Black Static #51 (Mar-Apr 2016)

By TTA Press

The March–April 2016 issue contains new novelettes and short stories by Mark Morris, Stephen Graham Jones, Gary McMahon, Caren Gussoff, Norman Prentiss, and Stephen Hargadon. The cover art is by Martin Hanford, and interior illustrations are by Vince Haig, Jim Burns, Ben Baldwin, and Richard Wagner. Features: Coffinmaker's Blues by Stephen Volk (comment); Notes From the Borderland by Lynda E. Rucker (comment); Case Notes by Peter Tennant (book reviews and an interview with Molly Tanzer); Blood Spectrum by Gary Couzens (DVD/Blu-ray reviews).

Fiction:

Birdfather by Stephen Graham Jones
illustrated by Richard Wagner

Full Up by Mark Morris
illustrated by Ben Baldwin

Necropolis Beach by Gary McMahon
illustrated by Jim Burns

Spring Forward by Caren Gussoff

Listen, Listen by Stephen Hargadon
illustrated by Vince Haig

The Future of Literary Criticism by Norman Prentiss
illustrated by Richard Wagner

Interviewed:

Molly Tanzer

Comment:

Coffinmaker's Blues by Stephen Volk

Notes From the Borderland by Lynda E. Rucker

Reviews:

Blood Spectrum by Gary Couzens (DVD/Blu-Ray reviews, including What Have You Done to Solange?, The Visit, Nekromantik 2, Thundercrack!, Crimson Peak, Five Dolls For an August Moon, Navy Seals vs. Zombies, The Carrier, Clinger, Nina Forever, Mark of the Witch, Lost After Dark, The Vatican Tapes, The Weather Station, Last Shift, Deathgasm, Midwinter of the Spirit, Aaaaaaaah!, The House on Pine Street, Among the Living, Arrowhead)

Case Notes by Peter Tennant (book reviews, including Relic of Death by David Bernstein, Bloodeye by Craig Saunders, Oasis of the Damned by Greg F. Gifune, Terror Tales of the Ocean edited by Paul Finch, Sharkpunk edited by Jonathan Green, The Female Factory by Lisa L. Hannett & Angela Slatter, Of Sorrow and Such by Angela Slatter, Vermilion and The Pleasure Merchant by Molly Tanzer and an extensive interview with the author)

• Language: English
• Publisher: TTA Press
• Release date: Mar 22, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310849497

TTA Press

TTA Press is the publisher of the magazines Interzone (science fiction/fantasy) and Black Static (horror/dark fantasy), the Crimewave anthology series, TTA Novellas, plus the occasional story collection and novel.

Book preview

BLACK STATIC

ISSUE 51

MAR–APR 2016

© 2016 Black Static and its contributors

PUBLISHER

TTA Press

5 Martins Lane

Witcham

Ely

Cambs CB6 2LB

UK

ttapress.com

EDITOR

Andy Cox

[e-mail]

BOOKS

Peter Tennant

[e-mail]

FILMS

Gary Couzens

[e-mail]

SUBMISSIONS

Unsolicited submissions of short stories are always very welcome, but please follow the guidelines: tta.submittable.com/submit

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LICENSE NOTE: THIS EMAGAZINE IS LICENSED FOR YOUR PERSONAL USE/ENJOYMENT ONLY. IT MAY NOT BE RE-SOLD OR GIVEN AWAY TO OTHER PEOPLE. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SHARE THIS MAGAZINE WITH OTHERS PLEASE PURCHASE AN ADDITIONAL COPY FOR EACH RECIPIENT. IF YOU POSSESS THIS MAGAZINE AND DID NOT PURCHASE IT, OR IT WAS NOT PURCHASED FOR YOUR USE ONLY, THEN PLEASE GO TO SMASHWORDS.COM AND OBTAIN YOUR OWN COPY. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE HARD WORK OF THE CONTRIBUTORS AND EDITORS.

