bookwomble's review
3.0
This was a long time coming. I bought When Graveyards Yawn in 1978 and have just got a round to reading it (2014). Whilst my life hasn't been impoverished by its previous absence, Derleth's collection of ghost stories is still a good one.
There aren't any overtly gruesome shocks, hints and suggestions being more Derelth's style, dictated, no doubt, by the mores of the time in which he was writing - the 1940s - and there is nothing of the cosmic horror of his literary hero, H.P. Lovecraft. What there is is a set of atmospheric stories dealing mainly with returns from "the other side". There is usually some malevolence, though often against a deservingly unpleasant victim. Endangered children, in particular, seem to be protected by the shades of the departed in Derleth's world, although youth is no guarantee of escape from a spectral slaying.
The first story, Mr George is probably the best of the bunch, but it's not a downhill ride from there, as there are plenty of other interesting tales. I liked the narrator's voice in The Man on B-17, told by the driver of a locomotive who seems oblivious to the supernatural element of his story, evident to the reader.
Dead Man's Shoes is an interesting WWI revenge story involving haunted boots, and The Tsantsa in the Parlour is a very well done supernatural murder plot.
I wasn't so keen on Parrington's Pool, which gave me more information on fly fishing than I felt I was in need of, but all of the other stories had something to commend them.
I think that my 9p investment 36 years ago has repaid itself.
There aren't any overtly gruesome shocks, hints and suggestions being more Derelth's style, dictated, no doubt, by the mores of the time in which he was writing - the 1940s - and there is nothing of the cosmic horror of his literary hero, H.P. Lovecraft. What there is is a set of atmospheric stories dealing mainly with returns from "the other side". There is usually some malevolence, though often against a deservingly unpleasant victim. Endangered children, in particular, seem to be protected by the shades of the departed in Derleth's world, although youth is no guarantee of escape from a spectral slaying.
The first story, Mr George is probably the best of the bunch, but it's not a downhill ride from there, as there are plenty of other interesting tales. I liked the narrator's voice in The Man on B-17, told by the driver of a locomotive who seems oblivious to the supernatural element of his story, evident to the reader.
Dead Man's Shoes is an interesting WWI revenge story involving haunted boots, and The Tsantsa in the Parlour is a very well done supernatural murder plot.
I wasn't so keen on Parrington's Pool, which gave me more information on fly fishing than I felt I was in need of, but all of the other stories had something to commend them.
I think that my 9p investment 36 years ago has repaid itself.
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