Shadows Edge

by Simon Strantzas (Editor), Steve Rasnic Tem (Contributor), Gary McMahon (Contributor)

Thin places ... Where worlds crash against each other, rippling soft spots through reality. Ancient portals through which the darkest nightmares seep, spreading uncertainty and doubt. These places haunt us, and from them shadows edge ... A figure from the past, lying in a field ... The unlikely three, bound by their quest ... A high-rise apartment, where creatures crawl ... The drive in the storm, through blurring edges ... The brother, hiding from his sins ... 15 tales of numinous horror from some of the genre's most exciting voices ... A major new anthology, edited by Simon Strantzas.

Genres: Horror, Anthologies

204 pages, Paperback

First published March 5, 2013

About the author

Simon Strantzas is the author of Nothing is Everything, Burnt Black Suns, Nightingale Songs, Cold to the Touch and Beneath the Surface and has been nominated for the British Fantasy and Shirley Jackson Awards. His work has been appeared in The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror (ed. Stephen Jones), The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror (ed. by Paula Guran), Best Horror of the Year (ed. by Ellen Datlow), Cemetery Dance, and Nightmare. He lives in Toronto, Canada.

Reviews

[Justin Steele · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simon Strantzas is a name that weird horror fans should be familiar with. To date he has had three excellent collections published: Beneath the Surface, Cold to the Touch, and Nightingale Songs. Shadows Edge marks Strantzas's first foray into the realm of anthology editing. According to the afterword, the idea for this book has long been fermenting in the dark depths of the Canadian author's mind. This month marks the end of the long wait, and Strantzas's dream project will be shipping within a few weeks.

Shadows Edge is an anthology dedicated to exploring the concept of thin places. These are spots where the barrier between our world and another world is thin enough to allow a parting of the veil. The place that just doesn't feel right, the place where a shadow is not just a shadow and things may or may not be hiding in the corner. Breaks in reality. These are the types of places that Strantzas is interested in. He has assembled fifteen authors, many of which should be known to regular readers of weird horror, for the purpose of taking readers on a tour of these shadowy, in-between places. I admit I was rather taken by the theme of the anthology, and was quite looking forward to digging into this one. With this in mind, it's safe to say that Strantzas and crew delivered the goods quite admirably.

The anthology opens with Prologue: The Nineteenth Step written by Strantzas himself. This short piece of fiction keeps the horror vague, and serves to set the stage nicely. A couple move into an old house with the intent to flip it for a nice return, but it isn't long before they notice something odd about the staircase. What is initially a curious observation quickly becomes a source of real terror. The ability to take something as mundane as a staircase and turn it into something so ominous is something only a master can pull off, and it's a shame Strantzas's wonderful opener has to be so short.

Joel Lane's Echoland follows a young musician named Diane and her growing obsession with a land glimpsed during a childhood bout with fever. She joins with two other men who have also glimpsed the mysterious place (all during close calls with death), and together the three of them decide to do whatever they can to reach the city. The story follows their growing obsession with reaching the city and their descent into a drug-filled, sedentary lifestyle. It's a moody tale, and by the end it becomes clear that sometimes finding what we seek is not always a cause for celebration.

Michael Cisco writes The Penury, a strange tale of two childhood friends and their reunion. Cisco's writing is strong, and the story is not as straightforward as some of the others in the book, but is quite rewarding with rereads. Cisco is definitely not a writer for everyone, but his masterful way with words makes for an enjoyable read.

Tinder Row is a fine example of Richard Gavin's style of weird horror. Gavin has an easy style of writing and a wicked imagination which are both on full display here. Reid returns to his hometown only to come across a woman from his past, now a derelict. Taking pity on her, Reid coaxes her to lunch, but feels trepidation when she requests to be dropped off at Tinder Row, a dead-end street by the town's viaduct. The street has become as derelict as the woman, and Reid sticks around long enough to see if there's any validity to the local legends surrounding the place. The horror strikes true, and Gavin sets the stage well with the decrepit section of town. Definitely a favorite.

Daniel Mills is an author who has been featured on The Arkham Digest before, and for good reason. Typical of Mills's tales, The Falling Dark takes place in the past, and centers on a lonely man who has a bit of an obsession with a neighbor girl. It's quite a superb tale, with moments that are quite intense, and more going on under the surface of things.

The Old Church is a story that should appeal to anyone who finds it uncomfortable to attend church services. Gary McMahon takes readers to a church service which at first glance seems pretty normal. As the main character begins to pay attention to his surroundings things start to become altogether more sinister. McMahon is a powerhouse of British horror, and this story is one of the more frightening stories in the anthology. McMahon ratchets the suspense expertly. One of my favorite stories here.

D.P. Watt is the first author in the anthology of whom I am not familiar. After reading ...he was water before he was fire... I am now determined to become more familiar with his work. The story concerns a city man who decides to go camping, which is rather uncharacteristic of him. He becomes enchanted with a certain cove, and it isn't long before the place's magic has a hold on him. Watt's story is masterfully narrated, and shows a rather dark imagination. Another favorite.

