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Not a Speck of Light
It’s about to get very dark.
Bram Stoker Award-winning author Laird Barron returns to the dark and dreadful with his fifth horror collection, which weaves sixteen weird tales into a mosaic of the bloody and the macabre.
Bring a flashlight and a book of matches.
Where we’re going, there’s not a speck of light.
Bram Stoker Award-winning author Laird Barron returns to the dark and dreadful with his fifth horror collection, which weaves sixteen weird tales into a mosaic of the bloody and the macabre.
Bring a flashlight and a book of matches.
Where we’re going, there’s not a speck of light.
361 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 10, 2024
295 people are currently reading
3,563 people want to read
About the author
Laird Barron
174books2,732followersLaird Barron, an expat Alaskan, is the author of several books, including The Imago Sequence and Other Stories; Swift to Chase; and Blood Standard. Currently, Barron lives in the Rondout Valley of New York State and is at work on tales about the evil that men do.
Photo credit belongs to Ardi Alspach
Agent: Janet Reid of New Leaf Literary & Media
Photo credit belongs to Ardi Alspach
Agent: Janet Reid of New Leaf Literary & Media
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 100 reviews
November 1, 2024
Have you read Laird Barron yet? Admittedly, his work leans towards fans of horror especially if you like an unpredictable side to your terror; “lovecraftian� in the wild; or just utter phenomena weirdity. I can't say that all of the stories in
Not a Speck of Light
fit my usual, but then again why do I get stuck in the usual? Barron transcends his own work by writing within other genres too, and so you may have heard of his “Isaiah Coleridge� series. Coleridge is noir crime where the crime often leads Isaiah into the intangible. Like his short stories, the writing can get a little “heady� including sentence sequences that skip along as quickly as thoughts in the mind. Not always the easiest to keep up with, but can be worth the effort.
The collection is divided into four sections of four stories each, Alaska being a nucleus for many, not surprising seeing that it's where the author spent his childhood. Wilderness, wildlife and the wide-open unknown are a step outside the door, and inside too. I most enjoyed stories like “Tiptoe�, first written for the When Things Get Dark anthology. Maybe it's because ”TٴDZ� is one of those written in a more conventional narrative stream about a man looking back, growing up with a dad who jump scared his own kids. Coming of age of a different sort. “Don't Make Me Assume My Ultimate Form� offers such a unique, unexpected storyline: A recruited hit-woman on her first assignment protecting a telepathic mannequin named Poe, and that's just the start. ”Not a Speck of Light� is also the name of an original story written for this collection. The creepy, probably sadistic neighbor asks to purchase the family dog. Why? You ask. So did I, and another foreboding answer I couldn't foresee.
The collection is divided into four sections of four stories each, Alaska being a nucleus for many, not surprising seeing that it's where the author spent his childhood. Wilderness, wildlife and the wide-open unknown are a step outside the door, and inside too. I most enjoyed stories like “Tiptoe�, first written for the When Things Get Dark anthology. Maybe it's because ”TٴDZ� is one of those written in a more conventional narrative stream about a man looking back, growing up with a dad who jump scared his own kids. Coming of age of a different sort. “Don't Make Me Assume My Ultimate Form� offers such a unique, unexpected storyline: A recruited hit-woman on her first assignment protecting a telepathic mannequin named Poe, and that's just the start. ”Not a Speck of Light� is also the name of an original story written for this collection. The creepy, probably sadistic neighbor asks to purchase the family dog. Why? You ask. So did I, and another foreboding answer I couldn't foresee.
September 18, 2024
I feel very spoiled this year: two authors I just adore released books just two days ahead of my birthday! This collection of Laird Barron short stories was one of them. And nope, I couldn’t wait for spooktober; instead, I took it with me to a work retreat and spent my quiet bit of the evening, post team building activity, immersed in Barron’s strange world.
While his novel “The Croning� is how I originally fell in love with Barron, the short story format is clearly where he feels the most comfortable and confident � with reason. His stories are deliciously dark and bleak, his characters fucked up and scrappy, the creatures he conjures menacing in an understated and often unexpected way that is entirely his. If you like your horror with a silver lining, I regret to tell you, you won’t find it here. I mean, the title of this collection is its own warning! What you will find is damaged people living in a violent and merciless world, and the hair-raising situations they end up in. And I loved it!
Barron’s prose is something very special. I believe I may have described it in the past as muscular and evocative, and it remains both of those things. There is something both rough and sophisticated going on here, and I ascribe that to his love of noir and pulp novels but mixed in with the richness of dark chocolate (the fancy stuff, not the one that tastes like bitter chalk). Long time readers of his will recognize a few Easter eggs (Isaiah’s sister, the infamous Tooms family, the eternal final girl Jessica Mace, Black Dog Security, etc.) of his universe, but you can come at this collection without prior knowledge of these characters and places without losing anything important; I just appreciate the consistency and intricacy of his world-building. I can’t believe I had also never realized how much Mr. Barron loves dogs. He really, really loves them so much, and it’s both very moving and heartbreaking to see how his characters� relationships to dogs push his stories further.
As with most short story collections, this one isn’t perfect, but it’s packed full of amazing stories that more than make up for the less stellar ones. The idea of a creature like Mr. Help Me chilled me to the bones, the ‘Innsmouth� village was a hair-raising little tale of aliens and Lovecraftiana, the haunted house-warming party gone wrong was the perfect Barron-kind of fucked up, and the title story was perfection. I would so go to hell to rescue my pet, I hear you, Laird!
If you love this man’s work, don’t walk, run to get a copy!! Preferably directly from his publisher, Bad Hand Books, who are awesome!
While his novel “The Croning� is how I originally fell in love with Barron, the short story format is clearly where he feels the most comfortable and confident � with reason. His stories are deliciously dark and bleak, his characters fucked up and scrappy, the creatures he conjures menacing in an understated and often unexpected way that is entirely his. If you like your horror with a silver lining, I regret to tell you, you won’t find it here. I mean, the title of this collection is its own warning! What you will find is damaged people living in a violent and merciless world, and the hair-raising situations they end up in. And I loved it!
Barron’s prose is something very special. I believe I may have described it in the past as muscular and evocative, and it remains both of those things. There is something both rough and sophisticated going on here, and I ascribe that to his love of noir and pulp novels but mixed in with the richness of dark chocolate (the fancy stuff, not the one that tastes like bitter chalk). Long time readers of his will recognize a few Easter eggs (Isaiah’s sister, the infamous Tooms family, the eternal final girl Jessica Mace, Black Dog Security, etc.) of his universe, but you can come at this collection without prior knowledge of these characters and places without losing anything important; I just appreciate the consistency and intricacy of his world-building. I can’t believe I had also never realized how much Mr. Barron loves dogs. He really, really loves them so much, and it’s both very moving and heartbreaking to see how his characters� relationships to dogs push his stories further.
As with most short story collections, this one isn’t perfect, but it’s packed full of amazing stories that more than make up for the less stellar ones. The idea of a creature like Mr. Help Me chilled me to the bones, the ‘Innsmouth� village was a hair-raising little tale of aliens and Lovecraftiana, the haunted house-warming party gone wrong was the perfect Barron-kind of fucked up, and the title story was perfection. I would so go to hell to rescue my pet, I hear you, Laird!
If you love this man’s work, don’t walk, run to get a copy!! Preferably directly from his publisher, Bad Hand Books, who are awesome!
September 26, 2024
Another masterpiece collection that nears perfection. Nothing unexpected there with Laird Barron at the helm. A lot of interconnected stories, throwbacks to previous material, and a bit more of a sci-fi bent on the whole than his previous works. Some of the stories here are bound to be talked about for ages! As always, highly recommended for fans of weird fiction.
September 30, 2024
The new CD from my homie Larry B! Features the smash single Tiptoe!! And the feel good hit of the summer In A Cavern, In A Canyon!!! Rock to the melodic beats of Strident Caller while partying with cool cats Tom Mandibole and Smiling J. Released by Bad Hand Records.
October 19, 2024
As a huge fan, I've read most of Laird's fiction, and I think this might be his masterpiece. In a way, it combines the tone and horror of his earlier collections (The Imago Sequence, Occultation, etc.) with his more recent Weird sci-fi (Swift to Chase and X's For Eyes). The prose, as always, is stellar, and the foray into the unknown, scary, exciting, and mind-blowing.
"In a Cavern, In a Canyon": the 'help me' monster punishes the good ones.
"Girls Without Their Faces On": Planet X occludes the sun, and a killer party ensues.
"Mobility": I appreciate Bryan being spelled correctly. Mandibole immobilizes poor Bryan, for eternity.
"The Glorification of Custer Poe": Ghosts of the Civil War.
"Joren Falls": It's probably not a good idea to bring home souvenirs from Joren Falls, Japan; that is, unless you enjoy spiders with long tongues.
"The Blood in My Mouth": A key to Laird's world building. Merging Old Leech and Antiquity?
"Nemesis": I never trusted goldfish anyway.
"Soul of Me": Rex, the cybernetic dog, takes on Reptar.
"Fear Sun": Miss Bole, sound familiar? Innsmouth in miniature.
"Swift to Chase": Not sure what to make of this one quite yet.
"Don't Make Me Assume My Ultimate Form": Charlie's Angels, from hell, with a Poe doll as John Bosley?
"American Remake of a Japanese Ghost Story": A nice companion to Joren Falls. Can't escape.
"Strident Caller": A drifter, Jesse Craven, moves in with the worst roommate/lover ever.
"Not a Speck of Light": Don't steal someone's dog, unless you want a katana to the throat.
"Tiptoe": a stone-cold classic in the genre. There are things from your childhood you block out, perhaps unconsciously. Take a closer look at your family photographs.
"(You Won't Be) Saved by the Ghost of Your Old Dog": The nagging trauma of losing a dog stalks you as you go in circles in perpetuity.
