Heavy Weather: Tempestuous Tales of Stranger Climes

by Kevan Manwaring (Editor)

Since Odysseus’ curious crew first unleashed the bag of winds gifted him by Aeolus, the God of Winds, literature has been awash with tales of bad or strange weather. From the flood myths of Babylon, the Mahabharata and the Bible, to 20th century psychological storms, this foray into troubled waters, heat waves, severe winters, hurricanes, and hailstones, offers the perfect read on a rainy day—or night. Featuring a selection of some of the finest writers in the English language—Algernon Blackwood, Herman Melville, Robert Louis Stevenson, Edgar Allan Poe, and more—this collection of weird tales will delight and disturb.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Fiction, Anthologies

320 pages, Paperback

First published February 18, 2021

About the author

Kevan Manwaring is a prize-winning writer & lecturer in creative writing who lives on the ancient downs of Wiltshire. He is the author of over twenty books including The Windsmith Elegy series of Mythic Reality novels; Desiring Dragons, Oxfordshire Folk Tales, Northamptonshire Folk Tales, The Bardic Handbook, and Ballad Tales (ed.). He loves walking in other worlds, but sometimes he prefers to ride his Triumph motorbike.

Winner of the One Giant Write SF Novel Competition

Reviews

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This has been the weakest of these collections of the several I have read. The stories are good, though, don’t get me wrong, they just very often don’t connect strongly to the theme. They leave one wondering, weather or not?

[Tom · Rating 2 out of 5]

Probably my least favourite anthology from this British Library series. Many of the stories are very tenuously linked to the theme of weather, with many of them not being particularly good or strong tales.


History of a Six Weeks' Tour (Extract) (1817)•Mary Shelley ⭐⭐⭐

The Lightning-Rod Man • (1856) Herman Melville ⭐⭐

A Descent Into the Maelström• (1841) Edgar Allan Poe ⭐⭐⭐

The Great Snow • (1876) • Richard Jefferies ⭐⭐

The Horror-Horn (1922) • E. F. Benson ⭐⭐⭐⭐

May Day Eve (1907) • Algernon Blackwood ⭐⭐⭐

August Heat (1910) •William Fryer Harvey ⭐⭐

A Mild Attack of Locusts (1955) •Doris Lessing ⭐⭐⭐

Through the Vortex of a Cyclone (1907) •William Hope Hodgson

The Wind-Gnome (1893) •Jonas Lie ⭐⭐

Summer Snow Storm (1956)•Adam Chase ⭐⭐

The Boy Who Predicted Earthquakes (1950) •Margaret St. Clair ⭐⭐

Monsoons of Death (1942)•Gerald Vance ⭐⭐⭐

The Purple Cloud (Extract) (1901)• M. P. Shiel ⭐⭐⭐

The Birds (1952) •Daphne du Maurier ⭐⭐⭐⭐

[p. · Rating 3 out of 5]

i did not enjoy this that much, unfortunately. i just don't think that the theme was that strong. i guess i expected them to be more along the line of "may day eve" (my favourite from the collection) rather than, let's say, "monsoons of death".

regardless, beyond "may day eve", i also enjoyed "august heat" and "the birds" but the latter one is a classic. i guess i would not mind reading "the purple cloud" in full either while "the boy who predicted earthquakes" and "the horror-horn" fell just short of great.

[Alasdair · Rating 3 out of 5]

As usual, it's a bit of a mixed bag. The good stories are really quite good; I was expecting to like The Birds but was still surprised at how much it absolutely slaps (If you haven’t read it, go read it now) and unexpected highlights were Monsoons of Death (pulpy sci-fi that was self-aware enough to be quite fun), The Boy Who Predicted Earthquakes, and August Heat (Both quick little stories with neat endings).

On the negative side Summer Snow Storm was absolutely dire - a bafflingly stupid take on a vaguely decent idea that was borderline unreadable if mercifully brief, and most of the rest of the stories fell somewhere in the middle. Compared to some of the other British Library of the Weird anthologies I've read, the thematic throughline felt a little weak. The connective tissue might be more accurately described as climatic or environmental weirdness than weather per se, and the comparisons and discussions in the editorial notes after each story sometimes felt like a bit of a stretch.

