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Beyond state-of-the-art
horror from 1994.
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One of my favorite little
books of the 1990's was Joel Lane's The Earth
Wire. Lane edited 'Chills: The Magazine of
the British Fantasy Society', among other
pursuits, but this trade paperback, elegantly
designed and written contained only his own so
very dislocated work. But even before this was
published, horror became a very bad word in the
UK publishing world. It remains so to this very
day.
But if you can scare up a
copy, this collection demonstrates the best that
the horror genre had to offer, which has little
in common with super gory slasher shtick. These
are imaginative stories of people hanging on to
or falling off of the sharpest edges of life,
well-written and rather on the intense side. But
that was 1994, and many things have happened
since then, none of them managing to include me
seeing a new novel or collection by the talented
Mr. Joel Lane.
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Joel Lane's 2003 novel 'The
Blue Mask' harkens to themes from
Cecile Pineda's novel
'Face'.
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...Cut to 2003, and Rick
Kleffel rummaging through the used hardcovers at
Logos books, looking for something by Joe R.
Lansdale as a gift for a friend. No Lansdale in
sight, but what do I find but the thankfully
still writing Joel Lane, represented by this
Serpent's Tail trade paperback original. Lane is
still up to his old tricks, in this novel of a
man disfigured by a random attack who must
rebuild his life. It's a very nice package, and
just the kind of thing we like to find whilst
poking about our used bookstores.
