Cemetery Dance #66: A Retrospective
Cemetery Dance is the best magazine dedicated to horror literature for me. Why? They are the only
magazine who strives to love the genre, with its faults and all. Whereas some wiseass and highbrow
journal would look down with contempt at the various material that the horror genre has to offer,
Cemetery Dance would level with it, understanding that brilliance is often equated with overtly literary
writing.
As of this writing, this issue of Cemetery Dance is officially seven (7) years old. Reading the news page
of the magazine is nostalgic and painful at the same time. (The Dark Tower by Ron Howard? Give me
that please!) I will discuss the fiction and some interesting tidbits of information found in this issue.
LINES BY BILL PRONZINI
A career-criminal named Hood goes after his wife and the man she cheated Hood with. They also have
stolen S2,000 from him. Hood finally tracks them down to a tavern in Nevada called the Buckhorn
Tavern. All is set for revenge, but there is another player in this game and it is far more mysterious…
Bill Pronzini’s crime tale seems to be a variant of the ole’ Parker tale of criminal revenge but when the
Twilight Zone and David Lynch elements come in, it takes a head-scratching and ultimately somber tone.
I haven’t read enough of Pronzini’s work to be able to identify common themes but this tale is engaging
and a great opener.
STEPHEN KING: NEWS FROM THE DEAD ZONE BY BEV VINCENT
I have already mentioned the news for the Dark Tower movie supposedly to be directed by Ron Howard
but I love this part, as stuff like this had to be explained to reader back then:
“If you don’t have a Kindle or an iPhone/ iPad, you can download a free program for PCs from Amazon
that allows you to read Kindle content.”
SCREE BY STEVE RASNIC TEM
A man hardened by life finds himself seemingly falling apart-literally. Between buying adhesives to glue
himself together and philosophizing on his life, he feels the need to reconnect with his estranged
daughter. But is he really suffering a strange malady or is it a product of a sad and disturbed life?
I don’t know much about SRT’s work, but I know that I love horror that packs an emotional punch a la
Gary A. Braunbeck or Jack Ketchum. SRT’s tale of body-horror and hallucination (?) gets to you since
the main character’s mental state is a place all of us have been to at least once. If we experience such
tragedy, again, would you just… fall apart? Great story.
FINE POINTS BY ED GORMAN
I love Ed Gorman’s (R.I.P) take on legendary producer Val Lewton’s films:
“They work as classic dark tales of vengeance and retribution and, most of all, as portals into terrifying
worlds we only reluctantly enter.”
MAKING STRANGE: A GOTHIC CONVERSATION WITH TERRY DOWLING
AUSTRALIA’S PREMIER WRITER OF THE IMAGINATION BY DANEL OLSON
This is an informative interview into the mind of acclaimed Australian horror writer Terry Dowling
specifically how he views horror and how he achieves the same through his fiction. The interview is
chock-full of references to relatively obscure figures and personalities not commonly associated with the
genre like Tzvetan Todorov, Andre Breton Etc.
Dowling’s prose is often dense and challenging but in the interview he gives this interesting and
noteworthy simple idea that is simply chilling:
“In An Intimate Knowledge of the Night back in 1995 I described the simple act of letting yourself into
someone’s house when they are not there and putting a chair on the kitchen table, just that, then doing it
again four months later. Something small but, yes, very disturbing, all the more so because so trivial.”
NIGHTSIDE EYE BY TERRY DOWLING
Jared and his crew are at the Delfray Room of the Hydro Majestic Hotel. Their objective is to identify the
disturbance troubling guests at this particular room using the “Nightside Eye”, a special eyepatch
designed to enhance the optic capabilities of one eye. The last person who tried to see the entity 15
months ago using the same device has apparently disappeared after supposedly seeing something so
disturbing he had to take memory-suppressing drugs. Jared has replicated the same conditions that led to
the sighting 15 months ago, but what sights await him from the other side?
Terry Dowling’s tale is great and perhaps a little too wordy for my taste. But the science behind the
aforementioned Nightside Eye is fascinating and the buildup to the sighting is exciting. I’ll be reading
more Dowling in the future.
