Where have all the ghost stories gone? They used to be the dominant genre of horror, told with such ingenuity and regularity that they built and cemented the reputation of M.R. James, Sheridan Le Fanu and many a summer camp counselor.
Editor Marvin Kaye rounds up three other well-known authors to revive the format in THE GHOST QUARTET, an anthology of four (naturally) original tales involving visits from spirits. According to Kaye’s introduction, he finds ghosts “more frightening — because they are more plausible — than ghouls, vampires, Frankenstein monsters, mummies, werewolves, zombies, or even murderers who resemble Peter Lorre.”
So do Kaye and company succeed? By my count, half do, half don’t. Oh, they all involve ghosts and are well-written, all right — but two of them failed my personal litmus test of “If I were reading this by candlelight in the dead of night, would it make me think twice about every gust of wind or each snap of tree branch?”
First up is Brian Lumley, whose fiction I usually find cumbersome. But he scores with “The Place of Waiting.” That refers to an unusual vertical rock formation in the moors of Dartmoor — the setting of the Sherlock Holmes novel THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES. There, narrator Paul attempts to sketch the stones upon several visits, interrupted by a friendly local and a seemingly crazy old hobo. Their chats soon lead to Paul having strange visions.
Orson Scott Card’s “Hamlet’s Father” is next, and as the title suggests, it’s a retelling of a portion of William Shakespeare’s HAMLET. Here, young Hamlet feels no love from his father, the king. When dear ol’ Dad dies and Claudius assumes the throne, his father shows up as a spirit to tell Hamlet to change all that. Any enthusiasm for it was negated by an assumption that the reader has a built-in knowledge of all HAMLET’s characters, but I always struggled through reading that at school, and sleeping through any film adaptations ever since. I assume for Shakespeare scholars who know Rosencrantz from Guildenstern, Card’s contribution may be more fun.
Kaye himself proves to be the book’s MVP, with “The Haunted Single Malt: A Spectral Symposium.” In his tale, a group regularly meets in an Edinburgh pub to swamp verifiable ghost stories, and thus begins a round that makes this section an anthology unto itself. His characters share stories about a landlord’s cursed flat and the coffin site of Bloody Baron, before downing the titular liquor that they’ll wish they’d never sampled.
Lastly, Tanith Lee turns in “Strindberg’s Ghost Sonata,” which we’re told takes its inspiration from an August Strindberg play. Unfortunately, I’ve never been able to get into her style of fantasy, and this excursion into a haunted Russia is no exception. —Rod Lott
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF MARVIN KAYE:
• DON’T OPEN THIS BOOK! edited by Marvin Kaye
• THE FAIR FOLK edited by Marvin Kaye
• FORBIDDEN PLANETS edited by Marvin Kaye
• SHERLOCK HOLMES MYSTERY MAGAZINE #1 edited by Marvin Kaye
• THE ULTIMATE HALLOWEEN edited by Marvin Kaye
Related posts:
- Ghost House Books + ghost stories = monster sales
- Don’t Open This Book!
- Ghost Rider Team-Up
- The Ultimate Halloween
- The Undead: Headshot Quartet
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
That sounds like an excellent anthology. Many horror fiction fans seem to be under the impression that the traditional ghost story belongs in either the nineteenth or early twentieth century, but I’ve always disagreed. This volume sounds like just what’s needed to keep the subgenre alive.