Book Review: 'The Year's Best Horror Stories Series IV', edited by Gerald W. Page
`The Year's Best Horror Stories: Series IV' (208 pp., DAW Books, November 1976) features cover art by Michael Whelan.
Most of the stories in this anthology first were published in 1974 and 1975; some in other anthologies, such as Whispers, and others in magazines like Playboy and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine.
Editor Gerald Page provides a brief Introduction.
My capsule summaries of the stories:
Forever Stand the Stones, by Joe Pumilia: a prehistoric incident at Stonehenge has reverberations throughout the future. This story evokes a ‘cosmic’ sensibility and at times reads like something Harlan Ellison would have written. The denouement is underwhelming, but ‘Forever’ deserves recognition for being ambitious in scope.
And Don’t Forget the One Red Rose, by Avram Davidson: laborer Charley Barton makes the acquaintance of a mysterious man who sells the very rarest of books.
Christmas Present, by Ramsey Campbell: Christmas-time in Liverpool, and the first-person narrator allows an argumentative young man to join a houseparty…..with unforeseen consequences.
I’ve become so inured to Campbell’s purple prose and elliptical plotting that I didn’t blink my eyes at this segment:
….the tune led toward recognition and then fled squealing and growling into impossible extremes, notes leaping like frogs and falling dead. The voices squirmed between the suffocated tones of the bell, voices thin and cold as the wind, thick and black as wet earth, and paced toward us up Canning Street.
A Question of Guilt, by Hal Clement: in ancient Rome, a little boy named Kyros suffers from a bleeding disorder. Could a form of ‘vampirism’ save him from premature death ?
I’ve always considered Hal Clement to be one of science fiction’s more boring authors, and this novelette does nothing to alter that judgment. It’s more of a melodrama than a horror story, and its inclusion doesn’t bring much to this anthology.
The House of Stillcroft Street, by Joseph Payne Brennan: a quiet New England village, an eccentric uncle, and a house that has seen better days……what could possibly go wrong ?
The Recrudescence of Geoffrey Marvell, by G. N. Gabbard: Editor Page apparently included this tale as a favor to the author, who was a friend / acquaintance. It’s about a 17th century English cavalier who encounters some spooky goings-on in the Black Forest. The dialogue, which is modeled on Old Tyme plays by Shakespeare and Marlowe, seems to be designed to allow author Gabbard to display his wittiness in writing prose. I was unimpressed.
Something Had to Be Done, by David Drake: a modern take on vampires; one of the better entries in the anthology.
Cottage Tenant, by Frank Belknap Long: disturbing events at a seashore home in New England, where someone apparently is conjuring up monsters from the mists ?! The story’s premise is too contrived to be effective.
The Man with the Aura, by R. A. Lafferty: the story takes the tradition in which two gentlemen sit with their brandies in a drawing room, sharing a ghostly tale, and neatly subverts it. One of the better entries in the anthology.
White Wolf Calling, by Charles L. Grant: an early-career tale from Grant. In a wintry countryside, viewing an apparition of a white wolf means someone is going to die. The ending, like too many Grant tales, is too oblique to render the story effective.
Lifeguard, by Arthur Byron Cover: Bob Strawn has a part-time job as a pool lifeguard, and is enjoying a carefree summer, in Blackton, Virginia. That is, until he takes a toke of some really powerful ‘grass’……!
The Black Captain, by H. Warner Munn: old-school pulp tale about a man under an unusual curse.
The Glove, by Fritz Leiber: disturbing goings-on in San Francisco apartment house. Surprisingly well-plotted, and devoid of pulp prose; sometimes Leiber could get it right.
No Way Home, by Brian Lumley: George Benson finds that the narrow roads of rural England can lead you into places that aren’t on any map.
The anthology closes with an essay, ‘The Lovecraft Controversy: Why ?’ by ‘Weird Tales’ writer E. Hoffman Price. Price, who at age 77 (in 1975) still was hale and hearty. Price intervenes in a dispute over L. Sprague de Camp’s 1975 biography of Lovecraft; it seems Lovecraft supporters were very unhappy over de Camp’s depiction of their beloved writer. Price makes a rather strident argument that both de Camp’s biography, and Frank Belknap Long’s 1975 Lovecraft memoir, are genuine tributes to The Master in their own ways. The main value of this essay is to show that even back in 1975, Fanboy-dom was alive and well among the fantasy literature cognoscenti……..
Summing up, the entries from Brennan, Drake, and Lafferty aren’t enough of a counterweight to the other material to make this volume worth searching out. I can’t give it more than two stars.
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