"The Unsettled Dust" by Robert Aickman

Year of Publication:  1990

Length:  362 pages

Genre:  Horror, fantasy, short stories

During his lifetime English author Robert Aickman was probably best known as a conservationist, helping to set up the Inland Waterways Association to preserve canals in Britain, but after his death in 1981 at the age of 66, his reputation has grown as an author of unique skill.  The Unsettled Dust, which was published posthumously, contains eight of his forty eight horror stories (or "strange stories" as Aickman preferred to term them).  

In "The Unsettled Dust" a visitor to an old dust-shrouded English country house, finds something there even more sinister than the two creepy sisters who live there; in "The Houses of the Russians" a man recounts how he found a magical talisman on a forbidden island in Finland; in "No Stronger than a Flower" an unhappy woman undergoes bizarre changes after a visit to a sinister beautician; in "The Cicerones" a tourist comes to regret his visit to a remote Belgian church; in "The Next Glade" a woman is haunted by a strange man she meets at a party; in "Ravissante" a young artist has a disturbing experience when he visits the elderly widow of a famous painter; in "Bind Your Hair" a woman meets some strange new friends when she visits her boyfriend's family in their remote country village; and in "The Stains" a bereaved man falls in love with a strange young woman, and loses far more than his heart.

Robert Aickman wrote beautiful prose.  His stories are well crafted, with psychologically complex characters in a carefully described, mundane world, that become increasingly strange and disturbing, until the characters are trapped with no way out.  Even at the end of the stories, it's unclear whether it is really the end.  Often the darker elements in the stories are hinted at and are more ambiguous than explicit, and very little is actually explained.  The stories have a genuinely disquieting feel to them, and some of them are really genuinely scary.  Recommended for fans of intelligent supernatural horror.  

"Exhalation" by Ted Chiang

Year of Publication:  2019
Length:  350 pages
Genre:  Science-fiction, short stories

In this collection of nine short stories by author Ted Chiang, a merchant in ancient Baghdad uses a time portal to try to fix past mistakes; an investigation into a seemingly small oddity causes an alien doctor to stumble upon a secret which could threaten the entire universe; a novelty device puts the entire question of free will into question; a new type of virtual pet develops intelligence and self-awareness; a Victorian robot nanny produces unexpected and disturbing side effects; a company develops software that could give an individual perfect recall of any event in their lives; the first contact with a non-human intelligence could come from much closer to home than anyone could guess; a scientist on a highly religious alternate Earth makes a discovery that could put all their beliefs into question; and a device that allows people to see into the lives of their counterpart in parallel universes leads to positive and negative outcomes.

This is the second volume of short stories by American author Ted Chiang, who is probably best known for his story "Story of Your Life", which was adapted as the film Arrival (2016).  The stories in this volume deal with some well-known science-fiction concepts, but they are dealt with in a refreshingly unique way.  The fantastical elements are well-rendered and intelligently realised, and the stories are more concerned with their impact on  human nature.  Chiang is a very good writer, who doesn't just craft intriguing and intelligent stories, but also deeply moving ones as well.  There is a real humanity and compassion here.  This is well recommended for anyone looking for great science-fiction, and also great contemporary fiction in general.

"Growing Things and Other Stories" by Paul Tremblay

Year of Publication:  2019
Number of Pages:  476
Genre:  Horror, short stories

This is a collection of nineteen short horror stories: Two sisters struggle to survive in a world choked by lethal ever-growing plants; a school class have their lives ruined by a shocking video; a meth addict kidnaps her child while her town is seemingly destroyed by a giant monster; an aspiring journalist gets more than he bargains for when he interviews a cult author; a woman is haunted by her childhood ghosts in a Choose Your Own Adventure story; a horror writer soon regrets hiring a dog walking service and more.

As with all anthologies it's a mixed bag, although when it works it is genuinely creepy and unsettling. I have never read anything by Tremblay before, and I do think that I missed out on elements in some stores that tie in to his previous books, although I still enjoyed them.  If you like stories that answer all the questions and tie up all the loose ends, then this book probably isn't for you. Much of the horror is kept very ambiguous, with the more conventional "horror" elements happening in the background or just hinted at.  It is certainly recommended for anyone who wants a good scare.

"Goodbye, Columbus" by Philip Roth

Year of Publication:  1959
Number of Pages:  259 pages
Genre:  Fiction, short stories

This book consists of one novella and five short stories:  Over the course of a summer a young working-class man falls in love with a much wealthier student; A thirteen year old boy confronts his rabbi with challenging religious questions, and goes to extreme lengths to get answers; A war hero sergeant finds himself being manipulated by three new recruits; A married 59 year old man suffers a life crisis and has an affair; A high-school student befriends the class troublemaker; and a lawyer tries to keep the peace between the conservative inhabitants of a small community and  an Orthodox yeshiva recently established in the neighbourhood.

This was the the first published book by the celebrated author Philip Roth, and for a first book it really is astonishing how good it is.  Every one of the stories is worth reading.  The prose is light and beautifully written, and there is a real feel for character and dialogue.  It's also very funny.
The title novella was turned into a film in 1969.