[Christina Dongowski · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wonder, if it’s not a bit unfair to the other writers collected here to be in a volume with brilliant writers like Doris Lessing, Daphne DuMaurier, and to a lesser degree Algernon Blackwood. But on the other hand, you do realise what good writing and superior craft bring to an interesting or clever plot. So it’s a bit of an uneven collection, also lengthwise, and not all of the weird phenomena recorded here lend themselves to being classified as weird weather. The editor does a mostly good job in the notes explaining why he chose a story, while constructing an overarching argument about weird weather stories as a modern form of apocalyptic writing and thinking. Weather as the ultimate form of non-human forces that shake us out of our anthropocenic complacency of being the only ones on this planet with agency.. The introductory essay seems to me a good introduction into the weird as a form of ecological writing and eco criticism.

I missed the little biographical sketches that go with the note in the other British Library Tales of the Weird collections

[David P. Kuzma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Skip the notes

Read the stories and skip the notes. The notes are basically a running essay filled with the author’s political viewpoints. Even if you agree with the viewpoints, they will still pull you out of your enjoyment of the stories.

[Fionnuala · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh man, did the quality in this book vary! This book is an anthology of weird tales, ranging from supernatural to sci-fi to folklore-ish, all centring on the weather, nature, the environment, etc. It's part of a series of books collecting such stories over a wide variety of topics, and draws its content from many different times and authors. Some are absolutely better than others, and I do have to slightly question the editor's taste.

The good ones are decent. I wouldn't say there's anything slap-your-momma good in here, but they're creative, a little unnerving, nice and descriptive, compelling… they're a good read if you want something a little weird and spooky. But then there are some that are absolutely laughably bad – one so much so that in the notes following the story, the editor even comments on the fact that it's not exactly the best example of the genre. My king, why include it then? This one in particular is laughably bad, I mean it reads like the editor's ten-year-old nephew wrote it and begged him to include it, and the editor was just like sure whatever. Especially as it's followed by another story that does the same basic premise so, so much better, with a really harrowing twist as well. If it hadn't been for this one story I’d say it could have maybe edged into 4-star territory but holy shit.

I also have to admit that I hated the notes following each story. I've since read another in this series and looked through a third, and these both have an introduction providing basic biographical information about the writer and a little context for the story that follows. They're short and sweet and academic and what I'd expect. The notes following each story in this anthology read like child's book review diary they have to hand in each week. Not only is the writing unsure and juvenile, but it also seems to be desperately trying to justify why the stories are included, and sometimes it reaches so hard to find an allegory that it's laughable. Not everything has to be tied in to a modern day sociopolitical problem, dude. Sometimes writers just look outside and think "Hey, wouldn’t it be fucked up if rain was evil?" The notes honestly did my head in and at one point had me checking to see if it wasn't intended to be an anthology for children. It is not.

Enjoyable enough, but definitely room for improvement with this one.

[Simone Pelizza · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent collection of short stories about extreme weather and weird meteorological events. I was particularly impressed by Daphne du Maurier's The Birds, which is both a terror masterpiece and a vivid reflection on human behavior in front of an unexpected catastrophe. While reading it, I was often reminded of the early phases of the Covid-19 pandemic: the sudden loss of normal life, the inability of public authorities to face the emergency, the sense of loneliness and isolation. Moreover, the story also hints at the disruptive effect of extreme weather on both humans and animals. Something quite significant in these years marked by the disasters of climate change.
But there's not only du Maurier. The book is full of brilliant literary gems from authors like Edgar Allan Poe (A Descent into the Maelstrom), William Hope Hodgson (Through the Vortex of a Cyclone), Margaret St. Clair (The Boy Who Predicted Earthquakes), and Algernon Blackwood (May Day Eve). Of course, they're not all at the same level, but the general quality is always very good.
If there's a flaw to this volume, it's the tendency of Kevan Manwaring to constantly peddle on climate change in his editorial notes. I agree that the subject is important and that the stories offer interesting perspectives on it, but pushing the button over and over again is quite pedantic and risks even being counterproductive. In some cases, you don't need to force the message; the stories already speak for themselves.
Apart from this small issue, however, a great collection that will make happy both the general reader and the devoted fan of weird fiction.