This masterful collection will keep me busy, that is until we get the highly anticipated Antiquity collection in the next few years. I can't recommend Not a Speck of Light more.
"In a Cavern, In a Canyon": the 'help me' monster punishes the good ones.
"Girls Without Their Faces On": Planet X occludes the sun, and a killer party ensues.
"Mobility": I appreciate Bryan being spelled correctly. Mandibole immobilizes poor Bryan, for eternity.
"The Glorification of Custer Poe": Ghosts of the Civil War.
"Joren Falls": It's probably not a good idea to bring home souvenirs from Joren Falls, Japan; that is, unless you enjoy spiders with long tongues.
"The Blood in My Mouth": A key to Laird's world building. Merging Old Leech and Antiquity?
"Nemesis": I never trusted goldfish anyway.
"Soul of Me": Rex, the cybernetic dog, takes on Reptar.
"Fear Sun": Miss Bole, sound familiar? Innsmouth in miniature.
"Swift to Chase": Not sure what to make of this one quite yet.
"Don't Make Me Assume My Ultimate Form": Charlie's Angels, from hell, with a Poe doll as John Bosley?
"American Remake of a Japanese Ghost Story": A nice companion to Joren Falls. Can't escape.
"Strident Caller": A drifter, Jesse Craven, moves in with the worst roommate/lover ever.
"Not a Speck of Light": Don't steal someone's dog, unless you want a katana to the throat.
"Tiptoe": a stone-cold classic in the genre. There are things from your childhood you block out, perhaps unconsciously. Take a closer look at your family photographs.
"(You Won't Be) Saved by the Ghost of Your Old Dog": The nagging trauma of losing a dog stalks you as you go in circles in perpetuity.
This masterful collection will keep me busy, that is until we get the highly anticipated Antiquity collection in the next few years. I can't recommend Not a Speck of Light more.
November 6, 2024
The fourth collection of Barron's I have read and it might be the strongest. The title story is a novelette that kept me wrapt. What you'd expect from him is all here- Alaskan settings, hunters, dogs and of course, cosmic horror. Yet it feels infused with new blood. Especially after writing his Isiah Coleridge crime cycle. In the afterword, Laird likens his current take on the contemporary weird and horrific mixed with thriller and noir as familiar yet different. Like a serpent shedding its skin or an insect transitioning into something new and terrible. Each collection tiptoes the reader around the edge of a yawning void.
October 4, 2024
Five odd years ago, reading The Croning and subsequently devouring everything else of Laird's that was available at the time, was and still is the most life changing literary experience I've ever had. His latest collection, Not a Speck of Light, successfully continues to nurture that evergrowing feeling.
Terrifying, hallucinatory, and poetic as ever, Laird flawlessly incorporates everything I have loved about the work he has done within the different genres and styles he has explored. There wasn't a single story in this collection that didn't hit all the right notes for me, and I can't help but be floored as each mind-melting layer is added to the mythos Laird has created throughout his career.
I'd read 4 of these stories before, but as is the standard for me with Laird's writing, that never deters me from confronting the horrors head on, over and over again without hesitation, happily being engulfed in it's dreadful maw.
Terrifying, hallucinatory, and poetic as ever, Laird flawlessly incorporates everything I have loved about the work he has done within the different genres and styles he has explored. There wasn't a single story in this collection that didn't hit all the right notes for me, and I can't help but be floored as each mind-melting layer is added to the mythos Laird has created throughout his career.
I'd read 4 of these stories before, but as is the standard for me with Laird's writing, that never deters me from confronting the horrors head on, over and over again without hesitation, happily being engulfed in it's dreadful maw.
October 14, 2024
Video of my interview with Laird on this book:
Audio:
I don’t know Laird Barron as well as some authors, we have had nice interactions with the podcast, but most of my relationship with Laird is as a reader, and a Twitter follow. I felt so deeply for his close family and friends when he was sick in 2022/23 I nervously followed the news like most of the horror fiction community. So, I don’t want anyone to think I am making light of this situation. It was scary for us fans too, we didn’t want to lose one of the best writers of cosmic horror, the writer behind the amazing Ishiah Coleridge trilogy.
I understand how scary this would be for Laird, who has written about near-death experiences he had earlier in life. When Laird worked his way back to health I had a feeling that this man with his fingers on the pulse of the dark beating heart of the cosmos would come back with power. When I heard there was a new collection, I knew I had to read it. A Laird Barron book is always a cause for celebration, a collection is even more reason as LB is one of the best short story writers on the planet. Now add the weight of his recent brush with death and I knew this was going to be the most powerful collection in a career of strong work.
Not a Speck of Light is Barron’s 5th collection, and it appears most of the stories from before LB’s latest brush with death but two of the most powerful tales in the collection, ‘Mobility� and the title story both seem influenced by the events in his life. Strangely it predated the illness. That said I don’t think it is possible to come that close and not experience a new relationship with the cosmos. The first story Laird wrote in recovery was the title story, Not a Speck of Light is a bit of a dark painful dog love story, it is a powerful heart-pounding story that I wish never existed as it does. It took a recovering man turning his pain into a beautifully dark art for it to happen.
The prose as always is poetic, lyrical, and fine-tuned to paint a picture in your mind’s eye. Barron blends noir, cosmic, and moments of humor with a sense of grand literature. The quality of the word-to-word prose is hard to describe with hyperbole, and I feel it is getting better. Having written a trilogy of street-level noir modern Barron has clarity enough in the fantasy stories that his early stories didn’t excel in.
The collection is divided into four stylistically unified parts. Part one is called Blood Red Samaritans. My guess is these stories were more character based stories Part two being Wandering Stars which was more cosmic horror, section three has the most informative name. “Alan Smithee is Dead,� Smithee is the pen name directors put on movies they are embarrassed by. I don’t think Barron is saying these are bad, they are not. I think he is admitting to their pulpy nature. The last sections are called Fear Sun and Lake Terror.
‘Soul of Me� was my favorite story of the collection It has the wild fantasy feel of Jack Vance Dying Earth novels, and in a way has the far future pastoral feel of Clifford Simak. It is a short piece, but worth every penny I spent on the book. “In your final incarnation on this miserable, blood-soaked world, you are Rex. Spot, Fido, Roscoe, yellow, ramp, rusty, Rin Tin Tin, Buck, and the others, the ever-popular others, yes, those two. But always and forever Rex. The last of your kind and the kinds that came before.�
Rex is a character that I love. This universe and character need a novel or novella. PLEASE Laird.
This collection shows how playful the author is with titles, but also how he grounds his tales in the living breathing landscapes of Upstate New York and of course Alaska, his childhood home state.
“Alaska is a damned big, empty place bordered by nowhere. Between frigid temperatures and snowfalls as deep to a giraffe, it has weapons to kill anything more complex than Iraq. Civilization exists in tiny, disenfranchised pockets surrounded by a howling void. Basically, it's the universe and microcosm.
There's always plenty of tinfoil hat theories and superstitious legends to go along with all that frozen tundra lost radar sites fronting for secret nuclear launch silos aimed at Russia; FEMA concentration camps for the inevitable apocalypse, UFO observation bases; etc, etc..�
Not a Speck of Light is the best collection of stories by an author who has excelled at the powerful short story. Every story is powerful. Every page drips with dark energy. All in a beautiful package with amazing black and white art to open every story. Get it now.
Audio:
I don’t know Laird Barron as well as some authors, we have had nice interactions with the podcast, but most of my relationship with Laird is as a reader, and a Twitter follow. I felt so deeply for his close family and friends when he was sick in 2022/23 I nervously followed the news like most of the horror fiction community. So, I don’t want anyone to think I am making light of this situation. It was scary for us fans too, we didn’t want to lose one of the best writers of cosmic horror, the writer behind the amazing Ishiah Coleridge trilogy.
I understand how scary this would be for Laird, who has written about near-death experiences he had earlier in life. When Laird worked his way back to health I had a feeling that this man with his fingers on the pulse of the dark beating heart of the cosmos would come back with power. When I heard there was a new collection, I knew I had to read it. A Laird Barron book is always a cause for celebration, a collection is even more reason as LB is one of the best short story writers on the planet. Now add the weight of his recent brush with death and I knew this was going to be the most powerful collection in a career of strong work.
Not a Speck of Light is Barron’s 5th collection, and it appears most of the stories from before LB’s latest brush with death but two of the most powerful tales in the collection, ‘Mobility� and the title story both seem influenced by the events in his life. Strangely it predated the illness. That said I don’t think it is possible to come that close and not experience a new relationship with the cosmos. The first story Laird wrote in recovery was the title story, Not a Speck of Light is a bit of a dark painful dog love story, it is a powerful heart-pounding story that I wish never existed as it does. It took a recovering man turning his pain into a beautifully dark art for it to happen.
The prose as always is poetic, lyrical, and fine-tuned to paint a picture in your mind’s eye. Barron blends noir, cosmic, and moments of humor with a sense of grand literature. The quality of the word-to-word prose is hard to describe with hyperbole, and I feel it is getting better. Having written a trilogy of street-level noir modern Barron has clarity enough in the fantasy stories that his early stories didn’t excel in.
The collection is divided into four stylistically unified parts. Part one is called Blood Red Samaritans. My guess is these stories were more character based stories Part two being Wandering Stars which was more cosmic horror, section three has the most informative name. “Alan Smithee is Dead,� Smithee is the pen name directors put on movies they are embarrassed by. I don’t think Barron is saying these are bad, they are not. I think he is admitting to their pulpy nature. The last sections are called Fear Sun and Lake Terror.
