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Shadows 7
This anthology contains: Mrs Clendon's Place by Joseph Payne Brennan; Three Days by Tanith Lee; Do Not Forsake Me O My Darlin by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro; The Storm by David Morrell; A Matter of Taste by Parke Godwin; Stillwater 1896 by Michael Cassutt; The Haunting by Susan Casper; Daddy by Earl Godwin; Seeing the World by Ramsey Campbell; Still Frame by Jack C. Haldeman II; Talking in the Dark by Dennis Etchison; Decoys by Jere Cunningham; Rapture by Melissa Mia Hall; and I Shall Not Leave England Now by Alan Ryan.
181 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1984
167 people want to read
About the author
Charles L. Grant
309 books263 followersCharles Lewis Grant was a novelist and short story writer specializing in what he called "dark fantasy" and "quiet horror." He also wrote under the pseudonyms of Geoffrey Marsh, Lionel Fenn, Simon Lake, Felicia Andrews, and Deborah Lewis.
Grant won a World Fantasy Award for his novella collection Nightmare Seasons, a Nebula Award in 1976 for his short story "A Crowd of Shadows", and another Nebula Award in 1978 for his novella "A Glow of Candles, a Unicorn's Eye," the latter telling of an actor's dilemma in a post-literate future. Grant also edited the award winning Shadows anthology, running eleven volumes from 1978-1991. Contributors include Stephen King, Ramsey Campbell, R.A. Lafferty, Avram Davidson, and Steve Rasnic and Melanie Tem. Grant was a former Executive Secretary and Eastern Regional Director of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and president of the Horror Writers Association.
Grant won a World Fantasy Award for his novella collection Nightmare Seasons, a Nebula Award in 1976 for his short story "A Crowd of Shadows", and another Nebula Award in 1978 for his novella "A Glow of Candles, a Unicorn's Eye," the latter telling of an actor's dilemma in a post-literate future. Grant also edited the award winning Shadows anthology, running eleven volumes from 1978-1991. Contributors include Stephen King, Ramsey Campbell, R.A. Lafferty, Avram Davidson, and Steve Rasnic and Melanie Tem. Grant was a former Executive Secretary and Eastern Regional Director of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and president of the Horror Writers Association.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 23, 2020
I picked this up to read the Chelsea Quinn Yarbro story and decided to just read the entirety. I've read a few books in the SHADOWS series, pre-Goodreads, and have a few more waiting on the shelf. As I've said before, I find I like Grant's idea of "Quiet Horror" a bit more than the actuality. When it works, it sketches out a nice space on a plotted line of genre - if we take "Horror" as a center point (however we define it) and "Fantasy" at another point, then halfway between the two would be "Dark Fantasy", where the genres overlap. And halfway between "Horror" and "Dark Fantasy" would be, I'd argue, "Quiet Horror" - stories using the tools of horror, definitely towards horrifying intent (and thus not "Dark Fantasy"), but that "horrific intent" is defined to encompass only the subtle, the ephemeral, the emotional, the understated, the resonance of insinuation, the attenuated, the implied and inconspicuous. It's a valid approach but one fraught with... well, dangers might be too strong - let's say potential problems. Problems with subjectivity and the perpetual question of "what's frightening...?"
Which is funny, because I usually structure my anthology reviews in order from "least impressive" to "most impressive," so by dint of my format it seems I'll be talking about what doesn't work in quiet horror (for me at least) right off the bat, before I get to what does. I skipped reading "Three Days" by Tanith Lee and Jack C. Haldeman II's "Still Frame", as my notes showed that I had previously read them and not enjoyed the experience. But take, for example, a story like "Stillwater, 1896" by Michael Cassutt, a historically set, small-town idyll about the relationship between a young boy and a man who the town pays to recover drowned bodies (through some mysterious means known only to him). On the one hand, you get a well-written setting and emotionally sensitive character work (examinations of adolescence and the ostracized). On the other hand, you can (and I did) leave a story like this thinking "well, that wasn't scary at all" - I mean, I can understand, intellectually, what the author intended to be effective about it (it turns on the revelation of the man's secret) but that's it, it's just a gesture towards fright, not even particularly a subtle one, like a good lit story weighed down with expectations it doesn't want to engage. And then there's "Rapture" by Melissa Mia Hall, in which a man obsesses on a captivating woman, observing her from afar and assured of what she really is but, perhaps, unclear on what he actually wants from her. An examination of the relationship between a supernatural creature and its thrall, the story is a solid piece of Dark Fantasy but not scary in the least and its thematic point is essentially one of the well-known truths of horror fiction, related with little panache. For another example, there's "The Storm" by David Morrell which takes a very small, familiar idea of horror fiction and runs a minor change on it. The father of a vacationing family insults someone and they subsequently find their vacation and return to home plagued by an unending storm. And that's it - far too long for the concept and the last minute surprise doesn't help either, it's like a mediocre episode of THE TWILIGHT ZONE at best.