[Dennis · Rating 3 out of 5]

This rating is based on an average of 3 stars over the various stories included withing this collection. Highlights included Gerald Vance's Monsoons of Death and Du Maurier's fantastically creepy The Birds which was great to read in its original format, having only been familiar with the Hitchcock film. Lows included Mary Shelley's History of a Six Week Tour and M.P. Shiel's The Purple Cloud, which admittedly are both excerpts of full stories but I just didn't connect with the style of either.

This perhaps isn't the best "Tales of the Weird" collection, at least as a first foray into these collections. Some of the stories feel only loosely linked to the weather theme, some are rather similar to each other and aren't spread out enough to let them breathe, and as with previous books in this series I found the editor's post-story notes explaining the reasons behind their inclusion to be mostly un-insightful, with many featuring extremely tenuous comparisons to modern concerns.

[Karen Kohoutek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very enjoyable, if not my absolute fave in the series. You can probably guess from the theme, a collection of weird tales about weather and meteorological conditions, that these stories tend to be more on the abstract side. So there's a lot of description, and a fair bit of science. That made them read a little slower than the "OMG this is so scary!" human interest weird tales, but there's nothing wrong with that, and it was interesting to see the way this general subject was handled in weird fiction. Even the pulpy B-movie kind of stories were worth reading on their own merits. And for some reason, I had never read Daphne du Maurier's original story "The Birds" before, and wow, it is so unsettling and unnerving, much more so than the film! The phenomenon is also much more related to weird weather, which adds an extra disturbing dimension.

[Tristan L · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall - 3.4/5

Mary Shelley - History of a Six Weeks' Tour (extract) 3/5
Herman Melville - The Lightning-Rod Man 3/5
Edgar Allen Poe - A Descent into the Maelstrom 4/5
Richard Jefferies - The Great Snow 2/5
E. F. Benson - The Horror-Horn 4/5
Algernon Blackwood - May Day Eve 5/5
W. F. Harvey - August Heat 2/5
Doris Lessing - A Mild Attack of Locusts 4/5
William Hope Hodgson - Through the Vortex of a Cyclone 2/5
Jonas Lie - The Wind-Gnome 4/5
Adam Chase - Summer Snow Storm 4/5
Margaret St. Clair - The Boy Who Predicted Earthquakes 5/5
Gerald Vance - Monsoons of Death 3/5
M. P. Shiel - The Purple Cloud (extract) 1/5
Daphne du Maurier - The Birds 5/5

[Rissa (rissasreading) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great collection of short stories. I really appreciate this centering storms and strong weather. Where I grew up as a child there were some truly scary storms I experienced but they were also some of the most fun I would have because it freaked me out.
These were all beautifully written and so easy to picture I really liked this collection and I think it's a great read especially for the rainy season!

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have just discovered the British Library “Tales of the Weird” and I’m overjoyed that this project exists and that there are so many more books in the series to read. Can’t wait to disappear for a few months with a big pile of them. Hugs to whoever at the British Library came up with the idea for the collection in the first place. The kind of thing that makes life worth living in my opinion. Some of the stories are better than others but they make an enjoyable collection.

[Ned Netherwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some good tales that belong here but also a few that just don't fit the theme or series. I like the idea of moving the editors notes to after the story but found the notes themselves to be lacking in detail on the authors and stories, more tieing them all to an agenda, that while I agree with that point of view, it took over the whole narrative and often felt shoe horned

[Jade Yandall · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a collection of scary stories

There were some interesting stories in this collection and some ( like the one by Mary Shelley) were very boring. However, this is not a collection of classic horror which is what I believed this to be as most of the books with similar covers by the same author are.

[Theofilos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good collection albeit not one of the greatest in this phenomenal series. Buuuut it was Daphne du Maurier's "birds" included so it went from 2 to 3 stars immediately. I love the birds, it's one of my favorite horror film of all time!

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

#buzzwordchallenge2023-weather

Some of the stories were very good. The only thing that marred my enjoyment of the book was the editor going off in rambling political climate speeches.

[Katrine Engelhardt Thomsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars alone for Daphne Du Maurier’s short story “The Birds”