2008, Prime Books

We've all seen the blurbs before: "This author is the new that author" and "So-and-so is the future of horror." We've seen them so much, in fact, that who could blame us for no longer believing them? Maybe some of us even stopped thinking there was such a thing as an author who is the "future of horror." Lately I've been wondering if the future of horror might not, in fact, lie in its past. Birthed by Mary Shelley in 1818, the genre was nursed to maturity by the likes of Edgar Allan Poe, Sheridan Le Fanu, Bram Stoker, Ambrose Bierce, M.R. James, Henry James, Arthur Machen and Algernon Blackwood. These authors were a strong influence on Richard Matheson, who was a strong influence on Stephen King, who in turn was a strong influence on, well, everybody else.

These classic authors' influence is felt even more strongly, without the dilution seen in Matheson and King, in John Langan's first collection of stories, Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters. In her introduction, Elizabeth Hand draws this same parallel, linking Langan's work to James and Blackwood, and goes on to write that he "celebrate[s] supernatural fiction's antiquarian and visionary past with as much eloquence and acuity -- and terror -- as they explore the dark heart of the 21st century." I couldn't have put it better myself. For those who miss the subtlety, atmosphere and detailed attention to language of horror's past masters, reading Langan is a treat.

Mr. Gaunt collects five of his stories, all of novelette or novella length, only four of which have seen previous publication. The first, "On Skua Island," is a story so strongly influenced by both Jameses -- M.R. and Henry -- that it actually starts with an almost word-for-word homage to the opening scene of The Turn of the Screw. But unlike the dinner guests in James' classic novella, the ones here aren't trading ghost stories, they're speaking of far more visceral horrors, and when a mysterious, previously quiet guest pipes up with a story he'd like to share, the reader is instantly transported to the isolated, mist-shrouded Skua Island, where something terrible stalks an archeological expedition that has dared to unearth a cursed grave. While a familiarity with The Turn of the Screw -- as well as the "cursed object" stories by the other James, namely "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad" and "Casting the Runes" -- will give the reader an extra thrill, "On Skua Island" remains an incredibly strong story on its own merits. Further, it cements Langan's grasp of language and establishes the intelligent and layered writing style that the reader will encounter through the rest of the collection.

What the reader encounters immediately after "On Skua Island," in particular, is nothing short of a masterpiece of modern weird fiction. On the outside, the novella "Mr. Gaunt" may appear to be a simple story of family terrors brought to light after the death of the protagonist's father, but Langan's deeply layered prose and emotionally detached style (there's that antiquarian influence again!) raises the story to astounding heights. To say any more about the plot would be to ruin the pleasure of your experience, but I suspect you'll never again think of skeletons as goofy or laughable horror tropes. Additionally, the novella ends on such a note of cavalier nonchalance in the face of terror as to render the entire experience superbly chilling.

If a collection as strong as this one can be said to have any disappointments -- and I wouldn't even go so far as to use that word -- it would be the next story, "Tutorial." Following a writing student who is sent deeper and deeper into the bowels of a mysterious university building to meet with an increasingly grotesque array of writing tutors who tell him to scrap his own prose style in favor of blindly following Strunk & White, under threat of death no less, will be amusing to fellow writers, especially with the tutor-creatures' cultish, hymn-like repetition of S&W's famous advice to "omit needless words," but the average reader may find it little more than a curious exercise in inside jokes. "Episode Seven: Last Stand Against the Pack in the Kingdom of the Purple Flowers," may be the collection's most difficult tale due to its experimental structure. A thirty-three-page story comprised of no more than roughly a dozen sentences, "Episode Seven" tells the story of two survivors of a strange and inexplicable apocalypse, running through a ruined landscape in order to escape the massive, deadly dog-like beasts of the Pack. There's a brilliant hint of a famous DC Comics character woven into the narrative, one I almost missed until the very end when I suddenly realized exactly what one of survivors might be turning into, and then I grinned from ear to ear with happy recognition.

The final novella, "Laocoon, or the Singularity," is the collection's sole original piece, and it's a doozy. A struggling, down on his luck artist finds a curious, terrifying, mostly-finished statue by the dumpsters in the alleyway next to his home. Strangely drawn to this work of art, which he finds reminiscent of Giger's famous alien, he takes it home and decides he's going to finish it himself, only to grow more and more obsessed with its completion. Blending classical Greek mythology, Lovecraftian otherworldliness and a few clever references to REVENGE OF THE SITH, Langan creates an almost Barkeresque masterpiece of transformational body horror.

Langan, an adjunct instructor at SUNY New Paltz, is well on his way to creating a multilayered, deconstructive (and reconstructive) body of work that reminds me a lot of the oeuvre of another great horror author equally influenced by the classics. While I'm not going to say Langan is the new anyone -- I prefer to think he is the first John Langan -- I will say this: Should the day ever come when Peter Straub decides to retire from writing (God forbid!), John Langan may very well be poised to take his place as one of the foremost voices in intelligent, literate horror fiction.