The Whisperer and Other Voices: Short Stories and a Novella [Paperback]

Lumley's new collection "The Whisperer and Other Voices," starts with an introduction that sets the tone for the short stories that follow. Regrettably, the tone that it sets is boring, self promoting and long winded. I normally like reading introductions; they give me an insight to the author, what the author was thinking. This time around, however, any information was too much information. It is full of details on how rare stories are, which ones have never been seen in America before, what inspired the story etc.

Now, normally I would have loved this information; however, Lumley just comes off as an arrogant self promoter, patting himself on the back for how well this story turned out, how much he liked this one, etc. I hate listening to authors telling me how great they are. I like reading it even less.

As if that wasn't enough, the stories themselves are lacking in spunk and spark. The stories are told in long winded, drab sentences and Lumley's use of the English language is sometimes painful to read. Often times, the story could be written by H P Lovecraft himself, so unoriginal is Lumley's style of writing. The stories contained in "The Whisperer" often lay flat with nothing to hold the readers attention.

One of the stories in "Whisperer" is entitled "Aunt Hester." When we meet Aunt Hester, she tells us the story of her power and her twin brother George. We learn of Aunt Hester's peculiar ability to transfer her body into her brother's in times of great urgency and her families' negative reaction to this power. Her nephew is the only one who will visit her now and agrees to help her use her power one last time, to see her grandchildren. What happens at the end of the story, a wonderful twist, could have been amazing if the style of writing didn't take away from the story. Lumley uses lots of italics and fancy wording to let the reader know that this is scary. Regrettably, this tactic falls short of anything literary and is merely annoying. It's as if Lumley doubts the intelligence of his readers and their ability to determine what is and isn't frightening.

"The Disapproval of Jeremy Cleave" could have been a scary story and is certainly intended as a funnier story, but again, it falls flat and lifeless. It chronicles a dead husband, one Jeremy Cleave, who wants to get revenge on his cheating wife and best friend from beyond the grave after the two of them continue with their affair after his demise. However, the story is so boring that I could have cared less about Mr. Cleave and his cheating wife. Jeremy Cleave, as a protagonist, is almost as long winded as Mr. Lumley and left me wanting to tear out my hair and throttle him. Cleave spends half the time whining about his life when he was alive and how bad it is being dead. All in all, it was almost painful to read.

"Snarker's Son", another tale in the collection, is a rare treat. Sergeant Scott tries to help a boy, lost in London, find home. Following the boy to where he lost himself, Scott is transported with the boy to an alternate London; London is called Mondon, Woolworths is called Woodworths and the Tube...well, no one rides the subway anymore. Instead, the Tube is home to the Tubers. Before the boy can tell Sergeant Scott how to get home, or what the Tubers are, he is scooped up by his father. The boy's father warns Scott to "be off the streets at ten pm!" Bewildered, Scott walks through a London that should be home but everything is subtly different. Shell-shocked, he heads down to the subway to find a way home, shocked to find the subway out of use, among other things. What Scott finds will chill him to his very soul. This story works, perhaps, because it is one of Lumley's first attempts at science fiction/fantasy rather than horror. The story works beautifully and is the first story in the collection. I don't recommend reading further than that.

If you enjoy lackluster horror, unoriginal style, long winded writing and dry, prattling dialogue, go ahead and read "The Whisperer and Other Voices." My feeling, as I closed this book, was that it was a collection of bargain basement horror stories masquerading as serious literature. A disappointing read at best.

Within Brian Lumley's works is a certain something that oftentimes finds me late at night with my chin pressed to a book, a chill lapping the base of my spine, making me look over my shoulder and wonder because of his visions. Here I find my mind running rampant, dancing through gardens of strange delights that, if I'm luck, bring about some delicately crafted nightmares to lovingly caress me within my sleep. Its as if the words he crafts, working from some primal place that a reader can easily understand, can bring about feelings I had long considered dead and gone in my horror-hardened mind. This is something I find myself coveting more and more as the days press into years and time marches on.

