Tag Archive for 'ghosts'

A Small Pitchfork Mob of Short Reviews

This is happening more and more lately, and I’m just going to roll with it. It seems like every time I turn around, I’ve read several books and need to review them all, post-haste. So here they are.

Wow! What a lurid cover! Make sure you enlarge that baby to get the full effect. Another 1960s Corinth anthology of weird menace pulp fiction from the 1930s, DEATH’S LOVING ARMS AND OTHER TERROR TALES is entertaining, annoying, interesting, and wholly gratuitous. We have here five stories in total: “Death’s Loving Arms” by Hugh B. Cave, “Vampire Meat” by Frederick C. Painton, “Blood Magic” by G.T. Fleming-Roberts, “From Out the Shadows” by Frances Bragg Middleton, and “Village of the Dead” by Wyatt Blassingame. All of them have that pulpy fast-paced tough-guy prose and feature ready men who either save their damsels in distress or nearly fall victim to murderous exotic jungle ladies. Like your typical Scooby Doo mysteries, almost all reveal a mundane source for what seemed to be a supernatural mystery. Snoresville “Village of the Dead” wins the worst offender award for being ridiculously sexist and overtly racist in detailing the victimization of a crippled girl and her sister by some inbred bayou hicks. “Vampire Meat” wins best in show for being short but sweet with a mad scientist, high body count, and an ending that cries out for a cackling crypt keeper.
Death’s Loving Arms and Other Terror Tales – 1966 – Corinth Publications. This book is out of print and rare, but shows up on eBay from time to time. Search here.

The latest issue of RIPLEY’S BELIEVE IT OR NOT is in, and it is subtitled STRIKINGLY TRUE. All I have to say about this book is that there is a clown who puts fish hooks in his eye sockets and then uses them to pull his face all out of shape AND THE PICTURES WILL GIVE YOU NIGHTMARES FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. I love these books! Really I do.
Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! Strikingly True
2011Ripley Entertainment

One man’s desperate search for his lost daughter leads him to perform a dark piece of magic that simultaneously blinds him and makes him able to see the supernatural creatures and ghosts who live among us. The protagonist’s name, “Jeremiah Hunt,” speaks volumes and even sets expectations, doesn’t it? Yes, yes. A straight-up supernatural mystery novel, EYES TO SEE delivers the goods in a no-fuss no-muss manner. We have here the tough cop turning up the heat on our brave protagonist, the sensitive witch who is falling in love with him, and the mysterious Russian black marketeer who cannot help but become his trusty sidekick. All of them are working to solve the mystery behind a horrifying string of bizarre murders before it’s too late. Looking for a lightweight supernatural thriller to read in between all that serious literature you’ve been poring over? Look no further.
Eyes to See (The Jeremiah Hunt Chronicle) by Joseph Nassise2011Tor Books

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that Graham Annable was selling a book titled HIDDEN. If you are fan of Annable’s creepy short animations, and you’ve been holding off from picking up a copy of this marvelous little gem, wonder no longer – or continue to wonder NOW, because it’s sold out. Like his short films, the book is well illustrated, impeccably paced, and deliciously creepy.
Hidden by Graham Annable – 2011 - Kabinett (is that his own imprint?)

Many thanks to TOR/FORGE for review copy of Eyes to See. Also thanks for Ripley’s Entertainment for the review copy of Ripley’s Believe It or Not.

Vintage Photo Album: Fairy Tale Edition

Wake up, Millicent.

While crossing through a forest, a hunter one day emerged into a clearing and surprised four graceful does. The two parties froze and regarded each other. Disarmed for a moment by their long, blue beauty, the hunter failed to notice a cloth bag which sat at the feet of the most dazzling sister doe. Encrusted with blood, dirt, and fallen leaves, the bag contained a human heart so fresh it was practically still pounding. – Auction Here – already ended.

