Valentia by Caitlin R. Kiernan.

Followers of this blog will know how much I enjoy the work of Caitlin R. Kiernan. The other day I decided to read her collection To Charles Fort with Love. I have a number of her collections on hand. But I decided on this one because both my wife and I enjoy the reality styling of Charles Fort, the author of (among other titles) The Book of the Damned. Fort collected and published accounts of "anomalous phenomena," things like rains of frogs, mysterious disappearances, lights in the sky etc. Helen has subscribed to The Fortean Times, a magazine devoted to Fortean occurrences for years. Many science fiction writers have been fans of Fort and Eric Frank Russell based several novels on ideas gleaned for Fort's books. So I was not surprised that Kiernan would assemble a collection in his memory. 

Valentia is a relatively short work. The protagonist Dr. Anne Campbell is a paleontologist working in New York. She receives a call from her supervisor(?) that a colleague Morris Whitney has been found dead in Ireland his body recovered by fisherman. She also learns that the site he was working on, the trackway of a tetrapod(s) early four-limbed vertebrates, has been damaged. Once in Ireland, Campbell means Marie, one of the two graduate students working with Whitney. Marie asks if Campbell was Whitney's lover, but Campbell says that part of their relationship ended a long time ago. Marie can offer no insights into by Whitney would have visited the site at night, or how his death may have come about, or who  would damage the fossils. The motive was not theft since nothing appears to have been removed. Instead, the fossils were smashed to pieces until nothing remains. The photographs, measurements and the data gathered on the scientific tests that were performed are still available, and Campbell begins to study them. That night Campbell has a dream in which she is standing on the step of the American Museum of Natural History. Suddenly Campbell finds herself transported back into a Devonian landscape similar to the one that would have existed when the fossil trackway was created. This dream of past landscapes is one she has experienced before, but this time it seems more disturbing, and at one point, she seemed to hear Whitney's voice. 

I enjoyed this story. Helen and I worked as archaeologists, and I have had a lifelong interest in prehistoric life. Kiernan herself has worked as a paleontologist specializing in marine life; mosasours and turtles seem to be two areas of interest. This experience allows her to bring a level of expertise to the story, including the description of Campbell's dream landscape. At the end of the story, Kiernan's notes mention that parts of this story were reworked for her novel Threshold. She also mentions that the trackway is real and that it was discovered in 1994 by Ivan Stossel. 

If you are interested in this evolutionary period, I recommend Your Inner Fish: a Journey into the 3.5 Billion-Year History of the Human Body by Neil Shubin. It was also a program on PBS. I took a look for the book downstairs, but I probably got it from the public library. I was able to find a theropod trackway photo, which might be the one Kiernan mentioned. Given our shared interests, Kiernan's story was one I found particularly interesting. 

New Eldritch Tomes, Ron Weighell, Manly Wade Wellman, Ramsey Campbell

I noticed The White Road on my favourite bookseller's homepage. That copy was sold but he was good enough to track down a copy for me, he had been reading it. He did say it was quite good and that Weighell should be better known. My wife and I were both working in archaeology when we meet and while we left the field we still follow it avidly. So an Egyptian themed cover will always catch my eye. I am also a fan of Victorian and Edwardian horror and modern works that mine that vein are grist for my mill. (sorry) The comments on Goodreads helped convince me I wanted a copy. 

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9751496-the-white-road

Two anthologies edited by Ramsey Campbell, from the collection of Hugh Lamb another horror anthologist. New Terrors Volume 2 is inscribed "for Hugh, who knows how difficult these things are! Very best from Ramsey 24/10/80''

Cover by Andrew Douglas.

But want really interested me was the number of authors I associate with science fiction that are represented in the work. Christopher Priest (''The Miraculous Cairn''), John Brunner (''The Man Whose Eyes Beheld The Glory''), Greg Bear (''Richie By The Sea'') and M. John Harrison (''The Ice Monkey''). 

The Far Reaches of Fear, includes Manly Wade Wellman's The Petey Car which I wanted to read, as well as stories by Fritz Leiber, R. A. Lafferty, Brian Lumley, Robert Aickman and Campbell himself.

Cover by Terry Oakes.

Lastly Shadowridge Press put out a new edition of the Carcosa volume of Wellman's Worse Things Waiting with the Lee Brown Coye illustrations. I am iffy on Lee Brown Coye (heresy) but I really enjoy Wellman and the price was right for an old retired duffer. 

Sherlock Holmes and The Occult Detectives Edited by John Linwood Grant 2 vols.

"Where there is no imagination, there is no horror."