‘Soul of Me� was my favorite story of the collection It has the wild fantasy feel of Jack Vance Dying Earth novels, and in a way has the far future pastoral feel of Clifford Simak. It is a short piece, but worth every penny I spent on the book. “In your final incarnation on this miserable, blood-soaked world, you are Rex. Spot, Fido, Roscoe, yellow, ramp, rusty, Rin Tin Tin, Buck, and the others, the ever-popular others, yes, those two. But always and forever Rex. The last of your kind and the kinds that came before.�
Rex is a character that I love. This universe and character need a novel or novella. PLEASE Laird.
This collection shows how playful the author is with titles, but also how he grounds his tales in the living breathing landscapes of Upstate New York and of course Alaska, his childhood home state.
“Alaska is a damned big, empty place bordered by nowhere. Between frigid temperatures and snowfalls as deep to a giraffe, it has weapons to kill anything more complex than Iraq. Civilization exists in tiny, disenfranchised pockets surrounded by a howling void. Basically, it's the universe and microcosm.
There's always plenty of tinfoil hat theories and superstitious legends to go along with all that frozen tundra lost radar sites fronting for secret nuclear launch silos aimed at Russia; FEMA concentration camps for the inevitable apocalypse, UFO observation bases; etc, etc..�
Not a Speck of Light is the best collection of stories by an author who has excelled at the powerful short story. Every story is powerful. Every page drips with dark energy. All in a beautiful package with amazing black and white art to open every story. Get it now.
October 8, 2024
Belongs with Barron's best collections at the top. The first and last two are particular stand outs. Possibly contains the largest amount of quotable passages of any of his works.
Inspired by reading this, I decided to write up an analysis of the big picture themes of his work overall here:
Inspired by reading this, I decided to write up an analysis of the big picture themes of his work overall here:
December 15, 2024
Laird Barron is a titan of modern prose, especially when he's writing short stories. The words he chooses, the pictures he paints, combine together for a phenomenal experience called Not A Speck of Light. And the title is true: this volume is chock full of darkness in all of its various forms.
I didn't care for every single story, but then I seldom do. The stories that stood out the most to me were the following:
In a Cavern, In a Canyon, which featured what I call the Help-me monster.
Fear Sun was one of my favorite stories here. Imagine being rich enough to build an entire fake town modeled on Lovecraft's Innsmouth. This story was so freaking F-U-N!
Swift to Chase kicked all kinds of ass, but man I hated the ending. Boo!
Don't Make Me Assume My Ultimate Form was like a dark acid trip with Edgar Allan Poe showing up in puppet form. Yeah, puppet form. lol
Tiptoe was a tale of a father that liked to spook, (torture?), his children in the form of jump scares.
Strident Caller and Not a Speck of Light were both phenomenal tales that represented the most normal of the stories within. Normal as far as what a regular reader of horror expects in a collection of this type, except that both were far above normal and in fact: OUTSTANDING examples of the form.
This entire collection was a feast for my eyes and brain. Barron's dark views of our world seep into one's psyche and become a conduit where the reader feels they are connecting. Connecting to what becomes the question. For me, I felt like I connected with Barron's love for dogs, his dark visions and his soft questions of "what if...?" Perhaps if you gave this collection a shot, you'd connect with him too? I highly recommend that you do!
My highest recommendation.
*ARC from publisher, and then I bought a copy.
I didn't care for every single story, but then I seldom do. The stories that stood out the most to me were the following:
In a Cavern, In a Canyon, which featured what I call the Help-me monster.
Fear Sun was one of my favorite stories here. Imagine being rich enough to build an entire fake town modeled on Lovecraft's Innsmouth. This story was so freaking F-U-N!
Swift to Chase kicked all kinds of ass, but man I hated the ending. Boo!
Don't Make Me Assume My Ultimate Form was like a dark acid trip with Edgar Allan Poe showing up in puppet form. Yeah, puppet form. lol
Tiptoe was a tale of a father that liked to spook, (torture?), his children in the form of jump scares.
Strident Caller and Not a Speck of Light were both phenomenal tales that represented the most normal of the stories within. Normal as far as what a regular reader of horror expects in a collection of this type, except that both were far above normal and in fact: OUTSTANDING examples of the form.
This entire collection was a feast for my eyes and brain. Barron's dark views of our world seep into one's psyche and become a conduit where the reader feels they are connecting. Connecting to what becomes the question. For me, I felt like I connected with Barron's love for dogs, his dark visions and his soft questions of "what if...?" Perhaps if you gave this collection a shot, you'd connect with him too? I highly recommend that you do!
My highest recommendation.
*ARC from publisher, and then I bought a copy.
January 20, 2025
Dark, disturbing, cerebral. This story collection is wild, especially as characters and locations sneak their way in and out of different stories throughout the collection. These stories almost all fall on the side of weird horror, conceptual and opinionated. They aren’t stories interested in appealing to everyone, and yet across the collection there is still a wild diversity, with influences and flourishes that range from cosmic horror to sci-fi to meta-horror to action and survivalist-horror to the paranormal to the occult and beyond. The stories are clearly share a disturbed DNA, and that is not counting the returning characters and environments, but it never feels like reading the same story again and again.
These stories range in length but Barron is really adept at building worlds and developing atmosphere quickly, with each story sucking you in. His characters feel well-rounded and relatable, even though most get barely a few pages to reveal themselves to us. Not all of the stories were 5 star reads for me, but even at that none of them felt easy or convenient. Each story had a depth to plumb, regardless of whether you want to join it in that darkness or not, and it was a really fun journey going on these journeys. I think that is in part because the writing is so evocative. As I mention, his world-building and atmosphere is efficient and compelling, and that is because the prose is rich and lush. It never feels purple but it always has an air of being a dark incantation, hidden syllables unpronounced behind every turn of phrase. The language manages to travel from the cosmic to the most personal and yet never feel forced or intimidating, always expanding or contracting the story to reveal exactly what each story needs.
If you can’t tell, I really enjoyed this collection. I will say, part of that might be Barron’s persistent obsession with, and commitment to, dogs. Animals companions weave themselves in and out of this collection, almost always good, solid dogs with names out of myths. This might seem like a strange thing to fascinate upon but the solidity and profundity of those relationships we can have with our dogs—and maybe other animals companions, too, but especially dogs—feel like really important touchstones in a collection that is exploring so many dark ideas and themes. One of if not my favorite story, “Soul of Me,� is heavily indebted to that relationship and it feels like something that not only binds the collection together but also keeps it human in the face of the unimaginable. There is an almost ecstatic nature to the unseeing, un-death voids and nightmare-spirals this collection explores, and yet the writing and characters make these stories intimate and personal while the furry companions gives you the strength to face the darkness.
(Rounded up from 4.5)
These stories range in length but Barron is really adept at building worlds and developing atmosphere quickly, with each story sucking you in. His characters feel well-rounded and relatable, even though most get barely a few pages to reveal themselves to us. Not all of the stories were 5 star reads for me, but even at that none of them felt easy or convenient. Each story had a depth to plumb, regardless of whether you want to join it in that darkness or not, and it was a really fun journey going on these journeys. I think that is in part because the writing is so evocative. As I mention, his world-building and atmosphere is efficient and compelling, and that is because the prose is rich and lush. It never feels purple but it always has an air of being a dark incantation, hidden syllables unpronounced behind every turn of phrase. The language manages to travel from the cosmic to the most personal and yet never feel forced or intimidating, always expanding or contracting the story to reveal exactly what each story needs.
If you can’t tell, I really enjoyed this collection. I will say, part of that might be Barron’s persistent obsession with, and commitment to, dogs. Animals companions weave themselves in and out of this collection, almost always good, solid dogs with names out of myths. This might seem like a strange thing to fascinate upon but the solidity and profundity of those relationships we can have with our dogs—and maybe other animals companions, too, but especially dogs—feel like really important touchstones in a collection that is exploring so many dark ideas and themes. One of if not my favorite story, “Soul of Me,� is heavily indebted to that relationship and it feels like something that not only binds the collection together but also keeps it human in the face of the unimaginable. There is an almost ecstatic nature to the unseeing, un-death voids and nightmare-spirals this collection explores, and yet the writing and characters make these stories intimate and personal while the furry companions gives you the strength to face the darkness.
(Rounded up from 4.5)
December 16, 2024
Laird Barron is one of my favourite authors, not just in the sense of horror literature but literature in general and I was ecstatic when I heard that he's releasing another short story collection in Not a Speck of Light as short stories was how I gotten into the guy in the first place but also because he recently had a serious health scare that I thought I might not see a new Barron material. What a lost to the world of literature that timeline would've been. Yes, I know I still have his crime novels (and a novella) to get through but his horror stories are just on another level.
Prior to Not a Speck of Light, Barron releases were through several different publishers and it wasn't until Bad Hand Books was it that a Barron release felt truly special, not just from a fan standpoint but one from the publisher. Not a Speck of Light felt like an event with the huge press it got. This collection features sixteen short stories, the most of any Barron collection ever had. All sixteen short stories are divided by four parts equally and are thematically linked to one another within each part but all are also vaguely connected through the loosely reference of Barron's mythos of Old Leech (his version of the Cthulhu Mythos).
Barron made a name for himself within the niche subgenre of weird fiction, a subgenre famously linked with Lovecraft and Barron is a big part of the Post-Lovecraft movement the subgenre is currently having. Not a Speck of Light continues the trajectory that Barron's previous collection Swift to Chase set towards and that's going fully into weird fiction (minus the slasher and female lens tint), shading as much as possible the horror literature convention behind. The unsettling and gloomy weirdness are made perfect by Barron's prose that I describe as muscular yet evocative (think of Hammett but not a ripoff).
While all but one of the stories have been printed elsewhere (the titular story being the only original story written for this collection), many of it are considered to be Barron's deepcut of his more recent writing output. Few that aren't like "Tiptoe" and "In a Cavern, in a Canyon" are considered to be the fan-favourite and I myself would say the two are very much in my top Barron stories. But if I were to chose a favourite, mine would be “The Glorification of Custer Poe�. The story revolve around a Civil War veteran haunted by the ghost of the general he assassinated (and possibly by other things) and telling drunken tales.