Two sisters, as different as night and day, decided to read aloud from their favorite book of poetry by a long-abandoned well in a part of the forest that their parents forbade them to visit. An old witch, disguised as a kindly old man, emerged from the well and prodded one of the innocent girls with a length of willow. – Auction Here – ends when it ends.

Two girls at a party were approached by a third who acted like she knew them. Disarmed by her friendly charm, the three became fast friends, at least for the festivities of the evening. When asked for her name, she answered differently every time. The girls thought that this was a grand idea for a masquerade. Little did they know that the mask their new friend seemed to wear was actually her face, with strange, finger-like tentacles where the nose and mouth belonged. One of them would later be found, but only in the spring, after the snow drifts melted enough to uncover her legs. – Auction Here – Ends Oct 25.

The little person emerged so suddenly that they imagined there must be a door in the hall that they had overlooked. Without a spoken word, she told them what they needed to do using sign language, but her audience later remembered her having a strangely accented voice. They thought it was familiar accent, but they couldn’t quite place it. Silently she instructed them to take the flowers she held, boil them, and then pour off a layer of yellow liquid that would gather on the top when the water cooled. This liquid must then be mixed with lavender flowers to make a poultice, and be applied to their mother’s eyes before the next morning. – Auction Here – already ended, alas.

A child prodigy musician, Harriet was kidnapped by agents of the mad sultan, and was every day forced to play her violin for the boys that he kept locked in a deep, cold, dungeon. The sultan would visit these boys from time to time, but would warn Harriet away from the room where they would entertain him. One day, after months of frigid gruel and one cavernous, unending violin recital, and finally unable to contain her curiosity, she burst into the chamber during one of his visits. Weeks later, mountain climbers found Harriet feral, half-starved and clinging to a rock miles away. The strings of her violin she had wound into her disheveled hair. Sadly, although she was immediately put under the care of world famous psychologist Horrace Razorbottom, Harriet never fully recovered. Here she is pictured wearing a medal that she had won just months before her tragic misadventure. – Auction Here – Ends Nov 3.

Despite the fact that the finished photo appeared to have been composed to frame all three children that appeared in it, the photographer Manzetti, when questioned by the police, swore up and down that he took a photo of two children, and no more. Later forensic examination of the photo would not resolve the mystery of how Mrs. Wallace’s son, Wilbur, could have appeared in this photo, taken only weeks after his mysterious disappearance. Two months later, the other two Wallace children disappeared as well. Search dogs would eventually locate what was left of Wilbur Bronson Wallace in an urn behind the gardening shed, but no sign of the other two missing children would be forthcoming. – Auction Here – Ends Oct 30.

Hop twice. Hop twice as you pass the brightly painted door and vaguely oriental decorations of Melinda’s Patisserie during the day, but do not tarry or darken her stoop after dark. If they were to put their heads together, her neighbors would not be able to work out any sensible geometry that would explain which building her shop door opens into, nor which spaces her kitchen and parlor occupy. – Auction Here – Ends when it ends.

But Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now: Harbor by John Ajvide Lindqvist

There are books in the world that are not for the depressed, because the events paint an inevitable winding down of all that is good, and it can actually weigh on a monster. People get old. Injuries pile up. Forests are flattened. Desperate men and women do horrible horrible things to themselves and others. Sure it’s a nice day today, but the fuckers would take that away from us if they could, wouldn’t they? It seems like I’ve been waiting for a novel like this for a long time. From the same author who brought you Let the Right One In, we get a subtle and terrifying book with a great deal of scope. I’ll admit that the first fifty or so pages weren’t exactly gripping, but once Harbor had me hooked, it was hard to put down.

Although there are a large number of tales and characters woven together in the book, Harbor mostly follows the story of two men who are related, but not by blood. There is Anders, who is really the focus of the book, and Simon, who is basically a step grandfather to Anders. Simon and Anders both live on a remote island where life moves a little more slowly than the rest of the world. The book opens with the mysterious disappearance of Maja, the temperamental daughter of Anders, during a family trip to a local lighthouse. The unsolved disappearance of his little daughter breaks Anders, breaks his marriage, and sends him into a downward spiral. After several years away from the island, Anders decides to return, find his life again, and perhaps exorcise his ghosts.

