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3.0 out of 5 stars
Great author lineup, mixed bag of stories., Dec 10 2003
Other than varied encounters with the supernatural, there are no obvious common themes running through the novellas offered in FOUR DARK NIGHTS. Apparently given free reign, each author has chosen to pursue themes common to their own work, rather than using this forum to experiment with their fiction. The results, for the most part, are competent entertainments, but each a far cry from the "blood curdling" visions promised by the book's jacket copy.The collection opens with Bentley Little's disjointed prose experiment "The Circle," perhaps the most confusing novella of 2002. The fractured fairy tale's main focus is on the mayhem that ensues in a suburban neighborhood after two teenagers make a sacrifice at an urban witch woman's backyard shrine. A la Pulp Fiction, however, the story is not told in sequence. It has its moments (a baby who defecates diamonds and other valuable items is a real attention grabber), but readers will likely find their attention wandering at times. In Christopher Golden's "The Pyre," a young woman is convinced that she will be able to come to terms with her estranged father's death by carting his corpse to an isolated Maine island where she once witnessed a manifestation of the world beyond. The evening, which begins with a grave robbery, ends tragically. An exploration of the bonds between parent and child, "The Pyre" works only if you consciously ignore some of its more implausible elements. If a walk on the wild side sounds intriguing, Tom Piccirilli's "Jonah Arose" is the story for you. An attempt to paint a densely detailed landscape with words, this piece is bursting at the seams with bizarre images and lengthy digressions. This tale, which probably would have worked better with some of the extraneous detail and exposition stripped away, concerns itself with a man searching for his kidnapped son. The fact that the kidnapper is the child's grandfather adds gravity to the story; the child's condition, revealed at the end of the narrative, will likely haunt many readers. The final, and most successful of the quartet, is Douglas Clegg's "The Words," an artfully crafted tale of alienation and experimentation that seems to endorse the old adage to choose your friends carefully. Mark and Dash are two teenagers originally thrown together because they are outsiders. They learn to revel in their outsider status, constantly seeking new ways to enhance it. This search leads them to explore "the Nowhere," another aspect of reality. Their attempts to enter and embrace this reality bring them closer to fulfilling their dark destinies. Though supposedly linked by the fact that the events all take place in a single night, no obvious attempt was made to tie these stories together. Such a device might have added an element of danger or even playfulness to the final output, with the writers working off of each other's ideas and situations. Alas, this conceit was apparently not considered, leading to this somewhat more conservative compilation of
stand-alone stories.
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