Not a Speck of Light is a highly entertaining step back into horror for Barron (who I admitted never really left the genre). The stories here are more polished and accessible on first reading but it didn't abandoned the visceral thrill of the previous collection, just a little subdue with it.
Prior to Not a Speck of Light, Barron releases were through several different publishers and it wasn't until Bad Hand Books was it that a Barron release felt truly special, not just from a fan standpoint but one from the publisher. Not a Speck of Light felt like an event with the huge press it got. This collection features sixteen short stories, the most of any Barron collection ever had. All sixteen short stories are divided by four parts equally and are thematically linked to one another within each part but all are also vaguely connected through the loosely reference of Barron's mythos of Old Leech (his version of the Cthulhu Mythos).
Barron made a name for himself within the niche subgenre of weird fiction, a subgenre famously linked with Lovecraft and Barron is a big part of the Post-Lovecraft movement the subgenre is currently having. Not a Speck of Light continues the trajectory that Barron's previous collection Swift to Chase set towards and that's going fully into weird fiction (minus the slasher and female lens tint), shading as much as possible the horror literature convention behind. The unsettling and gloomy weirdness are made perfect by Barron's prose that I describe as muscular yet evocative (think of Hammett but not a ripoff).
While all but one of the stories have been printed elsewhere (the titular story being the only original story written for this collection), many of it are considered to be Barron's deepcut of his more recent writing output. Few that aren't like "Tiptoe" and "In a Cavern, in a Canyon" are considered to be the fan-favourite and I myself would say the two are very much in my top Barron stories. But if I were to chose a favourite, mine would be “The Glorification of Custer Poe�. The story revolve around a Civil War veteran haunted by the ghost of the general he assassinated (and possibly by other things) and telling drunken tales.
Not a Speck of Light is a highly entertaining step back into horror for Barron (who I admitted never really left the genre). The stories here are more polished and accessible on first reading but it didn't abandoned the visceral thrill of the previous collection, just a little subdue with it.
May 4, 2024
(More reviews of short stories will be posted soon)
Laird with his lyrical third eye potent tellings, a transmutation of words archaic and contemporary fused, juxtapositioning the reader in realms colliding surreal and real with a lyrical darkness and terrible beauty laid down transfiguring the scene to a conjuring of Laird Barron's calling.
I hear your echo Laird that cosmic horror one to chill your blood that, “voice into the dark, waiting for an echo.�
Resistance had been present and one swaying away from getting to reading Laird Barron’s work, but the echoes getting through and hear his calling and slowly taken oneself upon the road of dissecting his ballads.
American Remake of a Japanese Ghost Story
One Jessica m ‘PA for Phantom Lovers,’�.Invited to a housewarming at ‘a big American Gothic structure updated to resemble something Argento might’ve used as a set in the heyday of vinyl and exploitation cinema.”�
This place gave her certain vibes upon arrival:
“The creepy part was when we pulled into the yard and the place perfectly resembled my recent bad dreams right down to the peaked roof, nearby shed, and fields and woods. The dreams themselves were vague and disjointed as dreams are wont to be. I recalled wandering fields by moonlight, then an endless maze of dim hallways. Occasionally, someone or something on my plucked at my hair . . .�
We don’t happen to have magic balls, oracles, portals to the void, handed down by one Mary with warnings and may never encounter the chance.
We do have the chance to be transported into this tale with one who does, the author taking the reader down an uncanny valley with the vivid scenes unfolding with things occurring.
There be people undertaking a seance, amateurs inexperienced playing with the unseen and a Ouji board and there be a real conduit amidst them in form of Jessica M with a portal and senses of another kind with the power and curse to unravel mysteries.
There are some finely crafted sentences and word choices, a poetically potency present with strains of the comedic amidst the lyrical darkness, ones that are a joy to read throughout various works of the author.
Be aware forces of darkness awaiting Jessica M with her divining ball portal to the void amidst the thick and the uncanny of it.
Tiptoe
The past gone but never dead, memories good or bad, one Randall Xerxes Vance opens up his past for the reader with what partaken one last day on Lake Terror in �68.
Lake Terror which was really Lake Terron and as he tells:
“The Vance clan’s holy trinity: Christmas; IBM Family Day; and the annual summer getaway at a cabin on Lake Terron.
We made our final pilgrimage the year before Armstrong left bootprints on the Moon.
Lake Terron—or Lake Terror, as we affectionally called it—gleamed at the edge of bona fide wilderness. Why Lake Terror? Some joker had altered the N on the road sign into an R with spray-paint and it just stuck. Nights were pitch black five paces beyond the porch. The dark was full of insect noises and the coughs of deer lurching around in the brush.�
Frailties and complexities within the raw present, Randall’s buried past reanimating finding its ground and running its course with the shifting of the time within new fears and traumas.
One was fond of photography of wild animals, but the reader may come to ponder that the lens may have been turned now with reader more to inward hidden animal.
There was a game taught by father Tiptoe, that this reader has had it hand at setting traps and surprises for others in his youth and one can associate with the fear and surprise that can be sprung upon a victim. This game had rules but no not like that of dear Dexter, if you was thinking so, one whose father taught many a thing.
Randal says, �..a game called Tiptoe Dad taught me. A variation of ambush tag wherein you crept behind your victim and tapped him or her on the shoulder or goosed them, or whatever…The victim must be awake and unimpaired.�
Despite this game and his learnings of survival with it and the moulding of a man he says this made him with time: �..I’m a tad jumpy. You could say my fight or flight reflex is highly tuned.�
He battles with many things, the older him, and mentions:
“nightmares ensued; and creepy-crawly memories surfaced.�
“the beginning of a rough, emotional ride: insomnia; nightmares when I could sleep; and panic attacks. It felt like a crack had opened in my psyche. Generalized anxiety gradually worked its claws under my armor and skinned me to raw nerves. I committed to a leave of absence, pledging to conduct an inventory of possible antecedents.�
There is the case of dear Aunt Vicki she is quite a soul, a kin with a talent, and not the fake kind, as she goes to expound on, she can perform ‘hypnotic regression� and ‘communed with friendly spirits.�
These souls with things buried all on Lake Terron, Lake Terror, Vicki enlightening the scene where eyes don’t see.
The author builds the character Randall imbuing the reader with a sense of care and he reels you on with great crafting with the what and how of the story with dread and the uncanny and a want to understand all that is contained within.
Girls Without Their Faces On
Barry F having an Autumn party in Alaska.
Delia is going with J her boyfriend.
If Planet X is aligning with the sun we are all doomed according to mysterious man J, it seems no more parties.
Delia is having a instinctual feeling in this tale that she doesn’t quite know who J is, and what he does as a job when he is away.
Her sense of imminent danger may have had risen at this observation:
“By some trick of the dark, his eyes flared dull-bright crimson. His lambent gaze pulsed for several heartbeats, then faded, and he became a silhouette again.�
Prepare your self for “hardcore Bermuda Triangle-Mary Celeste s**t,� of Laird Barron’s great crafting with cosmic horror.
The tale moves to an encounter of cataclysmic effect and ruination, the denizens of Alaska entering a new chapter of existence, a whole strange new world you find yourself immersed in.
There is a unique presence of a canine Atticus and too in Strident Caller in Nox Pareidolia with Artemis.
Strident Caller
The Strident caller and skull candle transcending the scene and then on�.like a scene out of Mandy (2018 Film).
Gander at these words strung together that follow, characters evoked within this tale with craftsmanship of the author ones to interlope your fleeting precious minutes of immersive reading.
Craven is..”Unlike many of his friends and fellow travelers, he hadn’t gotten hooked on liquor or addicted to dope or caught an embarrassing, career-ending disease. Jack of a dozen trades and possessed of not half-bad looks, his mutably convivial personality proved sufficient to excel at the job of survival.�
Andy, “Andy was a late career Boris Karloff-looking sonofab***h who stalked the grounds while wearing the scowl of an ax-murderer on vacation.�
There is Deborah the temptress, “Seventy-fifth birthday coming next month, she possessed the florid sumptuousness of an aged yet ageless Italian scream queen.�
The possible star character, Artemis, one whom “Craven rescued the brindle pit bull.�
Also at my vortex
Laird with his lyrical third eye potent tellings, a transmutation of words archaic and contemporary fused, juxtapositioning the reader in realms colliding surreal and real with a lyrical darkness and terrible beauty laid down transfiguring the scene to a conjuring of Laird Barron's calling.
I hear your echo Laird that cosmic horror one to chill your blood that, “voice into the dark, waiting for an echo.�
Resistance had been present and one swaying away from getting to reading Laird Barron’s work, but the echoes getting through and hear his calling and slowly taken oneself upon the road of dissecting his ballads.
American Remake of a Japanese Ghost Story
One Jessica m ‘PA for Phantom Lovers,’�.Invited to a housewarming at ‘a big American Gothic structure updated to resemble something Argento might’ve used as a set in the heyday of vinyl and exploitation cinema.”�
This place gave her certain vibes upon arrival:
“The creepy part was when we pulled into the yard and the place perfectly resembled my recent bad dreams right down to the peaked roof, nearby shed, and fields and woods. The dreams themselves were vague and disjointed as dreams are wont to be. I recalled wandering fields by moonlight, then an endless maze of dim hallways. Occasionally, someone or something on my plucked at my hair . . .�
We don’t happen to have magic balls, oracles, portals to the void, handed down by one Mary with warnings and may never encounter the chance.
We do have the chance to be transported into this tale with one who does, the author taking the reader down an uncanny valley with the vivid scenes unfolding with things occurring.
There be people undertaking a seance, amateurs inexperienced playing with the unseen and a Ouji board and there be a real conduit amidst them in form of Jessica M with a portal and senses of another kind with the power and curse to unravel mysteries.