In the "good but flawed" category we have three stories. Joseph Payne Brennan is one of those well-regarded, if minor, genre authors who seems to have been around forever and who has some definite hits to his name (the ubiquitous "Canavan's Back Yard" and, of course, his blob-monster opus "Slime" that I loved as a young boy), but he's also had his share of misses (at least for me). Here, in "Mrs. Clendon's Place", we get a marvelous, atmospheric setting (a seedy, Depression-era flop house), a solid, honest main character (a down-on-his-luck victim of the Depression trying not to starve to death - despite the recent attempt to by Fox News to rewrite history for their masters, a common occurrence at the time) and a mystery (what stalks the halls of the tenement at night?). But, sadly, it kind of fumbles the climax by having our Average Joe suddenly postulate all kinds of metaphysical/occultic mumbo-jumbo to "explain" the strange monster. I guess the character reads a lot of pulp magazines... . Susan Casper's "The Haunting" also strikes me as dark fantasy, as it's a delicate little story of suspense in which a ghost attempts to avert a tragedy. Pleasant, but not really what I was looking for. And then there's "Do Not Forsake Me, O My Darlin'", the Chelsea Quinn Yarbro story I mentioned at the top, which starts with a classic suspense hook: an ad executive begins to receive condolence cards, obituaries and funeral notices for himself in the mail, just as career appears to be turning around. But, as it turns out, this isn't a whodunnit or a "what's going on?" story so much as it's a tale about the inevitability of fate - and that's where the problem is for me. It's an entertaining story that resolves unexpectedly (and yet in an expected way) but wasn't particularly satisfying for me (and, I'll be brutally honest, Yarbro's writing came across as clunky at times).
And now the consistently "Good" stories - "Daddy" by Earl Godwin, in which a man picks a woman up at a bar and discovers that sleeping with her triggers a chain of events that culminates with him in a very uncomfortable position - isn't my *personal* cup of tea, but it's a solid, if minor, read with a deliberately calculated incest factor to unnerve the unwary reader. Dennis Etchison gives us "Talking In The Dark" (which was already on my "to be read" list) featuring a troubled, alienated, young man living in a small town. He wants to be a writer and sends obsessive fan letters to a "Stephen King"-like author he admires and projects on, but what happens when his idol actually visits him and proves to be more (and less) than he imagined? A very strange and, ultimately, intense, story - Etchison remains as inscrutable as ever, but I liked it. "A Matter Of Taste" by Parke Godwin is a cute little slice of perfectly weighed black comedy and misdirection about a gourmet with high dating standards. Funny and morbid, with an offhanded bit of racial politics thrown in at the end. Jere Cunningham's "Decoys" is a charmingly odd tale where a disgruntled wife, on a hunting trip with her husband, decides she's over and done with her marriage after seeing his boorish behavior and treatment of animals. From there, it accelerates into surrealistic but chilling absurdity. I hope there's more oddball stories like this in the SHADOWS series. Two retired gentlemen form a fast friendship over their mutual love of literature in "I Shall Not Leave England Now" by Alan Ryan, but this bibliophilia is tested when one reveals a secret technique to actually *enter* famous texts through magical means. The Pickwick Papers and The Monk prove interesting, but then a popular, if darker, text is chosen... A nice, quiet, atmospheric story about the dangers to be found in the love of supernatural fiction, this was a pleasant closer for the book.
Best left for last - I'd previously read Ramsey Campbell's "Seeing The World" but it was a pleasure to reread it. A somewhat snooty couple have to deal with their déclassé neighbors' invitation to come view some travel slides from Europe. But something has happened to the low class couple while on vacation... A powerful, punchy little creepfest with that standard Campbell intimation that gets under your skin and builds growing menace - the description of the blurred, half-focused slides are excellent.
