Windeye (edition 2012)

Rating: 4.25* of five

The Book Description: A woman falling out of sync with the world; a king's servant hypnotized by his murderous horse; a transplanted ear with a mind of its own—the characters in these stories live as interlopers in a world shaped by mysterious disappearances and unfathomable discrepancies between the real and imagined. Brian Evenson, master of literary horror, presents his most far-ranging collection to date, exploring how humans can persist in an increasingly unreal world. Haunting, gripping, and psychologically fierce, these tales illuminate a dark and unsettling side of humanity.
Praised by Peter Straub for going "furthest out on the sheerest, least sheltered narrative precipice," Brian Evenson is the author of ten books of fiction. He has been a finalist for the Edgar Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the World Fantasy Award, and the winner of the International Horror Guild Award, and the American Library Association's award for Best Horror Novel. Fugue State was named one of Time Out New York's Best Books of 2009. The recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship and three O. Henry Prizes, including one for the title story in "Windeye," Evenson lives in Providence, Rhode Island, where he directs Brown University's Literary Arts Department.


My Review: Since there are 25 stories in this book's 188pp, I will not be utilizing the Bryce Method (named for the illustrious blogger/reviewer/Goodreader Bryce, of revered memory for his excellent and frequent reviews before the twins were born) as the reviews of each story would be as long as the stories themselves are. For such is the nature of Evenson's writing. It's a challenge to make his storytelling anything other than real-time without spoilering or simply regurgitating his words.

It's not that his writing is Lovecraftian in its ornament, or Kingly in its wallop. His eerie and atmospheric stories are concise, and have their own unadorned grandeur. If his prose was architecture, I'd call it Art Deco with Fascist Monumental leanings.

So here's a species of compromise on Bryce Method reviewing...stories grouped by stars!

5 of 5
“Windeye”
“Discrepancy”
“The Process”

4 of 5
“The Second Boy”
“Angel of Death”
“The Dismal Mirror”
“Legion”
“Hurlock's Law”
“The Tunnel”
“South of the Beast” (maybe this gets 4.5....)
“The Absent Eye”
“Tapadera”
“They”
“The Oxygen Protocol”
“The Drownable Species”

All of the others are three stars...good, solid stories, but not for whatever reason outstanding compared to their peers in this collection.

I'm not sure I'd call any of them “horror” stories. I'd call them all, one and all, atmospheric evocations of unsettling and unsettled mood, of disturbed and disturbing malfunctions of perception. I'd call them all quietly unnervingly accurate night-scopes on the rifles your inner demons bring to bear at the back of your neck on windy, rainy nights when the power goes out and the flashlight batteries are dead.

If that kind of reading has no appeal, horseman, pass on.

One bleat of dissatisfaction: This book has the UGLIEST cover...a dark, blood-mixed-with-poo colored block set off by a ragged edge of trailing bloody red on a white background. Y.U.C.K. Drop-out type for the advert on the back reinforces the low-budget look, as does the Preparation-H-hued type they set the title in. In a store, I'd pass it up with a wrinkled nose and a scoff. This reaction is not to put y'all off! The stories make up for the dismal disappointment of the cover. Really, honestly, they do. ( )

This collection of ominous stories really stands out among contemporary short story collections. Unlike those collections that seem like multiple regurgitations of MFA writing assignments, Evenson's stories are truly unique and haunting. The horror is very understated, but this is what makes it so affecting. I like the ambiguity in many of these stories. Evenson is making his readers work, and it's impossible to read these stories without engaging your own imagination to try to figure out what's going on. Highly recommended.

