Cliff Burns

This collection of short stories by Canadian author Cliff Burns dates from 2013, though some of the stories date back to the mid-1990s. No matter: I enjoyed this collection. Some of the stories struck me as a bit Bradbury-esque, but written for our times with adequate amounts of darkness (Bradbury did get a bit twee in his later years). Many of the stories had twists or turns that were like depth charges, primed to sink deep before going off, quite where and when being a surprise to the show more reader. I like that.

Daughter was the point where the collection took off for me; there were various points where i nodded in recognition of my own past (both in Spies and in Adult Children). Printed Matter was a chilling hoot; The Daddy Monster just chilling. And the collection ended on two highs: Eyes in the Sky (I like a good alternate history, and that one was about as alternate as they come!), and Second Sight I loved. I did feel it ended perhaps a page or two (but no more) too early - how Cheryl met up with Doris Wakaluk wasn't entirely clear - but I'll overlook that for the characters and the setting. I'm hoping that there may be more of the Boyko family and/or the inhabitants of Zephyr... show less

Burns writing is sparse, minimalist, but his words are as sharp as knives, dissecting our universe with astonsishing precision. The Reality Machine, as sharp and memorable as a paper cut, is a real find. These stories have teeth, and they bite. You will not leave unmarked.

Read the Rest of the review here.

A nice collection, if perhaps a bit more suburban than urban at times, but what's in a subtitle? In any case, our idea of the 'urban' now embraces our consensus reality of the media space, and the stories that touch on that have a chill air of weirdness breaking in unnoticed. And some of those stories are more about finding the fantastic in the everyday.

Of individual stories, 'The Curious Mr.Cavendish' would make a fine Tale of the Unexpected if that tv show were still on; 'The Lure of show more Ancient Places' gives a contemporary take on ancient cities, and the sirens that lurk in them even now; and 'The Toxic Cinema of Alain Marchant' will ring true to any cinéast. Indeed, there are a few stories that draw out our habit of living our lives increasingly through our shared media experiences: 'Magic Man' and 'More real than TV' have a smack of authenticity in their behind-the-scenes stories. Recommended. show less

There are a few themes and/or predicaments in the arts that always earn my affection. One is anthropomorphizing animals and/or inanimate objects, provided that it is done with skill and care and genuine wit. I will re-read Firmin and The Bear Went Over the Mountain and Calvin and Hobbes and Bloom County again and again, and I will never tire of watching Toy Story and Babe and Ren and Stimpy. Conversely, I harbour absolutely no goodwill toward Hanna-Barbera cartoons, Garfield (comic or show more movies), Alvin & the Chipmunks, Marmaduke; you get the idea.

Likewise, I love a good hardboiled detective/supernatural mashup, and don't ask me to explain why, 'cuz there ain't no satisfactory answer. I will re-watch Constantine and Lord of Illusions and Angel Heart without tiring; Jeff Vandermeer's beautifully noir novel Finch was one of the best I read last year; I pray that William Hjortsberg will write more; and the mere mention of Clive Barker writing a Harry D'Amour vs. Pinhead novel sets my soul a-fluttering with joy.

So Canadian author Cliff Burns writing up a novel of jaded detectives with supernatural abilities battling lovecraftian forces from beyond? Yeah, I'm all about that.

Cliff came to my attention in 2009, when he introduced me to his collection The Reality Machine, a gritty and sublime collection of sci-fi horror tales that took few prisoners. Cliff has finally seen fit to personally release his first novel, one that has been available as a download for free on his website for some time. I'm normally filled with aversion to self-published works (see: Minnow Trap, Blood & Wine, and this deadly serious example of how unhinged some people can be, and you tell me I'm altogether wrong), but I'm willing to admit my failings, as So Dark the Night is a zippy, fun, and gruesome dip into the monster mash.

Set in the fictional city of Ilium, Burns' pastiche follows the adventures of Cassandra Zinnea and Evgeny Nightstalk, two "shades...nocturnal souls, temperamentally unsuited for the humdrum, nine-to-five existence of the 'Gray' world." The sun-allergic work as nighttime-exclusive investigators who report to a mysterious Old Man for detective assignments of an altogether stranger ilk than the usual. Cassandra is a powerful adept, capable of reading people, attuned to the spiritual realm, and inadvertently poison to electric appliances. Nightstalk, the narrator, is the brawn, a thug with a gift for storytelling, a passion for pornography, and a heightened ability to withstand (and cause) copious amount of violence. It is a strange pairing, but it seems to work, as evidenced by Burns' playful footnotes of past cases.

A strange case of murderous arson brings a mysterious society to the duo's attention. Soon, their investigations lead them to shadowy groups such as The Brethren of Purity, and as their contacts dry up, wither away, completely burst into flame, or much worse - "with one cruel tug, his personality and soul are ripped from his body, his essence gobbled up, the extraneous bits tumbling piecemeal into absolute nothingness" - the twosome begin to piece together a plan that could destroy the fabric of the world.

Yeah, it's one of those kind of novels.

While the ghosts of Hammett, Chandler, Lovecraft, and Poe are all well and accounted for, So Dark the Night is its own peculiar beast. Burns has a lot of twisted fun playing the collage of influences against each other, and he tells a mean tale smoothly.

I can't say that So Dark the Night is a perfect structure. Despite having the deliberate trappings of a hardboiled 1940s-era film noir, the novel is set in the world of today, with somewhat unweildy results; references to Pierce Brosnan, Robert Mitchum, DVDs, and well-appointed television stereo systems seem out-of-place, serving to jar the reader out of Burns' tale. Sometimes, Nightstalk's narration is too 'modern,' again a problem of incongruity with the overall atmosphere. The novel is, at times, too aware of itself as it pertains to its literary forerunners.

Yet So Dark the Night is inherently enjoyable, a fast-paced and occasionally grizzly funhouse ride. As hints abound as to other adventures in the duo's canon, it would be a shame for this to be Zinnea and Nightstalk's only literary appearance.

VERDICT: MONKEY LIKES. show less