The third entry in the Year’s Best Weird Fiction series is guest edited by author and editor Simon Strantzas. Strantzas should be no stranger to fans of Weird fiction. He recently edited the Robert Aickman tribute anthology Aickman’s Heirs which won two Shirley Jackson Awards—one for best Edited Anthology and one for Lynda E. Rucker’s story “The Dying Season.” Strantzas was gracious enough to stop by Weird Fiction Review to answer questions about how he defines Weird fiction and how he selected stories for YBWF3. From his responses, I find it interesting that while not every fan may agree with his definition of Weird fiction, Strantzas still provides a very clear and critical framework for how he understands it, along with some insights into what the Weird looks like today and where it may be headed. As a side note, I would also encourage interested readers to check out our interviews with Laird Barron, who edited the first volume, and Kathe Koja, who edited last year’s second volume, in order to gain some perspective into how the Weird is viewed differently by other practitioners.

Weird Fiction Review: Did you read the previous years’ volumes? I’m wondering how you think your selection of stories differ from those of Laird Barron or Kathe Koja.

Simon Strantzas: I dipped into both volumes upon their release, picking my way through the stories that were new to me, revisiting some that weren’t. It seems to me that the first volume was focused on giving a very broad overview of the what constitutes Weird fiction (or at least did so at the time), whereas the second drilled down into a side of the field that hews closer to Fantasy than Horror. This makes it the perfect follow-up in my eyes. Michael Kelly’s mandate for the Year’s Best Weird Fiction series is to show the diversity of the field, and that second volume proved to be a jolt to those who thought they knew what “Weird fiction” was—both those that embraced the term, and those that felt alienated by it. It was a bold and impressive choice, and I think immediately it freed the series from spiraling down a predictable hole.

My own sensibilities about what Weird fiction is and what makes it interesting differ in some ways greatly from those two volumes, yet also stay on perhaps more traditional paths. I suspect I have a greater interest in British and European Horror than the previous editors do, which is likely reflected in my choices. I also lean closer to the Horror side of the Weird fiction spectrum, so many stories I find the most interesting explore the Horror mode in some way. One thing I hope to see more of in future volumes in an influx of writers from outside the Western world, though that carries a number of hurdles, language barriers being only the most obvious.

WFR: In your introduction, you make the case that Weird fiction is just another name for Horror fiction. Would you say that they are completely interchangeable? Or are there perhaps stories that are Weird but not Horror or vice versa?

Strantzas: I wouldn’t call them interchangeable, no. I consider one to be a subset of the other. My argument (laid out, I hope, much more cogently in the introduction to the book) is simply that though there has been fiction called Weird for a long time, the contemporary use of the phrase is relegated to describing the newer forms Horror fiction is taking in this post-millennial age. It’s a term often (not always, but often) used as a short-hand to suggest that because these forms are new and different, they are inherently better than what preceded them, so they need to be divorced completely from what came before so there’s no confusion. “Weird” is too often used as a form of elitism.

One has to remember, though, that all these names are but artificial constructs created to examine and categorize fiction after it’s been written in order to study or sell it. Authors (good ones, at least) don’t tend to worry about such categorizations while writing. What makes weird fiction “Weird” is the author’s desire to tell stories in a different way or with different tools than have been traditionally used. But that’s the same for all leading movements of art, I’d think. I don’t argue that Weird fiction is an interesting and distinct place, I just argue from the perspective that it’s not far enough from its precedents that it can be branched. The Weird is simply new Horror.

WFR: You also acknowledge in your introduction that there’s no consensus around what constitutes Weird fiction. I wonder if you have any theories around why the Weird is such a nebulous genre.

Strantzas: If we accept the tenet that Weird is its own mode, I suspect its nebulousness comes from its relative newness. Established modes like Horror and Science Fiction have existed long enough, and are distinct enough, to have developed tropes and clichés that define them. Should I describe a story where a family moves into a house where a person was murdered, and they suffer through a night of strange noises and unexplained premonitions, you would be hard pressed to find a reader who wouldn’t define that as Horror; just as a story about a rocket ship and an alien planet whose society is both ancient and advanced would be considered Science Fiction. It’s easy for someone to identify these modes. But Weird? Just what exactly is that? Is there a story construct that everyone would agree on as being Weird? The mode is not codified in the same way. In fact, everyone has their own slightly different impression of Weird means. And I don’t consider that a problem. Weird hasn’t existed as a defined (or loosely-defined) thing long enough to develop its own mode-defining hackneyed baggage—it’s still primarily filled with stories on the forefront of literature. It’s and exciting place, but I do wonder if it requires that codification to remain relevant to readers. I remember a similar issue with “Dark Fantasy” a decade or so ago. It was another term bandied around by people who didn’t want to use the word Horror to describe the fiction they liked, but just as Weird fiction it was nebulously defined, and once a generation of readers grew past the term it fell out of favor. I can’t remember the last time I heard someone called a Dark Fantasy author without irony or derision. But perhaps I travel in the wrong circles.