False North by Ian Rogers is another story about a man going out into the wild. Some people prefer to go for a drive to clear their head, while some prefer the go for a run. The narrator prefers to go hiking, by pulling over his car and just going off into the woods. False North chronicles what happens when he hikes where he shouldn't. The narrator stumbles across an empty cabin holding nothing but a compass that doesn't seem to work properly. The story is short, chilling, and has an air of mystery throughout.

Lisa L. Hannett is the second author in the book of whom I am not familiar. Morning Passages was definitely an eye-catching story to mark my introduction to her work. The story is confusing, and I'm honestly not sure I can say what exactly happened, but it is written with great skill, and is very disturbing. Hannet definitely made my skin crawl and I look forward to rereading this one and finding more of her work.

R.B. Russell pens what may be my least favorite story in the book. At The End of the World takes place at a carriage house located on a shingle beach. A man's estranged brother returns to England and moves into the small dwelling, where he relates his story during a heavy coastal storm. The story itself is not bad, but compared to the others failed to really make an impact on me.

Within One Ruined Realm is a story by W.H. Pugmire, the prose-poet of the Lovecraft Mythos. As usual, Pugmire writes a dreamy short story that's dripping with gloom. This time around Pugmire brings readers to a certain street in Paris (and a perfect example of a thin place) that any Lovecraft fan should be familiar with. Short, and beautiful.

Livia Llewellyn has the distinction of being the author of my favorite story in the collection. Stabilimentum is a story that seems eerily familiar. Maybe it's the shudders that come whenever I see a spider invading my living space, or Llewellyn's uncomfortable play on apartment living, but this story gave me the chills from the first to the last page. Llewellyn builds the tension from the first moment Thalia notices a spider in her bathroom. As the horror builds it also becomes more and more surreal, and by the time the story reaches it's final moments it has become something else entirely. Excellent.

Some Other You by Michael Kelly features a protagonist suffering from extreme paranoia and depression. Things come to a head when he sees his ex-girlfriend walking with a man who in every way resembles himself. Kelly does a great job of building the paranoia and giving readers a glimpse into the gray, tense world of the protagonist.

Steve Rasnic Tem writes a story that seems touching when compared to the horrors of all the others. Lost in the Garden of Earthly Delights features an interesting narrator who seems unsure of himself. This narrator relates a few strange events that have lately occurred in his life, one of which involves black mold in the shape of his father constantly reappearing in his shower and the other involving his encounter with a homeless man at the shelter he volunteers at. It's an interesting story, and Tem's talent as an author is on full display although the story lacks the horrific punch that many of the others have.

The True Edge of the World takes readers to a misty Scottish island. Peter Bell writes an impressive story of a couple who takes their vacation in a land of ancient mystery, where folklore and myth are based in truth. This was another story which really stood out to me as a great example of a place where the border between our world and another is stretched to the thinnest. Bell utilizes Gaelic folklore to craft his dark tale, and the setting is perfect.

The anthology closes strongly with John Langan's Bor Urus. Langan's story toys with the thin places concept not by looking at the where of thin places, but by looking at the how. The narrator becomes fixated with the idea that the chaos of thunderstorms is when the wall between worlds is breached, and this is when it's possible to glimpse or even cross over into this other place. The narrator has a few experiences and as he grows so does his fixation. After one near encounter he becomes a different man, until a hurricane hits and he finally gets the validation he has always been seeking. It's a powerful story, and another favorite.

These sixteen stories make for a powerful journey into the shadowy corners, the in-between places. Strantzas wisely chose the fifteen authors present in the book to be a part of the anthology, and every one of them brings a worthwhile story to the table. Some of the horrors are more vague than others, but they are horrific nonetheless. A true horror fan should have long ago felt the attraction to the thin places of the world, and therefore can't do without Shadows Edge on their bookshelf. I couldn't recommend this one enough.

Originally appeared on my blog, The Arkham Digest.

[T.E. Grau · Rating 5 out of 5]

With Shadows Edge (Gray Friar Press), dark fiction writer Simon Strantzas has put together an evocative and beautiful anthology of subtle Horror that follows a texture championed and furthered by Strantzas throughout his acclaimed career as an author. Indeed, the tales reflect the man at the selector switch, as each of the 16 assembled pieces (including a “short story as prologue” by Strantzas himself) represent works of patient, often quiet weirdness and terror that get under ones skin rather than braining you with a cudgel. These stories fit into the category of what Strantzas himself personally creates as a writer, so it stands to reason he’d release an anthology of similarly styled works that resonate with him as editor. He states in his Afterward that the theme of the aptly titled anthology is exploring those “thin places,” “soft spots,” and “cracks in reality” that separate our world from those vistas and realities that lie beyond what we know to exist. The edge separating light from shadow. In their own way, each of these stories successfully lives up to (and thoroughly explores) this nuanced theme, and do so in spades.


