Edited by PDR Lindsay & CC Bye. Available in print or download.

Reviewed by Glenda Johnson.

And yes, they’re right about this. It’s not that different from some horror anthologies that I’ve read, nor did it disturb me to a huge degree. But yes, some of it was still a bit different and slightly disturbing. The trouble with much recent horror that I’ve (unwillingly) read, is that those who write it go over the top. They bring in monsters, lakes of gore, dismembered bodies, and graphic sex. I like my horror low-key, understated, and more about the human condition. In The Speed of Dark I got two things. One was excellent presentation with very good editing, and the other was well-written work that in most cases wasn’t overly graphic, but which was interesting, involving and rarely over the top. Much of it was quietly creepy and therefore very effective. And the editors were intelligent, where an author presented two suitable stories, they didn’t insist on taking only one, and then, finding they needed more work, filling out the anthology with poorer-quality tales. Instead where they were offered two good stories, they took both, so that in a number of cases an author had two stories appear. And I noticed that when that happened those authors’ work was often the work that I really liked. So I’m not going to comment on every story, but that said, I didn’t find any stories that I felt were inadequate. Some I didn’t like that much as a personal preference, but I thought that all of them were well-written and of real quality. I’ve seen a previous award-winning anthology from this stable, and that one too fitted everything I’ve said here. This outfit could be one to watch.

The first story set the tone for this anthology beautifully. What About Mum by E.J.Ruek is horror, not because of anything in-your-face, but from the gradual realization of what this is about as you read it. It ends with a newspaper clipping that ties up the story consistently and neatly, and makes sense of some of the final loose ends. It’s a story you may come across in the newspapers regularly, but the author makes you see it for yourself. Jesse’s Hair by John B. Rosenman is again delicately intrusive. It begins in such a way that you sympathise with the protagonist, understand her pain, and wish people would be a bit kinder. And then you find out what the years of abuse have created. Which is brutally realistic because this type of low-level bullying can produce effects out of all proportion.

Retrovirus by Clayton Clifford Bye was clever. It took an aspect of our computerized society and moved it into a new space and a new form of the ‘post holocaust’ sub-genre. Micky Peluso’s Death of the Spider is both horrific and sad, while Lyn McConchie’s Little Girl Lost is savage in a way that makes the reader like it. I was prepared to be horrified at the topic until I was almost at the end and realized what was happening, then I smiled, I do like evil to get its comeuppance. Unbreakable fetters of Admantine by Jim Secor is an interestingly surrealistic tale, it winds and confuses but ultimately satisfies. While Across the Tracks by Tony Richards has some of the same factors although with a very different background and protagonist but with an ending that is equally as effective. Clayton Bye’s title story, The Speed of Dark is plain creepy, a little sickening when you see where this is going, and very well handled as a theme. TakingCare of Mother by Mary Firmin is unpleasant, it has something to say about society’s attitudes towards those marked in our minds as either ‘less fortunate’ or ‘the dregs of society,’ and just how wrong we can be in some of our assumptions. It may also be a warning about being patronizing.

Lyn McConchie’s Sowing On the Mountain is all too realistic in some ways, and delicately drawn fantasy in others. And yet, the fantasy element is sketched in so lightly the reader is uncertain as to whether it really existed anywhere but in the protagonist’s head, an aspect of the story that enhances it considerably. And the final story, Plastic People, by Lisa Lane chronicles a descent into the darker places of the mind and is exactly the right note on which to conclude. All in all the editors have done a fine job on this anthology which only confirms my impression of the previous one the publisher had out. Take a look at the site, http:shop.claytonbye.com Buy this anthology, and maybe copies of the previous one as well. I think it would be money well spent.

Addendum from Lyn: the anthology has also been reviewed on the Horror World site by Mario Guslandi who said this about my story “In the very horrific and vivid  “Little Girl Lost” by Lyn McConchie a pedophile gets a terrible punishment for alluring (sic) and raping a little girl who actually is not quite what she appears to be. “

Paperback published ACE, September 2012. Third in a series.

Due to various circumstances this only arrived in my mailbox a few days before Christmas. I opened the padded envelope, and pounced on the book, reading it immediately and doing this review to file and run once I had time. Dream is the third in the Ghost Finders series about JC Chance, Melody Chambers, and Happy Jack Palmer, who provide one of the Carnaki Institute’s teams, which is sent out to investigate supernatural occurrences. As the author has done in the previous two books, the first section forms a separate adventure before they move on to the main event. In that first section an old portion of railway line and the railway station for it are being renovation by a club who intend to run steam engines there again. The strange disappearance of an entire train over a hundred years ago from that section of track appears to be causing reverberations in the present and JC, Melody, and Happy discover that some returns aren’t always happy.