Once he returns, however, he finds that things aren’t as simple as they might have seemed. The island is haunted by strange happenings and a long history involving human sacrifice and mysterious disappearances.

Simon is a retired professional magician (of the kind who pulls rabbits from hats, does tricks with cards, and saws pretty ladies in half on stage) who has stumbled onto an insect-like creature that grants him supernatural control over water. Simon and a host of other island residents help Anders, whether they mean to or not, as he attempts to piece together what really happened to his daughter.

Joining in on the fun are:

  • Anna-Greta, Simon’s long time partner and de facto matriarch of the island.
  • Elin, the girl from Anders’ generation who everyone was hot for, who got rich and famous, and who returned to the island to hide away and make herself look old and deformed with plastic surgery.
  • Two resurrected and violent teenaged thugs who speak only in Smiths lyrics and terrorize the locals, Elin, and Anders.
  • The Sea

The source of the haunting in Harbor is the sea. Necessary to Anders’ understanding of what happened to his daughter we find several hundred years of stories of people who were lost at sea (or more appropriately, taken by the sea) before her. As the book progresses, Anders is simultaneously solving a mystery and losing his mind. As with Let the Right One In, there is a fascination or play with childhood, immaturity, and maturity. And failure. Incidentally, those of us who are familiar with songs by The Smiths might find Sheila Take a Bow going through our heads. Let’s see the numbers:

Creepy Factor: 5 out of 5
Suspense Factor: 4 out of 5
Weird Erotic Tension Factor: 2 out of 5
Funny and/or Strange Factor: 3 out of 5

Final result: I loved this book and had a hard time putting it down. Harbor is a series of ghost stories that fill in different parts of a larger painting by an author who doesn’t feel the need to answer every single question he raises. It has depth and scope, and it’s not afraid to do something really unthinkable to itself in the bathroom when it hits bottom.

Harbor by John Ajvide Lindqvist2011St. Martin’s Press

Buy Harbor on Amazon today!

Young Adult Double Feature

Feed by M.T. Anderson

(Five bucks says this is the back of China Miéville’s head.) While it was sold to me as a dystopian dark science fiction novel, Feed is more accurately a retelling of that classic tale Romeo and Juliet. Except that in this case, Romeo is from the vapid consumerist future and Juliet is from the intellectual alt-culture past.

In this future world, most people have direct Internet feeds implanted into their brains soon after they are born. The plus side of this is that everyone is a walking encyclopedia as long as they have the patience to use Wikipedia. The bad news is that banner ads have followed the Internet into our brains, and instant access to everything, everywhere, at any time has inculcated a deep laziness into the masses. Nobody has to learn anything, fashionable hairstyles change by the minute, and mankind has lost the patience to use Wikipedia (hmmm. This last part sounds familiar.)

Our star-crossed lovers meet in a restaurant on the Moon, and later that evening are dancing at a night club when their feeds are hacked by a member of dissident organization of some sort. The details of this dissident organization aren’t explored fully because the protagonist (our lethargic representative of the vapid consumerist future) doesn’t really care about anything other than his next meal or pair of jeans, so he never investigates.

Some YA books are gratifying to adults. If you get annoyed easily at young adult books, you may wish to skip this one.

Oh Juliet (or in this case, Violet), how unlucky you are to have fallen for this oaf. Halfway through the book we wonder, “when does the adventure start?” You must have wondered that, too. Luckily for us, you and your lover’s stars are crossed, and so the tragedy in this young adult dystopian broth is rich and thick.

Feed by M.T. Anderson2004Candlewick
Buy Feed at Amazon, now!

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

The plot of this book is Neil Gaiman’s standard: Protagonist discovers a secret world where he/she is important. As a child, our protagonist Jacob was told lots of strange and yet borderline-believable stories by his grandfather. Now that he’s 16, it’s become clear to Jacob maybe his grandfather might need a little more medication than the average bear.