"Strange Weather" by Joe Hill

Year of Publication:  2017
Number of Pages:  432
Genre:  Horror, fantasy, suspense

In the last ten years Joe Hill has established himself as one of the most original and striking writers working in the field of horror and fantasy.  This collects four short novels, written in longhand over a period of four years.  In "Snapshot", a boy and an elderly woman are stalked by a mysterious tattooed thug who owns a Polaroid camera which has the power to steal memories.  In "Loaded" a mall security guard is hailed as a hero for stopping a mass shooting, but a young journalist suspects there is more to the story than meets the eye, and as she investigates the guard begins to find it increasingly difficult to maintain control.  In "Aloft" a young musician attempts skydiving for the first time, only to find himself marooned on a bizarre floating island in the clouds.  An island that seems to have a strange life of it's own.  In the apocalyptic "Rain" a lethal rain of nails spreads across America and the world.

In the afterword to this book, Hill discusses the appeal of the short novel form (the longest story in the book is 140 pages, and the shortest is about 90 pages), describing them as combining the narrative drive of a short story, with the additional character depth of a novel, and tells us that the best are "All killer, no filler".  By and large he is right when it comes to the stories here.  The stories are full of tension and zip along at a good pace.  The characters are well drawn and believable.  Hill has always been very skilled at putting often quite surreal horror elements cheek by jowl with the mundane details of everyday life, making the horror seem almost more bizarre.  There is also a strong vein of humour and social satire here, with "Loaded", in particular, critiquing American gun culture.  "Snapshot" becomes a metaphor for ageing and resultant memory loss, which kind of gives the story a strange feel in it's final pages, and doesn't really fit with the fantasy elements.  However, this is a hugely entertaining , gruesome and funny collection.

       

"The Informers" by Bret Easton Ellis

Year of Publication: 1994
Number of Pages: 262 pages
Genre: Fiction, satire, horror, crime, short stories

Summary: This is a collection of thirteen loosely linked stories set mostly in Los Angeles in the early to mid 1980s. In "Bruce Calls from Mulholland" two people try to sort their complex social and romantic lives out during a telephone call. In "At the Still Point" a group of friends share an emotional dinner on the anniversary of the death of one of their mutual friends. In "The Up Escalator" a woman, unhappily married to a movie studio executive, tries to juggle her family life, her social life and the affair that she is having with one of her teenage son's friends while slowly falling apart. In "In the Islands" a man makes a disasterous attempt to bond with his estranged son while on a vacation in Hawaii. In "Sitting Still" a student reflects on her previous experiences in L.A. as she takes the train from New Hampshire to Los Angeles for her father's remarriage. In "Water From the Sun" a popular local newscaster has an affair with a much younger man, but her estranged husband is determined to reconcile with her. In "Discovering Japan" a burnt out rock star continues his mental and physical degradation while on the Japanese leg of his world tour. In "Letters from L.A." a woman narrates her experiences of Los Angeles to her unresponsive friend in a series of increasingly disturbing letters. In "Another Gray Area" a young man finds the death of his father in a plane crash just another complication in his drugged-up existence. In "The Secrets of Summer" a group of vampires live the good life while preying on the youth of Los Angeles. In "the Fifth Wheel" a kidnapping spirals horrifically out of control. In "On the Beach" a woman's approaching death provides food for thought for her partner. In "At the Zoo with Bruce" a woman tries to sort out her relationship with her married boyfriend during a trip to the zoo.

Opinions: Despite being published in 1994, the stories in this book were mostly written while Ellis was at college, at around the time of his debut novel Less Than Zero (1985) (Ellis has stated that he has not written any short stories since 1986). It was published as a kind of stopgap filler as the novel Glamorama (1998) became increasingly delayed.
The stories in the book are all told in the first person, and each one is told by a different narrator. The book is linked by recurring themes, settings and characters. The stories concern wealthy, beautiful and mostly young Los Angeles residents who seem to have limitless supplies of money, sex and drugs, but are mostly completely empty inside. Mostly the characters become almost heroic when they struggle to the barest glimmer of self-awareness. As such they are not the most likeable or engaging of protagonists, and many of the characters are (literally) monsterous. This in itself will probably turn away many potential readers. Ellis tends to adopt a flat, minimalist voice in his writing. However, many of the characters become, if not exactly likeable, at least in a weird way sympathetic.
Ellis is a very talented writer and, while this is not among his best works, none of the stories are devoid of interest, and some are genuinely powerful. The guesome comedy-horror tale "The Secrets of Summer" is a brilliant contemporary vampire story (what better place for bloodsuckers than Hollywood?)
However, if you are new to Bret Easton Ellis this is probably not the best place to start. Personally, I would recommend The Rules of Attraction (1987) or the hugely controversial American Psycho (1991) as a better jumping on point. Fans of Ellis' novels will probably be able to pick up the frequent references to locations and characters form his other works.