EDITORIAL PERSPECTIVES: A VIEW FROM THE OTHER SIDE OF THE DESK BY DON
D’AURIA
Another painful read. We have D’Auria fresh from his firing from Leisure Books and he gives the reason
behind the supposes decline of the once-profitable line:
“In the last year or two publishing has seen a dramatic and continued decline of sales of mass market
paperbacks and a stunning triple growth of e-book sales. Maybe it was the coming of the Kindle, maybe it
was the lowering of the prices, but somewhere along the way e-books caught on. And then they really
caught on. In the middle of a terrible recession, e-reader sales had double-digit (and sometimes triple-
digit) growth every year for the past few years.”
He explicitly states it again as the reason behind Leisure penny-pinching its authors:
“I worked for a mass market publisher quite happily for fifteen years, running a horror line that I was
very proud of. But over the last year or two, our sales were dropping month after month as folks switched
from mass market paperbacks to e-books.”
It’s really good to know this since I never heard the reason behind the destruction of the Leisure horror
line. Granted that this is a favorite topic of Brian Keene and Co., I have never heard them mention the
factors that led to the company’s unscrupulous handling of their authors.
But D’Auria mentions this tidbit and knowing what will eventually happen in the near future makes it
even more painful and heartbreaking:
“About a month after I left my old company I began to talk to the owner and publisher of Samhain
Publishing, a company that had been publishing both trade paperbacks and e-books very successfully for
about six years. So successfully, in fact, they were eager to expand into a new area: horror.”
I hope you find happiness in Flame Tree Press Mr. D’Auria.
THE MOTHERS AND FATHERS ITALIAN ASSOCIATION BY THOMAS F. MONTELEONE:
AND YOUR POINT IS? OR WHY A CARNIVAL IS ALWAYS BETTER THAN A CIRCUS
Tom Monteleone vs. the pseudo-intellectual novel (and apparently, a forgery) The Tree of Codes by
Jonathan Safran Foer. Nuff Said.
SAID THE JOKER TO THE THIEF: THE EDWARD LEE INTERVIEW BY MICHAEL LOHR
I’m just happy that Edward Lee gets this fact, something that other extreme horror writer never seem to
be aware of:
“But that whole “let’s get outrageous with Christianity” thing has been hackneyed to death in the whole
internet-fiction thing. It’s boring, juvenile, silly, and not at all provocative. The best way to offer the
reader something provocatively outrageous is to do it pithily and integrally. It’s harder than it may
appear but it’s a lot of fun.”
INSIDE BY JEREMY C. SHIPP
What happens when your identity is useless and you are relegated as nothing but consumable stock?
Jeremy Shipp’s short tale poignantly discusses that question.
HORROR DRIVE-IN BY MARK SIEBER
“The love of reading is a gift that was bestowed upon me by older brothers who were science fiction fans.
It’s a gift that we, all of us, need to try to hand down. To our children, to our nieces and nephews, to the
young people that we happen to meet. It’s one of the greatest gifts of all.”
Amen, Mr. Sieber.
THE VRYKOLAKAS AND THE COBBLER’S WIFE BY DAVID LEE SUMMERS ARTWORK BY GAK (R.I.P)
Does the stain of being an undead vampire erase social and marital responsibility? Can those two
incompatible lives co-exist? David Lee Summers explores those themes in this well-told, compelling tale
told like an adult fairy-tale.
SPOTLIGHT ON PUBLISHING BY ROBERT MORRISH
I always applaud reviewers who are able to voice out their displeasure of Ramsey Campbell, an author
who I personally feel is ubiquitous- and not in a good way:
“Ramsey Campbell has produced thirty novels during his long and prolific career, and my reactions to
the ones I’ve read tend to run hot or cold— I was hugely impressed by titles such as Incarnate, The
Hungry Moon, and Ancient Images, but left unsatisfied by others such as The Doll Who Ate His Mother
and The Influence. His latest, The Seven Days of Cain, falls somewhere between the two extremes, but
closer to the hotter end of the scale.”
He also disses early Graham Masterton books like Djinn and Revenge of the Manitou. (which I also
hated).
THE FINAL QUESTION BY BRIAN JAMES FREEMAN
The question is: What was your worst childhood fear?
I have two (2) great answers
1. Neil Gaiman: “Being completely alone. In the dark.”
2. Steve Rasnic Tem: No small quotation can do this justice. Read SRT’s true creepy childhood
story. It made my blood run cold.
