Señor 105 and the Elements of Danger, edited by Cody Quijano-Schell, reviewed by Stephen Theaker

“I am Señor 105 of Mexico. I fight for freedom, the defense of mankind and I am a friend to all children.” Iris Wildthyme’s superluchador chum, who has a mask for every element and (I think) a power for every mask, takes his place in the spotlight in Señor 105 and the Elements of Danger (Obverse Books, 106pp), edited by the character’s creator Cody Quijano-Schell, who also supplies the cover design (Paul Hanley being the artist) and a story, “Jackalope”, in which a pair of skinnydippers are attacked by horned bunny rabbits. That gives you a taste of what to expect here! If you go back far enough I think this book counts as a spin-off from Doctor Who, but the tone is more reminiscent of the quirky (and sadly short-lived) television series The Middleman, which also featured a luchador or two; its comedy comes from the seriousness with which a rather silly world is treated by its unfortunate (from our point of view) but happy-go-lucky inhabitants.

Zenith Lives! ed. by Stuart Douglas – reviewed by Stephen Theaker

M. Zenith the Albino is from the rogues’ gallery of Sexton Blake, although a book with the variety and quality of Zenith Lives! (Obverse Books, pb, 2425ll, edited by Stuart Douglas, fourth entry in the Obverse Quarterly series), attracting such high quality contributors as Michael Moorcock and Paul Magrs, makes one wonder whether he might outlive his opponent. I won’t pretend to be an expert on Zenith: all I knew till reading this book was that he had inspired the appearance of Elric of Melniboné; I didn’t even know of his connection to Sexton Blake. Luckily, a couple of stories in, my interest piqued, I was able to refer to Blakiana, a superb website maintained by Mark Hodder, another of the contributors to this book. From there I learnt that the original conception was one that we might now think rather old-fashioned, in that Zenith turned to evil out of bitterness over his albinism, but that aspect isn’t one on which these stories particularly dwell. Unlike Elric, he’s not a weakling; in these stories we read of “his powerful muscles and extraordinary sense of balance”.

Obverse Quarterly 1: Bite-Sized Horror, ed. by Johnny Mains – reviewed by Stephen Theaker

The title of this book might lead you to expect a collection of flash fiction or vampire stories, but it's neither, simply a collection of six short stories of average length. The introduction explains that there is no intentional theme, but there is perhaps an accidental one: the stories all seem to feature children, or parent-child relationships, in prominent roles; Pint-Sized Horror, you might say.

The two best stories bookend the collection, smartly ensuring that the book gives a good first impression, and sends the reader away happy. They were also, for me, the two stories in which one sensed most strongly a character to the writing; one could almost imagine the rest being written by a single author, but not these.

With Deepest Sympathy, by Johnny Mains | review by Stephen Theaker

Nicholas Royle's introduction to this collection of fourteen stories leaves the reader somewhat apprehensive, effusing over the author's enthusiasm and efforts in resurrecting the Pan Book of Horror series, but conspicuously avoiding any suggestion that these stories are any good. Royle does say that Mains "would have walked into the [Pan] series", but his own entry in the series is dismissed as "juvenile".

The first two stories, at least, surpass those lowered expectations. "Reconvened: The Judge's House" wraps itself with some vigour around a Bram Stoker story, and "With Deepest Sympathy", the title story, is by far the best of the book. Mrs Primrose Hildebrand discloses terrible secrets to those mourning the dead, in sympathy cards, and gets a nicely nasty comeuppance. It's an excellent idea for a story, well executed.

Unfortunately, later stories like "Losing the Plot", "Gun Money" and "Bloody Conventions" range from average to mediocre, while "The Spoon" is just a daft joke and "The Family Business" is a barely fictionalised account of an embalming. We're told only that two of the stories have been previously published, one in Pantechnicon and one in The Obverse Book of Ghosts (though a third appeared in The Fourth Black Book of Horror), and this does have the feel of being a collection of everything the author happens to have written, rather than a carefully curated selection of his best work.

The book is also a bit old-fashioned and unsophisticated; deliberately so, of course, but some stories are weaker for it, and none feel particularly fresh or surprising. "Final Draft", about an enthusiast tracking down a Pan Horror author in hope of extracting one last story from him, unaccountably fluffs the chance to make the entire collection and its author part of its fiction. That lack of tricksiness makes this a slightly odd fish among the Obverse list.