BLACK STATIC 51 march-april 2016

TTA PRESS

COPYRIGHT TTA PRESS AND CONTRIBUTORS 2016

PUBLISHED BY TTA PRESS AT SMASHWORDS. ISBN: 9781310849497

CONTENTS

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COVER ART

JACK IN THE BOX

MARTIN HANFORD

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COMMENT

COFFINMAKER’S BLUES

STEPHEN VOLK

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COMMENT

NOTES FROM THE BORDERLAND

LYNDA E. RUCKER

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NOVELETTE ILLUSTRATED BY RICHARD WAGNER

BIRDFATHER

STEPHEN GRAHAM JONES

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STORY ILLUSTRATED BY BEN BALDWIN

FULL UP

MARK MORRIS

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STORY ILLUSTRATED BY JIM BURNS

NECROPOLIS BEACH

GARY McMAHON

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STORY

SPRING FORWARD

CAREN GUSSOFF

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STORY ILLUSTRATED BY VINCE HAIG

LISTEN, LISTEN

STEPHEN HARGADON

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NOVELETTE ILLUSTRATED BY RICHARD WAGNER

THE FUTURE OF LITERARY CRITICISM

NORMAN PRENTISS

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DVD/BLU-RAY REVIEWS

BLOOD SPECTRUM

GARY COUZENS

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BOOK REVIEWS + MOLLY TANZER INTERVIEW

CASE NOTES

PETER TENNANT

COFFINMAKER’S BLUES

STEPHEN VOLK

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THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE

News from the Western Front (i.e. Shepherd’s Bush) last summer declared that the BBC was announcing 1,000 job cuts, while George Osborne made no secret of wanting to force the imperial organisation to pick up the cost of free license fees for the elderly – effectively eviscerating a fifth of its annual budget. The writing was on the wall, the death knell chimed…but who at the BBC was listening? Nobody, as far as I could tell.

Predictably a flotilla of star names, like Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz, took to the barricades. Save Our BBC! they exclaimed, begging us to remember the glory days of Andy Pandy, Steptoe & Son, The Wednesday Play, and I was with them, though jaundiced by recent times I’d seen Auntie shoot herself in the foot, dragging her feet in sacking the oaf Clarkson, and pussyfooting around the bombastic expenses of overpaid wall-leaner Alan Yentob.

The trouble is, maddeningly, the Beeb is its own worst enemy. A cosseted environment which should breed risk-taking excellence (and an all-important safe place to fail), instead it seems to put most of its efforts into being a law unto itself.

I once asked some drama producers I was working with if they were targeting the core BBC audience of women 50+ or aiming to attract another, say, younger viewership? They looked at me like I was bonkers. We don’t ever think about that, they said. We just make what we like. Which, to my mind, is great thinking for an arts body, but completely mad for a massive media corporation aspiring to be a world entertainment player.

But apparently the BBC has a different set of rules, possibly thought by some to be liberated from the constraints of capitalism, but in the end, anything but. Viewing figures, for instance, matter desperately to the corporation. If they made things for an audience of one man and a dog they’d be pilloried by the press and the Tories: yet if they commission commercial fare for the masses they are accused of abandoning Reithian ideals. They literally cannot win. Which is the paradox at the centre of its present-day existence, playing into the hands of those who want to destroy it.

Yes, it produces some of the best drama in the world, consistently, from Jonathan Strange to Line of Duty, but, as I always say, BBC Drama is a place where, uniquely, very clever people are made to behave stupidly.

What does Ben think?

The endlessly repeated mantra so astutely summing up a system based on endemic second guessing, with Commissioner of Drama Ben Stephenson (as was – he’s now at Bad Robot) at the mid-point in the hour glass, the filter through whom your script has to pass to get to the channel heads.

What’s wrong with that structure? Only that no lesser mortal has a view or a will of their own. Everything is deferred upwards for validation. Result? Everyone is disempowered and 99% of your time as a writer you spent doing notes for script editors who, by their very job description, have an opinion which counts for absolutely nothing. (As they say on Game of Thrones: Never trust a eunuch.) Hence you can work for eighteen months on an endlessly tweaked and interrogated treatment – only for it to be rejected by a producer for a reason they could have easily given half a lifetime and a billion headaches ago.

Indeed, the abiding image I have for the whole process is Tom Six’s Human Centipede – scripts digested and passed from one person to another, via an endless digestive tract, slowly converted into faecal matter. The only difference being with a human centipede you don’t have to endure six-hour phone calls, day in, week out, until your left ear is red and throbbing – a method of torture I think would be more suited to Guantanamo Bay.

Do we like him?

This phrase one high-up drama executive liked to use when a writer’s name was mentioned, the implication being that you either had the ear of the king (or queen) or were persona non grata.

Such individuals learn to perfection the BBC art of passive aggression – never saying no to a project but simply giving impossible, soul-destroying notes that prolong our agony. How such people get in places of management I cannot say, except that they cunningly attach their reputations to successful shows they didn’t write, direct or produce, but merely said yes to. The very most these people do of a day is sort the wheat from the chaff. And mostly choose the chaff.