In the main story which takes place immediately after the events of Bradleigh Halt, the team is called urgently to a disused theatre. Again it was intended to reopen the venue, and stage live plays, beginning with one written by a couple of middle-aged actors. However the workmen upgrading the theatre despite being very well paid have all downed tools and refused to return to work until the odd events there have been stopped.

The team arrived at the theatre , set up Melody’s ghost-investigating gear, and with the aid of the two actors, begin to explore what may be behind the odd phenomena. The theatre behind and below the main stage, is both very large and a complete rabbit warren. People, beings, ghosts, and strange sounds proliferate in corners. And the team is hard pressed to unravel what is behind the threats. There are a couple of subtexts that, while not hampering the main plot, continue to form sub-plots that carry through the three books to date and provide additional interest for the series reader. I enjoy almost all of Green’s series, (Deathstalker being the only one I didn’t like for personal reasons) and I recommend this series, as well as pretty much anything else that he’s written.

Reviewed by an infuriated Glenda Johnson.

I very rarely if ever write a bad review, I’m all too aware of how devastating a bad review can be to a writer, (particularly if it’s grossly unfair as was one that Lyn received a couple of years ago, in which the reviewer seemed to have a personal grudge against her and also seemed to be reviewing the book HE had wanted to read, rather than the one she’d actually written.) This time however I was so deeply disappointed in the book that I’ve made an exception in view also of the fact that the author died some years ago and isn’t here to be wounded by my opinions.

I started reading the Cat Who series when they were originally UK published back in the ’60s. Owing to various events I missed the final book, (60 Whiskers) but had read and owned all the books until that one. I heard when Lilian died, and heard also that she had been halfway through the next book when she passed away and that the publishers weren’t going to have it finished by someone else and publish it. I wondered why not, the series is a best seller. Then the other month I finally got around to obtaining a copy a copy of The Cat Who Had 60 Whiskers, the last published in the series, and was horrified (and enlightened) when I read it. One of the two major characters, Polly is a doting cat-lover and owner of two adored Siamese. Polly is selling her home and would have a large sum of money available to her. So how likely is it that a devoted cat-lover with ample funds at her disposal would merely dump her two adored cats on anyone at all (apparently she couldn’t care less) who’ll give them a home when she is offered a three-year job in France? To equal that in unfortunate developments, Qwill’s wonderful apple barn, a feature and pretty much another character in many of the books, is burned down. He seems to be quite unconcerned about either Polly’s decision to go and live in France while arbitrarily discarding her beloved cats, or that his terrific home has been lost along with everything in it, and within days he is considering another woman and ignoring two abandoned cats that he’s known for years when he himself is a devout cat-lover. Oh please! These developments are completely out of character for both Qwill and Polly. They ring with all the lusterless quality of a cracked bell.

I went on line once I’d finished the book and read a number of reviews. All those I read agree with me and are equally horrified by the quality of the work. But something else that most readers/reviewers do not appear to have noticed. This volume had problems in quite another way. Yes, the author did tend to write shorter books, but not as brief as this one. I did a rough word count and the book is far shorter than her usual book length. It’s been laid out in such a way this isn’t noticeable to readers, (unless you know how long it takes you to read any book, and find you seem to be racing thorough this one at startling speed. That was when I counted.) And I’d put it around 35-37,000 words. About 60% of her usual quantity. So I was disappointed twice over and have discarded the book. It may be as well that the book she was halfway through writing when she died wasn’t finished and published, because if that one was of similar length and quality, we, her eager readers, were better off without it.

Mind you, Lilian was in her 90s when the book was written, however this is why you have editors. Her editor should have picked up on the disappointment readers would suffer and the stated decision by a number of readers not to buy more in the series since they found this one of such abysmal quality. The editor should have realized that such a massive change in characterization would produce such an outcome, and that the book has no real or effective ending, but just seems to lie down and die without resolution. I will be retaining all of the series save this one, I have always loved the books, but I have no desire to have this final book on my shelves, let alone to ever read it again. In fact I’m hoping to forget it as soon and thoroughly as possible so that it doesn’t spoil my enjoyment of and my re-reading of the other 28 volumes in future. But frankly, I can only wonder of what the publisher was thinking when they brought out this mess of mischaracterization, failure to achieve an ending let alone a climax, and this novella-thinly-disguised-as-a-book at book price. In some of the comments on this book a very few readers apparently felt that the quality of the work was excused by the writer’s age. I would point out that Andre Norton was 93 when she died and her last book, finished only a few months earlier, was of good quality. Arthur C. Clarke was 90, Ray Bradbury died at 91 still producing quality work. When this book was published, presumably under the impression that readers would buy on the name and the publisher would make their usual amount on it, they did the author a considerable disservice. Because this book is how many of her fans will remember her.