Shivers edited by Richard Chizmar

(pb; 2002: horror anthology)

Overall review:

Good horror anthology, worth owning. There's not a stinker in the bunch, though Kelly Laymon's "Throwing Caution to the Wind," while providing the anthology with an element of whimsical diversity, doesn't belong in this collection.


Standout stories:

1.) "Fodder" - Brian Keene & Tim Lebbon: American soldiers fight a more horrific and brutal enemy than they expected. Good, entertaining story, with a funny and ominous ending.

2.) "Whisper, When You Drown - Tom Piccirilli: Unsettling, clever tale about a storm, the restless dead and seduction.


3.) "Hermanos De El Noche" - Bentley Little: A man (Brock) sets out to rescue his wife (Marnie) from the mad, nude vampires who kidnapped her. Nasty, sexual and violent work, this.


4.) "Walking with the Ghosts of Pier 13" - Brian Freeman: Melancholic, mood-effective tale that recalls the feel of America in the days immediately following 9/11 (without the jingoistic bullsh*t that usally accompanies it).


5.) "265 and Heaven - Douglas Clegg: Excellent story about a tenement apartment whose filth-encrusted interior hides a deeper, more enduring and infinitely grimmer element.


6.) "The Sailor Home from the Sea" - John Pelan: In a pub, an ex-sailor gives voice to a familiar, yet intriguing personal tale about an angry woman and an avenging sea.


7.) "Always Traveling, Never Arriving" - Robert Morrish: The true nature of carnivals and how they're perceived by outsiders ("townies") is explored in entertaining and twisty fashion.


8.) "That Extra Mile" - David Niall Wilson & Brian A. Hopkins: A long distancee runner (Scott Danning) gets visions of roadside serial murders that appear to have real world consequences. Distinctive, fresh work.


9.) "The Green Face" - Al Sarrantonio: Concise, gripping work about a man (Lanois), whose dreams of strange killings compel him to necessary action.


10.) "Tender Tigers - Nancy A. Collins: Character- and action-interesting story about a monster-hunting vampire (Sonja Blue) tries to rescue a human family from an ogre who's taken over their family.

(Sonja Blue also appears in a multi-book series, starting with Sunglasses After Dark, also available in Kindle form.)


11.) "Portrait of a Sociopath" - Edward Lee: Short, sharp and occasionally gleefully sick (but believable) story, with an effective twist.


12.) "The Other Man" - Ray Garton: An extramarital affair takes on morbid and terrifying dimensions for a cuckolded husband. Excellent, distinctive read.


13.) "The Sympathy Society" - Graham Masterton: Haunting, wow-worthy story about a grieving suicidal widower who joins a cult-like support group to help him find a semblance of peace.

The Night of the Triffids by Simon Clark

(hb; 2001) 

From the back cover

"The Day of the Triffids, John Wyndam's extraordinary bestseller, is one man's description of doomsday: almost the entire population has become blind, and the world has a new master -- the monstrous triffid plant. The novel ends with its narrator, Bill Masen, leaving the British mainland with his wife and four-year old son to join a new colony on the Isle of Wight. 

 "Simon Clark takes up the story twenty-five years later. 

 "In the 29th year since the fall of the old world, David Masen, the now grown-up son of Bill, wakes one morning to discover that the world has been mysteriously plunged into darkness. The few sighted people have their artificial lights, but once more the triffid has the advantage. . . 

 "Setting off to seek the cause of the darkness, David finds himself stranded. Eventually rescued and taken to New York, he discovers a very different sort of colony: prosperous and technologically advanced. But all is not as it seems. This sophisticated society hides an evil secret -- and David is about to come face to face with an old enemy from his father's past." 

