Black Static #78/79, March 2021
“Upland Wildlife” by Rhonda Pressley Veit
“These Birdhouses are Empty Now” by Jo Kaplan
“Delivery” by Tyler Keevil
“Of Wrath” by Zandra Renwick
“A Phantasmagorial Bestiary of the La Brea Tarpits” by Mike Buckley
“Subtemple” by Ashley Stokes
“Moon-Boy” by Jess Hyslop
“The Great West Gate” by Alexander Glass
“The Undulating” by Stephen Bacon
“Thirty-two Tumbling Teeth” by Neil Williamson
Reviewed by Tara Grímravn
This past January, the editors at Black Static announced that they would no longer be publishing the magazine as a bi-monthly issue. Instead, they’ve opted to switch things up a bit, intending to publish three double issues each year. Issue #78/79 is the first of these, and it just came out this month. There are ten stories in all, many of which are rather low-key, rather than being nail-biters. Readers are sure to find something they enjoy.
“Upland Wildlife” by Rhonda Pressley Veit
Jilly works on her family’s farm, where they give tourists guided horseback tours on trails through the Appalachian Mountains. One evening, far too late in the day for a tour, a difficult family group from Georgia arrives. Reluctantly, Jilly’s father tells her and her siblings to saddle up a few horses for their visitors, but it’s clear from the get-go that this isn’t going to be a smooth trip.
As the opening story in this issue, I can’t say that it sets the best tone for the rest. It’s a rather slow burn, taking far too long before anything of any real interest happens. The first approximately eleven pages are spent setting the scene and talking a lot about the biology and ecology of timber rattlesnakes, and even then the narrative never picks up. A good portion of the rest of the tale is also comprised of these tangents. I sort of understand why these long dissertations on mountain wildlife or Cherokee culture are included in so much as it’s supposed to provide some insight into how Jilly perceives Miriam’s personality, but the connection is never solidified. The relevance of these long-winded passages to the actual story is far too tenuous. Instead, it makes for a rather tedious read and drags the story out for no reason. None of this added information explains or supports the ending or its mediocre reveal, and the reader is left to wonder exactly what Miriam is. If she’s not supernatural (and the story gives no indication that she is), then how does she do anything that the narrative heavily implies she does? In the end, it’s as if the story is afraid to make its point. Frankly, it completely misses the mark for me.
“These Birdhouses are Empty Now” by Jo Kaplan
After her mother’s passing, Caroline and her father inherit an old house that once belonged to her grandmother, Helena. Although Caroline’s mother had let the place fall into severe disrepair, Caroline and her father are intent on fixing it up and getting it on the market. From the moment they start, though, there are issues. Each morning when they return, they find all their work from the previous day undone and destroyed. Thinking it to be due to vandals, the pair stubbornly press on…that is, until Caroline finds Grandmother Helena’s old journal.
Kaplan’s story is quite enjoyable despite finding it to be a tad predictable. The premise mixes a hint of Celtic paganism with a touch of Lovecraftian spell work, the traces of which are easily recognizable in Grandmother Helena’s journal. Anyone with even a slight familiarity with the “maiden-mother-crone” principle will be able to guess the ending long before it arrives. In fact, the included bits of Helena’s poetry give away the game far too early, and plots with villains implementing a similar plan are relatively common. Even so, the way the plan is executed provides a nice deviation from other stories trying to emulate the premise found in Lovecraft’s “The Thing on the Doorstep.” Still, it is well worth a read.
“Delivery” by Tyler Keevil
It’s late and raining, and Cal has a delivery to make. As he drives his big rig full of fruit down the M32 and contemplates the career-related crossroads in which he finds himself, he spies a figure in the distance, thumb defiantly stuck out in the universal signal of the hitchhiker. Having picked up his fair share of hitchers, Cal decides to stop for the poor guy. It’s raining pretty hard, after all, and it wouldn’t be right to leave the man on the side of the road. Once in the truck, though, it doesn’t take long before Cal realizes this hitcher isn’t like any other.
The Shakespearean overtones running through Keevil’s story make for quite an interesting read, and I quite enjoyed it. The pacing is great, and the tension keeps ramping up as the story goes along. Mickey is a great character. He strikes a great balance between being both menacing and intriguing, and I’m fairly certain he’s meant to be Puck or Robin Goodfellow. We’re given a hint to his real identity when he gives his list of nicknames, so I’d say it’s a fair bet. As for Cal, I sympathize with his situation to a great degree (as I’m sure many of us can), which makes the ending all that much more satisfying. I definitely recommend this story!
“Of Wrath” by Zandra Renwick
Christina, a psychic investigator, has been called to an archaeological dig beneath a church in Italy. A pair of skeletons have been found, and the academics in charge think she might be able to shed some light on exactly how they came to be buried in a collapsed portion of the old catacombs. As the visions come to her, they reveal an incredibly sad and tragic history.
Renwick’s story is quite emotionally involving, and I found myself nearly moved to tears more than once. The parts with Christina are just a framing device for the real tale which centers around castrati, classical male singers favored for church choirs. These young boys, often younger than ten years old, were castrated before reaching puberty to preserve the high pitch of their voices. This tale is a richly imagined vignette of what it may have been like to be a castrato, of their hopes and fears, and how society viewed them as worthless should their voices fail to retain the desired sound. This is a great story.
