TITLE: A Sinister Quartet
AUTHOR: Mike Allen, C.S.E. Cooney, Amanda J. McGee, Jessica P. Wick
382 pages, Mythic Delirium Books, ISBN 9781732644038 (paperback, ebook)
DESCRIPTION: (from the back cover): Behind the walls of an invulnerable city ruled by angels, old movies provide balm for the soul and a plan to escape risks grisly retribution. A princess discovers a passage to a nightmarish world of deception and blood-sealed enchantment. A woman who has lost everything meets a man of great wealth and ominous secrets. In a town haunted by tragedy, malevolent supernatural entities converge, and the conflict that ensues unleashes chaos.
A Sinister Quartet gathers original long-form wonders and horrors composed in unusual keys, with a short novel by World Fantasy Award winner C. S. E. Cooney and a new novella from two-time World Fantasy Award finalist Mike Allen joined by debut novellas from rising talents Amanda J. McGee and Jessica P. Wick. All four offer immersions into strange, beautiful and frightening milieus.
MY RATING: five out of five stars
MY THOUGHTS: The short novel and three novellas debuting in A Sinister Quartet play a familiar lament: the abuse by those in power of those they deem powerless. But listen closely: there are crescendos of rebellion, adagios of personal loss, secrets revealed sotto voce and bravura, and a trembling bass line of body horror tying it all together. These stories are not happy, but they are hopeful, even if that hope doesn’t come until the coda.
In C.S.E. Cooney’s short novel “The Twice-Drowned Saint: Being a Tale of Fabulous Gelethel, the Invisible Wonders Who Rule There, and the Apostates Who Try to Escape its Walls,” the power is wielded by the Angels who rule their walled-off city and protect it from the world outside. But the Angels require obeisance and tribute, and in recent times they’ve become addicted to blood sacrifice – not from their own citizens but from the pilgrims seeking to become citizens and escape the worn-torn outer world. Not everyone within the city, not even among the ruling Angels, is happy about this turn. But is rebellion a new concept in Gelethel or is it a part of the very bones of the city? That’s one of many secrets that underpin and drive the story of the Angel Alizar and his saint, Ish. There are other secrets that surround Ish’s family, including the history of her parents’ marriage and the lives of her Uncles who are part of the Holy Host. And in this story, “host” means exactly that: when the Fourteen Angels fill their hosts with power, they distort the Hosts’ bodies gruesomely. The Angels, like most power brokers, don’t care about the effects of their power on the people who serve them, as long as they get their way. (The descriptions of these bodily transformations are not for the squeamish, nor are a couple of torture scenes midway through the novel.) The past losses and compromises experienced by Ish, by the Angel Alizar, by Ish’s family, all bubble under the surface of the story, releasing and resolving and repeating throughout. And through it all, there is Cooney’s masterful use of language, soaring into the ethereal and plummeting through the earthen – colors and sounds and smells evoked with unexpected turns of phrase and exacting word choice. Sometimes the story feels sf-nal, sometimes high (almost Biblical) fantasy, but it never feels at odds with itself despite the mix of genres.
High fantasy and portal fantasy are the genres for “An Unkindness,” Jessica P. Wick’s marvelous look at the power of the Fae over the mortal world. The tale is narrated by the young Princess Ravenna and is propelled by her sense that she is losing her beloved older brother Aliver to … something. At first, she’s not sure if it’s a growing ailment, a romantic malaise, or something more sinister. But it quickly becomes apparent that he’s been seduced by the power of a fairy ball and the queen who presides over it, and it’s up to Ravenna to save him. All the elements of classic young-girl-adventures-in-Faerie are here: the labyrinth that must be traversed, the portal (in this case, a pool) that must be descended through, the court ball that must be navigated with strange sights abounding, the confrontation with the Queen … but that’s only the middle of Ravenna’s story. The conclusion takes a slightly darker turn, an exploration of a young heroine’s loss of innocence (no, not by rape) that we don’t see in the classic “portal fantasy” stories. This is a rite of passage, a trial by fire, and Ravenna will not emerge unchanged as Dorothy and Alice are wont to do. Ravenna’s voice is endearing but also a little annoying, as befits a pre-teen and very precocious princess whose surety and love for her brother lead her into situations she almost can’t get out of. The sibling relationship we see at the beginning of the story is so real and touching that the sudden antipathy/distance of Aliver in the second chapter hits the reader as hard as it does Ravenna. Kudos to Wick for establishing that relationship so well in such a short opening space; the rest of the story would not work as well if we didn’t believe in the bond between sister and brother that threatens to be severed. Also fair warning: the body horror is not as explicit is in the other stories but there is one pretty brutal scene involving a unicorn that may make animal lovers upset.
