So, for some time, I’ve been meaning to finally write a post to justify having a “Books” button on the sidebar. Therefore, I’d like to present Tales of Dungeons and Dragons, an anthology of short stories edited by Peter Haining.
Now, with a title like this, one may imagine ‘dungeons’ or ‘dragons,’ or something originating from Gary Gygax, or at least some degree of high fantasy, but really, this is more of a horror collection than anything else, with the cover being the only connection to that expectation. Inside, you’ll find 30 stories, grouped into three parts: Part I – The Sealed Section: Tales of Horror; Part II – The Ghost Section: Tales of the Supernatural; and Part III – The Wonder Section: Tales of Fantasy. Among many others, it collects stories from such luminaries of the dark fantastic as Bram Stoker, Edgar Allen Poe, Robert Bloch, Stephen King, M.R. James, Algernon Blackwood, H.P. Lovecraft, and Ray Bradbury.
The whole volume is solid and generally worth one’s time, if one is up for a certain earlier era of writing. As it’s not feasible to delve into the whole book, I’d like to focus on three stand-out tales. Each of them in some way surprised me (a good way, a bad way, or an other way) and has lingered in the mind in some fashion. Let’s begin with the most fun.
The Dualitists (1887) by Bram Stoker
Written ten years before Dracula, this story is honestly shocking. Really. I don’t think I could duly prepare you for it without spoiling the tale entirely. With an older film, I don’t worry about spoilers, expecting that a reader of this blog has had a pretty fair chance to have seen some much-discussed genre classic, but in this case, I expect few have read this so I want to tread carefully. Suffice it to say, it is suggested only for those with a particularly dark sense of humor.
Also, it is very much in the public domain, so here’s a link to check it out for yourself, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.
I think this is a special one. Written in a very literary, almost archaic style, its pretensions of class belie its wicked, impish desire to shock. Here, with deepest irony, we follow the adventures of two ‘heroic’ young boys who set out to perfect their chosen art. This art just happens to be more than a bit destructive. Perhaps the most fascinating feature here, besides a brutality you might not expect from a pre-twentieth century text not written by de Sade, is the way that its young heroes are always described in such shining, heightened terms. Despite the extremity of their actions, Harry and Tommy are never characterized as anything other than brave, adventurous juveniles, engaged in an exciting and daring effort:
“The minds of these youths were of no common order, nor were their souls of such weak nature as to yield at the first summons of necessity. Like Nelson, they knew not fear; like Napoleon, they held ‘impossible’ to be the adjective of fools; and they reveled in the glorious truth that in the lexicon of youth is no such word as ‘fail’.”
And so, the effect is all the greater when you start to realize where they are going. A dread grows as they move towards the apex of their artistry. And even though I could see the direction the story was taking, I was wholly unprepared for how totally it would go there. The horror lands, but it does so with the unstifled guffaw of disbelief at its extremity.
I hope I’m not overselling it. Anyway, maybe check this one out. Maybe.
The Eighty-Third (1916) by Katherine Fullerton Gerould
So whereas the first story was shocking in a very successful and enjoyable way, this next one brought a different manner of jolt. And not a pleasant one.
First, it must be said that the writing here is effective and the story telling works. A picture is clearly painted and the tension, fear, horror, and anger of the protagonist is stark and striking. The narrative does suffer from a common pattern in horror fiction of situating its main character as a mere witness to horrors with little power to affect the course of events, but that lack of agency is part of the horror as well. So I can say it is generally good, effective horror writing.
But ye gods, it is so very, very, very racist.
Just as Stoker’s piece was shocking in its extremity, this tale left my jaw on the floor in just how ugly its sentiment is.
Ok, so here’s the story and though a full text may be available out there, I don’t feel the need to link to it. Look it up if you like.
Published in 1916, this tale assumes that World War I would end one year later, but that the war to follow would be the one to really end human civilization. This story takes place during that next war. The narrator is a citizen of one of the few remaining neutral countries and is trying to work his way through war-torn lands to pass a border into temporary safety. Along the way, he hears tell of some nightmare regiment called “the eighty-third.” No one can agree about what it is and why it is so horrible, but it is generally known that it only travels by night, and that it is somehow wrong.
One night, taking shelter in a shack on the edge of a village, the narrator wakes to discover a local peasant woman hiding with him, driven there by the coming of the dreaded eighty-third. She summarily faints in fear and he fearfully watches through a crack in the wall.