WFR: There are a number of writers in Year’s Best Weird Fiction Vol. 3 that are well established (Ramsey Campbell, Tim Lebbon, Reggie Oliver, etc). Were there any writers that were new? Perhaps new to Weird fiction or even new to you?

Strantzas: About a third of the stories selected for the book were from authors I’d never before read. Michael Kelly does a great job at casting a wide net over the field, looking not only for new voices, but new voices in atypical venues for Weird fiction readers. As a result, the stories he sent me to consider were widely varied in style and subject matter. Some were quiet, some explicit; some were realistic while others fantastic. In essence, he was able to provide a healthy spectrum of work to consider, which made my job harder, but much more interesting. I read each story blind so I might assign it an unbiased ranking on several different levels. Then, on re-read, I ranked each again and took an average. This whittled down my list of serious candidates for the book. At that point it was only a matter of re-reading them again to puzzle out the best fit for style and variation. Simple, but not so simple at all. When dealing with the best of the field, selecting which “best” is better than another is a bit of a fool’s errand. In some case, it boiled down to what appealed most to my own sensibilities. The book as a whole is a reflection of the sort of fiction I enjoy, and another volume filled with dissimilar stories could easily have been assembled from the same material and been as good. The stories in all these best-of series are never the qualifiable best of the year, but rather some of the best that are being presented for the readers’ review.

WFR: Do you consciously strive for a balance of well-known and newer writers, or does this balance arrive more or less as a natural part of the editorial process?

Strantzas: Once I was in the final stage of picking the table of contents, I went through the narrowed-down list I’d assembled with my blinders off and linked each titles to its author. This allowed me to make corrections in balance I might not have been able to otherwise. When I ran into a situation where I had two stories I liked equally well, I considered other factors outside the story to lean toward a final list that was balanced by sex and nationality and experience. I could easily have put together a volume of stories written by only straight white men, but I don’t think that properly reflects the field or the talent in it. These best-of books are more than a book of favorites—instead, they function as an overview of what’s happening in the field and what’s exciting. For me, different voices are what’s exciting, especially new voices. I was thrilled to be able to gives some fledgling writers their first taste of being in a curated best-of anthology, and I have no doubt this won’t be the last time for any of them. I must also admit I was excited to be able to include a new story by Robert Aickman in the volume. Aickman’s work has been transformative for me, and it was surely kismet that I should be invited to co-edit YBWF during the year a major new story of his was first published.

WFR: Speaking of Aickman, you talked about the Strange Tale in your introduction. What are the hallmarks of the Strange Tale? Were there any stories in YBWF3 that you would categorize as Strange Tales or Aickmanesque?

Strantzas: I’d probably call the Aickman tale “Aickmanesque”, but it’s not the only one. I see the Strange tale as a more European style of story telling, as opposed to the American style of Weird fiction. The former is weighed down with such a long history that the stories tend to turn inward, whereas the latter are turned outward in exploration of what the world and the cosmos has to offer. American Weird is thus more direct, and more showy that the Strange. (And, again, let me restate that these are arbitrary divisions intended to aid in understanding movements, not define them). Most of the British writers in the book wrote stories I’d call Strange, and the American writers wrote what I’d call Weird, but this was not always the case. I’d suggest the British D.P. Watt’s story falls closer to the Weird scale, and American ex-pat Lynda E. Rucker’s tale falls closer to the Strange. It’s about atmosphere and mood, and plenty of great stories in this book and elsewhere entwine the two irrevocably.

WFR: You’ve worked in the Weird fiction field for quite a while. Did you spot any trends while editing YBWF3?