By comparison, Amanda J. McGee’s “Viridian” is very much rooted in the “modern Gothic” and “reconstructed fairy tale” traditions, and this melding is also perfect for the story being told. The setting is a remote part of modern Vermont. Lori Adams is a woman on the run from losses in her recent past (we find out quickly it’s the loss of her sister but don’t find out the details of that loss until later in the story). She settles in a small town and soon meets Ethan, a handsome and very rich stranger. The story is part courtship, part married life, and part the slow revelation of each partner’s secrets. Thanks to the occasional flashback chapter, the reader knows sooner than Lori what Ethan’s secret is (although not why he’s done what he’s done) and in the present-day section sees the way Ethan exerts increasing power over Lori by methods not limited to gaslighting her – but aren’t those the tenets of the Gothic suspense novel, as well as most modern psychological horror? McGee reveals Amanda’s secrets and the depths of Ethan’s depravities at a pace that made this reader anxious for the denouement and not at all eager to get there. It’s always interesting to me when a writer can make a story feel both laconic and urgent, and McGee shifts seamlessly from one to the other in the same scene. There’s only a touch of real body horror (and I won’t ruin the surprise of it here), but there’s a lot of very dark moments for Lori before the story is over. Of the four stories in A Sinister Quartet, this is the one I can most easily see being adapted to film – and in the right hands, I think it would be amazing (let’s not talk about what could happen in inept or cautious hands).
The concluding novella, “The Comforter” by Mike Allen, is the one most firmly rooted in a single genre. This is body horror, straight-up and unadultered, mixed as it may be with classic supernatural thriller elements. Throughout the story, and in increasing detail as the story unfolds, characters are physically altered in horrific ways. The feel of being fully immersed in the genre is enhanced by the multiple points-of-view: some omniscient, some narrowly third-person, some disturbingly second person. The constant shifts in POV keep the reader off-center and always on edge, not sure where the story will go or how much of the truth will be revealed or even if the disparate threads will converge. It’s a masterful mind-fuck, if I may be permitted a bit of vulgarity. “The Comforter” ties to several other of Mike Allen’s fictions, but one need not have read those to feel like this is a complete story. At points you may not understand what’s going on any more than the characters do, but it all comes together in the end. Allen also gives us a different spin on the use/abuse of power and control: the powerful in the first three stories (Cooney’s Angels, McGee’s Ethan, and Wick’s fae queen) allow those they have control over a modicum, at least, of individuality, while Allen’s nebulous protagonist is all about absorption and the removal of differences to make a cohesive and ever-expanding whole. And that protagonist goes to disturbing lengths to get what it wants. This is easily the bloodiest and most physically disturbing of the four pieces of A Sinister Quartet, nudging out the more disquieting scenes of “The Twice-Drowned Saint.”
This review would not be complete if I didn’t mention the Introduction, which I presume was also written by Mike Allen and which functions as a full additional short story. It sets the tone of the anthology and gives oblique, musical nods at each of the stories that follows, but it can be read on its own as a treatise on the power of music and the nature of stumbling, unprepared, into fictional worlds that you perhaps want to look away from but just can’t.
A Sinister Quartet released today, June 9th, and I find it apropos (and perhaps destined?) that I’m writing and posting this review on the cusp as the 9th turns into the 10th, straddling days the way three of these stories straggle genres. So go, now, seek out this strange, sinister quartet and be immersed in these worlds.
Note: I received an Advance Review Copy of this book from the publisher.