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Basic Black: Tales of Appropriate Fear
Book by Dowling, Terry
Hardcover
Published January 1, 2006
1 person is currently reading
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About the author
Terry Dowling
105 books58 followersTerence William (Terry) Dowling -
“Who’s the writer who can produce horror as powerful and witty as the best of Peter Straub, SF as wondrously byzantine and baroque as anything by Gene Wolfe, near-mainstream subtly tinged with the fantastic like some tales by Powers or Lansdale? Why Terry Dowling, of course.” Locus (Nov 1999)
Born in Sydney in 1947, Terry Dowling is one of Australia’s most awarded, versatile and internationally acclaimed writers of science fiction, fantasy, dark fantasy and horror. He is author of Rynosseros (1990), Blue Tyson (1992), Twilight Beach (1993) and Rynemonn (2007) (the Ditmar award-winning Tom Rynosseros saga, which, in his 2002 Fantastic Fictions Symposium keynote speech, US Professor Brian Attebery called “not only intricate and engaging, but important as well”), Wormwood (1991), The Man Who Lost Red (1994), An Intimate Knowledge of the Night (1995), Antique Futures: The Best of Terry Dowling (1999), Blackwater Days (2000) and Basic Black: Tales of Appropriate Fear (2006) (which earned a starred review in Publishers’ Weekly in May 2006 and won the 2007 International Horror Guild Award for Best Collection). He is editor of the World Fantasy Award-winning The Essential Ellison (1987/ revised 2001), Mortal Fire: Best Australian SF (1993) and The Jack Vance Treasury (2007).
Dowling has outstanding publishing credentials. As well as appearances in The Year’s Best Science Fiction, The Year’s Best SF, The Mammoth Book of Best New SF, The Year’s Best Fantasy, The Best New Horror and The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror (a record eight times; he is the only author to have had two stories in the 2001 volume, one chosen by each editor), his work has appeared in such major anthologies as Centaurus: The Best of Australian Science Fiction, The Dark, Dreaming Down Under, Gathering the Bones and The Oxford Book of Australian Ghost Stories and in such diverse publications as the prestigious SciFiction, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Interzone, Oceans of the Mind, Ténèbres, Ikarie, Japan’s SF and Russia’s Game.Exe. His fiction has been translated into many languages and has been used in a course in forensic psychology in the US.
“Here is Jack Vance, Cordwainer Smith and Tiptree/Sheldon come again, reborn in one wonderful talent…you’ll purr and growl with delight.” – Harlan Ellison
Terry has also written and co-designed three best-selling computer adventures: Schizm: Mysterious Journey (2001) (aka US Mysterious Journey: Schizm) (www.schizm.com/schizm1/), Schizm II: Chameleon (2003) (aka US Mysterious Journey II: Chameleon) (www.schizm2.info) and Sentinel: Descendants in Time (2004) (aka Realms of Illusion) (www.dormeuse.info) (based on his 1996 short story, “The Ichneumon and the Dormeuse”), which have been published in many foreign language editions. He has reviewed for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Bulletin, and was the science fiction, fantasy and horror reviewer for The Weekend Australian for nineteen years under four different literary editors: Barry Oakley, James Hall, Murray Waldren and Deborah Hope.
Terry holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Western Australia (the first such degree to be granted and completed at that university), an MA (Hons) in English Literature and a BA (Hons) in English Literature, Archaeology and Ancient History, both from the University of Sydney. He has won many Ditmar and Aurealis Awards for his fiction, as well as the William Atheling Jr Award for his critical work. His first computer adventure won the Grand Prix at Utopiales in France in 2001 and he has been nominated for the World Fantasy Award twice.