Strantzas: I came away from the experience with two observations. The first was that the first-person narrative is popular among many writers of Weird fiction. I’m not certain why this is, but I suspect it’s the same at the vanguard of other modes and fields as well. Perhaps the first person narrative is more engaging because it immediately establishes a rapport between reader and narrator, providing a voyeuristic look into another’s life. Or perhaps the subjectivity of first-person works well with Weird fiction because it allows bizarre encounters and effects to be delivered through experience-by-proxy, which heightens the emotional connection. Whatever the reason, I found after reading through a number of first-person stories that encountering one written from the more traditional third-person perspective was an oasis.

The second thread I noticed deals primarily with what newer writers are bringing to this sort of fiction. We used to speak a lot about cross-genre fiction, but whereas once each mode was its own silo with the occasional writer attempting to mix the contents of one with another, newer writers don’t seem to recognize the existence of those silos at all. Instead, they write as though all the speculative fiction fields were one, and glide between aspects without any sense of inhibition. Within the last few years we’ve seen the field shift in this direction out from under those authors who were working at Weird fiction’s vanguard a decade ago, authors who were still working through the influence of the boom period on their fiction and on the field as a whole. These new writers coming of age now not only missed the influence of that boom period, but because the field became so fallow in its aftermath that they instead found their inspirations elsewhere. That they’re bringing those influences back into our recently revitalized field only bodes well for where it’s going.

WFR: How did editing YBWF3 compare to editing other anthologies like Aickman’s Heirs? I know you’ve talked before about editing fiction after Shadows Edge and you said that you enjoyed writing more. After the success of Aickman’s Heirs, which won a Shirley Jackson Award for best anthology, do you see yourself editing more in the future? What about in the near term?

Strantzas: I edited Shadows Edge because I wanted to understand what the editing process was like, and I discovered I didn’t care much for it. Well, that’s not entirely true; I do love reading new stories by my favourite authors, and I do like introducing readers to names they may not have been previously familiar with. And as much work as editing a book is, it’s still less work than writing a book. But that aside I found the task to be a burden that took time away from my own writing, an endeavour I am much more passionate about than editing. So, I decided then that Shadows Edge would to be my first and only foray into editing. And for a time it was.

When the current wave of tribute anthologies we are going through now was initially ramping up, it occurred to me that I might enjoy contributing to one that focused on Robert Aickman. His influence on the field was becoming obvious, and the timing appeared perfect. But no one else seemed to realize that, and after a while I had to accept that if such a book was ever going to exist, it would have to be because I made it happen. So my second (and, I was adamant, final) foray into editing occurred because I saw a hole that needed filling and filled it. As for the award and its nominations, I’m certainly very happy with the acclaim, and I think the notice the book and many of its stories has garnered is proof that my initial instincts about its need to exist were correct.

Both these books involved me assembling a list of my favourite writers and determining who would be able to write great material related to the theme. It’s almost the reverse of a volume like Year’s Best Weird Fiction, where I was reading stories by authors I didn’t know, authors who were exploring their own themes. Editing a book like that requires putting one’s own feelings aside and absorbing each story as a single unit, and only at the end of the process determining how those units interplay with one another, and if there are any general themes or undercurrents that unite them.

As to editing another book in the near (or distant) future, you know what they say: never say never. But there are no plans, firm or inchoate, at present.

WFR: Do you have any projects you’re currently working on that you’d like share with our readers?

Strantzas: I’m somewhere in the weeds of my fifth collection of short fiction. It’s slowly coming together and I’m hopeful it will be completed and polished for a 2018 release. If all goes well, it will be as much of departure from the last book as that book was from the one that preceded it. After that I’ll be turning my attention back to the short novel I’ve been writing for the past few years. I don’t know when that will see print, or even if, but I’ve grown quite fond of the story as time has progressed and I’m eager to finally see how it all ends. Should it work out well, I have another few ideas for novels that will likely take me the rest of my life to complete. Between these projects, short fiction will continue to appear sporadically in magazines, journals, and anthologies. I have three due in various books that have fallen behind on their publishing schedules, so I’m not sure when they’ll appear, but I remain ever hopeful and patient.

The post Year’s Best Weird Fiction Volume 3: An Interview with Simon Strantzas appeared first on Weird Fiction Review.

Image by Ida Kar, vintage bromide print, 1960

This post is part of an ongoing series on 101 weird writers featured in The Weird compendium, the anthology that serves as the inspiration for this site. There is no ranking system; the order is determined by the schedule of posts.