Some of these stories are kind of like a cross between Borges and Poe. There's is a bit of the grotesque--another bit of displacement--a bit of the supernatural and another bit of fantasy. The stories here are well written and plotted. Not sure that they are easy to categorize as horror or sci-fi or whatever genre you would have. There are psychological elements to them that seem to take the stories into broader categorizations. Anyway most all the stories are interesting and there is a broad range here but my fiction reading preferences are really in other areas. Even so I think this collection was well worth reading and I'd certainly be open to reading some of Evenson's other works. ( )

A collection of strange horror and fairy tale-inspired tales that kept me from sleeping at night. In a short few pages, Evenson is able to create atmospheric stories that evoke the horrors of human nature or the unknown. A great collection for those who like to get the chills at night. ( )

Suppose you couldn't trust your own mind, your consciousness, your memories, your grasp of reality? What would it be like if you have a sister and then she disappears and then no one else has any memory of her? Suppose you are possessed by the murderous will of a horse? What if you were being monitored by beings in another dimension? How about if you lose an eye but then your empty eye socket sends images of wraith-like creatures to your optic nerve that others can't discern and then they start to communicate with you? Suppose the sound and picture are increasingly out of synch, not on your flat screen TV but in your real life?

In the Windeye collection Brian Evenson has crafted a set of short stories that range from deeply unsettling to horrifying. He presents worlds in which reality can shift to something quite different in the blink of an eye. He challenges the concept that we are in control of what we think and how we act. In one story an ear takes control of a soldier, in another a transplanted arm begins to think. He also writes about realities governed by written words - tatters of paper are thought to guide a man's life, a listing of names defines who is dead and who is alive in a group.

I found the book to be spooky and haunting. The writing is skillful with many of the stories open-ended, allowing the reader to complete the final scene. ( )

Book Review - Windeye by Brian Evenson

Windeye
Brian Evenson
Trade Paperback
188 pages
Advance Reader’s Copy – Uncorrected Galley
Publisher: Coffee House Press
Publication date: June 2012
ISBN-13: 978-1566892988

Windeye, a new short story collection by noted horror author Brian Evenson, is a thoroughly enjoyable read filled with spine-tingling horror, dark humor, and that just- beneath-the-surface element of doom that every good horror writer tries to capture. Evenson does so and in buckets-full. The terror he invokes, however, is not provoked by a gore-fest or through shock-and-awe. His is a thinking man’s fear. By that I mean there are multiple layers of dread in the majority of stories found in this anthology. The deeper you delve into that mine the darker it will become.

You know the writer’s saying “show them don’t tell them”? Evenson shows his readers enough to scare the hell out of them and then pulls back just enough to allow their own imaginations to finish the job. Spooky, creative, and down-right sinister which is, I expect, exactly what he was aiming for.

The stand-out stories in the collection are: The Process, Legion, The Sladen Suit, The Absent Eye, Grottor, and Anskan House. A brief description of each story follows. (Note: In my opinion, The Absent Eye, Legion, and The Sladen Suit would have made awesome Twilight Zone or Outer Limits episodes.)

In the title story Windeye, a child is stolen, drawn into an unexplained place in a haunted house, and her entire existence erased. If not for the brother who remembers her she would simply be a forgotten footnote in someone else’s reality.

The Second Boy is a supernatural tale about a ghost that refuses to let go of life and the story he tells to be repeated round the campfire.

In The Process, sometimes the only way to break a political tie in a post-apocalyptic world is to remove someone from the opposition.

And, something was made forfeit when humans lost communion with the simple honey bee in the short vignette, A History of the Human Voice. Can it ever be regained?

In Dapplegrim when your inheritance is possessed by a demon the very last thing you want to do is piss it off…

The Angel of Death follows a company of ghosts awaiting one man to record their names in the book of the dead so that they may rest.

In The Dismal Mirror when you make a deal with death you better be prepared to make the final payment.

In Legion a robot finds a stray human arm at work one day (how it got there is interesting) and grafts it to a sensor plate. Only then does it discover true consciousness. How long afterwards do you think it takes to learn the difference between power and weakness, master and slave? Legion is a story with a powerfully shocking surprise ending.

Murder Inc. has nothing on the Organization. The Moldau Case is a procedural with not one but three murders, one after another upon another.

Is The Sladen Suit an entry point to an alternative universe? During a long storm at sea starving sailors discover another world in a Sladen suit. But what lies on the other side?

Hurlock's Law – Is Hurlock from an alternative universe? Or, has he just disappeared into one? And why won’t the construct respond?

Falling out of time (everything skews out of synch and there’s a Discrepancy in time) can have disastrous side effects.

Forensic evidence uncovers the Knowledge that two corpses killed each other. How is it they were found miles apart? Evenson’s clear argument as to why he hasn’t written a detective novel yet.