There are some finely crafted sentences and word choices, a poetically potency present with strains of the comedic amidst the lyrical darkness, ones that are a joy to read throughout various works of the author.
Be aware forces of darkness awaiting Jessica M with her divining ball portal to the void amidst the thick and the uncanny of it.
Tiptoe
The past gone but never dead, memories good or bad, one Randall Xerxes Vance opens up his past for the reader with what partaken one last day on Lake Terror in �68.
Lake Terror which was really Lake Terron and as he tells:
“The Vance clan’s holy trinity: Christmas; IBM Family Day; and the annual summer getaway at a cabin on Lake Terron.
We made our final pilgrimage the year before Armstrong left bootprints on the Moon.
Lake Terron—or Lake Terror, as we affectionally called it—gleamed at the edge of bona fide wilderness. Why Lake Terror? Some joker had altered the N on the road sign into an R with spray-paint and it just stuck. Nights were pitch black five paces beyond the porch. The dark was full of insect noises and the coughs of deer lurching around in the brush.�
Frailties and complexities within the raw present, Randall’s buried past reanimating finding its ground and running its course with the shifting of the time within new fears and traumas.
One was fond of photography of wild animals, but the reader may come to ponder that the lens may have been turned now with reader more to inward hidden animal.
There was a game taught by father Tiptoe, that this reader has had it hand at setting traps and surprises for others in his youth and one can associate with the fear and surprise that can be sprung upon a victim. This game had rules but no not like that of dear Dexter, if you was thinking so, one whose father taught many a thing.
Randal says, �..a game called Tiptoe Dad taught me. A variation of ambush tag wherein you crept behind your victim and tapped him or her on the shoulder or goosed them, or whatever…The victim must be awake and unimpaired.�
Despite this game and his learnings of survival with it and the moulding of a man he says this made him with time: �..I’m a tad jumpy. You could say my fight or flight reflex is highly tuned.�
He battles with many things, the older him, and mentions:
“nightmares ensued; and creepy-crawly memories surfaced.�
“the beginning of a rough, emotional ride: insomnia; nightmares when I could sleep; and panic attacks. It felt like a crack had opened in my psyche. Generalized anxiety gradually worked its claws under my armor and skinned me to raw nerves. I committed to a leave of absence, pledging to conduct an inventory of possible antecedents.�
There is the case of dear Aunt Vicki she is quite a soul, a kin with a talent, and not the fake kind, as she goes to expound on, she can perform ‘hypnotic regression� and ‘communed with friendly spirits.�
These souls with things buried all on Lake Terron, Lake Terror, Vicki enlightening the scene where eyes don’t see.
The author builds the character Randall imbuing the reader with a sense of care and he reels you on with great crafting with the what and how of the story with dread and the uncanny and a want to understand all that is contained within.
Girls Without Their Faces On
Barry F having an Autumn party in Alaska.
Delia is going with J her boyfriend.
If Planet X is aligning with the sun we are all doomed according to mysterious man J, it seems no more parties.
Delia is having a instinctual feeling in this tale that she doesn’t quite know who J is, and what he does as a job when he is away.
Her sense of imminent danger may have had risen at this observation:
“By some trick of the dark, his eyes flared dull-bright crimson. His lambent gaze pulsed for several heartbeats, then faded, and he became a silhouette again.�
Prepare your self for “hardcore Bermuda Triangle-Mary Celeste s**t,� of Laird Barron’s great crafting with cosmic horror.
The tale moves to an encounter of cataclysmic effect and ruination, the denizens of Alaska entering a new chapter of existence, a whole strange new world you find yourself immersed in.
There is a unique presence of a canine Atticus and too in Strident Caller in Nox Pareidolia with Artemis.
Strident Caller
The Strident caller and skull candle transcending the scene and then on�.like a scene out of Mandy (2018 Film).
Gander at these words strung together that follow, characters evoked within this tale with craftsmanship of the author ones to interlope your fleeting precious minutes of immersive reading.
Craven is..”Unlike many of his friends and fellow travelers, he hadn’t gotten hooked on liquor or addicted to dope or caught an embarrassing, career-ending disease. Jack of a dozen trades and possessed of not half-bad looks, his mutably convivial personality proved sufficient to excel at the job of survival.�
Andy, “Andy was a late career Boris Karloff-looking sonofab***h who stalked the grounds while wearing the scowl of an ax-murderer on vacation.�
There is Deborah the temptress, “Seventy-fifth birthday coming next month, she possessed the florid sumptuousness of an aged yet ageless Italian scream queen.�
The possible star character, Artemis, one whom “Craven rescued the brindle pit bull.�
Also at my vortex
April 15, 2025
This is yet another top notch (Laird's fifth) collection of stories. Laird is one of my very favourite authors, he is just so good. My favourite collections from him remain his first 3, but this is definitely on a par with his previous collection (4th) 'Swift To Chase'. I've read many of the stories in this collection in their original publications. The title story, is a novellette exclusive to this collection, and it is excellent, classic Laird. The title story is a 5 star read for me, and my favourite story in this collection. I'm looking forward to the upcoming limited edition hardcover edition of this book, it will include an extra story that's not in the current formats available. Overall this is yet another highly recommended book from Laird Barron. The afterward in the book from Laird himself is very moving as it touches upon how close we came to losing Laird, due to severe ill health. Laird is still recovering and I wish him well on his journey. I hope we get more fiction from him in due course.
December 14, 2024
4.5 Barron is probably my favorite living author (and very nearly unliving as he so poignantly shares in the afterword). His mixture of humor and horror with his always searing diction and insight never fails to impress. Even in the more experimental and fun stories that are told in a less gothic vein, there are moments to be enjoyed. His work is as uniquely American as Jack London or Mark Twain, and we’re lucky he’s doing it on our side of the dark cosmos.
February 6, 2025
4.5 stars
Laird Barron's short stories are in a league of their own. Some resonate with me more than others (Tiptoe), but all of them are a joy to read. Can't wait for the next collection to drop
Laird Barron's short stories are in a league of their own. Some resonate with me more than others (Tiptoe), but all of them are a joy to read. Can't wait for the next collection to drop
October 15, 2024
Ugh, it pains me to write this, but I can’t lie to myself. I was so excited when I picked this collection up as I have loved each of Laird’s prior collections. I had already read some of the stories in Not a Speck of Light in several different anthologies, and I enjoyed them just as much the second time. However, the new-to-me stories were hit or miss, which is really sad as I had the highest expectations for this book.
Read
March 4, 2025"Soul of Me" may be one of my new favorite independent short stories.
I would recommend this collection to fans of old school horror, those who enjoy gothic themes, and anyone looking for a dark, immersive, and beautifully written short story collection that is 100% original and unique throughout.
I would recommend this collection to fans of old school horror, those who enjoy gothic themes, and anyone looking for a dark, immersive, and beautifully written short story collection that is 100% original and unique throughout.
October 11, 2024
A noteworthy/interesting contiguous collection of stories.
N. B. If you're a recovering drinker, don't buy this book. It's radioactive if you're due for a slip. And if someone gifts it to you, they are not your friend. They are your nemesis. Call your sponsor. -- Jay
* * *
1. Blood Red Samaritans as a section title for a short story collection suggests there is mortal danger in helping others in peril.
"In a Cavern, in a Canyon" flashes back and back and then forth as the grandma narrator revisits the night in 1977 when her dad vanished as they hunted their runaway dog in the Alaskan bush. They hear a voice in the night.
Halfway back to the car, I glimpsed a patch of white to my left amidst the heavy brush. I took it for a birch stump with holes rotted into the heartwood. No, it was a man lying on his side, matted black hair framing his pale face. By pale, I mean bone-white and bloodless. The face you see on the corpse of an outlaw in those old-timey Wild West photographs.
“Help me,� he whispered.
"Girls Without Their Faces On" features no cries for help and no roles for good Samaritans. In fact, let's use some of the story's generalizations and summations to map Delia's growing suspicions about her boyfriend J.
[....] “What’s a Flat Affect Man?�
[....] Memory is an acceptable day-to-day substitute for intellect.
[....] A starfield pulsed through ragged holes in the canopy. She knew jack about stars except the vague notion that mostly they radiated old, old light.
[....] By some trick of the dark, his eyes flared dull-bright crimson. His lambent gaze pulsed for several heartbeats, then faded, and he became a silhouette again.
“No?� he said in his regular voice. “Be that way. I hope you brought mad money, because you’re stranded on a lee shore. Should Icruise by your apartment instead? Would your roomies and your dog be pleased to meet me while I’m in this mood? Fuck it, sweetheart. I’ll surprise you.� He laughed, got into the car, and sped away. The red taillights seemed to hang forever; unblinking predatory eyes.
[....] Which was to say, how could a woman ever know what squirmed in the brains of men?
Is J really a greeter for the galactic shockwave due to collide with earth in forty-five seconds? Or a jerk who just happens to reveal himself as an unknown compelling force perpetrated an extinction level event?
"Mobility" recounts the Ouroborosian fate of Bryan, a prick employed as professor of Pawhunk Community College Nonfiction Writing department. Every just dessert turns out toake cosmic sense.
“My grandfather trapped wolves along the Yukon. Leg-hold traps with nasty teeth. Those wolves, ah my. Rebellious critters chomped their own legs to get free. Humans really are animals with a fancy operating system, aren’t you?�
"The Glorification of Custer Poe" summons up a homicidal voice of the old frontier thesis that explained U.S. exceptionalism to itself in the old days before the Maine and the gorey birth of U.S. imperialism. It's nothing compared to Steve Duffy's "The Clay Party" or “What God Hath Wrought?" by Adam Nevill. But "The Glorification of Custer Poe" has a deadly hypnotic sidewinder prose style best not ignored.
* * *
2. Wandering Stars is a collection of fevered, mannerist tales from Alaska in which style might also be a hot lobotomizing wire that promises the protagonist relief from memories of treasured dogs and monster parents.
"Jōren Falls" is a warning story. Don't steal and take home momentos from business trips. One day in retirement, intead of resting in the attic...
Vonda listened to his panicky account, which he related through gulps of cold water. By the time he finished the glass, exhaustion drained him as well. Already, his description felt like snatches of a receding nightmare. He waited for her reaction.
She selected a copy of Fortean Times from a stack of magazines at her end of the table and regarded it. Her fleeting, sardonic smile cooled almost instantly. “I always knew you’d bring something back from one of your business trips.� Before he could speak, she amplified her thought. “I was thinking of STDs.�
ٷɱٳ—�
“You’ve got a wandering eye.�
“Vonny, I’ve never been unfaithful.� His protestation sound desperate and tinny in his own ears. An actor reciting lines from a script.
“That’s not quite the same as devotion, is it?�
Larry couldn’t formulate a direct response. He set his hat on the table and absently massaged his skull. “We should call…someone.� He almost said “Roger� by force of habit.
Her expression suggested she might be considering a call to a divorce lawyer or the boys in white coats. Instead, she tossed the magazine aside and stared into the distance. “I watched Roger stroll out the door,� she said. “Whistling. Haven’t heard him whistle since…�
“Since Lucy.�
“Since Lucy.�
"The Blood in My Mouth" is epic-scale weird fiction and Bildungsroman. You know it's Laird Barron when the boy-girl meet-cute is a bare knuckle contest behind an Alaskan cannery. It's a tale of geological timescale sadness shaded with Fortean grace-notes.
I told Mom the next day, that I was going to die on [Lake] Iliamna when I got old. Mom laughed her nervous laugh and said not to be silly. Wasn’t until much later as we were hanging around after Dad’s funeral and she got plastered on scotch and confessed to having the same recurring nightmare during her own youth.
“You dreamed you were going to drown in Lake Illiamna?� I said, also pretty goddamned drunk.
“No, I dreamed my son would.� She slugged another double and collapsed in the bathroom. We had to take the door off its hinges to get her out of there.
"Nemesis" is about all the levels of nemesis humans confront: Drinking. Disfigurement. Cancer. Planetary finis. Barron wraps the reader in that sidewinder prose until suicide seems like the smart option.
"Soul of Me" is an uber-weepy dog story. Barron does it superbly, as did Jack London. A relief from the iron heel of weird and cosmic anomie.
* * *
3. Alan Smithee Is Dead. Smithee once got credit for movies professional filmmakers were ashamed of producing and releasing under their own names. (Now those film types are all we get.)
"Fear Sun" is a nicely orchestrated William S. Burroughs/Art Bell ghoulash. Until, in true half-assed Alan Smith's style, the reader is jarred awake by the name-checking. It's equivalent.of human voices waking us: and we drown.
His organization (I never did learn its name) had, sometime during the winter of 1975, allegedly established contact with an intelligence residing in a trench off the Atlantic shelf. As in an extraterrestrial intelligence that burrowed into the sediment around the time trilobites were the voting majority.
He laughed when I, unabashed Lovecraft enthusiast, blurted Dagon! Mother Hydra! and told me not to be stupid, this verged on Clark Ashton Smith weirdness. His associate in the deep requested some Grand Guignol theater in return for certain considerations that only an immortal terror of unconscionable power can offer.
"Swift to Chase" is a short story not contained in the collection Swift to Chase. Typical Smithee-scale continuity error. The story is full of unearned jargony pseudo-hardboiled narration, plus copious double-entry moral arithmetic that leaves a bad taste in the mouth. "Where in the world is Jessica Mace?"
"Don’t Make Me Assume My Ultimate Form" features a Tarantino-esque group of female mercs. One of whom is dispatched on her tyro mission alone, retrieving a Poe marionette from an abandoned mine facility in Alaska along the way. Plenty of blades go snicker-snack before the end.
"American Remake of a Japanese Ghost Story" is a Jessica Mace adventure, where she visits the Catskills "Jōren Falls" house, consulting with its new owners.
* * *
4. Lake Terror
"Lake Terron, or Lake Terror as we affectionally called it, gleamed at the edge of bona fide wilderness. Why Lake Terror? Some joker had altered the N on the road sign into an R with spray-paint and it just stuck. Nights were pitch-black five paces beyond the porch. The dark was full of insect noises and the coughs of deer lurching around in the brush."
"Strident Caller" is a report by inadvertent midnight cowboy Jesse Craven concerning his time in the Catskills house from "Jōren Falls." He decides on new living arrangements just ahead of a cult.
"Not a Speck of Light" touches base with upstanding third couple to own the "Jōren Falls" house and property. Their neighbor is not an collegial as they hoped: she demands their dog for a sacrifice. Fortunately, while the husband is a tabletop gaming company grandees, the wife is second level Black belt and a katana blade pro. And their best friend is a Feng Shui expert.
[....] He spent two seconds on a ladder with his head stuck through the opening into the empty attic before retreating. Don’t go up there, he said. I asked why not. Bad feng shui.
"Tiptoe" is a Family Romance. With Mom, Dad, brothers, sister, and auntie as the Addams Family.
[....] He removed a photo from his wallet and pushed it across the table. Mom and Dad in our old yard. The sun was in Dad’s glasses. Hard to know what to make of man’s smile when you can’t see his eyes. I pushed it back. He waved me off. “Hang onto that.�
"(You Won’t Be) Saved by the Ghost of Your Old Dog"
recalls some of the vignettes Hemingway included between the stories in In Our Time (1925): a man in extremis, the narrative free of any start or stop in traditional terms.
* * *
N. B. If you're a recovering drinker, don't buy this book. It's radioactive if you're due for a slip. And if someone gifts it to you, they are not your friend. They are your nemesis. Call your sponsor. -- Jay
* * *
1. Blood Red Samaritans as a section title for a short story collection suggests there is mortal danger in helping others in peril.
"In a Cavern, in a Canyon" flashes back and back and then forth as the grandma narrator revisits the night in 1977 when her dad vanished as they hunted their runaway dog in the Alaskan bush. They hear a voice in the night.
Halfway back to the car, I glimpsed a patch of white to my left amidst the heavy brush. I took it for a birch stump with holes rotted into the heartwood. No, it was a man lying on his side, matted black hair framing his pale face. By pale, I mean bone-white and bloodless. The face you see on the corpse of an outlaw in those old-timey Wild West photographs.
“Help me,� he whispered.
"Girls Without Their Faces On" features no cries for help and no roles for good Samaritans. In fact, let's use some of the story's generalizations and summations to map Delia's growing suspicions about her boyfriend J.
[....] “What’s a Flat Affect Man?�
[....] Memory is an acceptable day-to-day substitute for intellect.
[....] A starfield pulsed through ragged holes in the canopy. She knew jack about stars except the vague notion that mostly they radiated old, old light.
[....] By some trick of the dark, his eyes flared dull-bright crimson. His lambent gaze pulsed for several heartbeats, then faded, and he became a silhouette again.
“No?� he said in his regular voice. “Be that way. I hope you brought mad money, because you’re stranded on a lee shore. Should Icruise by your apartment instead? Would your roomies and your dog be pleased to meet me while I’m in this mood? Fuck it, sweetheart. I’ll surprise you.� He laughed, got into the car, and sped away. The red taillights seemed to hang forever; unblinking predatory eyes.
[....] Which was to say, how could a woman ever know what squirmed in the brains of men?
Is J really a greeter for the galactic shockwave due to collide with earth in forty-five seconds? Or a jerk who just happens to reveal himself as an unknown compelling force perpetrated an extinction level event?
"Mobility" recounts the Ouroborosian fate of Bryan, a prick employed as professor of Pawhunk Community College Nonfiction Writing department. Every just dessert turns out toake cosmic sense.
“My grandfather trapped wolves along the Yukon. Leg-hold traps with nasty teeth. Those wolves, ah my. Rebellious critters chomped their own legs to get free. Humans really are animals with a fancy operating system, aren’t you?�
"The Glorification of Custer Poe" summons up a homicidal voice of the old frontier thesis that explained U.S. exceptionalism to itself in the old days before the Maine and the gorey birth of U.S. imperialism. It's nothing compared to Steve Duffy's "The Clay Party" or “What God Hath Wrought?" by Adam Nevill. But "The Glorification of Custer Poe" has a deadly hypnotic sidewinder prose style best not ignored.
* * *
2. Wandering Stars is a collection of fevered, mannerist tales from Alaska in which style might also be a hot lobotomizing wire that promises the protagonist relief from memories of treasured dogs and monster parents.
"Jōren Falls" is a warning story. Don't steal and take home momentos from business trips. One day in retirement, intead of resting in the attic...
Vonda listened to his panicky account, which he related through gulps of cold water. By the time he finished the glass, exhaustion drained him as well. Already, his description felt like snatches of a receding nightmare. He waited for her reaction.
She selected a copy of Fortean Times from a stack of magazines at her end of the table and regarded it. Her fleeting, sardonic smile cooled almost instantly. “I always knew you’d bring something back from one of your business trips.� Before he could speak, she amplified her thought. “I was thinking of STDs.�
ٷɱٳ—�
“You’ve got a wandering eye.�
“Vonny, I’ve never been unfaithful.� His protestation sound desperate and tinny in his own ears. An actor reciting lines from a script.
“That’s not quite the same as devotion, is it?�
Larry couldn’t formulate a direct response. He set his hat on the table and absently massaged his skull. “We should call…someone.� He almost said “Roger� by force of habit.
Her expression suggested she might be considering a call to a divorce lawyer or the boys in white coats. Instead, she tossed the magazine aside and stared into the distance. “I watched Roger stroll out the door,� she said. “Whistling. Haven’t heard him whistle since…�
“Since Lucy.�
“Since Lucy.�
"The Blood in My Mouth" is epic-scale weird fiction and Bildungsroman. You know it's Laird Barron when the boy-girl meet-cute is a bare knuckle contest behind an Alaskan cannery. It's a tale of geological timescale sadness shaded with Fortean grace-notes.
I told Mom the next day, that I was going to die on [Lake] Iliamna when I got old. Mom laughed her nervous laugh and said not to be silly. Wasn’t until much later as we were hanging around after Dad’s funeral and she got plastered on scotch and confessed to having the same recurring nightmare during her own youth.
“You dreamed you were going to drown in Lake Illiamna?� I said, also pretty goddamned drunk.
“No, I dreamed my son would.� She slugged another double and collapsed in the bathroom. We had to take the door off its hinges to get her out of there.
"Nemesis" is about all the levels of nemesis humans confront: Drinking. Disfigurement. Cancer. Planetary finis. Barron wraps the reader in that sidewinder prose until suicide seems like the smart option.
"Soul of Me" is an uber-weepy dog story. Barron does it superbly, as did Jack London. A relief from the iron heel of weird and cosmic anomie.
* * *
3. Alan Smithee Is Dead. Smithee once got credit for movies professional filmmakers were ashamed of producing and releasing under their own names. (Now those film types are all we get.)
"Fear Sun" is a nicely orchestrated William S. Burroughs/Art Bell ghoulash. Until, in true half-assed Alan Smith's style, the reader is jarred awake by the name-checking. It's equivalent.of human voices waking us: and we drown.
His organization (I never did learn its name) had, sometime during the winter of 1975, allegedly established contact with an intelligence residing in a trench off the Atlantic shelf. As in an extraterrestrial intelligence that burrowed into the sediment around the time trilobites were the voting majority.
He laughed when I, unabashed Lovecraft enthusiast, blurted Dagon! Mother Hydra! and told me not to be stupid, this verged on Clark Ashton Smith weirdness. His associate in the deep requested some Grand Guignol theater in return for certain considerations that only an immortal terror of unconscionable power can offer.
"Swift to Chase" is a short story not contained in the collection Swift to Chase. Typical Smithee-scale continuity error. The story is full of unearned jargony pseudo-hardboiled narration, plus copious double-entry moral arithmetic that leaves a bad taste in the mouth. "Where in the world is Jessica Mace?"
"Don’t Make Me Assume My Ultimate Form" features a Tarantino-esque group of female mercs. One of whom is dispatched on her tyro mission alone, retrieving a Poe marionette from an abandoned mine facility in Alaska along the way. Plenty of blades go snicker-snack before the end.
"American Remake of a Japanese Ghost Story" is a Jessica Mace adventure, where she visits the Catskills "Jōren Falls" house, consulting with its new owners.
* * *
4. Lake Terror
"Lake Terron, or Lake Terror as we affectionally called it, gleamed at the edge of bona fide wilderness. Why Lake Terror? Some joker had altered the N on the road sign into an R with spray-paint and it just stuck. Nights were pitch-black five paces beyond the porch. The dark was full of insect noises and the coughs of deer lurching around in the brush."
"Strident Caller" is a report by inadvertent midnight cowboy Jesse Craven concerning his time in the Catskills house from "Jōren Falls." He decides on new living arrangements just ahead of a cult.
"Not a Speck of Light" touches base with upstanding third couple to own the "Jōren Falls" house and property. Their neighbor is not an collegial as they hoped: she demands their dog for a sacrifice. Fortunately, while the husband is a tabletop gaming company grandees, the wife is second level Black belt and a katana blade pro. And their best friend is a Feng Shui expert.
[....] He spent two seconds on a ladder with his head stuck through the opening into the empty attic before retreating. Don’t go up there, he said. I asked why not. Bad feng shui.
"Tiptoe" is a Family Romance. With Mom, Dad, brothers, sister, and auntie as the Addams Family.
[....] He removed a photo from his wallet and pushed it across the table. Mom and Dad in our old yard. The sun was in Dad’s glasses. Hard to know what to make of man’s smile when you can’t see his eyes. I pushed it back. He waved me off. “Hang onto that.�
"(You Won’t Be) Saved by the Ghost of Your Old Dog"
recalls some of the vignettes Hemingway included between the stories in In Our Time (1925): a man in extremis, the narrative free of any start or stop in traditional terms.
* * *
April 27, 2025
4.5 ⭐️
More memorable stories than not, hence the higher rating.
More memorable stories than not, hence the higher rating.
November 10, 2024
4 stars--I really liked it. Lots of Alaskan stories here. Lots of people who are not-quite-human. Lots of cosmic monsters and evolved apes.
My favorites were Not a Speck of Light (pray your creepy neighbor doesn't want to buy your dog), Tiptoe (some dads are more human than others), Swift to Chase (beware rich people), and The Blood in My Mouth (beware scientists who meddle where they shouldn't).
My favorites were Not a Speck of Light (pray your creepy neighbor doesn't want to buy your dog), Tiptoe (some dads are more human than others), Swift to Chase (beware rich people), and The Blood in My Mouth (beware scientists who meddle where they shouldn't).
January 3, 2025
The opener was great but all downhill from there.
January 21, 2025
read some of the stories a couple months ago and they were boring but I remember Tiptoe being really good
February 6, 2025
"Dying isn't easy for most people. Instinct is a real bitch and she wants to live.�
What a beautifully bizarre brain Laird Barron keeps in his skull. But then again, he’s from Alaska so…it tracks. While this novel transcends time and space (on occasion) it also explores the grimdark scenery of The Last Frontier, the 49th nightmare state, home of the midnight sun and the polar night: Alaska herself! Come for the winding, often inter-connected, stories of wilderness, women being a little bad, maybe the devil?, and so many dogs (…CW.) Stay for the truly unique and deliciously cosmic mythos that Barron expertly crafts throughout these sixteen stories.
“Girls Without Their Faces On,� “Swift to Chase,� and “Don’t Make Me Assume My Ultimate Form� are the standouts for me, but it was hard to choose just three. I would follow Jessica Mace with devotion until the end of time…and then the time after that…and so forth. Additionally, I will think about “Tiptoe� for the rest of my life, every single paragraph, specifically the last page and a half of that multi-generational freakshow.
A lot of the punch was surreptitiously veiled behind subtext, and for some of these stories, I needed that subtext to be IN-text. Barron’s prose didn’t hold back, however, and I often found myself thinking, “Get to the point,� but then the point would come and I’d say, “Oh, no.� Be careful what you wish for, I suppose.
4/5 “Because, there's a war on. It's as tiny and savage as colonies of insects going at it. I'd rather not be on the side that gets annihilated. But yeah, we're gonna lose. Wanna fuck?�
What a beautifully bizarre brain Laird Barron keeps in his skull. But then again, he’s from Alaska so…it tracks. While this novel transcends time and space (on occasion) it also explores the grimdark scenery of The Last Frontier, the 49th nightmare state, home of the midnight sun and the polar night: Alaska herself! Come for the winding, often inter-connected, stories of wilderness, women being a little bad, maybe the devil?, and so many dogs (…CW.) Stay for the truly unique and deliciously cosmic mythos that Barron expertly crafts throughout these sixteen stories.
“Girls Without Their Faces On,� “Swift to Chase,� and “Don’t Make Me Assume My Ultimate Form� are the standouts for me, but it was hard to choose just three. I would follow Jessica Mace with devotion until the end of time…and then the time after that…and so forth. Additionally, I will think about “Tiptoe� for the rest of my life, every single paragraph, specifically the last page and a half of that multi-generational freakshow.
A lot of the punch was surreptitiously veiled behind subtext, and for some of these stories, I needed that subtext to be IN-text. Barron’s prose didn’t hold back, however, and I often found myself thinking, “Get to the point,� but then the point would come and I’d say, “Oh, no.� Be careful what you wish for, I suppose.
4/5 “Because, there's a war on. It's as tiny and savage as colonies of insects going at it. I'd rather not be on the side that gets annihilated. But yeah, we're gonna lose. Wanna fuck?�
January 12, 2025
Not A Speck of Light � Overall a solid collection weird tales, with some straight horror mixed in.
� In A Cavern, In A Canyon � (5/5) A classic Barron story finally printed in a collection that features an illustration of the dreaded Help Me Monster. I love the dark dreary setting, the terrifying ambiguity of the nature of the antagonist, and the terrifying simplicity of Mr. Help Me.
� Girls Without Their Faces On � (4/5) A story that features a party before the apocalypse, which may be connected to the Tooms party in the Swift to Chase collection. The main antagonist is J, of the Steely or Smiling variety, I am not sure, but I am inclined to think the latter due to one of the final lines.
� Mobility � (4/5) A pretty strange story that seemed to have a lot of Brian Evenson references in it, with the Mormons and dismemberment. The ending was pretty cool, with Brian becoming a fruit on a great primordial tree, reminding me a bit of the end of Clark Ashton Smith’s “Ubbo-Sathla�
� The Glorification of Custer Poe � (5/5) A simple terrifying story that focuses on an American Civil War veteran living in the remote hills of Alaska. The reveal at the end was predictable, but nonetheless effective.
� Joren Falls � (5/5) A very short story that packs a quite horrifying concept within so few pages. The concept of the Japanese demon woman raping you while sucking out parts of your brain was horrifying enough, but the final reveal that the main character had encountered her possibly numerous times, but did not remember due to missing gray matter, was the final spine-chilling detail.
� The Blood in My Mouth � (4/5) Pretty interesting story involving multiversal travel. I found the hints of the other universe such as the advanced alien tech found in a glacier very intriguing. The strange bunker in the mountain park was also interesting.
� Nemesis � (4/5) Very unusual story involving an eldritch goldfish and an evil, one-eyed boy named Larry. This story was very hard to follow at times, with the POV jumping between characters and possibly universes, that is, if Larry’s numerous different tales about how he lost his eye are all simultaneously true. The red light from his eye in the basement Halloween party reminded me both of the red pinprick of light from “Vastation� as well the basement party in John Langan’s “Kore�
� Soul of Me � (4/5) Another story about Rex the cyborg dog. I enjoyed the flashes through Rex’s genetic memory, like a doggy version of God Emperor Leto II. I also really liked the connection to “Vastation� with the surprise appearance of the Pod People or Hallow Men. Looking forward to more stories about both them and Rex.
� Fear Sun � (3/5) This is a story following Skylark Tooms first introduced in “Mobility.� It also contains numerous references to several other stories; the Ur Beetles from “The Forest� as well as Dr. Ryoko and Campbell are mentioned, in addition to Operation TALLHAT from “Old Virginia.� I wasn’t too interested in Skylark’s plan involving a real life Innsmouth and found her to be the least interesting part of this story. Everything else, from her family patriarchs, to the Grey Eminence were more interesting.
� Swift to Chase � (5/5) This is an intense and disturbing story following Jessica Mace, now essentially a super spy, infiltrating an insane evil billionaire’s compound. Said billionaire is basically if Melinda Gates wore a bird suit and hunted and murdered people like A Most Dangerous Game.
� Don’t Make Me Assume My Ultimate Form � (4/5) This is a batshit insane story involving an all-female team of enhanced individuals, including Jessica Mace and another member of the Lochinvar family, doing crazy tasks for a mysterious old woman. The main character’s first task for this organization is hunting down the Poe puppet from “More Dark� in Alaska.
� American Remake of a Japanese Ghost Story � (3/5) This is a very short story that follows Jessica Mace going to the house from “Joren Falls� and finding the demon spider woman.
� Strident Caller � (3/5) This is a creepy weird story following a man’s strange relationship with a spooky elderly former scream queen. The actress, Deborah, is insane and evil, with a possibly demonic dead husband. I felt bad for Artemis and hated the insane hag’s disturbing attitude towards dogs.
� Not a Speck of Light � (4/5) A pretty good follow-up to “Strident Caller� that finally gives Andy and possibly Deborah what they deserved. Wish Artemis and Aardvark got a happier ending, but found the fate of the humans satisfying.
� Tiptoe � (5/5) Creepy story conjures horrifying imagery in mundane situations. I loved the setting; Lake Terror reminds me of many lakes I visited in my youth. The familiar, yet alien nature of the antagonist makes this story so terrifying. One second, these creatures seem like ordinary humans, the next they’re “showing the zipper� as the Children of Old Leech put it.
� (You Won’t Be) Saved By the Ghost of Your Old Dog � 2/5 Short prose poem. Was just alright.
� In A Cavern, In A Canyon � (5/5) A classic Barron story finally printed in a collection that features an illustration of the dreaded Help Me Monster. I love the dark dreary setting, the terrifying ambiguity of the nature of the antagonist, and the terrifying simplicity of Mr. Help Me.
� Girls Without Their Faces On � (4/5) A story that features a party before the apocalypse, which may be connected to the Tooms party in the Swift to Chase collection. The main antagonist is J, of the Steely or Smiling variety, I am not sure, but I am inclined to think the latter due to one of the final lines.
� Mobility � (4/5) A pretty strange story that seemed to have a lot of Brian Evenson references in it, with the Mormons and dismemberment. The ending was pretty cool, with Brian becoming a fruit on a great primordial tree, reminding me a bit of the end of Clark Ashton Smith’s “Ubbo-Sathla�
� The Glorification of Custer Poe � (5/5) A simple terrifying story that focuses on an American Civil War veteran living in the remote hills of Alaska. The reveal at the end was predictable, but nonetheless effective.
� Joren Falls � (5/5) A very short story that packs a quite horrifying concept within so few pages. The concept of the Japanese demon woman raping you while sucking out parts of your brain was horrifying enough, but the final reveal that the main character had encountered her possibly numerous times, but did not remember due to missing gray matter, was the final spine-chilling detail.
� The Blood in My Mouth � (4/5) Pretty interesting story involving multiversal travel. I found the hints of the other universe such as the advanced alien tech found in a glacier very intriguing. The strange bunker in the mountain park was also interesting.
� Nemesis � (4/5) Very unusual story involving an eldritch goldfish and an evil, one-eyed boy named Larry. This story was very hard to follow at times, with the POV jumping between characters and possibly universes, that is, if Larry’s numerous different tales about how he lost his eye are all simultaneously true. The red light from his eye in the basement Halloween party reminded me both of the red pinprick of light from “Vastation� as well the basement party in John Langan’s “Kore�
� Soul of Me � (4/5) Another story about Rex the cyborg dog. I enjoyed the flashes through Rex’s genetic memory, like a doggy version of God Emperor Leto II. I also really liked the connection to “Vastation� with the surprise appearance of the Pod People or Hallow Men. Looking forward to more stories about both them and Rex.
� Fear Sun � (3/5) This is a story following Skylark Tooms first introduced in “Mobility.� It also contains numerous references to several other stories; the Ur Beetles from “The Forest� as well as Dr. Ryoko and Campbell are mentioned, in addition to Operation TALLHAT from “Old Virginia.� I wasn’t too interested in Skylark’s plan involving a real life Innsmouth and found her to be the least interesting part of this story. Everything else, from her family patriarchs, to the Grey Eminence were more interesting.
� Swift to Chase � (5/5) This is an intense and disturbing story following Jessica Mace, now essentially a super spy, infiltrating an insane evil billionaire’s compound. Said billionaire is basically if Melinda Gates wore a bird suit and hunted and murdered people like A Most Dangerous Game.
� Don’t Make Me Assume My Ultimate Form � (4/5) This is a batshit insane story involving an all-female team of enhanced individuals, including Jessica Mace and another member of the Lochinvar family, doing crazy tasks for a mysterious old woman. The main character’s first task for this organization is hunting down the Poe puppet from “More Dark� in Alaska.
� American Remake of a Japanese Ghost Story � (3/5) This is a very short story that follows Jessica Mace going to the house from “Joren Falls� and finding the demon spider woman.
� Strident Caller � (3/5) This is a creepy weird story following a man’s strange relationship with a spooky elderly former scream queen. The actress, Deborah, is insane and evil, with a possibly demonic dead husband. I felt bad for Artemis and hated the insane hag’s disturbing attitude towards dogs.
� Not a Speck of Light � (4/5) A pretty good follow-up to “Strident Caller� that finally gives Andy and possibly Deborah what they deserved. Wish Artemis and Aardvark got a happier ending, but found the fate of the humans satisfying.
� Tiptoe � (5/5) Creepy story conjures horrifying imagery in mundane situations. I loved the setting; Lake Terror reminds me of many lakes I visited in my youth. The familiar, yet alien nature of the antagonist makes this story so terrifying. One second, these creatures seem like ordinary humans, the next they’re “showing the zipper� as the Children of Old Leech put it.
� (You Won’t Be) Saved By the Ghost of Your Old Dog � 2/5 Short prose poem. Was just alright.
December 28, 2024
Read this book over the holiday break and it’s a great way to end 2024.
This year nearly broke me - I was a different person at the beginning of 2024. Exhausted and so emotionally stretched from personal struggles which I had limited control over. I couldn’t pick up and concentrate on a book to save my life. Fast forward to today and life has done a 180. I carved a passage through all the noise and am happy with how life is rolling. Hence, this book with all its suspense and weird horror was incredibly immersive and entertaining which eerily makes me feel optimistic!! Yes, it’s weird to find optimism in dark horror but I love this stuff. Good stories make me happy!
Tiptoe will stay with you long after finishing. In a Cavern, in a Canyon has popped into my thoughts days after too. This is what I want from my horror short stories.
Enjoy the book and here’s to a weird and wonderful 2025 :)
This year nearly broke me - I was a different person at the beginning of 2024. Exhausted and so emotionally stretched from personal struggles which I had limited control over. I couldn’t pick up and concentrate on a book to save my life. Fast forward to today and life has done a 180. I carved a passage through all the noise and am happy with how life is rolling. Hence, this book with all its suspense and weird horror was incredibly immersive and entertaining which eerily makes me feel optimistic!! Yes, it’s weird to find optimism in dark horror but I love this stuff. Good stories make me happy!
Tiptoe will stay with you long after finishing. In a Cavern, in a Canyon has popped into my thoughts days after too. This is what I want from my horror short stories.
Enjoy the book and here’s to a weird and wonderful 2025 :)
February 1, 2025
I can honestly see the mastery, but alas I wasn’t a fan of many of the stories in this collection, there were three or four that I really enjoyed, one that I cherished - the rest, meh, but that’s what you get with collections.
I really enjoyed Barron’s voice, his control, his sense of uncanny - there were just too many stories where I was wanting it to speed up, to get to the conclusions already.
Will I read more of his work, sure thing, he proved with those handful of stories that he’s bewitched me with his storytelling, I might check out a longer work next.
I really enjoyed Barron’s voice, his control, his sense of uncanny - there were just too many stories where I was wanting it to speed up, to get to the conclusions already.
Will I read more of his work, sure thing, he proved with those handful of stories that he’s bewitched me with his storytelling, I might check out a longer work next.
September 12, 2024
I always love Laird Barron's work. So creepy, so cosmic, and with so much emphasis on the human reactions of the people in over their heads. New collection hooray!! And more Jessica Mace. So much more Jessica. My joy is complete.
September 14, 2024
A paean to the lizard-primitive portions of the brain that fear the dark and shadowed places of the world, and are absolutely right to do so. This book should be read in full daylight. Peak horror from a master.
October 9, 2024
A hammer of the witches, right between the eyes. An evocative blend of dread, empathy,, and the indescribable, it makes you realize how much you’ve been missing Barron’s short fiction and leaves you hungry for more.
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