Robert Aickman (1914–1981) was an English writer of what he called “strange stories”; he wrote over thirty of them in his lifetime. Aickman had a tremendous influence on weird fiction. His tales masterfully created an atmosphere of dread and disquiet. Moreover, his stories were beautifully constructed with prose that could easily rival other great writers like Vladimir Nabokov. Aickman was also known for his conservationism and co-founding the Inland Waterways Association. This year, 2014, marks the 100th anniversary of his birth.

– David Davis, editor of 101 Weird Writers

***

hospice: noun \ˈhäs-pəs\

1. a place that provides care for people who are dying

2. a place where travelers can stay; especially: an inn kept by people in a religious organization.

          –Merriam Webster Dictionary

1. Entrainment

Robert Aickman’s “The Hospice” emerged near the end of his life. The story is the pinnacle of a well-honed technique and persists as a modern classic. Small wonder, because over the course of his career, he’d been writing it piecemeal all along. To approach the story properly, I endeavor as he did, and that is circuitously.

In the course of a recent review, critic Rick Kleffel remarked that, “Aickman understood the many ways of haunting.”^[1] Kleffel’s is a trenchant description of Mr. Aickman’s approach to weird fiction. I am not taken with the notion of gateway art or artists. Water seeks its own level. Unless pursued systematically, experience of one discipline or aesthetic does not imply reciprocal familiarity or access to another. However, I will advise this much: Don’t try to cut your milk teeth on this author. He’s a rare case, and with the exception of the literary equivalent of an occasional radio-friendly tune (“Ringing the Changes,” I’m looking at you), his work can’t be appreciated with the same relaxed ease as a top-forty pop-charter.

The surest way to comprehend Aickman is to read a lot of Aickman. You’ll have to work for it. You’ll return to his stories and turn them over, hunting for the access point, a seam, a code, or a hidden catch. Once you’re inside, once you’ve read and absorbed the message, you’ll return later to find everything has shifted, everything has changed, nothing is as you left it hours ago, or years ago. Maybe it’s you. Maybe it’s the seed Aickman has implanted in your brain. A multiplying, damnably adaptable psychic virus that sprang from the man himself (gods know where he picked it up) and manifested as several collections of the uncanny. To interact with Aickman on any meaningful level is to experience a form of quantum entanglement. His ideas entrain the subconscious and mutate it in the fashion that transgressive art must. And yes, I’m implying that the old boy has fucked your mind. Buttoned down or not, it’s just what he liked to do.

Arguably one of Aickman’s most important stories, “The Hospice” is his lens, his micro-focus upon man’s journey into the Beyond. In relatively few pages, he brings to a boil questions of transition, identity, and agency. The mutability of perception, the thin veneer of loyalty and security. 

At its core, this is a fable of decay and disintegration. Among contemporary kindred, I’ve only seen its like faithfully reflected, albeit via a warped body-length mirror, in the intensely erotic imagery of Livia Llewellyn who shares a preoccupation with matters of degeneration and transference by spiritual or psychic osmosis.

Aickman’s work often presents a major thesis of Weird literature: Life is far stranger than we assume. He frequently asks, what do we know? The answer: Nothing, and possibly less than. He tipped his hand in the majestic, “Larger than Oneself.” Another story where a gathering of the eccentric (as opposed to an eccentric gathering) is charged with tension attending an imminent collision with the numinous. Another story of supernatural impingement, of an outsider scrabbling at the door, and one where death lurks offstage, huffing and puffing with baleful menace. Ultimately, mortal flesh gets added to a massive ball of cosmic clay. Transitioned right off this terrestrial coil.

“The Hospice” stops short of that previous cataclysmic denouement. The anticlimax of this story in relation to “Larger than Oneself” is further evidence of his oeuvre’s obsession with its own narrowing of focus. This late work is an exhibition of the terminal; addition by subtraction; a drawing back from a precipice; the retraction of a fang after the serpent has delivered its bite.

2. Slave Rowers of Purgatory

“The Hospice” begins, if not technically in media res, certainly amidst ongoing events that are superficially explained and thereafter dismissed. The material world and its connections and complications recede, with one or two recurring exceptions, into a fog not unlike the umbra of a persistent dream or a nightmare.

