Mike Chinn - Radix Omnium Malum & Other Incursions

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Mike Chinn - Radix Omnium Malum & Other Incursions (Parallel Universe, Feb. 2017)

Hieronymous Bosch

David A. Sutton - Vintage Biplanes & Nineteenth Century Revolvers: The Assorted Worlds Of Mike Chinn

Radix Omnium Malum
Two Weeks Saturday
Kittens
Blood of Eden
Suffer a Witch
Cheechee’s Out
The Streets of Crazy Cities
The Owl that Calls
The Pygmalion Conjuration
To Die For
Sons of the Dragon
Only the Lonely
Rescheduled
Considering the Dead
The Mercy Seat
Wednesday Morning at Five O’Clock

Blurb:
Mike Chinn lives in Birmingham, UK, with his wife Caroline and their tribe of guinea pigs. In 2012 he took early retirement so he can spend more time writing (and not housework). Over the years he has published over sixty short stories, as well as editing three volumes of THE ALCHEMY PRESS BOOK OF PULP HEROES, and SWORDS AGAINST THE MILLENNIUM, also for The Alchemy Press. His own contribution to the Pulp Adventure genre, THE PALADIN MANDATES garnered two nominations for the British Fantasy Award in 1999. A second Damian Paladin book, WALKERS IN SHADOW, is to be published by Pro Se Productions; as is a Western: REVENGE IS A COLD PISTOL. In 2015, his Sherlock Holmes steampunk mash-up, VALLIS TIMORIS (Fringeworks), sent the famous detective to the Moon.

Time for some terror tales of the Black Country. Off to a to a cracking start with;

Radix Omnium Malum: (Dean M. Drinkel [ed.], The Grimorium Verum, 2015). The local council resort to Black Magic to prepare Teller Street for slum clearance. But the CEO is pursuing his own extreme redevelopment program, and, as planned, the agent of ruin, Mandagora Potentator (essentially Belladonna turned up to eleven but worse) fast infests neighbouring "undesirable" properties - and their residents.

Chris the decorator is oblivious to such machinations. He feels sorry that he was unable to prevent a young lesbian couples first home from falling down, and now the evil vines have claimed his local, the supremely moribund Feathers Pub, where Bandy Mandy poured the best pint in the West Midlands. The streets are eerily quiet. It's like everyone's gone on holiday and didn't think to invite him. By the time he realises that these weeds fear neither fire or fungicide it is too late. Like so many of his friends and acquaintances, Chris is rooted to the spot.

Two Weeks From Saturday: (Debbie Bennett [ed.] Dark Horizons, #45, Spring-Summer 2004). Vista Signs' staff Christmas bash at the Abbot's Mill pub. Office junior Cliff inadvertently plays into the owner's son's good books when he lets slip that he's sold some stories to the amateur press. Graham Murdoch is impressed. He was at University with Clive Barker and ran one of his earliest horrors in a student rag. Perhaps Cliff would like to attend his writers workshop? Cliff is in two minds (probably more: his drink has been spiked). His work in progress is a full on torture porn novel depicting the ghastly murders of several Vista employees ...

He needn't worry. Murdoch and his cronies have their own dark secret.

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Kittens: (Ian Hunter [ed.] Raw Terror, Read Raw Press, 2009). Dudley-based music promoter Chris Chandler is appalled as the next man at the spate of local child mutilation-murders, especially when he realises he was possibly the last person to see the third victim alive. Chris was waiting for his bus following the Ménage-A-Ray gig at The Mirrorball when the eight year old lad dragged a sackful of empties to the bottle -bank. What kind of parents would send their kid on a chore so late on a freezing Friday night, especially with what's been going on around here? Chris has a morbid fear of bottle-banks - some fool once told him this urban myth concerning a sicko who used one to dispose of six unwanted kittens rather than do the decent thing and drown them in the river. Sometimes Chris's right hand doesn't know what his left is doing ...

Suffer A Witch: (Jan Edwards & Lynn Edwards [eds.], Salvo #7, 2003). A kindred spirit of Anthony Rud/ 'R. Anthony's nasty Weird Tales pain-fest, The Witch Baiter, with a nod to the Cthulhu Mythos. Pieter van Haardt has made it his business to rid Noordijk of its witches. Groen the Burgomeester has no liking for the man or his methods. He rightly suspects that van Haardt's selfless pursuit of God's work is anything but, that his piety is all window dressing. The bastard is in it for the power, the money, the girls, and the sadistic thrill of forcing confessions from any and all who meet with his displeasure.

van Haardt's latest victim, Anna Roosendaal, is proving the toughest nut to crack. Tortured to the brink of death, still Anna refuses to grant him the satisfaction of admitting to trafficking with demons and familiars. The witch-finder is disgusted. At this rate she'll go to the stake proclaiming her innocence and that won't do at all!