“A Phantasmagorial Bestiary of the La Brea Tarpits” by Mike Buckley
Have you ever been to the La Brea Tar Pits? There are so many creatures roaming about there—the salesclerk, the cleaning lady, the anthropologist…even the mammoths and dire wolves. Some are magical, others not so much. But each has a story.
Buckley’s tale is written in what are essentially brief, almost academic, vignettes. It is, just as described, a bestiary of the creatures inhabiting the La Brea Tar Pits, the human caretakers included. Because of this, it’s a bit tricky to review without spoiling the whole thing. Suffice it to say that each vignette provides a glimpse into the lives of each person and creature, their lives, and, in some cases, how they died. It’s an interesting read, to be sure.
“Subtemple” by Ashley Stokes
Before the Disorder, before the quarantine, before all the pubs and restaurants and public places were ordered to be closed down, a brewer makes a deal with a wealthy businessman, Jay. Jay wanted to open an upscale pub. He’d run the front of the house while the brewer did what he did best—make outstanding beer. Now, the Disorder is finally receding, and businesses are allowed to reopen once more. Jay and the brewer walk through the pub. On the surface, everything is just as they left it, but the brewer can’t shake the feeling that someone else is here.
I must admit that I didn’t really care for this story. It has an incredibly slow, unnecessarily drawn-out storyline. Everything that is meant to increase the tension fails to do so. The seemingly endless exposition is boring, acting more like an information dump than setting the scene or heightening the emotion or suspense. Even the ending was lackluster. I had a really hard time getting through this one, making it a miss for me.
“Moon-Boy” by Jess Hyslop
Naomi’s friend, Allison, recently started dating a boy from St. Bart’s, the town’s wealthy all-boys school. The other girls may swoon over the Bart-Boys, as they’re called, or even the other local boys, but not Naomi. None of them catch her attention like the boys living in the lunar colony. She daydreams endlessly about meeting her Moon-Boy and, when her teacher, Ms. Fentiman, announces a class trip to the museum to hear a presentation by a colonist family about life on the moon, she thinks her chance has finally arrived to have the life of her dreams.
Hyslop’s story is more or less a coming of age story. As far as I’m concerned, it minimally qualifies for the SF genre, and that’s only because it mentions a lunar colony. Readers expecting something truly genre will be disappointed, as this tale reads like any other modern-day afterschool special, complete with all the usual teen drama tropes and nothing else. Take out the few lunar colony mentions, and one is left with nothing more than a contemporary piece—and not an especially interesting one, at that. For that reason, this story misses the mark for me.
“The Great West Gate” by Alexander Glass
John sits in a bar playing with two strange pennies. He’s had them since he was a young boy, given to him by a man running for his life from a strange group of soldiers. Back then, he lived with his parents in front of the Great West Gate. Though he’s tried countless times, he’s never met anyone who knows of the gate or the origin of the odd coins. Until tonight, that is.
An interesting story, this tale of fate and destiny, of worlds bound by time and those free of its constraints. But, while it held my interest, it left a lot of unanswered questions that I feel are necessary to truly understand the story. There is a lot of omitted detail which should have been included. It’s hinted that the city beyond the wall may be a prison of sorts, but it’s never really established. Is it meant to be Heaven? Hell? Some other place? What is the significance of Michael looking like the face on the coin but not being the same person? None of this is clear. I like the twist at the end, the explanation given of the events from John’s childhood, but there’s just so much more that should have been unpacked here. The premise is great, but the story doesn’t feel complete without those details.
“The Undulating” by Stephen Bacon
An unnamed narrator recounts events from his childhood. It begins with the death of his grandfather, which brought his father home on leave from the military. After two months of glorious summer, his father is deployed once again, and things are never quite the same afterward.
Told in the first person, Bacon’s story is a sad one. It’s a tale of growing up, of leaving behind the imagination and magic of childhood. Once one has reached adulthood, the reality of the world can be a harsh lesson to master, leaving many lamenting for days gone by. I quite enjoyed how the story paints the father as a superhero in his young son’s eyes, how the boy nearly expects to find a cape and costume somewhere among his father’s clothes. It’s quite poignant, building memory upon memory viewed through the lens of a child’s imagination, only to strip the wonder away at the end and leave us with something raw and bleeding. A very good read, this.
“Thirty-two Tumbling Teeth” by Neil Williamson
Greg works for a chain of launderettes as the night manager and maintenance man. Normally, the stores are empty this time of night, but when a young girl interrupts his work on a broken machine to do her washing, he decides to let her have the place to herself and come back to finish up later. Upon his return, the girl is gone so he turns his attention back to figuring out what is making the rattling sound in the washer. As he feels around, he finally finds the culprit—a tooth. How in the world did a tooth get in the washer?
This story starts out strong. The setting is appropriately unsettling. Empty, late-night launderettes are inherently creepy to begin with. Couple that with finding teeth inside one of the machines, and the horror factor ramps up nicely. Greg himself is a sympathetic character for the most part. The issue I have with this tale, though, is the very tenuous connection between the harassment women face in their daily lives and the reveal at the end. That link isn’t as firmly established as may be intended. It required a bit of ruminating on the story before I caught it, before which I was a bit confused on the reason behind Greg’s actions. That said, it is still a good read.