Lucas Maybury, our protagonist and a company drone, is driving lost into the back of the Beyond. All he wishes is to get home to his wife. Dusk swells against the windshield. His eyes grow heavy and his sight grows dim. The petrol needle drifts near the E, then penetrates. Identical streets and gated driveways arc in an infinite loop, repeat. When he exits the car to approach a house for directions, he is briefly assailed by a cat, or something catlike. The creature, if not feline, perhaps a gargoyle, perhaps an unnamable figment lent fleeting substance, slashes his leg and flees, or evaporates. The attack shakes Maybury and leaves him anxious about venom and infection. The universe has shifted from passively confounding, to directly aggressive. It has sunk a claw in. It has drawn blood.

Calamities are compounded, yet one gets the impression that this is the most excitement Maybury has had in years. This stuffed shirt mama’s boy is on an adventure!

I don’t know whether the Eagles enjoyed a spot of Robert Aickman in prelude to the composition of “Hotel California.” I do believe the particles that constitute the universe tend to clump into discrete masses. These supra-objects and their wedding trains of gas and dust hurtle outward from the instigating detonation toward whatever awaits beyond where light doubles upon itself and time flattens to the black edge of God’s shaving razor. The journey of material existence is always about accretion and dissolution. We combine, we divide, and we dissolve into infinity. Time is a broken ring. Its jagged braid will cut you. Mortal agency, always a tenuous proposition, will be nullified.

It is clear from the start that Maybury’s own agency is on the wane. Gripping the steering wheel of the car is an illusion of control just as material life itself is arguably an illusion. He is not the agent of his own destiny, a sad fact reinforced by each new development. Despite a pretense of self-determination, Maybury is merely a passenger headed for a predestined result. From its inception, Maybury’s journey is conducted by a company manager who compels him on a “shortcut” into the Beyond. The shortcut lies in the opposite direction of the destination, of home. This incongruity, this instance of being forcibly conducted, is but the first of many pills our increasingly hapless protagonist will swallow.

Maybury tries his luck at a building with a sign proclaiming it to be THE HOSPICE. From the moment Falkner, the proprietor, admits him into the hospice dining hall for supper, Maybury senses something vital has gone awry. Yet, his response to irrational occurrences is oddly muted. Hunger, weariness, and irritable civility cloud his perceptions to danger. Initially, he dismisses the mounting strangeness as eccentricity, or clannish custom impenetrable to his outsider’s perspective. Other guests occupy a single long table while he is seated alone at a distant orbit. Everyone sups from oversized bowls and plates that remind Maybury of how parents might outfit toddlers. Baby plates, is the term that strikes him. Baby plates with THE HOSPICE encircling the rim.

The room is too warm, much too warm. Hot as hell, a colloquially-minded wit might be inclined to suggest. Portions are enormous. Maybury begins to struggle. Meanwhile other guests tuck into their meals with gusto. They have ceded the field to their lesser angels. The process of reversion to the primitive mode is akin to decomposition. The solid state universe retrogrades with each indulgence of physical appetite, with each debauchery of the senses. Human psyches are in the process of being broken upon a rock and ground into a fine powder, or reduced as fat is reduced in a cauldron of boiling water.

Throughout the proceedings, the old refrain, “life is but a dream” mutters and murmurs, an unattributed background chant as prosaic reality deliquesces around our protagonist. Or, more likely, it is the protagonist himself who is melting, reducing to his base desires. Either way, the hymn is given throat by a company of slaves chained to the deck of a Roman galley. The inhabitants of the hostel exist in a condition of exalted captivity, catered to and exhorted by the staff. So-called guests. There is no mistaking that these guests are prisoners. Prisoners of gluttonous vice, and certainly possessed of debilitating fear, if one cares to infer aspects of their eagerness to please as stemming from dread of some unspoken punishment. The bonds transcend the metaphorical. One of the guests is literally shackled at the ankle while handsome men in white jackets and women in blue dresses hover, wielding encouragement like whips.

Maybury notes that while his own appetite has dulled partway through the second course, the others eat “as if their lives depended on it.” When he begs off finishing a prodigious and slimy turkey entrée (a natural soporific, no less), his server becomes enraged and dashes the pate to pieces. A fascinating projection as it is precisely the outburst one might expect of a wrathful child.

3. Genius Loci

The weird cascade effect is only ramping up.