Arthur Conan Doyle, "A Study in Scarlet"

As readers of my blog may remember, I love Sherlock Holmes pastiches. I discussed this in more detail in a post of the work of Ralph E. Vaughan, which you can find at the links below.

https://dunwichhorrors.blogspot.com/2019/02/ralph-e-vaughan-sherlock-holmes-vs.html

https://dunwichhorrors.blogspot.com/2019/03/ralph-e-vaughan-sherlock-holmes-in.html

These can be works patterned on Conan Doyle's original stories or stories that have a supernatural element. I was reading some when I received an email update that the anthology, Sherlock Holmes, and the Occult Detectives (2 volumes) edited by John Linwood Grant was available. I have long been a fan of Grant's website 

http://greydogtales.com/blog/ 

and have mentioned his anthologies here before. Hells Empire; tales of the incursion is excellent, and his short story collection A Persistence of Geraniums about Mr. Dry the Deptford Assassin is a must-read for those who like the fog-shrouded London of Edwardian England. So I figured these books would be good and they are. I had expected that most tales would involve some of the more well known occult detectives. While we have stories linking Holmes to Poe's C. Auguste Dupin, Stoker's Van Helsing and Blackwood's John Silence, there was no story featuringWilliam Hope Hodgson's Carnacki , who I missed. Instead, a number involve sleuths that appear to have been created especially for the story. This was not a problem; these are some of my favourites. While Grant provides some notes in his Editor's Note I would have preferred a note for each story, which would have saved me some fruitless googling. As with any anthology of this type, I enjoyed some, found others less interesting and encountered some real gems. Typically with anthologies, pick and choose here I started volume one read to the end and then started volume two. While I have not finished volume two, I want to discuss one favourite from each volume. 

Volume one. "The Adventure of Marylebone Manor" by Naching T. Kassa. Holmes and Watson have been summoned to Marylebone Manor in Sussex. Lord Charles Lightfoot has been found dead in a locked room. The room shows signs of a struggle, and Lightfoot has bruising on his throat. The doctor claims, however, that he died of a heart attack. Predictably the police have arrested the groom. Lady Catherine Rose Lightfoot, his wife, believes a ghost is responsible. She is a devoted spiritualist and holds regular seances in the house. Before Holmes and Watson can leave, two members of the Baker Street Irregulars appear. One, Jimmy Hampstead, tells Holmes the groom is innocent and that he can help find the actual murderer. Holmes knows that Hampstead has solved several recent mysteries. Then Hampstead offers a demonstration of his powers. He drinks from a flask, and his eyes change colour. He relates an incident from Holmes's youth that even Watson did not know.

Holmes gives Hampstead money for more respectable clothing and agrees he can accompany them. While Hampstead is absent, Holmes consults his files. Holmes tells Watson Hampstead is actually James King, who briefly disappeared at age three on Hampstead Heath. When found, he could only say he was with a bloofer lady. At age eight, Hampstead disappears again this time with a group of gipsies (sp) who have apparently raised him. The three set off to Sussex meeting Conan Doyle who is also headed for Maryleborne Manor on the train. Conan Doyle is a friend of the family and has attended several seances at the house.

This story had everything: mediums, hauntings, seances, gipsies (sp), and a locked room mystery complete with the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Kassa knows her Holmes and remains faithful enough to the original stories to satisfy me. There is no distortion of the relationship between Holmes and Watson, and Hampstead is a fabulous character. There was one point where I just said, wow, I will let you guess where.

Volume two. "The Ironwood Wardrobe" by Josh Reynolds. This story pairs Holmes with the Royal Occultist Charles St. Cyprian and his assistant Ebe Gallowglass. Holmes has requested St. Cyprian's assistance through Mycroft's government connections. A young girl, Sarah Goodwin, has disappeared while visiting her uncle Alfred Ransom. It appears she climbed into a curiously carved ironwood wardrobe. Holmes has already checked that the room, and the wardrobe are solid, with no passages or hidden panels. When St. Cyprian touches it, he has a vision of a snowy forest and hears the howling of wolves. Reynolds has written a number of stories featuring St. Cyprian, he was an apprentice of Carnacki and investigates other worldly occurrences for the crown. His assistant, the rather pragmatic Ebe Gallowglass, was born in Cairo and sports a handy Webley-Fosberg revolver. I loved this and nominated it as my favourite story before I finished the volume.  I enjoyed "The Ironwood Wardrobe" so much I reread the last half immediately after finishing it. I won't tell you all the influences I detected, the story travels beyond just Sherlock's realm, but Holdstock's Mythago Woods came to mind. I also purchased Reynolds collection Casefiles of the Royal Occultist; Monmouth's Giants.

I enjoyed these books. They also exposed me to other authors and collections I can enjoy in the future. Grant has an excellent knowledge of both the literature of this period and the pastiches that followed. These volumes capture the feel of the period nicely. If you want to return to Baker street but with a ghost or ghoully included, these are for you. These pastiches have also lead me back to the originals, and yesterday I reread "The Problem of Thor Bridge" and "The Adventure of the Creeping Man" can the hound be far behind? I read an interview with horror writer Thomas Ligotti last night in which he mentioned the importance of Conan Doyle's Holmes stories in his early reading. I have to agree with his importance in my own reading life. Yesterday I experienced again what a good writer Conan Doyle was. 

If you want to learn more about Arthur Conan Doyle, I recommend Michael Dirda's book, pictured below.