In one way this book does match its Obverse stablemates, I'm afraid: as with Ms Wildthyme and Friends Investigate, the proofreading is dreadful, if it's been done at all. Missing apostrophes abound (or fail to, one should say), and other typical mistakes include "five squeals, in tandem" and "He got up … and left the restraint" (meaning restaurant).

As Royle's introduction says, it would indeed "be a churlish critic who begrudged [Johnny] his own collection", and I won't do that. Each story does at least have an idea to its name, and if you squint and tilt your head just so you can see a hint of what a more gifted writer – a Basil Copper, say – might have done with those ideas.

But what was gruesome and transgressive in the seventies seems less so today; for a collection of horror stories, With Deepest Sympathy is awfully cosy and mild. After Connell's Unpleasant Tales, for example, much of this seems quite tame, the big shocks diluted by a sense of "Is that all?" It isn't frightening; the mechanics of a horror story are in place, but something's not quite right.

None of the stories are brilliant, some are downright poor, and it didn't really deserve hardback publication, but it's an enthusiastic re-creation of the kind of book the author likes to read: that's an impulse I understand. To that extent it's a success. If you like that kind of thing, this is more of that kind of thing, only not quite so good – and sometimes that's good enough.

With Deepest Sympathy, Johnny Mains, Obverse Books, epub, c.2189ll. Reviewed from own copy.

Is there any point in buying print books if I'm not going to read them?

I was thinking this morning about buying the new collection of short stories by Johnny Mains, With Deepest Sympathy, from Obverse Books. It looks interesting, and I liked the last book I read from that publisher.

But it's not out on Kindle, which made me think: am I ever going to read this? When was the last time I bought and read a book in print? I couldn't actually remember. So I went to look at my list of books read on Goodreads.

Leaving aside the Penguin 60s I used to read when collecting the children from school, I found that during 2009 and 2010 I read just one novel or short story collection that I bought in print format.

It was Mass Effect: Revelations, by Drew Karpyshyn, back in January of this year, when I was in the full throes of a Mass Effect obsession.

The one before that was all the way back in December 2008, when I read Derai, a fine book in E.C. Tubb's Dumarest series, and then October 2008, for Deb Olin Unferth's interesting novel from McSweeney's, Vacation.
 
I read books in print when they're submitted for review, of course, and I have bought the odd book in print this year, most recently The Seventh Black Book of Horror – I was keen to read the infamous "Bernard Bought the Farm"!

But buying print books – and filling up my house with them – starts to seem a bit pointless if I'm only going to read one or two of them a year – or none at all in 2009.

In fact, when I do fancy reading one of the paper books I own, especially the hardbacks, my first thought is to look it up in the Kindle store. I'd rather pay a few extra quid and read it on Kindle...

Ms Wildthyme and Friends Investigate, by Stuart Douglas, Cody Schell, Jim Smith and Nick Wallace

Iris Wildthyme is a brassy time-traveller and adventurer – a cross between Mrs Cornelius and Una Persson – who originated in the novels of Paul Magrs before achieving a certain notoriety in his Doctor Who books. This book of four novellas is largely devoted to her friends.

"The Found World", by Jim Smith, featured Professor Challenger, Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Watson, submarines and secret Scottish bases, and while it was good and pushed each and every one of my buttons, I fear I'm in danger of exploding if I read another Victorian crossover too soon.

In Nick Wallace's "The Irredeemable Love" the time-lost inhabitants of the Manleigh Holt Police Station investigate a terrible house in the woods. This relatively serious and surprisingly frightening story, told from a series of overlapping viewpoints, was for me the highlight of the book.

"Elementary, My Dear Sheila" by Cody Schell couldn't have been more different. This tale of a Mexican wrestler, Senor 105, and his friends – including Sheila, a balloon with a Parisian accent – convening for a book club was surreal and deliberately silly. Welcome qualities in any story! But this one would perhaps have been more enjoyable had the characters treated the silliness with a little more seriousness.

The punctuation goes a bit haywire in "The Shape of Things" by Stuart Douglas, but the story's good fun, plucking a MacGuffin from the previous story and running with it through time. Iris, her panda and her bus take centre stage and of all the stories this felt most reminiscent of Iris's earlier adventures.

Unfortunately the book is poorly proofed, and if you haven't read previous volumes it may seem rather randomly assembled, but there is plenty to enjoy regardless: it's entertaining, good-natured and undemanding; a good collection of very varied novellas.

Ms Wildthyme and Friends Investigate, by Stuart Douglas, Cody Schell, Jim Smith and Nick Wallace, Obverse Books, pb, 192pp.