Maybury endures his meal and the displeasure of the server, one Mulligan. He escapes to the lounge for a cup of coffee, black. This is a special request granted with dictatorial benevolence by Falkner. In stark contrast to the monstrously large supper settings, the coffee arrives in a tiny cup. The coffee is not part of the regularly scheduled program; it represents a liminal desire of wakefulness, and therefor at odds with the apparent measure the hospice staff have undertaken to drug their guests into torpor and compliance.

As is often the case in an Aickman tale, you’ll bear witness to a weird sexual encounter. Maybury is accosted by a fellow guest named Cecile. She of the tragic demeanor and cloying perfume. During the course of their cryptic conversation, major domo Vincent observes their interaction with rapt concentration. Cecile becomes increasingly familiar, a fact that despite his married status, Maybury seems of no mind to dissuade. Her fraternization escalates until she seizes his hand and presses it to her breast and then curls into his lap. The festivities are eventually disrupted when Falkner announces curfew. Cecile slips away, but not before whispering an invitation into Maybury’s ear.

He recovers from this peculiar dalliance and requests petrol for his car. The car won’t start. However, Aickman is too clever to obstruct his protagonist’s escape with a cheap ploy such as mechanical failure, nor does he resort to the logical premise of sabotage. No, he doubles down on the weirdness quotient; goes all in on the dream atmosphere. Maybury simply can’t depress the starter—it’s the stuff of nightmares. The ignition seems to be a decoy, or Maybury has inexplicably forgotten the trick much as many people report of dreams where they appear in the buff at social functions. In any event, the starter refuses to budge until another of Falkner’s minions brutishly intervenes. Even so, this solution merely peels another rotten layer of the onion—the hospice vehicles only operate with diesel. Alas, diesel is incompatible with Maybury’s model. He’ll be forced to spend the night…And what a night it proves to be.

With every passing moment, Maybury descends into the rabbit hole. Beginning with the opaque suburban maze, continuing through a semi-coerced meal to this shipwreck upon a lee shore, and punctuated by Falkner’s glib obfuscation, the snare has tightened around his neck. No matter how he twists, the cathode bends to accommodate and drag him farther into the gloom of the underworld.

He is paired with an elderly gent named Bannard, who warns him against the dangers of inadvertently waking other guests as the men tiptoe into their room. The old man exhibits similarly peculiar behavior as Cecile, including a rather coy offer for sex before lights out. Thoroughly unnerved, Maybury lies awake wondering what has become of him. He is further alarmed to discover Bannard stealthily departing the room. Shortly thereafter, a series of shrieks echoes throughout the building. Maybury apprehends it as a death cry, but at this point one might excuse a cynical reader for wondering if it might be a “little death.” Our hero decides to investigate, but as with the car ignition, the doorknob refuses to budge. The curtains reveal blank wall absent windows. These, as are most items in dreams, stage props. He returns to his bed in a state of anxiety, helpless except to wait. The lone light bulb fizzles and dies. Bannard creeps into the room reeking of Cecile’s perfume, leaving us to ponder whether the earlier scream was elicited by torment or ecstasy. He falls into slumber, snoring loudly.

Are these events real, or is Maybury trapped in the amber of a hypnogogic state? In the morning Bannard pries into his personal life regarding his wife and son. Maybury’s answers are evasive—as if he possesses the vaguest recollection of how his dear ones appear. They assume a blurry, ethereal quality in his elliptical confirmation of their physical descriptions and personalities. When pressed as to whether he loves them, he offers a glib retort. It rings hollow.

Odder yet, the fellow he knows as Bannard seems changed, an older, keener version, an imperfect doppelganger. This imperfection, this off-kilter mutability, may be the key to unlocking the secret of “The Hospice.” Everything that exists within this microcosm of reality could simply be extracted from Maybury’s thoughts. Falkner knew his name shortly after Maybury arrived; a detail never satisfactorily explained. Certain individuals are vexingly familiar, as if retrieved from the recollection of a television show or magazine article. Cars that won’t start, doors that won’t budge—not until the dramatic moment demands they do so.

Indeed, the hospice may function as a kind of Lagerstätte, a repository wherefrom trapped consciousness slowly leaches as through a membrane to some ultimate destination. The building’s physical characteristics may be illusory, conjured from the subconscious memories of its inhabitant souls. Memory and dream are fragile. Known faces blur and alter. We forget our pants, we fail at rote tasks, we try to run and discover our feet stuck in quicksand. Dream state is a rough approximation of the waking world. Only that which is necessary or dramatic is fully revealed.

