Nightscript Volume 6

Nightscript #6

by C.M. Muller (Editor), Christi Nogle, Dan Coxon

An annual anthology of strange and darksome tales, which this year profiles the work of 17 contemporary scribes: Timothy Dodd, LC von Hessen, Tom Johnstone, Ralph Robert Moore, Julia Rust, Jeremy Schliewe, Dan Coxon, Charles Wilkinson, Christi Nogle, Alexander James, Francesco Corigliano, Selene dePackh, Kurt Newton, James Owens, J.R. Hamantaschen, Amelia Gorman, and Gary Budden.
"A very promising anthology." -Ellen Datlow, Best Horror of the Year
"An annual highlight of the genre." -Anthony Watson, Dark Musings
"Weirdness with truth at its heart." -Des Lewis, Real-Time Reviews

Genres: Horror

196 pages, Paperback

First published September 20, 2020

About the author

I live in St. Paul, Minnesota with my wife and two sons—and, of course, all those quaint and curious volumes of forgotten lore. I am related to the Norwegian writer Jonas Lie and draw much inspiration from that scrivener of old. My tales have appeared in Shadows & Tall Trees, Supernatural Tales, Vastarien, and a host of other venues. In addition to writing, I also edit and publish the annual journal Nightscript. My debut story collection, Hidden Folk, was released in 2018.

Reviews

[Bill Hsu · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've expressed my reservations with the "darksome" before. But I was hoping for a palate cleanser after two disappointing outings with Shirley Jackson 2020 shortlist nominees.

Timothy Dodd's opening "Dauda's Return" certainly did the trick. The narrator's voice is nicely executed, and the author wastes no time kicking things off:

She arrived quite dead in December. Thin. Gaunt. Still with her thick crop of blonde hair, but now sort of dried up, left to slide across her skull down onto her bony shoulders.

I said to her, 'I wasn't expecting you. When did you come back?'

We're not sure what to think, as snide exchanges with the narrator's mother lead to black and hilarious hijinks. Very nice.

(Unfortunately, a list of expressionist painters includes an "Ernst Ludwig Kuchner". I don't know a Kuchner, and I've never seen Kirchner's name spelled that way. Either online expressionist art reference sites are missing a crucial entry, or the fellow credited for "additional proofreading" needed more beer.)

I think the next two stories are less successful. But I did like the writing, and they have the open endings that were also common in Nightscript 5.

Julia Rust's "What Crows Mean" starts innocently enough for a weird tale:

The crows are speaking to her. People write the sound of crows as 'Caw', but Caroline knows better.

We observe touching scenes of coping with mental illness. The backstory is only hinted at, and it's never clear what is actually happening. The author steers clear of sentimentality, and the quotidian events seem dreamlike and disturbing. Nice.

I liked the concept of "Postcard from White Dunes", but not the longwinded and monotonous treatment. The climactic final scene also felt to me like it was slapped on.

I liked the quiet buildup of unsettling details in Charles Wilkinson's "Beyond the Lace"; not fond of the ending.

"The Gods Shall Lay Sore Trouble upon Them" has good ideas, but I think it tries to do too much. (The title doesn't help, sorry.)

I love Francesco Corigliano's punchy and effective "The Owner". The writing is tight, the creepy atmosphere is quickly established, and the two-phase ending is satisfying. The translation from Italian is smooth; I'll definitely keep an eye out for Corigliano's other work, though most of the entries on goodreads are in Italian.

Kurt Newton's "Death Bodies of Kangye" is attractive. It starts:

For us kids in the group, we go to sleep each night and dream of death bodies. If our dream comes true, a policeman will come to us in the morning and take us to where the body was found. If we get rid of it like the policeman says, we will get bread in return.

All sorts of cryptic questions are posed and developed with no resolution, ending like this:

My friend, Yong-gi, was also there. And a new boy. It was summer for us now. And it would be summer for us always.

(I was hoping for more tight, elegant and ambiguous stories in Newton's collection The Music of Murder & Other Crimes of a Strange and Bloody Nature. Unfortunately, the pieces I sampled are all anything but.)

I also loved the setup of "Loneliness", with the visit to the dead father's house, and the mysterious brother who may or may not be dead. But the treatment could be tighter, and the concluding bloodbath is distracting and unnecessary.

I didn't much care for the rest. But there's certainly some worthwhile stories here to please picky readers like me.

(It's rather annoying that whoever created this database entry couldn't be bothered to include Timothy Dodd or Kurt Newton as authors. I've added them, and will checking out more of their work. Looks like Newton has a new collection coming out in weeks!)

[Des Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

An inadvertently miraculous prophecy of a CO-vivid dream of each other, blending reality and fiction, as such dreams have begun to do for us all today. But perhaps not co-vivid at all, but rather a corvid or crow’s dream, or a circus trick of interpretation that brings back her childhood’s playing with toys while listening to crows’s cries become words, if not gulls’. Whatever sea comes to reclaim her, I shall need to re-read this haunting work to help disperse my own trapped dreams’ breath inside my empathy as a translation of its inner corvid caws. To see if it reached me in time. Or reached me, as a reader, too late.

The detailed review of this book posted elsewhere under my name is too long or impractical to post here.
Above is one of its observations at the time of the review.

[Laura B · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an anthology of short horror stories by various authors. The stories were atmospheric, which I liked. But as is the case with anthologies, I enjoyed some more than others.

The ones that worked best for me were “Dauda’s Return,” “The Best Thing About Her,” “What Crows Mean,” “Beyond the Lace,” “A Photograph” and “Loneliness.”

[Des Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Please forgive me for quoting so much above of this remarkable story, but I trust these choices of mine will enhance your own experience of the work itself, and to triangulate your own choices of wordings from it so as to dreamcatch or hawl its thus grafted essence, then, enhancing your own experience of the whole wonderful book, too, a book’s gestalt with which this work accidentally and/or magically and/or editorially resonates.

The detailed review of this book posted elsewhere under my name is too long or impractical to post here.
Above is one of my observations at the time of the review.