Very impressed. All good, the title story and Kittens particularly so.

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Blood Of Eden: (Stephen Jones [ed]., Mammoth Book Of Dracula, 2007). That The Satanic Rites of Dracula vibe with plenty for conspiracy theorists to .... sink their teeth into. Dracula (Millennium edition), now bent on achieving entire World domination via his multi-tentacled Paradis-LeCroix corporation, takes the battle to his chief adversaries in the West, the American intelligence services. The old Count proposes a mutually beneficial temporary truce. His scientists have discovered a cure for AIDs which he is prepared to provide gratis as a "gesture of goodwill." All he asks in return is the tiniest favour ....

Cheechee's Out: (Mark Shemmans [ed.] Second City Scares, Horror Express, 2013). "We've a bus driver who looked like a sushi chef had been practising on him; a woman who, to all appearances, has been smashed to a pulp from inside; and two boys that look like they've been through a meat grinder." DS Glyn Conway's may not be the sharpest mind on the Division, but that's as good a summary of recent events in and around The Abbot's Mill pub as any. All that carnage, and yet, not a drop of blood to be found at any one crime scene. Who, what can be responsible? Trust me, it is worth hanging around to find out.

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The Streets Of Crazy Cities: Original to this collection, arguably its most Black Book of Horror moment to date.

When his wife and baby daughter are killed after their car shoots through a crash barrier onto the new urban highway, Martyn Turner, architect, is vigorously banging his sister-in-law, Siobham.

Martyn's guilt - and Siobhan's absence of same - eat away at him. He's also having second thoughts about the city's regeneration program, the indecent haste to raze entire communities and fuck the chaos, upset and misery to the indigenous population. Will these new future-slums be any improvement on those they replace?

As Martyn seeks oblivion in drink, a series of especially brutal sex murders ensue. The police establish a single common denominator, vague sightings of a "tramp" in the immediate vicinity shortly before or after the young women were attacked. And all the while Siobhan's coming onto him like nothing of the slightest importance has happened. Has she no feelings?

We know it will all end badly - this is a proper horror story after all - and sure enough ....

After all that, it's a mercy to leave Birmingham behind for a short vacation in Cornwall with nothing more threatening than some clown's mock cryptozoological capers to trouble us.

The Owl That Calls: (WikiWorm, 2013). Essentially a sexed-up version of the 'Owlman of Mawnan' brouhaha of April - July 1976 with hack reported Tomas Ullerden standing in for 'monster-raising' paranormal researcher, stage magician, artist and prankster Tony 'Doc' Shiels, and initial eyewitnesses June and Vicky Melling replaced by Carly Teague, fourteen year old Bay City Rollers fan, and Brigit Gay, twenty-six, a trainee hairdresser/ mature Girl Guide. Ullerden's publicity stunt achieves its aim in attracting an increasingly sensationalist press treatment, but matters take a sinister turn when the emissaries of Mothman take a dim view of his feeble tribute act.

Pop culture references now stacking up. Dana Scully, Angela Lansbury in Murder She Wrote, Atomic Kitten, Candi Staton, Bohemian Rhapsody, The Fours Seasons' Oh What A Night, "that fat bloke in Eastenders, Roger Moore, Don Henley, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, a "garish paperback" edition of Our Lady Of Darkness ....

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It's there in David Sutton's (typically) excellent introduction, but something the back cover doesn't and probably should make clear is that Radix Omnium Malum & Other Incursions is primarily a collection of wildly entertaining HORROR STORIES. Reading the author biography at back might prepare the reader for a work of ... Fantasy/ Sword & Sorcery/ Steampunk/ Weird Westerns - anything other than what it actually is.

Sons Of The Dragon : (Graeme Hurry [ed], Kzine #1, Kimota Publishing, 2011). Seven likely lads from across the UK find work in Romania, clearing a stretch of Transylvanian woodland in preparation for the new motorway. The money's good, Friday nights in Brasov are a blast, and the local gals love 'em. Life would be fucken sound were it not for those stinking fat, juicy red worms ....

The Pygmalion Conjuration : (Charles Black [ed.], The Tenth Black Book Of Horror, Mortbury Press, 2013). "Horror movie actresses preserved in their youthful prime in old books; singers as they'd been at the start of their careers trapped on CD covers; newsreaders; weather girls; celebs from lists A to Z who were simply famous for being famous (and wearing very little). If Dennis had a picture of them, there was no limit."

The ghost of Aleister Crowley fixes it for sex-starved Dennis Crawleigh to sleep with any woman he desires - all lucky Den need do is provide her photograph. With no shortage of newspapers and magazines to work from, our man need never spend another lonely night! But sex magick has its disadvantages. With no inclination to eat, drink, bathe or leave the house, Dennis fast wastes away, whereupon the kindly old librarian, Miss Thelema Grant, forces her way into his flat to put phase II of the Great Beast's master-plan into operation.

The most recent of Mr. Chinn's contributions to the Black Books, the others being All Under Hatches Stow’d and Like A Bird in the second and third volumes respectively.

To Die For : (Max Edwards, Sarah Newton, Stuart Douglas & Ian Hunter [eds.], BFS Journal #10, British Fantasy Society, 2014). Welcome to 'Mr. Grimsdyke's second hand emporium (esoterica around the back, to save you asking), another of those shabby little antique stores prone to disappear when customer inevitably wishes to return their thrice-hexed purchase. Bucking the trend, it's a safe bet that Mr. Nicholas Francis will be in no rush to part with his magnificent new weapon!

One of the shorter pieces, told in a series of ghoulish vignettes.

Only The Lonely: (Joy Sillesen [ed.] Dark Valentine #4, Spring 2011). Rohypnol Tom moves in on tonight's lucky victim. Turns out her name is Lily, and he knew she'd been stood up long before she cared to spread the news. Essentially 'Alex White's Never Talk To Strangers with a neat twist for the on-line dating generation.

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Rescheduled: (Charles L. Grant [ed], Final Shadows, 1991). With a hangover-induced migraine like his, stressed-out Graeme Oaks really doesn't need any trauma on his journey to the office, but the fates are unlikely to take his or anyone else's requirements into consideration. My success rate with "quiet horrors" ain't great, and while I liked the train action well enough, Rescheduled is far from my pick of the Radix Omnium Malum treasures. Which probably means its the best story in the book.

The Mercy Seat: Original to this collection. As title hints, this story is built around a line from a Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds gloompunk classic (there have been several!). After an absence of three decades, Jim returns to Galton Bridge to revisit childhood haunts and seek out estranged friends Bid and Marky. The latter is a long-shot as he vanished in mysterious circumstances after a row. Jim still feels guilty about that. It's only recently he learnt that Marky left a cryptic note - quoting an ominous passage from Cave's The Mercy Seat. The discovery decided him to come "home."

The reunion with Biddy is soul destroying. Once so vital and fashion conscious, she's now a drab alcoholic trudging further toward dementia and the grave.

Jim buys a bottle and heads over to the park to toast .. nothing. Eventually he's joined by a haggard old derelict. It takes him forever to realise it's his old friend. So what happened that last ridiculous and terrible night when they were young?

Marky's cruel kiss off isn't one of Nick's, but it's so sad it might as well be.

What I was just saying about "quiet horror"? Forget it. The Mercy Seat chilled me to the marrow.

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Considering The Dead: (Dr. Alex Scully (ed.) Enter At Your Own Risk: Dark Muses, Spoken Silences, 2013). David Sutton writes of this one " ... we are taken back to a time before The Old Ones in a phantasmagoriacal sort of Cthulhu Mythos creation-myth story." I'm glad he did because, after much head-scratching, the best I could come up with is "Mike Chinn does The Call Of Cthulhu." Would come as no surprise to me if another reader lauds Considering The Dead as their best-of-book nomination. It is just that advanced cosmology is too way beyond my v. limited intelligence for further comment.

Our traumatic tour of West Midlands black spots concludes with another story that would be equally at home in one of the Magus of Mortbury's anthologies.

Wednesday Morning At 5 O'Clock: (Dean M. Drinkel [ed.] Phobophobias, Western Legends, 2014). Beth James escapes to a new town, takes a room at the cheapest lodging house and finds work as a barmaid in worst pub ever contender The Dog & Partridge, a boozer favoured by every vicious sub-Neanderthal bruiser within a five mile radius. "Beth didn't care if it was the local EDL hangout, long as it paid," because this as comfortable as it's been for her since the darkness entered her life. These sunny days can't last, of course, because now It has caught up with her again. Goodbye Mon Repos, goodbye The Dog & Partridge, hullo cardboard box under the arches. Even now she's not free. Who can outrun an Incubus?

Just as we hit the ground running with the Triffid-esque pulp thrills of the title story, so, fittingly, we end on a note of crushing hopelessness in the face of otherworldly malice. That Mr. Chinn isn't a great one for happy endings obviously goes in his favour, but ROM isn't misery porn and there's plenty warped fun to be had from all but the bleakest pieces (The Owl That Calls and, especially Only The Lonely are contemporary Tales From The Crypt). If you're out for a striking, richly varied collection of weird and horrible tales, you could, and have, done a whole lot worse. Treat yourself!