In this installment of short stories, there are many notable pieces that include, among other things, a short novel dealing with some of my favorite Lovecraftian amphibians. There are also pieces here that found me laughing as well, picturing the dread of the characters as they learned valuable lessons on "juju" and the high cost of certain crimes, and pieces that make me remember why eating things I find outside is never a good idea.
Breaking some of these down, they are:

Snarker's Son, a tale involving an oddity at the police station and a policeman who is at first skeptical until being privy to a meeting of the "tubers," ending the tale in something bloodily to my liking and always full of teeth.

Aunt Hester, brimming with Lovecraftian themes that also dart in their own morbid direct, deals with a woman that can, for some strange reason, switch bodies with her twin brother if she wants to. She finds it out quite by accident at first, doing things innocently and then out of anger. Well, this doesn't sit too well with him, and she learns, in a not-so-wonderful manner involving a very valuable life lesson, why she shouldn't play in grounds she's been told to leave alone. The ending to this piece is a very good one, taking the main plot and standing it on its proverbial ear a bit, giving the reader something that they can take with them anytime they find themselves in a dark, silent void within the night.

The Whisperer, perhaps one of my favorites in the book, finds a Mr. Miles Benton communing with a small, rancid dwarf on the train, one that happens to interact with him in the most terrible of fashions. This run-in, not a good one in many respects, is only the beginning of a long nightmare, one he thinks himself mad for dreaming. Again and again the dwarf appears, whispering in the ears of people with horrible repercussions for Mr. Benton in the process, ruining his life and his sanity in the process. So, is it a dream, is it a nightmare, is it Lumley selecting a main character to torment horribly before introducing him to the rubbery undertow of demise? Its a question you'll love yourself for answering.

The Statement of Henry Worthy, dealing with the dark side of botany, is about plants of unknown origin that are discovered by a Germanic explorer, Horst Graumer, before he disappears and the horrors that these things actually hide when another botanist decides to go looking for them. Deciding to voyage into a certain area of marshlands, he finds what he's looking for and more, falling into a cavern of perpetual horror in the process, his dreams meshing with a reality that worsens as the days press on. Here is a very Lovecraftian, very entertaining piece, teaching everyone that eating greens, contrary to what your mother may have said, can be a wretched ordeal!!

The Disapproval of Jeremy Cleave, one of the funnier pieces I've seen produced by Lumley, focuses on the fun one can have if he were to suddenly decide to partake in extracurricular activities with his best friend's wife while that best friend, in his grave in the queerest of circumstances, stretches his juju a bit. Of particular merit is the ending to this one, fueled by a delicious melody of horror and suffering, making any fan smile with pride.

The Return of the Deep Ones, a story hitting novel lengths, touches upon those Lovecraftian tides and the dwellers that seem to always haunt them. After getting a conch from a certain Mr. Marsh of Innsmouth, our main character finds a change being thrust upon himself, one that spins and twists through oceans of plot and mini-stories, ultimately allowing him to press against that brick wall that all characters in stories really need to hit. While this is a bit older in the Lumley craft, it is still impressive and worth reading, letting those cute little men with the huge, unblinking eyes creep into your heart and make you yearn for the sea and immortality once more.

Excluded from description here are a few tales, No Sharks in the Med, Vanessa's Voice, and The Luststone, all worth of a synopsis in and of themselves but all finding and unwilling medium to do so at this time.

This, along with its companion piece Beneath the Moors, offers a wide variety of reading that don't really adhere to one way of recollecting the decrepit underbelly of living, making certain to entertain even the sloppiest of horror consumers. It makes me long for a house by the ocean, myself.

Fans of Lovecraft's scenarios will relish this science fiction/horror blend which includes many elements of Lovecraft's horror tales, with the focus on racial memory and a concluding story of the Deep Ones based on Lovecraft's classic. Just as haunting is No Sharks In The Med, a short story about a vacation to Greece which turns into a deadly struggle for survival.