Reviews of books, short stories, movies, and other stuff.
This is it: “Across the Street” is the episode that cemented my love of The Magnus Archives. Massive spoilers for season one in particular in this post, so make sure you’re caught up before reading!
Continue reading “The Magnus Archives Relisten 3: Across the Street”
This is part of an ongoing series about relistening to The Magnus Archives, a weekly horror podcast with a slowly uncoiling overarching plot. This is full of spoilers, so make sure you’ve listened up to at least episode 67 before reading!
Continue reading “The Magnus Archives Relisten 2: Do Not Open”
This blog (and the series it belongs to) is about my ongoing relisten to The Magnus Archives, and what I missed or didn’t pick up on the first listen around. It’s going to be brimming with spoilers, so make sure you’re caught up with at least episode 67 before reading!
Continue reading “The Magnus Archives Relisten 1: Angler Fish”
Say “horror for children” and there are a few writers or titles that might spring to mind, depending on your location and age.
R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps and Fear Street series are probably fairly high up the list for those fabled 90’s kids. Go a bit further back and you’ve got Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, and maybe even Stephen King if you parents weren’t paying attention. Further back and you’ve got Road Dahl — I don’t think I ever fully recovered from The Witches.
But if, like me, you grew up in the Netherlands in the 90’s, then there’s one group of writers that eclipse all others: the Griezelgenootschap, led by Paul van Loon.
Now, before we dive into the Griezelgenootschap, I want to take a moment to explain and appreciate the word ‘griezelen’ (that’s the verb — ‘griezel’ is the noun and ‘griezelig’ the adjective).
The original meaning of ‘griezelen’ is simply to shiver in fear. But during the heyday of Dutch children’s horror, it took on a different meaning. Engaging in ‘griezelen’ meant enjoying scary stories, maybe even stories featuring a ‘griezel’ — a creep.
But you wouldn’t classify grown-up horror books as ‘griezelig’. No, those were just scary. There was something different about ‘griezekboeken’, children’s horror books. ‘Griezelboeken’ gave me plenty of sleepless nights, more than adult horror ever has.
That’s not necessarily because they were scarier, but they were part of a scarier world. Growing up, you realise just how awful the world can be. Every day there’s a lot at stake — maybe everything, depending on who you are and where you live.
But if you’re lucky, it’s the things that seem small in hindsight that get your pulse racing when you’re young. The things that sprang from your uninhibited imagination. Stuff that’s gross and weird and completely illogical — and therefore actually safe to be scared of.
It’s that balance of safeness and real horror that sets ‘griezelboeken’ apart for me. And no one did ‘griezelboeken’ like the Griezelgenootschap.
The Griezelgenootschap was a group of eight authors who met at night in an old castle deep in the woods to tell each other scary stories by candlelight. (I might not have believed in the Griezelgenootschap’s metamythos, but I did enjoy the Are You Afraid of the Dark? vibe.)
The eight authors were:
If you’re a fan of science fiction or horror, a few of those names might ring a bell — even if you’re not Dutch.
In addition to writing their own horror and thriller books for children and young adults, the members of the Griezelgenootschap also collaborated on short story collections. As far as I know, none of these are available in English.
Before I get to the list, another linguistic note: each of the collections includes the word griezellig. That’s not a typo: this is a mixture of griezelig with another uniquely Dutch word: gezellig. It’s notoriously hard to translate gezellig to English. There’s no one word that covers it, but it essentially describes a cosy, friendly atmosphere where everyone is actively enjoying everyone else’s company.
So griezellig basically means ‘creepy and fun’.
With that sorted out, on to the books, with the topics:
The Griezelgenootschap disbanded after this final publication. Or, if you’re to believe the overarching story of the last book, they were lost in the Secret Advisor’s forest,
I’m going to see if I can get my hands on copies of these books, as well as non-Griezelgenootschap Dutch children’s horror books. It’s been so long since I’ve read them, so I’ve forgotten a lot. However, what I do remember is excellent, and often features references to the horror canon that I simply couldn’t pick up on the first time I read these books.
I’ve been listening to speculative fiction podcasts ever since I stumbled across Escape Pod 10 years ago.
For a long time, I stuck to that, the other Escape Artists podcasts (Pseudopod for horror and PodCastle for fantasy), and the Drabblecast. It wasn’t until recently that I started branching out and listening to other podcasts — what a mistake that was. I should have started doing that much earlier.
Here are some of the best horror podcasts I was missing out on.
I still have trouble believing that each of these stories comes from a single writer — in this case, the magically named Soren Narnia. They’re so different, while still uniformly excellent.
As the writer himself puts it, each story “adheres to the most primal element of storytelling: a single human voice describing the events exactly as it experienced them.”
The result? A fantastic back catalogue of terrifying stories covering everything from demonic possession to deranged stalkers. Unlike the other podcasts in the list, Knifepoint Horror doesn’t have to be listened to in a specific order. If you’re looking for a starting point, fields is my personal favourite.
Another fantastic series of stories from a single author — some people get all the talent. Luckily, we can enjoy Jonathan Sims’s imagination (not to mention wonderful narration) in The Magnus Archives.
What initially seems like a fun frame story for a different scary story each episode soon develops into its own mythos, complete with an overarching narrative and delightful links between stories.
And another delight: the humour. Creepiness and laughs don’t always go well together, but The Magnus Archives managers to pull off both, without one taking away from the other. No mean feat.
Another podcast with a great frame narrative. Imagine House of Leaves meets The Blair Witch Project, featuring a protagonist with a trusty rat sidekick.
What I particularly enjoy about Archive 81 is the sense of place and character. The story is far from straightforward and there are plenty of major and minor players to keep track of. The podcast’s combination of excellent voice acting, writing and production makes it easy to follow all the characters as they weave their way through the overarching narrative.
I started listening to the first episode in bed. I to turn it off in order to get a decent night’s sleep.
Luckily for me, The Black Tapes turned out not to be a documentary, but an addictive audio drama with an expansive and evocative mythology. We follow intrepid reporter Alex Reagan as she tries to unravel the mystery surrounding Dr. Richard Strand. Upside down faces, impossible sounds and mysterious monks are just a few of the elements that come together in this Serial gone weird.
From people who brought you The Black Tapes comes Tanis, a podcast that’s similar while also being completely different.
If The Black Tapes is the modern audiodrama equivalent of creepypasta, then Tanis comes closer to Arthur Machen and H.P. Lovecraft, with some hacking and conspiracy theories thrown in for good measure. It’s not as creepy as TBT, but it’s a lot weirder, and has a bigger cast of characters.
If I had to describe Tanis, it would be everything I enjoyed about the mythology episodes of The X-Files rendered through a classic horror lens.
I really can’t say anything about my thoughts on Utriusque Cosmi by Robert Charles Wilson without massive spoilers. Consider yourself warned!
I read this story as What Do You Do? by Gillian Flynn in Rogues, edited by Gardner Dozois and George R.R. Martin. It was later republished as The Grownup.
This is full of spoilers for this short story. If you haven’t read it yet, then don’t read this article. Unless you like spoilers. And speaking of spoilers…
Listen to The Lady With the Light by Mel Kassel at Pseudopod.
I’ll fully admit to being fairly self-absorbed, but fiction with a writer as its protagonist generally doesn’t interest me. The Lady With the Light by Mel Kassel was a pleasant and disturbing surprise.
Warning: I’m going to be thoroughly spoiling this excellent and unsettling short story.
Naomi Kritzer’s Cat Pictures Please is the only story I can think of that has ever terrified and me and given me hope at the same time.
Very mild spoilers follow.
