The Devil’s Coattails
edited by William F. Nolan and Jason V. Brock
Cycatrix Press
2011
288 pages
$39.95
Review copy provided by the editors

Despite the title, this anthology has little to do with the Devil, much less his coattails. It’s still a cool title, and besides that, the stories included are excellent To start things off, there’s a cool intro from S.T. Joshi, author of many critical and biographical studies including The Weird Tale (1990). He also edits The Weird Fiction Review among other things. Co-editors Jason V. Brock and William F. Nolan have put together a great variety of tales ranging from Weird Fiction to supernatural fiction to ‘real world’ horror, so it’s like getting a loot bag full of mixed candy at a birthday party—there’s always the stuff you go for right away because it’s your favourite, and you like the taste, but you also get treats that sometimes taste amazing and you have to have more the next time

Horror legend Ramsay Campbell starts things off with The Moons, which is the story of a precocious kid, Stuart, who helps a group of equally precocious but haughtier kids look for a bracelet of the moons that one of them lost. The parents’ dialogue is an exercise in over-formality, done to great effect here. Two of the boys in the group, Ludwig and Claude, are like mini versions of Niles and Frasier Crane and it’s kind of funny, actually. The Moons is subtler than most horror tales, and you might have to read it a few times to “get” it, but that’s just a testament to how thought-provoking Campbell’s pieces are.

One of the anthology’s best features (and this is something that a lot of anthos are starting to adopt, which I think is great) is the post-story write-ups that each author has, called “What the author relates about this story,” because I found in many cases it helped me to understand the story better, or the author’s intentions, kind of like an “extra feature” on a DVD.

Next, co-editor Jason V. Brock treats us to Object Lesson, which is a great exercise in using sensory perceptions as descriptors to slowly, bit by bit, reveal the setting (in this case, a hospital). Brock shrewdly reveals clues as to what’s going on in the hospital, and establishes the story well. A man is visiting a woman, who although she isn’t dead, isn’t truly alive and lives in a “halfway” kind of state, which is the hardest thing to take, almost like she’s frozen in time and might as well be in a glass box. The man is debating whether he should pull the plug on her. One of the lines from this story particularly stuck with me: “The light only shows what the darkness already knows.” This one is one of the richer treats of the bunch. That said, readers who have issues with terminal patients and the concept of “the right to die” may have some trouble with the point of view presented in this piece, but it wasn’t an issue for me.

Invocation by Dan O’Bannon involves a group of stoned morons who invoke the Devil or at least some version of a powerful demon; despite its short length, I liked it. In Gunboat Whores, John Shirley gives us his take on Wyatt Earp and presents him at a time when his wife, Urilla, has died after giving birth to their child. Her brothers blame Earp, of course, and the result is an interesting conflict. Also cool was the design feature with the icon of a pistol indicating a scene break. Fun fact: Shirley co-wrote the script for the 1994 film version of The Crow (which, on a separate note, I’m still hoping won’t get the remake treatment, which will likely suck).

Our other co-editor, William F. Nolan, presents Dread Voyage, which also has an interesting design feature—aniconic initials at the beginning of some of the paragraphs. This tale reads almost like something out of Ovid, about Diocreases (son of Aeneas) who sets out on a voyage and seeks Circe. He asks Aphrodite if she’ll help him gank the sorceress. I also didn’t mind the Ovid-esque style in which the tale is written; there’s also an interesting twist on the soldiers of Troy, as well.

Melanie Tem introduces us to a widowed woman, who reminisces about the woman who used to be her BFF, Michelle, in Best Friends, which has a sad, bitter ending to one of life’s greatest pains, which is the inexplicable loss of a best friend (and not even knowing why).

Night Food by Jerry E. Airth is an odd little tale about mosquito women who seduce men, some of whom are ‘exterminators’ who learn to fight before they become victims, while Too Good to be Human by J. Brundage is all about Athena, who has three arms and works in an office where her co-workers give her trouble. Her job is to decipher poorly translated documents into American English, and convert other documents to be understood more easily. This story gives new meaning to the office workplace drama, like if The Office had pod people.

James Robert Smith’s story On the First Day has a painting on the front that looks like a fallen angel, possibly Lucifer, which I thought was very cool. This story features a main character who is a defence intelligence agent and assassin. His daughter starts predicting Apocalyptic conditions mostly involving spiders outside. No one can go out, and unfortunately, our main character killed the only guy who knew the reason behind the spider attacks. The guy claimed that God was communicating with children, because their minds are pure and unpolluted. This one features a chilling ending and a cool variation on the concept of God.

Other notable tales include one from Sunni K. Brock, Dying to Forget, which features sign language symbols at the beginning. The main character, Tim, keeps coming back to life again and again and under different circumstances; at one point, he even encounters his father. The somewhat vague ending leaves the reader to make their own conclusion. Another incredible tale is Invisible by Nancy Kilpatrick. I always look forward to Nancy’s short fiction as she’s adept at making readers sympathize with the most interesting kinds of characters and exploring tragedy in a way that comes off as unique every time. Invisible is no exception here, as it delves into the life of a waitress and single mother (doubly marginalized) who thinks that she sees a woman remarkably like her grandmother in the shop one day and knows she should tend to her first, but keeps on being assaulted by rude patrons who, if not for placing their orders, wouldn’t really give a toss about the waitress, Amanda, as a person. The story gets more interesting as Amanda grabs the package left behind by the old lady, a camera that promises to have pictures of ghosts inside, and she takes a bunch of pictures, and the exposures have all been used, but it’s definitely a shocker to see what comes out. A gripping tale, this is one of the more memorable ones in the bunch.

Can You Imagine by Paul Salamoff is a poem that extols the virtues of a technology-free time without ipads and mp3 players while Rod Serling’s After Twilight: A New Anthology Series – Knife Through the Veil by Marc Scott Zicree (inspired by the works of Rod Serling) is a script that Marc submitted to CBS to develop as an episode of the “Twilight Zone TV Show” but the network pulled the plug, deeming it too violent despite its end message of choosing peace. The script begins with Serling recording some of his scripts into a dictaphone belt. The story involves Katie and Josh, a couple with one daughter, Serenity, and after Katie witnesses them being killed, becomes consumed by revenge, wanting to kill the murderer. She ends up in the City of the Dead and learns the costs of holding onto pain and anger, even when justified.

The Hidden Realm by W.H. Pugmire and Maryanne K. Snyder is a Weird Tale about Oscar Wilde and his friend Frank Miles, who was a painter and did mostly pastel portraits of society ladies. Frank has weird demonic visions while Oscar is terrified of a mystical crone he sees on the street. Frank continues to have weird visions and produces a particularly vivid painting of a young man, one side pretty, one side ugly. Definitely an interesting piece, and always cool to see historical figures in fantastical fiction.

If You Love Me by Paul G. Bens Jr. starts off interestingly as a gay man calls 911 to report his male lover’s death. The main character, Thanh, gets into a scrap with his current lover, Darion, over a friend, Kai, who comes as a wedge between them. This one also has a very interesting ending, and it’s great to see the balance in this anthology not only of having women writers, but also of featuring LGBT fiction, as well. Overall, it’s a strong anthology, but as with all anthologies, some pieces are stronger than others, and some more memorable than others, but the percentage of great stories is very much on the high end.