BLACK WINGS VII

ed. by S.T. Joshi

Drugstore Indian Press/PS Publishing
(www.pspublishing.co.uk)
2023, 343 pages, $22

ISBN 978-1-78636-988-8

Click here to purchase

BLACK WINGS is an homage to the horror repertoire of H.P. Lovecraft. The anthology opens with “The Resonances” by Ramsey Campbell. This one is a strange tale of a very personal cathedral.

In “Er Last Sich Nicht Lasen” by Stephen Woodworth, a translator finds an original “Optasia,” which speaks of a reverie but also also of an apparition. As one discovery sees light, so, too, do ancient monstrous manifestations.

“The Pit of G’narrh” by Donald R. Burleson. Russell, who is orphaned after the car accident death of his parents, must now live on a farm owned by his uncle, Lester, and Aunt Mae. They are a peculiar couple, even owning a personal tome called THE BOOK OF G’NARRH, which speaks of the very old gods, dangerous in their own way. Uncle Lester even has his own Pit of G’narrh on the property, into which he tosses “dead and grim” things. Russell is convinced that something dreadful lives in the pit, but what?

“The Lime Kiln” by Geoffrey Reiter. Esther Good and soon-to-be-fiancé Isaiah Yoder encounter a ghost at a lime kiln, a place holding some very dark terrors that threaten the lives of these young lovers.

“Global Warming” by Katherine Kerestman. Slimy smoke creatures, orange mist: the earth is heating up, and it’s not global warming, but the leashing of earth’s own darkness, deadly to its human inhabitants.

“Deception Island” by Nancy Kilpatrick. Zel and her aunt Moira are on an Antarctic tour when Moira takes a personal detour into a very dangerous place, where she tries to make a sacrifice of Zel to the gods.

“And the Devil Has Power” by John Shirley. A museum director falls for an attractive docent, Ophelia, who is curious about an artifact in the Turko-Greco-Scythian Museum, the Black Sea mechanism, and what its implications are. Are there darker demons behind what the mechanism is capable of?