mark monday's Reviews > The Black Maybe: Liminal Tales

"To Bite a Dog" - girl bites a dog and finds herself, finds that she can be larger than herself. in a world of predators and prey, why not be the one who bites?

"Fogtown" - is it a ghost band or the fog of remembrance, the fog of nostalgia? if one wasn't there, can one at least dream of being there and maybe recreate what hasn't been experienced? perhaps only death can bring you there.

"The Time Remaining" - the plush toys are all infected and soon will die. the children weep but know what must be done to ease their little ones into the black kingdom: operations. but will death be the end for their little friends?

"Return to the Midnight School" - "A child shouldn't hear its own father's corpse roar in the night."

"In the Snow, Sleeping" - at the spa, things happen... a ruined room, new friends, coke in the bathroom, a corpse in the pool, bite marks, the death of a relationship, an engagement ring accepted...

"Multiplied by Zero" - a zero takes a trip to the black kingdom, to see the ancient ones, to be hunted in the night, to embrace the zero-ness of existence. surprise, surprise... on this vacation, true love is found! :)

"The Amber Complex" - take a sip of this complex drink and find yourself transported away. to a beach. into the water, into the wind. within a spider, burrowing through flesh. into the universe, into the minds of all of humanity. alas.

"Sky Filled with Crows" - a demon tries and tries and fails and fails. it's tough being assigned to a malcontent.

"Walks Among You" - a slice of life, a slice into the flesh. cultists walk among us, thirsting for blood and for love and for meaning in life. life can be a drag, even for the devout.

"The Black Maybe" - a trip to the country, to see what life is like there, to understand those country rituals that reap such fine rewards. squeeze for oil, oil the chains, snip the essence, feed the larvae, create the slaves. moral of the story: when someone offers to fuck you, let them.

☭

remarkable concepts, unremarkably executed. the Hungarian author Attila Veres has ice in his veins and a big mind full of interesting ideas. perhaps the problem is the translation? or perhaps the POV chosen - the disaffected narrators really created distance between me and the text. or perhaps the problem was an attempt to be like other authors, to recreate their stories' effects- Ligotti could be one such influence, Aickman perhaps another. I'm not sure what made this collection so uninteresting to me, but whatever the reason may be, despite my recognition that this is a very original mind at work, I was often bored and annoyed within a couple pages of nearly every story.

two exceptions: "Return to the Midnight School" and the title story. both feature nightmarish rural rituals in a couple very strange villages. strange to me the reader, not strange to the villagers or even the world those villages live in. here the nonchalance really worked. both of these tales were appalling, amusing, repulsively creative. glossy poisonous fruit. Midnight School in particular was jaw-dropping in its total weirdness, its immersive quality. kudos!