Supernatural Tales

Shadows gathered around his feet and under the tables nearby, pools of dirty light through which the floor glimmered, the tiles ill-formed and murky. He looked again at the recorder, at the time counter rolling implacably onwards, and thought again of Amy and the way she had of making the world feel brighter, lighter. “Who would I tell?” asked Wisher again, and Nakata couldn't answer him. Instead, he asked another question. One of the greatest British movies was Dead of Night , which famously employed the portmanteau format for supernatural stories. If you haven't seen it (what's wrong with you?) the basic premise is simple: man arrives at country house, meets bunch of nice people, but gets nagging sensation that he's 'been here before' – in a dream. Guests are prompted by this to tell supposedly true stories of ghostly encounters. The film ends rather cleverly with a plot twist that makes perfect sense but also comes as a genuine surprise. The portmanteau ...

Sorry, folks, the last ever copy of ST9 has officially gone. It was a double-sized 'annual' issue, too, with a rather interesting three-eyed owl on the cover. But now it is sold out. I suppose this makes it a collector's item - there are around 150 or so copies out there. While I'm on the subject, ST8 is looking a mite thin on the ground, too.

DAY TERRORS Edited with an introduction by Dru Pagliasotti pp257; The Harrow Press 2011; ISBN-13 9780615406404 www.theharrowpress.com When I receive an unsolicited horror anthology, my heart does not sink. Nor, however, does it leap from my bosom in unrestrained joy and gambol round the living room – dear me, no. Firstly, ST is not a horror magazine, and secondly a lot of modern horror leaves me cold. Not disgusted, not morally outraged, just unmoved by variations on the same old themes and ideas. Recycling is fine for saving the planet, but it can doom a genre. Some horror writers do little more than describe a series of derivative schlocky movies  playing in their heads, and I just can't sit down with my popcorn and sit through the whole feature. That said, Day Terrors has a fair number of stories that rise above genre cliché and cardboard characters. Of these, a decent number are supernatural. And, though Harrow Press is a California outfit, I was pleased to find that so...