 Review

Clark's sequel to John Wyndam's The Day of the Triffids hews closely to the even-handed tone of the original novel, all the while expanding on the concepts and characters created by Wyndam. When David Masen, son of Bill and Josella Masen, is taken to New York (after crash-landing his plane on a triffid-filled island) by American steam shippers, the tale turns even more surreal, with shades of John Carpenter's Escape From New York  (1981) thrown into the mix. Not only that, the triffids are evolving into terrifying new forms, allowing the triffids to overcome previously-effective barriers that protected the remaining humans from triffid sting-attacks. Author Clark twist-ably builds on this increasing surreality, keeping tight focus on Wyndam's source novel themes -- man's arrogant war-like nature, evolution (triffid- and human-related) and science, and terror. 

Clark also builds well on Night's characters, a few of whom originated in Day, while introducing compelling new characters. Some of these new characters resemble, temperament-wise, characters from Day, namely: Kerris Badekker, David's love interest and daughter of General Fielding (Kerris resembles Josella Playton-later-Masen); Christina Jane Schofield, a feral, triffid poison-immune teenage girl discovered on David's strange-vegetable island (she resembles the little girl Susan from Day); and General Fielding, an overly-ambitious, militaristic Tetrach (governor) of one of four Manhattan Island-based sectors. (Fielding bears a resemblance to the brutal, efficient Torrence from Day.) Sam Dymes, co-leader of the United Liberty Confederation (a rebel faction opposed to General Fielding's eugenics-based plans), resembles Coker (from Day). 

 My only complaint about this novel is that the opening paragraph of the Night is too much like the opening paragraph of Day -- not only does it seem like Clark is trying too hard to emulate Wyndam's dry-wit style (at least initially), but Night's opening paragraph is clunky and confusing. (The opening paragraph in Day is clever and quotable.) This is a minor complain because the rest of the novel is excellent, a can't-put-it-down science-fiction thriller. Worth owning, this. 

The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

(hb; 1951) 

 Review

 A comet passes by the Earth, and has two effects: one, it blinds the majority of Earth's people; two, it turns the triffids -- tall plants with gourd-like mobile roots and stinger-blossoms, previously regarded as tame botanical oddities -- into army of clever, click-emitting killers who are dedicated to stinging mankind into extinction. William Masen, a biologist who has the good misfortune to have been hospitalized and face-bandaged during the beautiful light show put on the comet, escapes being permanently blinded by it. (Ironically, the hospitalized Masen had been attacked by a triffid he was studying, and temporarily blinded by its poison. Prior to that attack, he'd warned fellow scoffing scientists that given how triffids reproduce quickly and possess stingers, they were a threat to mankind. Even Masen hadn't calculated how big a threat the triffids were.) 

 Masen provides the first-person narrative, which spans approximately seven years. His narration, for the most part, is calm and collected, his recollections simply-stated and viewed through a curious, science-minded lens. Most of the horrors he sees -- and there are many, whether they're perpetrated by triffids or men -- are left to the reader's imagination, as he travels across England, trying to rejoin Josella Playton (whom he met after the comet's passing), potboiler author and potential wife. 

 Triffids, at once an examination of the human race and scary science fiction thriller, is one of the best science fiction novels I've ever read. Wyndam's style is straightforward and almost dry, but between Masen's clear-eyed recollections, the distinctive characters, the steady pacing and the defiant, hopeful denouement, it's classic (in the truest, positive sense of the word). Clean-cut and exciting work, this -- worth owning. 

 In 2001, Simon Clark wrote and published a sequel to Wyndam'sThe Day of Triffids. Clark titled it The Night of the Triffids.

#

 The Day of the Triffids became a film in 1962. Philip Yordan (aka, Bernard Gordon) scripted this movie; Steve Sekely and an uncredited Freddie Francis co-directed it. Howard Keel played Bill Masen. Nicole Maurey played Christine Durrant. Ewan Roberts played Dr. Soames. Mervyn Johns played Mr. Coker. Alison Leggatt played Miss Coker. Janina Faye played Susan. 

#

On September 10, 1981, a short-lived television series, bearing the same name, began airing in the UK and Australia. (It lasted six episodes.) John Duttine played Bill Masen. Emma Relph played Jo Payton. Maurice Coulborne played Jack Coker. Jonathan Newth played Dr. Soames. Gary Olsen played "Red Haired Man Torrence." Perlita Neilson played Miss Durrant.