And that's it. I might mention that, as an indicator of some of the problems that horror fiction was undergoing at the time, the back cover ad copy wrong-headedly tries to sell this collection as a shrieking, bloody horror. Typical of the time, the bottom was soon to drop out of the mass paperback market due to such stupidity.
Which is funny, because I usually structure my anthology reviews in order from "least impressive" to "most impressive," so by dint of my format it seems I'll be talking about what doesn't work in quiet horror (for me at least) right off the bat, before I get to what does. I skipped reading "Three Days" by Tanith Lee and Jack C. Haldeman II's "Still Frame", as my notes showed that I had previously read them and not enjoyed the experience. But take, for example, a story like "Stillwater, 1896" by Michael Cassutt, a historically set, small-town idyll about the relationship between a young boy and a man who the town pays to recover drowned bodies (through some mysterious means known only to him). On the one hand, you get a well-written setting and emotionally sensitive character work (examinations of adolescence and the ostracized). On the other hand, you can (and I did) leave a story like this thinking "well, that wasn't scary at all" - I mean, I can understand, intellectually, what the author intended to be effective about it (it turns on the revelation of the man's secret) but that's it, it's just a gesture towards fright, not even particularly a subtle one, like a good lit story weighed down with expectations it doesn't want to engage. And then there's "Rapture" by Melissa Mia Hall, in which a man obsesses on a captivating woman, observing her from afar and assured of what she really is but, perhaps, unclear on what he actually wants from her. An examination of the relationship between a supernatural creature and its thrall, the story is a solid piece of Dark Fantasy but not scary in the least and its thematic point is essentially one of the well-known truths of horror fiction, related with little panache. For another example, there's "The Storm" by David Morrell which takes a very small, familiar idea of horror fiction and runs a minor change on it. The father of a vacationing family insults someone and they subsequently find their vacation and return to home plagued by an unending storm. And that's it - far too long for the concept and the last minute surprise doesn't help either, it's like a mediocre episode of THE TWILIGHT ZONE at best.
In the "good but flawed" category we have three stories. Joseph Payne Brennan is one of those well-regarded, if minor, genre authors who seems to have been around forever and who has some definite hits to his name (the ubiquitous "Canavan's Back Yard" and, of course, his blob-monster opus "Slime" that I loved as a young boy), but he's also had his share of misses (at least for me). Here, in "Mrs. Clendon's Place", we get a marvelous, atmospheric setting (a seedy, Depression-era flop house), a solid, honest main character (a down-on-his-luck victim of the Depression trying not to starve to death - despite the recent attempt to by Fox News to rewrite history for their masters, a common occurrence at the time) and a mystery (what stalks the halls of the tenement at night?). But, sadly, it kind of fumbles the climax by having our Average Joe suddenly postulate all kinds of metaphysical/occultic mumbo-jumbo to "explain" the strange monster. I guess the character reads a lot of pulp magazines... . Susan Casper's "The Haunting" also strikes me as dark fantasy, as it's a delicate little story of suspense in which a ghost attempts to avert a tragedy. Pleasant, but not really what I was looking for. And then there's "Do Not Forsake Me, O My Darlin'", the Chelsea Quinn Yarbro story I mentioned at the top, which starts with a classic suspense hook: an ad executive begins to receive condolence cards, obituaries and funeral notices for himself in the mail, just as career appears to be turning around. But, as it turns out, this isn't a whodunnit or a "what's going on?" story so much as it's a tale about the inevitability of fate - and that's where the problem is for me. It's an entertaining story that resolves unexpectedly (and yet in an expected way) but wasn't particularly satisfying for me (and, I'll be brutally honest, Yarbro's writing came across as clunky at times).
