Demon Lovers and Strange Seductions

by M.L. Carter (Editor), J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Arthur Machen

Genres: Horror

207 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1971

Reviews

[Jack Tripper · Rating 3 out of 5]

This 1971 anthology was a bit of a mixed bag for me. Le Fanu's blend of historical fact and faerie folklore that opens the book, "Ultor de Lacy," did nothing for me when I first read it 20 years ago, and little more now. I do enjoy Le Fanu's ghost stories when I'm in the mood, but it was a chore keeping my eyes open through this or retain anything I was reading, even though it's not a long story. Fredric Brown has a short, 1-page experimental story called "Too Far" that's nothing but a series of puns that, yes, goes a bit "too far." Enjoyable, but nothing special.

"A Touch of Strange" by the usually reliable Sturgeon was another I'd read before, a tale of love between a human and a mermaid, and it's definitely strange, and somewhat touching, but was one of the lesser stories from the same-titled collection of his where I'd first read it. Machen's early, hugely influential weird novella "The Great God Pan" definitely belongs in a book entitled Demon Lovers and Strange Seductions, but here we're only given an 18-page excerpt. Bloch's dream-like "The Thinking Cap," about a writer who's new-found cure for writer's-block has a rather unfortunate price, was clever, but ultimately forgettable.

There were two stories here that made this anthology worth reading, however. The first, "The Wind People" by new-to-me author Marion Zimmer Bradley, is an atmospheric slow-burner that takes place in the far future on an uninhabited, forested distant planet, where a ship from Earth crash-lands, and one woman decides to stay behind once the crew eventually gets the ship patched up. She had somehow gotten pregnant during their stay, and she's worried the baby won't survive the intense pressure of hyperdrive. She knows she didn't sleep with anyone, but she did have a very strange dream about someone, or some-thing coming to her one night while she was alone. She raises the child on the planet, though she has an odd feeling they're not alone. This was a very eerie story that reminded me a bit of both George RR Martin's and Lisa Tuttle's early sf/horror hybrids, but steeped in Machen's strange tales of pagan lore.

The other highlight is one I'd read before, but it was no less powerful this time around. Blackwood's "The Glamour of the Snow" is a masterpiece of the weird, about a man, vacationing in the Alps, who's drawn to an ethereal ice-skater who only skates late at night, and who may lead him to his doom. This is a very unsettling tale, one that can be read two ways -- as a story of the supernatural, or as one man's active imagination (or madness) that may lead to his destruction at the hands of nature. This is one of Blackwood's very best tales, and one of his most accessible, imo. Every fan of ghost stories and the weird owes it to him or herself to read this chilling and beautifully-written tale.

As a whole, however, this book should only be of interest to collectors of Jeff Jones' always excellent cover art, as the better tales here can be more easily found elsewhere.

3.0 Stars

[Rain · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty entertaining TotC Weird Tales, but none had anything to do with the themes promised by the book's titles or cover art.

[Leniw · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting collection of weird stories.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this because of the awesome (and ridiculous) cover art- fits in with my mass market horror anthology obsession. But it's actually a collection of weird fiction by some of the greats- Sheridan Le Fanu ("Ultor De Lacy", which was one of the strongest stories in the collection), Arthur Machen (an excerpt from "the great God Pan"), Algernon Blackwood ("the glamour of the snow", my other favorite in the collection), Robert Bloch, Theodore Sturgeon (a pretty stupid story about mermaids), and so on (oh, including a rad story by Winston Marks, who I wasn't familiar with, called "the naked people"). But the back cover and the introduction by ML Carter are ridiculous and put it over the top- the back cover asks "Have you been had by...things?" and goes on to make sure you know what that means ("Have cold creatures of darkness had their way with your warm and mortal flesh?....yes, that's what we mean. That time alone in the night..."). The intro has plenty of other gems. But the funny thing is, most of the stories are from late 19th/early 20th century, so there's nothing racy at all...
Totally recommended!

[Hak]

Intresting