The Shapes of Midnight by Joseph Payne Brennan

I went into this book blind. I did not know who the author was, or when the book was written, only that the cover looked interesting and it was in one of my favorite genres (the horror anthology). I am very glad that I did, because it was like some kind of mirror into my own reading history.

In the afterword, there is a quote from Stephen King that calls Brennan "one of the most effective writers in the horror genre" and I have to agree. Not because of the actual chills in the stories (honestly, I didn't find that many) but because of the obvious influence he had on the genre, particularly Stephen King himself.

Reading the book, unaware of the history behind it, I felt myself thinking "This would have been perfect for Weird Tales." more than once. I was, of course, 100% right. Brennan wrote hundreds of stories for that classic magazine.
I also found myself thinking, "This guy loved him some Stephen King." It turns out I had it backwards!

These stories are nothing all that unique to the experienced reader of horror, and the "twists" in them are not twists at all, today. But this is because Brennan literally created many of them.

Of the stories in this collection, I found I liked The Pavillion best. A story of murder, guilt, and revenge(?) from beyond the grave, I found myself imagining it shot for shot in some early 80s horror anthology movie (Creepshow, of course).

Disappearance is another proto-King story. Indeed, I can see direct influences of several King stories here--the taciturn farmer with a secret, the missing family member, the grisly discovery. They all seem buried deep in our horror conscience now, thanks to stories like this.

As horror, honestly, there probably isn't much here for the modern fan, but as a glimpse into the roots of the genre this is a very interesting (and still quite fun!) read.

I'd like to thank the publisher for the review copy! ( )

This was a short but fun anthology featuring stories of madness, sorrowful memories, and murder.
My favorites were Diary of a Werewolf in which a recovering drug addict begins to feel a strong compulsion to run wild in the woods, and Pavilion in which a murderer returns to the scene of his crime. The rest were just ok reads for me, though others may enjoy them more than I did. If you are into short horror stories give this one a read.

I received a complimentary copy for review. ( )

The Shapes of Midnight is a short (176 pps.) collection of mostly previously collected horror short stories by Joseph Payne Brennan, prefaced by a 7-paged introduction by Stephen King. While the collection doesn't live up to the big wet one that King throws at it (then again, what book does..?), it is diverting enough, and actually contains a couple of pieces that come close to "near classic" status: "Slime" (which the painted cover by Kirk Reinert illustrates) reads like a treatment for a movie along the lines of The Blob (either version), The H-Man, X the Unknown or Caltiki, the Immortal Monster that never got made (it's also the earliest-published piece here -- 1953 -- and King quotes extensively from it in his intro), while "The Corpse of Charlie Rull" (originally published in 1959) makes the 1974 Bob Clark/Alan Ormsby zombie classic Dead of Night/Deathdream/Night Walk/The Night Andy Came Home/Whispers look like Oh Heavenly Dog.

Other notable stories in this collection are "Carnavan's Back Yard" (singled out by King as the best of the bunch; while it's probably the best horror story here, my favorite is still "Slime"), "The Willow Platform," and "The Pavilion," which could easily have been a story from an EC comic book in the days before Dr. Fredric Wertham spoiled everybody's fun. ("Diary of a Werewolf" is fun, but would've been immensely improved if Brennan had made the main character a speed freak -- or at least a cokehead -- instead of a heroin addict.) Brennan has a plain, unadorned, deceptively simple style that serves him very well when his hooks are strong enough; when the stories are indifferent or ill-conceived, the lack of prose pyrotechnics allows them to stand naked and impotent in all their embarrassed glory. ( )