And now the consistently "Good" stories - "Daddy" by Earl Godwin, in which a man picks a woman up at a bar and discovers that sleeping with her triggers a chain of events that culminates with him in a very uncomfortable position - isn't my *personal* cup of tea, but it's a solid, if minor, read with a deliberately calculated incest factor to unnerve the unwary reader. Dennis Etchison gives us "Talking In The Dark" (which was already on my "to be read" list) featuring a troubled, alienated, young man living in a small town. He wants to be a writer and sends obsessive fan letters to a "Stephen King"-like author he admires and projects on, but what happens when his idol actually visits him and proves to be more (and less) than he imagined? A very strange and, ultimately, intense, story - Etchison remains as inscrutable as ever, but I liked it. "A Matter Of Taste" by Parke Godwin is a cute little slice of perfectly weighed black comedy and misdirection about a gourmet with high dating standards. Funny and morbid, with an offhanded bit of racial politics thrown in at the end. Jere Cunningham's "Decoys" is a charmingly odd tale where a disgruntled wife, on a hunting trip with her husband, decides she's over and done with her marriage after seeing his boorish behavior and treatment of animals. From there, it accelerates into surrealistic but chilling absurdity. I hope there's more oddball stories like this in the SHADOWS series. Two retired gentlemen form a fast friendship over their mutual love of literature in "I Shall Not Leave England Now" by Alan Ryan, but this bibliophilia is tested when one reveals a secret technique to actually *enter* famous texts through magical means. The Pickwick Papers and The Monk prove interesting, but then a popular, if darker, text is chosen... A nice, quiet, atmospheric story about the dangers to be found in the love of supernatural fiction, this was a pleasant closer for the book.
Best left for last - I'd previously read Ramsey Campbell's "Seeing The World" but it was a pleasure to reread it. A somewhat snooty couple have to deal with their déclassé neighbors' invitation to come view some travel slides from Europe. But something has happened to the low class couple while on vacation... A powerful, punchy little creepfest with that standard Campbell intimation that gets under your skin and builds growing menace - the description of the blurred, half-focused slides are excellent.
And that's it. I might mention that, as an indicator of some of the problems that horror fiction was undergoing at the time, the back cover ad copy wrong-headedly tries to sell this collection as a shrieking, bloody horror. Typical of the time, the bottom was soon to drop out of the mass paperback market due to such stupidity.
February 5, 2021
This was my first time reading a Shadows anthology and it was full of awesome stories. Kind of pi**ed off at that cover, though; don't put a Karloff-style mummy on your cover if there are no mummy stories inside! I was really looking forward to that non-existent mummy story...
June 2, 2024
Doubleday Science Fiction, 1984. Hardcover first edition. Signed by editor Charles Grant. Grant self described his own work and the type of stories in his anthologies as 'quiet horror.' Personally, I don't care for the term because I feel that some potential readers may equate 'quiet' with 'boring.' Not boring at all - the stories in this book are all very well written and appropriately chilling. About half of these authors are essentially unknown (to me, but I have a pretty wide knowledge of the genre) today, and it is a pleasure to be exposed - through this anthology - to some very worthwhile nuggets from writers I otherwise would have never read. This is volume 7. I have 6,7, and 8 signed. Maybe someday I'll have all the Shadows collections, signed first editions, lined up on a shelf in a pretty row. Then watch me sell them for half of what I paid for them and have to go on another anti depressant because I hate myself for it. But we are getting ahead of ourselves. On to the next book...
November 30, 2024
Another fine collection of short stories under the editotial hand of Charles L. Grant.
My favorites? "The Storm", "Decoys", and perhaps best of all - "A Matter of Taste"......which gives us somethiing of a soupcon of flavoring from "Two Bottles of Relish"....
Bon appetite.
Jeff McIntosh
My favorites? "The Storm", "Decoys", and perhaps best of all - "A Matter of Taste"......which gives us somethiing of a soupcon of flavoring from "Two Bottles of Relish"....
Bon appetite.
Jeff McIntosh
October 24, 2023
Substantial improvement on an already solid series—only one story I didn't enjoy (another of those 'Huh, so what?' tales which plague earlier volumes).
Read
February 20, 2024favorites: "Seeing the World" by Ramsey Campbell and "Do Not Forsake Me, O My Darlin'" by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
July 28, 2010
Getting toward the end of this series of anthologies now but the quality held up throughout. Grant did a good job of selecting works for the series.
Read
July 31, 2011Some good stories by Joseph Payne Brennab, Tanith Lee, Jere Cunningham, David Morell & Alan Ryan make this one of the better volumes in this mediocre series of "quiet" horror stories.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews