The stories in Beyond the Veil deal with aging, death, dying, and ghosts.
My favorite story in Beyond the Veil is Stephen Gallagher’s “A Mystery for Julie Chu.” Julie Chu likes to shop at auctions, thrift stores, and consignment stores. Chu has a talent at finding vintage items that are underpriced.
Chu finds an old toy called Mr. Disco. She buys it for a pittance. But Chu soon learns Mr. Disco allows the Dead to speak to the Living. I thought I knew where “A Mystery for Julie Chu” was going, but Stephen Gallagher had some clever tricks up his writer’s sleeve that surprised me.
Other than “A Mystery for Julie Chu,” I didn’t find any other story that pleased me in this anthology. The constant dying and suffering wore me down. GRADE: C
Table of Contents
Introduction Mark Morris 1
The God Bag Christopher Golden 3
Caker’s Man Matthew Holness 21
The Beechfield Miracles Priya Sharma 44
Clockwork Dan Coxon 69
Soapstone Aliya Whiteley 79
The Dark Bit Toby Litt 93
Provenance Pond Josh Malerman 107
For All the Dead Angeline B. Adams Remco van Straten 119
The Girl in the Pool Bracken MacLeod 135
Nurse Varden Jeremy Dyson 144
If, Then Lisa L. Hannett 159
Aquarium Ward Karter Mycroft 173
A Mystery for Julie Chu Stephen Gallagher 185
Away Day Lisa Tuttle 205
Polaroid and Seaweed Peter Harness 213
Der Geisterbahnhof Lynda E. Rucker 231
Arnie’s Ashes John Everson 244
A Brief Tour of the Night Nathan Ballingrud 257
The Care and Feeding of Household Gods Frank J. Oreto 268
Yellowback Gemma Files 282
Biographies 307
Just a few somewhat familiar names here, but only Lisa Tuttle stands out as someone whose work has impressed me in the past. So this doesn’t look promising.
Michael, I had high hopes for BEYOND THE VEIL but some of these stories are beyond the pale.
When George gives a book a C, I generally take it for a warning: Stay Away! Plus, the topic and the lack of familiar names makes this a no.
Jeff, I had hoped that some of these little known writers would be breaking out with great stories. It was not to be…
I’ve been seeing more and more horror anthologies like this. Most are shoddy looking POD efforts by specialty publishers I’ve never heard of featuring writers I don’t know who have “published” their work solely on horror fan fiction websites. Really makes me appreciate those great Dover collections and all the mass market anthologies of the early/mid sixties.
Horror is having a big resurgence right now but I don’t see much to get interested, let alone excited, about.
Byron, I totally agree with you. I try to support small presses, but sometimes they publish stories by little known writers that are sub-par. Horror is a hot area of publishing, but I draw the line at gore and psychopathic carnage.
The last thing I want to read about is aging, death and dying, and there are no such things as ghosts. No, thanks.
Rick, BEYOND THE VEIL sounded good when I read about in on BLACKGATE.COM.
As often happens, Rick said exactly what I would say! There’s been too much aging, dying, and death in my own world lately! I don’t need it in my entertainment!
Bob, you and Rick are generally on the same page!
I’m familiar with just seven of the names and. of those, I have only read and enjoyed stories by Golden, Gallagher, and Tuttle, and I do have a collection by Everson (from the library) to read over the next week or so.
Yes, horror seems to be having a upswing — judging at least by the number of books, anthologies, small-press magazines, and stories that are put there. In times like these, a lot a dreck arises to fill a publisher’s needs. As has happened before with horror, the dreck will multiply enough to sink this horror resurgence. Some of the good stuff will survive, however.
Jerry, I had hopes for BEYOND THE VEIL…but they were dashed.
Horror lines tend to be small-press tendencies…even the most sustained programs from the Bigs, such as Tor’s in the ’80s and Dell Abyss in the ’90s, tend to fizzle pdq. Too much trying to connect to the Larger Audience while usually having to depend on writers who are too sophisticated in horror for most readers’ taste…or those who are just a bit too Ruby Jean Jensen. Or, for that matter, Anne Rice.
And when semipros and hobbyists do the work…well, some hobbyist contributors are likely to be popping in.\
I’m not Keeping Up as much as I’d like…I’m familiar with about half the contributors here. Big fan of Tuttle and Gallagher, certainly.
Todd, I’ve noticed a trend in these small press anthologies that include mostly little-known writers with a couple of Big Names to highlight on the cover.