SF and Horror is a niche audience.

This said to my face by a top BBC honcho even as The Walking Dead was powering to world domination. Case in point. The BBC’s 2008 rosy reboot of Survivors failed dismally because, all PC and dinner parties, it tried to make the apocalypse palatable, whereas TWD knows and relishes its genre roots.

Shockingly, I once mentioned Brian Clemens in a meeting and the development exec unapologetically didn’t recognise his name. What hope do we have if our reference points are Penda’s Fen or The Stone Tape (written by one of BBC TV’s finest, Nigel Kneale) which I mentioned to one producer who’d never even heard of it. Nowadays you’re lucky if the younger generation of TV producers know what was on last week, let alone last year. But if you don’t know the medium’s history, how can you hope to know what’s a new idea from what’s derivative?

All these things contribute to making BBC Drama a frustrating entity to deal with for writers. And perhaps for those within it. All I hear on the streets is that the best people leave – to Sky, to ITV, to Company Pictures. Which is sad, because I’d like the BBC to be the place people want to get into.

Does it need to change? Undoubtedly. In a world where Netflix and Amazon are getting into quality production, and everyone is binge-watching and streaming online, it seems absurd to be obsessed with the overnight figures. But then the BBC must be confused about what it’s here for, if it’s not to exploit its programming commercially (BBC Worldwide) or spread its wings (BBC America) or seek new audiences (BBC3). In wanting it to slim itself down will it be, ultimately, scuppered and denuded, finding itself finally a shadow of its former self in the media marketplace, a shrivelled pubcaster with wildlife, shiny floor shows and the odd Agatha Christie with nice frocks?

I hope not. I want to defend our Hollywood – which can still make spellbinding drama like The Fall and Sadie Jones’ The Outcast – against unconstitutional government bullying, but it’s hard when the BBC itself seems to be doing little to tell politicians to back off. And I wish the mouthpiece of the nation would be less craven in allowing dramatists the space to rail against the present government’s policies.

"Writers are at the centre of what we do."

But sadly, to quote Jimmy McGovern, only if we write what they want. Andrew Davies once joked at an RTS award ceremony that his scripts are not actually written by him but as everybody knows by a gaggle of girls at BBC Drama. When you’ve experienced it first hand, it’s hard not to agree.

The basic fault is that the system allows for neither freedom of thought nor autonomy. Richard Broke once told me a story about the BBC in the 1980s. Director Roland Joffé was making a TV play of Shaw’s Saint Joan when the Head of Drama passed him in the corridor and asked, How goes it? Joffé said, "Oh, we’ve dropped that idea and we’re going to make ’Tis a Pity She’s a Whore instead. The Head of Drama simply nodded: Oh. Jolly good. Carry on."

A scenario about as likely to happen in today’s micro-managed and double-thinking structure at the BBC as pigs flying. And to the BBC’s detriment, in my opinion.

www.stephenvolk.net

NOTES FROM THE BORDERLAND

LYNDA E. RUCKER

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THE ANXIETY OF INFLUENCE: HORROR EDITION

It’s a phrase that’s been on my mind lately when it comes to the horror field, inspired by but otherwise not particularly about the book of the same title by the American literary critic Harold Bloom beyond the basic premise that writers – in Bloom’s case, poets – are made anxious by their predecessors. And because I see metaphor everywhere and the horror field is particularly potent for metaphor, I found myself thinking of three separate but related anxieties in terms of horror tropes.

There’s anxiety about our past, the writers that came before us, the closest to the anxiety Bloom was exploring – the fear of ghosts. (Apologies in advance to some of the writers I’m going to mention here who are not actual ghosts but very much alive and still doing vital work in the field – because their towering influence stretches across decades, they are our past as well as our present, as you’ll soon see.) There’s anxiety about the ways in which the genre is changing, with new people and new directions and concerns about diversity and fears about what is happening to a familiar genre that suddenly isn’t the same any more – fear of body snatchers. And there is anxiety about the outside world, how they perceive us – fear of monsters, fear of the Old Ones, fear of alien invaders.

I first scribbled notes for this column on Ramsey Campbell’s seventieth birthday because it occurred to me how fortunate those of us working in the industry right now are to have a figure as monumental as Campbell alongside us – unlike either of the writers who might be considered his American counterparts, Stephen King or Peter Straub, he’s also still accessible. You can go to a convention in the UK or even America and there’s a good chance that Ramsey will be there, and not just there, but available for a chat.