Thin places.
Where worlds crash against each other,
rippling soft spots through reality.
Ancient portals through which the darkest nightmares seep,
spreading uncertainty and doubt.
These places haunt us, and from them
shadows edge.

A figure from the past, lying in a field...
The unlikely three, bound by their quest...
A high-rise apartment, where creatures crawl...
The drive in the storm, through blurring edges...
The brother, hiding from his sins...


Most anthologies these days have their hits and their misses, with the best books of the bunch having more of the former than the latter. But with Shadows Edge, no matter how hard I squinted, I had – and have – a very difficult time finding a broken crayon in the box. These are 16 solid-to-great tales, and reflect well on the talents of their individual creators, as well as Strantzas ability to wrangle excellent stories from some of the top names in speculative fiction today.

The standout tales (in ToC order) among the uniformly strong field are many, and include Joel Lane’s “Echoland,” Richard Gavin’s “Tinder Row,” “The Falling Dark” by Daniel Mills, Gary McMahon’s “The Old Church,” “Morning Passages” by Lisa Hannett, “Stabilimentum” by Livia Llewellyn, Peter Bell’s “The True Edge of the World,” and “Bor Urus” by John Langan.

Among these, I found “Echoland” (a story about questing after a doorway to that glimpsed land just behind the veil), “Morning Passages” (a truly original natal piece that reads like something out of a more brutal version of the Twilight Zone), “Stabilimentum” (a woman must deal with an infestation of spiders in her new dream apartment that becomes the very least of her startling discoveries about where she now lives), “The True Edge of the World” (for my cash, the highlight of the book, due as much to Bell’s writing style and description of the Scottish setting as the folklorish supernaturalism), and “Bor Urus” (a dissection of a man obsessed by violent storms, and what can happen during them, to the detriment of everything he holds dear) to be the crema fresca of a rather creamy crop, and some of the best contemporary short stories I’ve ever read. Lane, Hannett, Llewellyn, Bell, and Langan are now on my “must ALWAYS read” list, joining several other contributors to Shadows Edge who made the list many moons ago.

Stranzas has acquitted himself impressively in this his first anthology. As noted above, there isn’t a bad story in this folio. I just singled out those that appealed to me the most, for a variety of stylistic and story reasons. But all are worthy of praise, and especially worthy of a read. More collections need to taste like this one.

An unquestionable and enthusiastic HIGH RECOMMEND, receiving four and a half (out of five) stars on The Cosmicomicon's glimmer scale. Pick up this if you want to peruse some of the top talent in the Weird fiction/Horror game doing what they do best by exploring the thin spots in the veil, the hidden pocket of quiet dread, that make life so interesting, and worth living, as the more we know about what lies beyond, the less we want to end up there. Visiting via prose, however, is entirely another matter...

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

A superb collection of gauzy Weird/Horror tales from a dream list of brilliant authors. Subtle and haunting, these stories effectively evoke that confused feeling of waking from a dream and being momentarily unsure what is real, the dream or the waking. I liked every story in the book, but must single a few out. As expected, the stories from editor Simon Strantzas and Richard Gavin are two of my favorites, along with stories by D.P. Watt, Gary McMahon, Livia Llewellyn, and especially John Langan. Not to slight the others - these are all excellent stories, not a clunker in the bunch.

[Wes shelley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun read. The writers whom I knew instantly, their stories were worthwhile, but the true gems here (In my opinion) were the stories from writers I haven't really followed before. Daniel Mills turned in a wonder, Ian Rogers story worked the best for me out of all the stories collected, and Steve Rasnic Tem, who I knew of before reading this, wrote a truly poignant story. One of the scariest here might be Livia Llewellyn's Stabilimentum. The stories mentioned here were great, but honestly there are no bad ones, only ones that stuck out in my mind more so than others.

[Isidore · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid collection of werid fiction, unified by the common theme of liminal places, where the boundary between reality and otherness wears thin. Narrative style ranges from the stoutly traditional (Peter Bell) to the moderately experimental (Lisa L. Hannett––whose contribution is arrestingly written but otherwise incomprehensible). Many of the stories sacrifice lucidity of plot in favour of the evocation of mood, which is fine with me, but may annoy those who prefer a more straightforward narrative line.

Joel Lane and Richard Gavin offer perhaps the two best tales, both thick with a sort of twilight, nightmarish dread. John Gavin's "Bor Urus" is based on a brilliantly original idea, somewhat disappointingly set forth (I miss the stylistic panache of his earlier work). D.P. Watt's ". . .he was water before he was fire. . ." is moving and very imaginative, despite some awkwardness of plotting and style. Ian Rogers and Daniel Mills also stand out.

Michael Kelly's "Some Other You" is perhaps a bit banal (I'm not sure there's much more that can be squeezed out of the doppelganger motif), but it's well written. There are no real duds here. My biggest complaint is the lousy proofreading. Not only are there gaffes bad enough to obscure the meaning of the text, there are actually some lines missing from the beginning of R.B. Russell's story.