This gets ugly. Basically, the eighty-third consists of a multi-ethnic collection of disfigured soldiers who are carted from village to village by the conquering force to use rape as a weapon of war, such that “those who did not go the clean, cruel way of death should be defiled past hope.” The narrator observes these assaults being carried out in cold, calculated fashion, his gun pointed at the unconscious peasant woman should their location be discovered and he have to spare her the horror.
Finally, they pass and he continues on his way, sharing what he has seen and building to a multi-page diatribe about how the white man is an endangered species and bemoaning the end of all things.
Yeesh, right?
I debated writing about this one. I suppose I did because it is noteworthy how seemingly uncontroversial this text was. When published (in Harper’s Monthly, a reputable magazine), it was reportedly much lauded, one of the most popular short stories of the year. One prominent critic called it “the most completely realized study of horror that American Literature has produced since The Fall of the House of Usher.”
Ok, but that was more than 100 years ago. This kind of material wouldn’t fly today, or at least wouldn’t go unremarked on, right?
Well, this collection was published in 1986. Only thirty five years ago. Now, it’s not that I’m necessarily appalled by its inclusion. As I’ve already written, it is a very successful horror story and probably of historical interest, an artifact of its time and place. What blew me away is the fact that in the introduction to Gerould’s racist tract, its vile nature is entirely unengaged with.
I’m not one to ‘cancel’ things, but I can’t imagine anthologizing this text without some kind of contextualization, simply presenting it rather, as one more great story. Here’s a story about a vampire. Now, here’s one about a ghost. Now here’s one about the coming horde of non-white peoples who will defile all the white ladies.
I don’t recommend the story per se, but its existence, and it having been held in a place of some honor, is of some note.
The Lighthouse (unfinished/unpublished) by Edgar Allen Poe (sort of)
Having loved his 2015 film The VVitch, I was stoked to see Robert Eggers’s 2019 follow up, The Lighthouse, and it did not disappoint, leaving me giddy and delighted, with a sea shanty in my heart. I’m bound to write about it at greater length in these pages before too long.
So, I was quite excited to discover that this odd collection contained Poe’s last, unfinished story, upon which the film had been based, but I had never read. Or at least, a posthumous collaboration between Poe and Robert Bloch who, 6 years before penning Psycho, was commissioned to finish Poe’s manuscript. It was an interesting and intriguing read, and I continually wondered at what point Bloch had taken over.
In summary, the story takes the form of diary entries by a man who has come to serve as a lighthouse keeper. Alone. Already it doesn’t seem like a great idea, but it is his most fervent wish to have time to himself to work on a piece of writing of some import. It’s mentioned at one point that he’s supposed to be here for one year (which is hard to imagine), but by the end of the first week, he’s already going mad and by the end of the first month, our story has reached its end.
I first read this one during the first lockdown of the Coronavirus times and it was rather appropriate. There are some things that seem relatively easy, even pleasant at first, that can quickly sour. I particularly appreciate a passage where he writes of how hard it is to turn himself towards the book he’s meant to write. He has all the time in the world, but he can’t do it. I think that would ring true for many a creative type locked in their apartment for the last year:
“I seek to write – the book is bravely begun, but of late I can bring myself to do nothing constructive or creative – and in a moment, I fling aside my pen and rise to pace, to endlessly pace the narrow, circular confines of my tower of torment.”
Who hasn’t been there?
Finally, it builds towards a climax that I was certain could not have originated with Poe. I don’t want to give too much away, but the presence of a certain vampiric shark lady (who, sure, may have been a product of madness, but still…) materializing out of a storm before being fought off by the narrator’s faithful dog just seemed somehow less Poe-ish.
So then I worked my way back through the story, trying to determine where lay Poe’s final lines. I had some theories, but looked it up to check…
Out of a 14 page story, he had written the first 1.5. Of course, Fantastic, the magazine where this version had first been published, made little mention of this fact when heralding “a new Edgar Allen Poe masterpiece.”
Basically, Poe wrote of the keeper coming to the lighthouse and being pretty happy to have some time to himself. The only hint of trouble was the final line of day three, in which he noted that the foundation of the building seemed to be made of chalk. The next day’s entry was blank.
It’s unknown if this was to be continued as a short story, fleshed out to a novel, or if perhaps this was the whole piece, and that it just ends abruptly and enigmatically, suggesting that things will not go well. Either way, this was an interesting exercise. I think it might be fascinating to even have a whole anthology of different authors completing the text in their own way—doing justice to his suggestions, his style, but then branching off in their own directions. That could be a book worth picking up.
Anyway, the building dread and madness are characteristically enjoyable and the fish lady was a real surprise.