Campbell’s influence on the British horror scene is incalculable. His gritty urban settings, the sense of isolation that plagues his characters, the sinister landscapes that evoke a kind of folk horror that is somehow also uniquely Campbellian, the families wracked by often unexpressed tensions and the occult underpinnings all have found their way into much of the British horror fiction of the last two or three decades.

Of course, none of these elements are original or exclusive to Campbell, but his prolificness, his longevity, and the quality of his work all mean that they are very much associated with him and in turn with the particular strain of British horror fiction that follows at least partly in his footsteps. Even if you’ve never read a word of Campbell, if you read contemporary British horror you are getting his influence second or third hand. And Campbell, of course, had to shake off his own influence, Lovecraft, a writer whose vision he managed to integrate into his own while avoiding pastiche in all but a few early stories. But more on Lovecraft in a moment.

In America, of course, we have King: he towers over all contemporary English-language horror fiction, but he is quintessentially American in the same way that Campbell is quintessentially British. His career is almost equally as long too.

Those of us a generation or more removed from Campbell and King are all their children in many ways, whether we’ve read and enjoyed either writer or not, but every writer has their own personal pantheon of writer-ghosts that we must answer to and make peace with in order to begin producing work that avoids being derivative and is truly our own. Sometimes, this anxiety erupts at outright hostility, sometimes directed toward still-living authors but other times toward the long dead, and here is where the first anxiety segues into the second in the person of H.P. Lovecraft.

There is first a concern that he may have come to exert a disproportional influence on the field, and second a growing awareness of and repulsion toward his personal views. The genre is changing and diversifying, and Lovecraft has become one of the battlegrounds for this second set of anxieties.

A genre previously dominated in the English-speaking world by male, white writers (I feel compelled to add that I really do mean that strictly as a descriptor and not a value judgement) is shifting and few things tell that tale as succinctly as would a scan through the contributors to The Third Alternative and Black Static over the magazines’ existences. While the earliest issues of The Third Alternative in the 1990s carried largely stories by white male British writers, Black Static has for years been quietly publishing one of the more diverse tables of contents one can find in the genre.

Not the diversity itself but the conversations around the subject can feel for some people as though the genre they have always known and loved is changing for the worse, or in the parlance of horror, body snatchers: it’s still wearing the face I love but this isn’t my loved one any longer.

On the internet, where everything is heightened, it all begins to feel downright apocalyptic, as though we must dig in and defend a side lest all be lost. As someone who can see both sides of the debate over the World Fantasy Award, I found the tone of much of the discussion last year on all sides discouraging. Yet I think it’s important to remind ourselves that as uncomfortable as these controversies may be, they are also signs that the genre is vital and alive and that it matters to people. It is the very opposite of moribund: its pitched battles signal a passion for horror that I find ultimately heartening.

And here we come to the third anxiety. If horror is then so vital and alive today, might others begin to notice that as well?

I recently listened to a podcast of a panel on the weird at World Fantasy last year in which some participants expressed concern about the parameters of the subgenre being seized and defined by outsiders. (A tip of the hat here to one of the panellists, Maura McHugh, who also pointed out the metaphorical quality of this particular fear sounding very much like a horror trope.)

The problem – aside from the fact that I don’t actually think outsiders are all that interested in us – is that I also don’t think writers ought to be in the business of defining much; if anything, writers ought to be striving to break out of definitions, the great ones at least, and while the panellists speaking up to protect the weird from outside influences that misunderstand it were not in favour of writers doing that defining, I think there is a danger in our becoming too self-conscious both within and outside of the field. We can only ever do so much about how others perceive us, in writing and in life, and expending too much energy on such an endeavour is usually wasted.

I’m reminded of the possibly apocryphal story of James M. Cain, who when asked if he was upset about what Hollywood had done to some of his books, pointed at his shelves and replied that nothing had been done, the books were right there, just as he had written them.

Horror, the weird, whatever you choose to call it, and those of us who make and read and watch it, will always be here regardless of what the rest of the world thinks about it.

And that’s true for what happens within the genre as well.

Sometimes people will proclaim they are turning away from the genre altogether due to weariness with various conflicts, but I wonder where they will go where humans aren’t somewhere just being human. And horror is the genre of anxiety, after all, so in the end perhaps