Plots and Misadventures: A Second Collection of Short Fiction

by Stephen Gallagher

Following on from the author's previous collection Out of his Mind, eleven more pieces of short fiction including the World Fantasy Award-nominated Little Dead Girl Singing.

Also included is Doctor Hood, the novella which sparked a conversation that led to the creation of the ITV drama Eleventh Hour, starring Patrick Stewart as Hood.

"Veteran British horror writer Gallagher (The Kingdom of Bones ) shows off his versatility in this collection of 11 stories and a review of Joseph Payne Brennan's Nine Horrors and a Dream... Capable of being either subtle or blunt depending upon the needs of his plot, Gallagher has assembled a fine and varied collection of weird fiction that should find many admirers." Publishers Weekly

Little Dead Girl Singing
The Back of His Hand
Restraint
The Plot
Doctor Hood
Jailbird for Jesus
Hunter, Killer
My Repeater
The Wishing Ball
Like Clockwork
The Blackwood Oak
Endpiece: Nine Horrors and a Dream

270 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 31, 2007

About the author

Stoker and World Fantasy Award nominee, winner of British Fantasy and International Horror Guild Awards for his short fiction, Stephen Gallagher has a career both as a novelist and as a creator of primetime miniseries and episodic television. His fifteen novels include Chimera, Oktober, Valley of Lights and Nightmare, with Angel. He's the creator of Sebastian Becker, Special Investigator to the Lord Chancellor's Visitor in Lunacy, in a series of novels that includes The Kingdom of Bones, The Bedlam Detective, and The Authentic William James. In his native England he's adapted and created hour-long and feature-length thrillers and crime dramas. In the US he was lead writer on NBC's Crusoe, creator of CBS Television's Eleventh Hour, and Co-Executive Producer on ABC's The Forgotten. Recent screen credits include an award-winning Silent Witness and Stan Lee's Lucky Man.

He began his TV career as a writer on two seasons of Doctor Who, and wrote two novelizations of his stories under the pseudonym John Lydecker.

** Photo by Lisa Bowerman **

Reviews

[D · Rating 3 out of 5]

The twelve stories comprising Plots and Misadventures span nearly twenty years of Gallagher's career and encompass horror, dark fantasy, noirish suspense, and dark science fiction. The newer material generally stuck me as among the strongest, a circumstance I'm always happy to report. The collection opens audaciously: the story "Little Dead Girl Singing," which certainly sounds like a give-the-game-away sort of title, starts with the claim, "Here's one you won't have heard before" -- and then delivers, with a brief, unsettling, but hard-to-pin down narrative. It's indicative of the book as a whole: describing Gallagher's plots in bare-bones form wouldn't make them sound very original, but by addressing them with subtlety, careful prose, and sly knack for gradual disclosure to the reader, Gallagher brings some worn plot devices to vivid life. (The title to the contrary, plot isn't his strong suit anyway -- several of these stories have inconsistencies or inadequately supported elements when examined after the fact -- but I was mostly too caught up to care.) My personal favorite was "The Plot," a richly atmospheric story of an unhinged young woman who wants her unbaptized child buried in consecrated ground, and the clergyman who wrestles with her request and his conscience. "Doctor Hood," a story of a serious experimental researcher who begins to believe his wife's spirit is haunting him, was also particularly strong.

(I owe Joe Hill's short story "Best New Horror" for obliquely introducing me to Gallagher by mentioning him in the same sentence as Kelly Link.)

[Riju Ganguly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of stories can easily lull you into believing that you would soon be reading horror stories, either of the Jamesian variety, or maybe Clive Barker-type, or somewhere in-between. Actually, you are in for a treat, as you would be getting to read twelve solid pieces, each of which will grab even your post-modernist attention and compell you to read stories about ghosts, aliens, faeries, criminals, and the very-real cruelty that gets inflicted within the safeties of our homes. These are lean & tight narratives, with hardly any 'language'-issues, and yet often more horrific than all other 'realistic' descriptions.

The contents of this book, apart from the Introduction & Story-Notes are: -

1) Little Dead Girl Singing: talent gets displayed at a price, extracted by the cruellest of all impressarios, the parents.

2) Back of his Hand: removal of tatoo-s (esp. if they can identify the owner as a robber who is yet to be apprehended) can be dangerous, and seriously injurious to health.

3) Restraint: all-too real horror, faced by every divorced mother, re-inforced with a supernatural touch and told as a thriller.

4) The Plot: a bereaved mother avenging the 'insult' towards her deceased infant child, although it gets somewhat misdirected.

5) Doctor Hood: a touching story of a bereaved husband trying to confirm the presence of his dead wife within the four walls of his house, and what happens when the daughter comes into house.

6) Jailbird for Jesus: a thrilling story of an undercover-cop inflitrating a criminal group.

7) Hunter, Killer: a brilliant story of a loser trying to kill a shape-shifting alien that has killed everyoen and everything that it has encountered so far.

8) My Repeater: time-travel can not help someone, if life has decided to be cruel towards him.

9) The Wishing Ball: this story is memorable for its unexpected protagonist, as the nasty character meets his comeuppance from the most unexpected corner.

10) Like Clockwork: whet happens when you fight the aliens, and lose, and benefit from it?

11) The Blackwood Oak: Yes, there are faeries even in this world, but are they being ravaged by the whimsical desires of so-called sciencetific minds, and even after that, what is happening to those "findings"?

12) Tailpiece: Nine Horrors and a Dream: remembrance of a fright, and the beginning of a lifetime of horrors.

Fans of Stephen Gallagher like to remember him more for his tautly told thrillers and supernatural novels. But let me assure you, these short stories also pack punches, much more than that you can expect from their length.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a mixed collection of short stories collected together by the publisher. They range from horror to the macabre but all show the style and flare of Stephen Gallagher that his readers come to expect. The collection cannot be easily categorised but anyone familiar with his work will know what to expect or not as the case may be. My only criticism is that Stephen Gallagher does not write enough full novels which i think is a real shame considering the amazing range and variety he has produced over the years.