“Who’s the writer who can produce horror as powerful and witty as the best of Peter Straub, SF as wondrously byzantine and baroque as anything by Gene Wolfe, near-mainstream subtly tinged with the fantastic like some tales by Powers or Lansdale? Why Terry Dowling, of course.” Locus (Nov 1999)
Born in Sydney in 1947, Terry Dowling is one of Australia’s most awarded, versatile and internationally acclaimed writers of science fiction, fantasy, dark fantasy and horror. He is author of Rynosseros (1990), Blue Tyson (1992), Twilight Beach (1993) and Rynemonn (2007) (the Ditmar award-winning Tom Rynosseros saga, which, in his 2002 Fantastic Fictions Symposium keynote speech, US Professor Brian Attebery called “not only intricate and engaging, but important as well”), Wormwood (1991), The Man Who Lost Red (1994), An Intimate Knowledge of the Night (1995), Antique Futures: The Best of Terry Dowling (1999), Blackwater Days (2000) and Basic Black: Tales of Appropriate Fear (2006) (which earned a starred review in Publishers’ Weekly in May 2006 and won the 2007 International Horror Guild Award for Best Collection). He is editor of the World Fantasy Award-winning The Essential Ellison (1987/ revised 2001), Mortal Fire: Best Australian SF (1993) and The Jack Vance Treasury (2007).
Dowling has outstanding publishing credentials. As well as appearances in The Year’s Best Science Fiction, The Year’s Best SF, The Mammoth Book of Best New SF, The Year’s Best Fantasy, The Best New Horror and The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror (a record eight times; he is the only author to have had two stories in the 2001 volume, one chosen by each editor), his work has appeared in such major anthologies as Centaurus: The Best of Australian Science Fiction, The Dark, Dreaming Down Under, Gathering the Bones and The Oxford Book of Australian Ghost Stories and in such diverse publications as the prestigious SciFiction, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Interzone, Oceans of the Mind, Ténèbres, Ikarie, Japan’s SF and Russia’s Game.Exe. His fiction has been translated into many languages and has been used in a course in forensic psychology in the US.
“Here is Jack Vance, Cordwainer Smith and Tiptree/Sheldon come again, reborn in one wonderful talent…you’ll purr and growl with delight.” – Harlan Ellison
Terry has also written and co-designed three best-selling computer adventures: Schizm: Mysterious Journey (2001) (aka US Mysterious Journey: Schizm) (www.schizm.com/schizm1/), Schizm II: Chameleon (2003) (aka US Mysterious Journey II: Chameleon) (www.schizm2.info) and Sentinel: Descendants in Time (2004) (aka Realms of Illusion) (www.dormeuse.info) (based on his 1996 short story, “The Ichneumon and the Dormeuse”), which have been published in many foreign language editions. He has reviewed for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Bulletin, and was the science fiction, fantasy and horror reviewer for The Weekend Australian for nineteen years under four different literary editors: Barry Oakley, James Hall, Murray Waldren and Deborah Hope.
Terry holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Western Australia (the first such degree to be granted and completed at that university), an MA (Hons) in English Literature and a BA (Hons) in English Literature, Archaeology and Ancient History, both from the University of Sydney. He has won many Ditmar and Aurealis Awards for his fiction, as well as the William Atheling Jr Award for his critical work. His first computer adventure won the Grand Prix at Utopiales in France in 2001 and he has been nominated for the World Fantasy Award twice.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
March 20, 2025
“… the night wind comes to shiver the water of the pond …”
I may be wrong, of course, (and I’ll readily admit that I’m not a big fan of the horror genre), but it seems to me that every horror short story every written contains certain common traits and literary devices – generous use of symbolism; references to death, violence, fear, terror, fright, murder; unexpected sounds or ominous silence; atmospheric, moody writing; darkness and shadows; onomatopoeia and pathetic fallacy; foreshadowing; suspense; irony; hyperbole; mystery; and, invariably, the clever, entirely unexpected twist ending that is intended to tingle your spine and raise the hairs on the back of your neck. Many writers are more than capable of creating the mood, of drawing the reader into a compelling story and giving the reader a delicious expectation of having their pants scared off with the final paragraph!
In that sense, Terry Dowling’s BASIC BLACK anthology is completely typical. His creation of that shivery, tense, mood of expectation driving the reader to continue ranges anywhere from workmanlike to exceptional. Dowling’s plan – to demonstrate that the typical, the mundane, the everyday object or situation is not always as it seems on the surface – is a clever one and, indeed, it often works. For me, there were two or three truly thrilling stories that made it easily to that 5-star plateau and simply knocked the breath out of me leaving my heart beating so loudly, I was sure my wife would hear it in the next room. On the other hand, there were also several that simply left me flat, entirely deflated … with that disenchanted reader’s “so what?”, or “I don’t get it!” kind of response.
My favourites (by a very wide margin) were, THE DAEMON STREET GHOST-TRAP, THE BONE SHIP, and THE MAZE MAN. It is perhaps unfortunate that THE DAEMON STREET GHOST-TRAP, a positively brilliant and entirely novel characterization of ghosts and ghost-hunting, was the very first story in the anthology because it set up a bar that the balance of the stories simply couldn’t clear. I’m glad that I read it but I’m not a convert to horror yet and I’m not running out to find anything else by Mr Dowling.
Horror fan? Almost certainly an enjoyable, if not entirely consistent, read.
Paul Weiss
I may be wrong, of course, (and I’ll readily admit that I’m not a big fan of the horror genre), but it seems to me that every horror short story every written contains certain common traits and literary devices – generous use of symbolism; references to death, violence, fear, terror, fright, murder; unexpected sounds or ominous silence; atmospheric, moody writing; darkness and shadows; onomatopoeia and pathetic fallacy; foreshadowing; suspense; irony; hyperbole; mystery; and, invariably, the clever, entirely unexpected twist ending that is intended to tingle your spine and raise the hairs on the back of your neck. Many writers are more than capable of creating the mood, of drawing the reader into a compelling story and giving the reader a delicious expectation of having their pants scared off with the final paragraph!
In that sense, Terry Dowling’s BASIC BLACK anthology is completely typical. His creation of that shivery, tense, mood of expectation driving the reader to continue ranges anywhere from workmanlike to exceptional. Dowling’s plan – to demonstrate that the typical, the mundane, the everyday object or situation is not always as it seems on the surface – is a clever one and, indeed, it often works. For me, there were two or three truly thrilling stories that made it easily to that 5-star plateau and simply knocked the breath out of me leaving my heart beating so loudly, I was sure my wife would hear it in the next room. On the other hand, there were also several that simply left me flat, entirely deflated … with that disenchanted reader’s “so what?”, or “I don’t get it!” kind of response.
My favourites (by a very wide margin) were, THE DAEMON STREET GHOST-TRAP, THE BONE SHIP, and THE MAZE MAN. It is perhaps unfortunate that THE DAEMON STREET GHOST-TRAP, a positively brilliant and entirely novel characterization of ghosts and ghost-hunting, was the very first story in the anthology because it set up a bar that the balance of the stories simply couldn’t clear. I’m glad that I read it but I’m not a convert to horror yet and I’m not running out to find anything else by Mr Dowling.
Horror fan? Almost certainly an enjoyable, if not entirely consistent, read.
Paul Weiss
March 2, 2020
Weird. I really thought I had added this because a goodreads friend recommended Dowling, but it doesn't look like anyone I know has read it.
This is listed as a 2006 publication, and no alternate dates are provided, but many of them feel as if they are set longer ago. I don't know if they were written in earlier years, or are meant to be historical. Dowling's prose is also reminiscent of any earlier generation of horror writers, so much so that it was a surprise when one story mentioned computer technology.
Stories read from this collection:
"The Daemon Street Ghost Trap" reminded me a bit of the old school "ghost detective" genre, Carnacki and that sort of thing.
"Downloading" creepy and noir -- or rather a slightly humorous homage to noir, in the sense that the main character is aware of being a PI, the classic noir profession, and playing into those tropes. There was some implication that these characters Jay and Harry appear in more stories together, I'll have to look into that.
[Edit: they are minor characters in at least one other story. But I didn't like that one.]
"The Bullet that Grows in the Gun" suffered from some excess of implausibility, although I liked the academic-rivalry set up and the awkward position of the central character.
"The Gully" has that Algernon Blackwood creepy-natural-location thing going on, along with some Shirley Jackson how-much-is-in-your-head? unease.
"Bone Ship" is icky but I don't get either character's motivation.
"Stitch" was very strong as a study of abuse and trauma. The ending was a surprise, but one that took away from the psychological value and imo ruined the story.
"The Ichneumon and the Dormeuse" is sci-fi archaeology with highly stylized prose. Reminds me a bit of Delany.
Hey, I've read "One Thing About the Night" before! It was in an anthology. I guess that must be how I heard of Dowling?
"Jenny Come to Play" reminded me of B horror, and not in a good way. In a cheap, let's-cram-icky-tropes-in way. Insane asylum! Body horror! Persecution! Child rape! Mutilation and more mutilation and let's melt people with acid! And now I don't want to read the remaining stories, bye.
This is listed as a 2006 publication, and no alternate dates are provided, but many of them feel as if they are set longer ago. I don't know if they were written in earlier years, or are meant to be historical. Dowling's prose is also reminiscent of any earlier generation of horror writers, so much so that it was a surprise when one story mentioned computer technology.
Stories read from this collection:
"The Daemon Street Ghost Trap" reminded me a bit of the old school "ghost detective" genre, Carnacki and that sort of thing.
"Downloading" creepy and noir -- or rather a slightly humorous homage to noir, in the sense that the main character is aware of being a PI, the classic noir profession, and playing into those tropes. There was some implication that these characters Jay and Harry appear in more stories together, I'll have to look into that.
[Edit: they are minor characters in at least one other story. But I didn't like that one.]
"The Bullet that Grows in the Gun" suffered from some excess of implausibility, although I liked the academic-rivalry set up and the awkward position of the central character.
"The Gully" has that Algernon Blackwood creepy-natural-location thing going on, along with some Shirley Jackson how-much-is-in-your-head? unease.
"Bone Ship" is icky but I don't get either character's motivation.
"Stitch" was very strong as a study of abuse and trauma. The ending was a surprise, but one that took away from the psychological value and imo ruined the story.
"The Ichneumon and the Dormeuse" is sci-fi archaeology with highly stylized prose. Reminds me a bit of Delany.
Hey, I've read "One Thing About the Night" before! It was in an anthology. I guess that must be how I heard of Dowling?
"Jenny Come to Play" reminded me of B horror, and not in a good way. In a cheap, let's-cram-icky-tropes-in way. Insane asylum! Body horror! Persecution! Child rape! Mutilation and more mutilation and let's melt people with acid! And now I don't want to read the remaining stories, bye.
December 30, 2014
One of the best writers of the strange and supernatural writing today, and this collection really showcases the quality of his writing. Wonderful. A book I savoured each night until I finished.
July 12, 2011
Each & every story in this book involves darkness, sometimes it may be supernatural, sometimes purely emotional, and, in most of the cases, in the unexplored corners of our minds. I had thought that I would try to give a story-wise assessment, but that really would not do justice to this book and its author. The simple fact that it took so long for me to complete this book might suggest that this book was boring. But that suggestion would be terribly wrong, because none of these stories were boring. But they were terribly-terrifyingly dark. Not bleak, not sadistic, just dark, BASICALLY BLACK!
The contents (apart from the mandatory introduction) are: -
* The Daemon Street Ghost-trap
* Downloading
* The Bullet that Grows in the Gun
* The Gully
* The Bone ship
* Beckoning Nightframe
* Stitch
* La Profonde
* The Saltimbanques
* They found the Angry Moon
* Clownette
* The Ichneumon and the Dormeuse
* The Quiet Redemption of Andy the House
* The Maze Man
* One Thing about the Night
* Jenny Come to Play
* Cheat Light
* Scaring the Train.
Believe me, according to Stephen King (you may read it in the preface to "Everything's Eventual"), finding a couple of memorable stories in a collection is actually a very good find. Then how can you try to evaluate a collection which has at least 6 stories (I will not say which ones; you will find your own ghosts in these stories, and they may help you in making your choice) that I will carry till the Judgement Day? You can't, apart from giving 5 stars in a feeble attempt to encapsulate all the breathlessness and creeping fear that you had felt while reading these stories. I can not recommend this collection highly enough, but forget about me. If you have ever felt fascinated by the darkness that waits outside the window, to invade & engulf your soul, buy this book and read it.
The contents (apart from the mandatory introduction) are: -
* The Daemon Street Ghost-trap
* Downloading
* The Bullet that Grows in the Gun
* The Gully
* The Bone ship
* Beckoning Nightframe
* Stitch
* La Profonde
* The Saltimbanques
* They found the Angry Moon
* Clownette
* The Ichneumon and the Dormeuse
* The Quiet Redemption of Andy the House
* The Maze Man
* One Thing about the Night
* Jenny Come to Play
* Cheat Light
* Scaring the Train.
Believe me, according to Stephen King (you may read it in the preface to "Everything's Eventual"), finding a couple of memorable stories in a collection is actually a very good find. Then how can you try to evaluate a collection which has at least 6 stories (I will not say which ones; you will find your own ghosts in these stories, and they may help you in making your choice) that I will carry till the Judgement Day? You can't, apart from giving 5 stars in a feeble attempt to encapsulate all the breathlessness and creeping fear that you had felt while reading these stories. I can not recommend this collection highly enough, but forget about me. If you have ever felt fascinated by the darkness that waits outside the window, to invade & engulf your soul, buy this book and read it.
November 20, 2010
Wow!!!What a wonderful book.Don't know what the other person who reviewed this book was talking about.I see why this book won the International Horror Guild award.
First off there isn't a bad story among them and there are a few that are just stupendous.
The best stories are the ones that are a little longer.This is literary horror at it's finest.
I will be recommending this book to all my friends who like very good horror.
First off there isn't a bad story among them and there are a few that are just stupendous.
The best stories are the ones that are a little longer.This is literary horror at it's finest.
I will be recommending this book to all my friends who like very good horror.
November 14, 2020
The single best collection of horror short stories I've ever read. Quotes from Jenny Come To Play and even the dustjacket insert don't leave my head. ("A gun that grows it's own bullets. [Everyone knows they do.])
January 27, 2021
I take pride in the fact that I finish every book I start. Well, such was not the case for Basic Black: Tales of Appropriate Fear, aka pile of hot garbage. Oh, where do I begin...
The writing was flat, dry and long winded while the various short stories were just boring. There wasn’t any payoff at the end of each story, simply uneventful, disappointing and often predictable. Truth be told, the ”appropriate fear” found within these pages is knowing that you might have to continue reading this book.
Although I made it through 80 pages, I could not endure anymore. It was painful, folks. Think in terms of a root canal or an international flight while sitting next to a screaming infant. Frankly. I’m amazed that I made it through the first three stories. It was one of the worst reading experiences. Never again.
The writing was flat, dry and long winded while the various short stories were just boring. There wasn’t any payoff at the end of each story, simply uneventful, disappointing and often predictable. Truth be told, the ”appropriate fear” found within these pages is knowing that you might have to continue reading this book.
Although I made it through 80 pages, I could not endure anymore. It was painful, folks. Think in terms of a root canal or an international flight while sitting next to a screaming infant. Frankly. I’m amazed that I made it through the first three stories. It was one of the worst reading experiences. Never again.
September 15, 2025
This was my first time reading Terry’s work, and I have to say I am a fan. There is such variety in the kinds of stories here. We’ve got haunted train tracks, cancerous ghosts, dimensional portals in a hotel room, a cross stitch that drove someone insane, a sci-fi tomb raiding, and much more. I like how a lot of the stories took a scholarly approach to the problem solving and identification of phenomena.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 14, 2013
Standard Ticonderoga Disclaimer: We published this book because we loved it!
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews