
Next, “Beth’s Law” concerns a young girl gone missing and presumed dead, but the hunt reveals … well, I’m not exactly sure what, as Joel Lane’s story is an example of prose that’s a tad too abstract in its end, leaving me with a “Wait a sec, what just happened?” sense of bafflement. (Nicolas Royle’s otherwise lyrical “The Goldfinch” is another.)
Philip Nutman draws on autobiographical events to relate “The Misadventures of Fat Man and Little Boy, or, How I Made a Monster,” in which our narrator recalls making a B-movie with a pair of sex-addicted perverts. And then a murder occurs. Gruesome details aside, this is one of the lighter pieces in INVASION, meant more to titillate than terrorize.
But the most overt in that category goes to “British Horror Weekend,” an anonymously written piece that’s probably better left that way. Many of the writers either featured or mentioned in INVASION’s whole are the stars of this self-congratulatory work, which was too much of an in-joke for me to enjoy.
Mark Morris’ “Puppies for Sale” has one of the book’s more outlandish concepts, with a man convinced the dog he and his wife have bought for their daughter is being used as a conduit by its vampire sellers. A “woof” this one is not.
Peter Crowther, Kealan Patrick Burke, Ramsey Campbell and Sarah Pinborough comprise some of the more recognizable names within. I’d wager anyone who regularly follows the fiction of any of them will find much to chew on in nearly 450 pages. I won’t go so far as to say the British have shown up the Americans in terms of churning out quality horror, but they’ve certainly made an argument for importing. —Rod Lott
Buy it at Amazon or Cemetery Dance.
“The demon stood and curtsied, the dip of her beautiful legs revealing the maw of her sex nestling between powerful thighs. In that flash of vision, I thought I caught sight of a set of tiny sharp pearly white teeth beneath the warm pink of the hellspawn’s labia minor. I flinched: so that’s what happened to Fat Man’s hideous schlong.”
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF CHRISTOPHER GOLDEN:
• BLOODSTAINED OZ by Christopher Golden and James A. Moore
• FOUR DARK NIGHTS by Bentley Little, Douglas Clegg, Christopher Golden and Tom Piccirilli
• HELLBOY: ODDEST JOBS edited by Christopher Golden
• THE HISS OF ESCAPING AIR by Christopher Golden
• THE MYTH HUNTERS: BOOK ONE OF THE VEIL by Christopher Golden
• PRINCE OF STORIES: THE MANY WORLDS OF NEIL GAIMAN by Hank Wagner, Christopher Golden and Stephen R. Bissette
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF TIM LEBBON:
• BERSERK by Tim Lebbon
• THE EVERLASTING by Tim Lebbon
• THE REACH OF CHILDREN by Tim Lebbon
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF JAMES A. MOORE:
• BLOODSTAINED OZ by Christopher Golden and James A. Moore
• THE PACK: SERENITY FALLS, BOOK II by James A. Moore
• WRIT IN BLOOD: SERENITY FALLS, BOOK I by James A. Moore