Whether the hospice and its staff are manifestations of a sentient being is debatable. In the context of Aickman’s wider portfolio, I’d hazard an affirmative. So, what does this genius loci desire? Domination, mental and physical, is the exhibited purpose of Falkner and enforced by the facilely pleasant staff. By their combined arms effect, tenants of the hospice are not only imprisoned, they are degraded unto a subdued, yet orgiastic infantilism.

Domination to what purpose, is the larger question. Are Falkner and his minions actually helper spirits guiding the lost through a transition from flesh to spirit? Is the hospice a spiritual sundew that sedates and pacifies its victims and then slowly digests them, blood, bones, memories and all? We may speculate, but we cannot know. That which lies beyond the veil is an abiding mystery.

4. The Passenger

Maybury’s final minutes as a guest are spent with Falkner who informs him (while unlatching a meticulously barred front door) there has been a death in the night. Vincent, clad in his white coat, leads four black-jacketed pallbearers down the stairs as they lug a coffin to a waiting hearse. Meanwhile a crowd of guests mills nearby, oblivious to the procession.

Falkner insists this transfer must be assayed quickly to spare his tenants pain. He offers Maybury a lift to town, which is accepted. Maybury is forced to ride in back with the coffin—the driver and a “director of the firm, a corpulent man” occupy the front seat. What firm does Aickman refer? Is this a sly insinuation that by logic of dream or a dying mind, we have circled back to the beginning as Maybury was directed to a nonexistent shortcut by a company man? What death is represented by the coffin? Both Cecile and Bannard are conspicuously absent from the throng of guests. Among the last comments Falkner makes, is that if Maybury leaves with the hearse he won’t be able to thank Bannard.

Some suggest, that Maybury himself was murdered in the black of night, that the silence within the hearse is not due to respect for the dead. Rather, it is symbolic that Maybury has begun the terminal approach to his destiny. At last, the driver leaves him at a bus station, saying, “It won’t be long.” Long before what? Before the bus arrives? Or not long until the last trickle charge of Maybury’s consciousness ebbs into the ether?

Whatever the true nature of the hospice, whatever the truth of Maybury’s fate, whatever the weird message this piece attempts to communicate, Robert Aickman ruthlessly cracks one’s skull open and rearranges the furniture. He intimates we are merely passengers in this existence, trapped, albeit briefly, on a repeating coil. As Maybury discovers while riding in austere silence in the rear of the hearse, we’re only getting out feet-first.

_____

^[1] Kleffel, Rick. “ ‘New Strange’ Stories Hold A Chilling Mirror To Life.” NPR. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/2013/06/22/191375234/new-strange-stories-hold-a-chilling-mirror-to-life

The post 101 Weird Writers #35 — Robert Aickman appeared first on Weird Fiction Review.

For those new to Aickman, Robert Aickman was an author of he called “strange stories.” He wrote over thirty of them in his lifetime. Aickman had a huge influence on weird fiction. His tales masterfully created a feeling of dread and the atmosphere was often a main focus of each story. His stories were beautifully constructed with prose that could rival other great writers like Vladimir Nabokov. The BBC recently presented a program in June about Robert Aickman which serves as an excellent introduction to Aickman. And R. B. Russell also posted a five part series of videos from a recent conference called “Intrusions: Looking after Aickman,” which is rather informative for fans both new and old.

Aickman’s cenntennial won’t be the only thing for Weird fans to get excited about though. There are four fantastic collections up for the award of best collection at the World Fantasy Convention. Beloved weird author Caitlín R. Kiernan was nominated for The Ape’s Wife and Other Stories – a fantastic collection that validates Kiernan’s role as one of weird fiction’s most talented living writers. Also on the short list is another excellent work by established weird writer Laird Barron called The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All and Other Stories. Perhaps the nomination most influenced by Aickman would be the collection Flowers of the Sea by Reggie Oliver — a beautiful and well-crafted set of tales from an amazing writer. Finally, the incredible debut collection North American Lake Monsters from relative newcomer Nathan Ballingrud is nominated as well. All of the collections up for the award are superb so it should be interesting to see who gets the award. It definitely will be an amazing convention this year.

The post Remembering Aickman at the World Fantasy Convention appeared first on Weird Fiction Review.