Baby or Doll - Would you question your sanity if you were stuck between alternate worlds?

Is The Tunnel a metaphor for the journey into the afterlife? Or is it a supernatural story of fear and trepidation? The Tunnel is a spooky and disconcerting tale.

South of the Beast gives new meaning to the term suffering poet. More prose than narrative South of the Beast has the flavor of contemporary poetry while telling a tale of loneliness and agony. Of all the characters in Windeye the tormented poet here may be the one that suffers the most.

The Absent Eye is a metaphysical look (pardon the pun) at a physical presence. What if our spirits, our very souls were slightly malignant and sentient in their own right? What if your soul questioned where it went after death and then tried to find out?

There is no more humorous story here than Bon Scott: The Choir Years. An enterprising rock journalist discovers secret information outing the late lead singer of AC/DC as a member of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. But did Bon Scott sing in the Mormon Choir and was his death really a horrible accident? Evenson has an interesting take on a very weird conspiracy theory. The really eerie thing about this story is that it rings true.

In Tapadera a murdered boy just won’t stop knocking to be let into the house he was thrown out of. Some unusual methods are employed by the killers to keep him out. But getting rid of a living-dead body is not an easy task.

A soldier’s ear, lost in a horrific battle, is replaced with The Other Ear of a dead man. Where is that voice coming from? And, why has it lead him to the graveyard?

In They a man commissioned to discover who is murdering his client, over and over again, faces an eyeless, faceless opponent.

Unable to comprehend the reality of his hallucinatory world a man sets out looking for answers. What do you do when The Oxygen Protocol is initiated and oxygen and water start to run out? If you’re playing it smart you let the machines put you on life support until the situation improves. What if you couldn’t let them do it to you? Would you sacrifice the resources of the group for yourself or would you comply?

The Drownable Species – In true tradition of Edgar Allen Poe one man’s hallucinatory search for a missing brother, and the uncommon death’s of his parents, uncovers a sinister evil lurking from within. What if your perceived family were really your victims?

Grottor, Lovecraftian in design, gives whole new meaning to the phrase “a wolf in grandmother’s clothing.”
At Anskan House be very, very careful what you wish for.

4 out of 5 stars

Rated S for suggestive evil and inevitable chills.

The Alternative
Southeast Wisconsin ( )

Windeye is a collection of short horror stories by Brian Evenson. Most of the stories are quite short, 10 pages or less, but no less powerful for their brevity. In many ways, I think it takes more skill to write a complete, self-contained and satisfying story in so few words. Brian Evenson has this skill in abundance.

These are not ghost or vampire or zombie stories. Nor are they even bump-in-the night stories. These are stories that worm their way into your subconscious and fill you with a sense of dread and disquiet. They contain ideas that take root and become more horrifying the longer you contemplate them. Evenson skillfully makes use of the natural fear that exists in the unknown, both external and internal. What you can’t see or understand is much more frightening than what you can.

I enjoyed some of the stories more than others, as might be expected in any short story collection. All were very well written and often produced strong reactions. Think a blend of Edgar Allen Poe and The Twilight Zone. I didn’t consume the stories all in one sitting. Each story almost demanded a pause for reflection upon completion. The titular Windeye, as well as the story of a woman falling out of time were among my favorites. People trapped in unfamiliar places or situations, identity confusion, loss of control, and loss of a sense of self are all themes that occur in these stories. They are frightening as well as thought-provoking.

Windeye is a collection for anyone who enjoys horror stories, as well as anyone who appreciates a well-written short story of any genre. I was fortunate to receive an advance copy of this book. ( )

Usually when there is a collection of works I always find at least a few of the works to be under par. Not so with the little book of weird gems. I enjoyed all the stories even though some had me scratching my head a bit at the end.

If you enjoy the strange and disharmonious tales that sometime leave the story open-ended then this would be a nice addition to your library. ( )

Brian Evenson’s book of short stories is not a page turner because the reader will want to savor the words, but a sense of dread permeates his work like Edgar Allan Poe and propels the reader through each story.
Each of these gems is different from every other. The topics range from an Orwellian future where individuals are put on life support to ration oxygen, the loss of an eye that still sees, the angel of death, and my favorite, a king’s servant hypnotized by his murderous horse. The one constant is the excellence of the prose and the gap between the real and imagined that leads in a horrific direction.
Evenson’s work has been richly praised by Jonathan Lethem and Peter Straub among others. Evenson has also been a finalist for the Edgar Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, and a winner of the International Horror Guild Award. The reason that he has garnered such acclaim is evident in Windeye. These stories will haunt both your sleeping and waking hours. Highly recommended! ( )

This collection of "literary horror" short stories was hit and miss for me. Many of them were very good and very weird. However, after story after story of things not being as they originally seem and everything ending in horror, the stories became stale and predictable by the end of the book. I would recommend reading a few of these at a time instead of reading the book straight through as I did. I think they would pack more punch that way. ( )

You'd be hard-pressed to find any collection of short stories where every story is a gem. I think it's even more of a challenge when you're dealing with one author putting together that collection of short stories because he or she will either pull the same trick over and over again, making it stale, or feel compelled to try to deliver very different stories with each new offering, meaning they're going to stray into an area that's not so good...

Brian Evenson isn't an exception. But, that being said, some of the stories in this collection are REALLY good. And the ones that fall flat at the very least, are brief.

Of the stories worth reading, I thought The Sladen Suit and Anskan House were worth the price of admission alone. Meanwhile, there's still some interesting pieces that could be enjoyable if you're picking up and putting down in between reading other books. ( )

3 1/2 stars. I was surprised to find such well written stories in a small press book. I liked most of the stories but Windeye and Anskan House were my favorites. ( )

I enjoyed every single one of these short stories, and my best review for this collection is, "engaging and haunting.'

It is not customary for a house to exhibit more windows on the outside than can be accounted for on the inside. In Windeye, the opening story of this brilliant, disturbing collection by Brian Evanson, that extra window suggests a pointed exit from the ordinary to something unknown and unknowable.

Evanson writes masterful gems of characters out of step; disjoined and disjointed; able to view a different plane of reality...a whispy ghost world joined symbiotically in the battlefields of unnamed wars, the stories’ subtle horror nods to Poe, Bradbury and Philip Dick.

In tale after tale Evanson looks through the thin veneer of everyday reality to the possibility of something other. Often small ideas are crafted into one page gems that are just odd enough to make us stop...and wonder. ( )

From the very first story, this collection strongly reminded me of House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski, and if you are a fan of that work, then I think you will probably enjoy Windeye very much. If you also like Stephen King, so much the better, as this book is the love child of House of Leaves and Pet Sematary. Some stories skew more toward science fiction, but even they rely on the power of the uncanny to intrigue and unsettle.

Four stars may be too high of a rating, as there are only 8 of the 25 stories that I would ever want to read again, but I did think those 8 stories were pretty darn good. A brief synopsis of them:

Dapplegrim -- A king's servant is bewitched by a magnificent, murderous grey stallion.

Legion -- A being comes across a severed arm, which drives him to grisly new experiments.

The Sladen Suit -- The mutinous crew of a ship lost in a storm discovers, in their murdered captain's cabin, a curious suit that may or may not be their salvation.

Discrepancy -- A woman notices that the voices are out of sync with the images on her television and slowly realizes the problem isn't with the TV.

The Absent Eye -- The loss of one eye enables a boy to see the hidden reality behind the people he thinks he knows.

Tapadera -- Sometimes, dead is better.

The Other Ear -- A soldier's ear is reattached by battlefield surgeons but to the wrong man, and he comes to realize the ear has some plans of its own.

Anskan House -- A boy makes a sacrifice for the good of his family, but it might cost more than he anticipates.

Though these stories stood out to me, the rest of them tend to run together. Some of them seem to be basically the same story told over and over. There's an awful lot of ambiguous trekking and tedious agonizing. Most of the stories seem to come from nowhere and go nowhere. Fair warning: If you like tidy little tales that are neatly resolved, then you will hate this book.

But even when the plot (for lack of a better word) of a story isn't compelling, the writing is always crisp and interesting. I have absolutely no complaints there.

Overall, this was certainly interesting enough to prompt me to check out Brian Evenson's other work. ( )