After his grandfather is killed in suspicious circumstances, however, Jacob finds himself compelled to investigate, and of course it was all true. All of it! The levitating girl, the invisible boy, the ridiculously strong girl, the bird, the horrible monsters. Everything and more. The good news is that everybody at the Home likes Jacob, and he likes them. The bad news is that Jacob has unwittingly led the horrible monsters to Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. Adventure ensues.

The book itself is well-written and suspenseful. Despite the World War II setting, the period flavor at the Home is decidedly Victorian. It’s a little on the YA borderline, but if the premise sounds interesting and you are attracted to the odd vintage photos that pepper the inside, you should give it a read.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs2011Quirk Books

Buy Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children now on Amazon

Vintage Photo Album: Can I have a Little Upside-Down with my Vampire?

One of the things that I really love about vintage photography is the medium itself. Today, we have digital cameras and we know that something is a mistake right after we hit the shutter button. Or in the worst case, right after we upload it to our Facebook page or Tweet it. Not that anything like that would ever happen to me. No, in the past, photography was something of a dicey process. A person could take the perfect photo and have the chemistry go bad. A person could get the chemistry right, but have underexposed the photo. A perfectly capable photographer with great chemistry and plenty of light could have a subject that just simply would not cooperate. Today’s vintage photo album is dedicated to the photographers who worked so hard to get so many great photos to us at a time when it was really difficult.

Onagonical Monster

Regular readers will probably recognize this one. It’s a page from a photo album featured here a few weeks ago. The album did not sell for the asking price of 1500 clams, and this time the bidding has started at $9.99. What a delight! You will be bidding against me for this hot item. Auction Here – Expires 8/31

Mlle. Dazie the Dancer

Old photos + dancers x Oscar Wilde’s Salome = AND HOW. I love all the Mlles! – Auction Here – Expires 8/28

Angel with Crown

This auction is actually over, but I loved the photo so much I had to include it here. These old spiritualist photos are so dear. – Auction Was Here – Already Expired

What's Taking So Long With These Ghostly Presences?

Another fine example of a spiritualist photo. Our subject looks so dissatisfied with the photographer. Doesn’t she know it takes time and concentration to manifest ghosts from the past? – Auction Here – Expires 8/28

Princess Hishesa Academy

Another very lovely photo. The princess was a patient subject in these days that an exposure took a long time. The auction is for a pair of photos. – Auction Here – Ends 8/28

Thousand Yard Crooked Smile

Thousand Yard Crooked Smile. What a daguerreotype. Its no wonder that the process was so popular for so long. You could see the air. – Auction Was Here – Already Expired

1929 Chinese Opera Actors

It really doesn’t get much better than this. Sorry about the obnoxious watermark. – Auction Here – Expires 8/30

The Lovely Florence Zoda

Another great photo with an unfortunate watermark. Florence made news by coming to the rescue when an unfortunate snake expert lost several deadly adders in a hotel. The poor man got bit and lost his arm in the incident. Hopefully Ms. Zoda didn’t show up in the pictured costume. With adder poison creeping through your veins, the last thing you want is a lady like this to set your heart pounding. This is another one where you’ll be bidding against me. I am in love! More vintage snake charmers here.Auction Here – Expires 8/26

See more Vintage Photos here on Dark in the Dark.

Check this space for more weird photos on eBay.

*Best Search Ever*


darkinthedark does not claim copyright on these images. If you are the copyright holder and object to their presence here, please contact me and I will remove them.
The flying monkeys let our technician out for a minute and he snuck away into the light of day. Thanks for your patience during this difficult transition.
I ated Tinkerbell.

Fhtagn Spoken Here.

... the attic, a vast raftered length lighted only by small blinking windows in the gable ends, and filled with a massed wreckage of chests, chairs, and spinning-wheels which infinite years of deposit had shrouded and festooned into monstrous and hellish shapes.
The Shunned House
H.P. Lovecraft




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