Pale Grey Idol, issue zero, edited by Michael Kelly

This is issue zero of a new magazine, to debut with issue one in early 2027. A slim paperback of 97 pages, it contains six stories-- "Strange Stories of the Ineffable" as the subtitle describes them. The opening short story, "Flume" by Sean Padraic Birnie, tells of a teen who forces his younger brother down a waterslide that disappears with his brother. Another, "Stillness" by Ben Tufnell, tells of a man caught in an old mantrap in the forest; as he bleeds out, he realizes how he got there. In the third, "Folly" by K. Wallace King, a woman visits a person claiming to be a friend whom she hasn't seen in forty years. The fourth tale, "The Philosopher's Skeleton" by Jocelyn Szczepaniak-Gillece, reads like a macabre parable that eludes sense. This sixth, "Floodlands" by Steve Toase, tells of a man who returns to a mysterious place of his youth, now decayed to the very core.These five stories are well-written, but impressionistic and elusive, barely using any plot, which limits their interest considerably.  I skipped over the fifth tale, "The Heads" by Brian Evenson, because it stands out by far as the best of the issue. Herein, a boy sees faces in blank spaces, and learns from his doctor that this makes him special, but that he must be wary of paying the faces too much attention, or they will turn into malevolent heads. As a sampler, this doesn't make me look forward to premiere issue of this magazine, and only Evenson's tale makes me want to read more by its author.   

Votive Offerings, edited by Robert Morgan

Robert Morgan has edited some six previous anthologies for his own Sarob Press.  This one contains four stories, by four authors, Mark Valentine, John Howard, Peter Bell and Colin Insole.  The first three authors are in many of Morgan's previous anthologies, while I think Insole has appeared in only one other Sarob book. Votive Offerings lacks the usual concrete underlying premise, which leads to the four stories being very different. Valentine's and Bell's stories are more traditional, while Howard's and Insole's more experimental. The tones of the stories are different as well.  Valentine's "Roman Masks" deals with collegians invoking ancient powers at a ruin, but the tale doesn't really jell until it nears the end.  Howard's "Desire Path" is a mix of pasts and present for an old man who dreams or re-experiences a never-quite-realized encounter with a mysterious figure. Peter Bell's "Figures in a Landscape" is the most engaging story in the volume, following a young archaeologist as she attempts to locate a lost hill figure. Part of the story is drawn to a conclusion, leaving some unsatisfaction about the main plot. Finally, Insole's tale reads more like a kaleidoscopic and erudite essay than a story proper. "The Secret Rainers" of the title are a long-existing fellowship who struggle against the periodic evil that attempts to reclaim the land. An interesting anthology, but I found this one somewhat less successful as a whole than Morgan's other volumes. The cover art by Paul Lowe is quite nice. 

Hookland Fragments Volume One: Remembering Differently, by David Southwell

Hookland Fragments is a small book, mostly comprised of a thirty-page lecture and fifteen pages of an A-Z of Hookland Influences, along with some smaller essays. What is Hookland? It is a fictional lost county of England. Creator David Southwell gave its creative outlines in a lecture to the Fortean Society in London on April 28th, 2026. This comprises half of this booklet. Another quarter is an alphabetical listing of people, places, influences, etc., on the concept. Yet the whole feels like an exploration of the personal prejudices of the author. Per tv shows, he likes Blake's 7, Doctor Who, Quatermass, and Sapphire and Steel. Movies, The Haunting of Hill House, La Jetée, Picnic at Hanging Rock.  Fiction writers, J.G. Ballard, Algernon Blackwood, Angela Carter, Rosemary Timperley. The lecture drones on and on, unusually so for such a small booklet. One gets the feeling that the author wanted to devise a shared-world anthology, but can't even be bothered to complete a bible for the project. I found this a complete waste of time. 

The End of Everything, by M. John Harrison

This short novel is weird in ways in which only M. John Harrison can be. A futuristic literary dystopia, the story is set on the southeastern English coast and centers on Phillip and his aunt Marnie. Sometime in the past, some sort of inscrutable alien race called the iGhetti appeared out of nowhere, and everything changed. Decades later, Phillip picks up flotsam on the sea coast, including artefacts which are some shifting form of alien life. His aunt is an artist who barely navigates in this strange modernity. The novel is primarily one of mood and style. The plot is minimal, and the details of the world vague and shifting if not merely undefined or actually inscrutable. Some readers will find this irritating. For me, I thought it mostly works, though if this experiment as a novel were much longer it would definitely pall. In the middle of the book, Phillip finds in a lost journal the words that pretty much sum up the novel:  "Believe all you like, that at some level unavailable to you an organizing principle exists. You will never have any evidence of that."  Neither will the reader. The interest is in the journey, not any imagined solutions. Harrison clearly agrees with what T.S. Eliot said long ago, the real end is not a bang but a whimper.
 

Orphans of the Tide, by Struan Murray

Orphans of the Tide is an odd YA novel, concerning the residents of an island City who fear the periodical resurgence of the Enemy who takes over a person to be his Vessel for rebirth. This tale follows Ellie, an independent young orphan with a superiority complex, and her young friends, including other orphans and a boy she has plucked out of the body of a dead whale. Everyone has jumped to the conclusion that the boy is the Vessel, and he must be killed. The plot is somewhat silly, and the reasons the plot advances are coincidental and sillier, with twists and a completely illogical resolution. This is the first book of a trilogy, but I barely made it through this one and want no more.     

H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness for Beginning Readers, by R.J. Ivankovic

This is the third of three books retelling H.P. Lovecraft's stories, with artwork and clanky verse, both in the style of Dr. Seuss. The first was  H.P. Lovecraft's The Call of Cthulhu for Beginning Readers, the second was H.P. Lovecraft's Dagon for Beginning Readers. The first was fun, the second didn't quite work as well, but the third, H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness for Beginning Readers, is probably the best of the three. For one, it takes on one of the best of Lovecraft's stories, and it is a long story as well, which gives the reader a lot more text and many more illustrations to enjoy. Which makes one wonder about who really is the audience for these books?  Per the titles, they are supposed to be for beginning readers, but especially with the much more complex third volume, I wonder whether any beginning readers can actually enjoy these books.  Probably they are really for Lovecraft's older fans looking for a new way to re-experience the familiar stories. At least, that's how it works for me.  

Ursula K. Le Guin's Book of Cats

Ursula K. Le Guin died  in 2018, with many highly distinguished books under her belt, plus a few real clunkers. Now comes Ursula K. Le Guin's Book of Cats, from the Library of America, a slim hardcover with poems, some prose, and a whole lot of cat doodles by Le Guin, plus a lot of white space. No editor is listed, but one hears someone else's voice in the essay "The Lives of Ursula's Cats."  Overall it seems either a harmless ditty, or crass commercialism. This is one of her clunkers. For ailurophiles only.