Dark Tides was another book from my teenaged horror paperback collection. I cannot recall if I was given it, or bought it myself. But I can vividly remember being more than a little intrigued by the blurb on the back proclaiming that one of the freaks contained within was "A human rhinoceros - eighteen inches long". My hormone infused teenaged mind immediately decided this was a euphemism for some guy with the VERY long dick.
I was more than a little deflated when discovering the author was being rather more pragmatic, and this was no sexual innuendo.
The collection (or at least my edition of it) rather oddly, had no contents page, but did house an introduction penned by the author, which I have copied out below.
As ever, should anyone (quite correctly) feel this represents an infringement upon copyright, let me know and I shall delete it forthwith.
INTRODUCTION
"If you like the verbose pomposity of literary grand opera, or if you think it essential that a story should convey a message that has been chewed to rags for a thousand years or more, this book is not for you. Go away. Shoo!
But if you can and do enjoy the strangeness, the oddity, the something-not-quite-real of a circus performance, you should get somewhat similar entertainment out of these pages.
The stories herein are not classifiable except that they are off the beaten track and some of them may be off their heads as well. They are not about circuses. They are not science-fiction. They are not ghost stories. They resemble a circus only in being a well organized mess created for the benefit of people who like having their imaginations tickled.
Some of the plots may be no more mildly interesting than a lady bare-backed rider, or as thrilling as the daring young man on the flying trapeze, or as downright silly as a painted clown. One or two may even be boring. Not all turns please all tastes at the same time. So eat your apple and let the show go on.
To serve this likeness to a sort of literary circus there should be a troupe of elephants in this book. Believe it or not, they have been included and what more could you want for your money that that? The publisher has generously provided them in the last story, near to the end. They serve no purpose other than as a colourful touch in a haunted man's life. The man is a murderer - or is he? What should be done with him when he is caught? You might like to figure it out for yourself by stepping into his shoes.
As the title states, this is a book about dark tides in human affairs. You may well find them worth contemplating."
E. F. RUSSELL
THE SIN OF HYACINTH PEUCH
The Brittany village of Chateauverne has been the scene of a series of bizarre murders. For not only has each corpse been found drained of blood, but also "wrung out like a damp dishcloth". All of the mutilated bodies have been found in the vicinity of the spot where a meteorite landed some years previously.
The local gendarmerie are baffled, but "simple" Hyacinth Peuch knows the perpetrator. His "sin" is to keep quiet - for who would listen to "the local imbecile" should he chose to speak up?
I loved this story when I first encountered it half-a-century or so ago, and re-reading it again it proved to be an even greater delight. The plot, including the unearthing (quite literally) of the killer, almost takes second stage to EFR's dancing prose, as the writer presents us with a deftly-written cast of villagers and officials. All presented with a twinkle in the author's eye.
As well as the memorably disturbing titular Peuch, we have the legendarily fecund lothario Magnifio Portale, cynical layabout Hippolyte Lemaitre, sexual "revolving firework" Hercule Girandole and the mouthy village gossip Germaine Joubert. And many more.
My personal favourite is the "young, buxom, interestingly rounded and far from overburdened with intellectual capacity" Josephine - a lady pleasingly free with her favours. Upon hearing a sermon from the local Abbe on the fleetingness of worldly treasures, she translates this "as an authorisation to use it while it is still warm".
Where is she now, I wonder?
WITH A BLUNT INSTRUMENT
The Atlantic & General Assurance Company have been seeing a spike in death pay-outs in a single town - twenty-four in all, in fact. But as each death certificate clearly states "Natural Causes", the company has little option but to suck it up and pay out.
Except for "the company's official trouble shooter" Dan Fletcher, who smells the proverbial rat.
His digging soon unearths links between many of the beneficiaries...and a "genuine Australian death-bone" wielding dwarf.
Set in the US, this one is written in a faux Chandleresque style which just grates upon the reader; the prose peppered with such cliched terms as: "suckers", "smackers" (for dollars), "floozie" and "screwball".
I found the ease with which Fletcher unearthed the racket more than a little unconvincing. Similarly, the OK Corral scene at the climax of the yarn, with everybody blasting away at everybody else just silly.
A poor follow-up to that brilliant opening to the collection.
A MATTER OF INSTINCT
Blain was working in the lab late one night, when his eyes beheld an eerie sight. For a corpse from his slab, began to rise and, suddenly, to his surprise...it drew a gun.
But this was no ordinary corpse. This one had been reanimated by a collection of tiny aliens from the planet Glantok. And the little green globs had tired of this dead home, and wished a live one.
An easily digestible chink of sci-fi pulp this one, with Blain being set the seemingly intractable problem of how to thwart the aliens given their telepathic ability to read his every thought.
Solved perhaps, in a rather predictable manner, once Blain's dull-witted and slow-thinking handy-man Tod (very handy, as it transpired) enters the scene.
I'M A STRANGER HERE MYSELF
Mrs. Enderby has brought her fifteen-year old son John along to see a psychologist, claiming her son has "changed". John has begun suggesting his mom and dad are not his biological parents. Indeed, that he is one of a small number of "strangers" - aliens who (for reasons never made completely clear) are being fooled into thinking they are human beings.
What an odd tale this is. Beginning seemingly as an exploration of paranoia, the narrative takes a twist into the realm of fantasy, before a denouement which I freely acknowledge not to understand.
But then I, like John, have never felt totally at home on this planet.
THIS ONE'S ON ME
Jensen is a bold, brash, loudmouthed tabloid reporter. When he stumbles upon a side-street shop advertising "Mutants For Sale". He is, if course, intrigued. Sceptical, but intrigued.
Entering the establishment he requests a "pale blue rhinoceros seventeen inches long and weighing not more than nine pounds".
But he has no time for the shopkeeper's reply that it would take 2-3 weeks to make, and asserts the shop is nothing less than a front for drug dealing.
Bad move.
Great fun, this one - Jensen being such a stereotypical hack, the reader enjoys his punishment.
The author eschews any information on how the shopkeeper does his magic, but this does not seem to matter.
Just one question, I should like answered though: how come the story mentions throughout a seventeen inch long rhinoceros, but by the time the rear cover blub is written, the star of the show has grown an extra inch?
I HEAR YOU CALLING
A sailor, Widgley Bullock, is in town on his last day ashore and looking for fun. Finding the only open bar in town has "No juke-box, no dames, no company", he learns from the barman that a serial killer is on the loose.
Widgley eventually finds himself some company.
Another blood sucking alien arriving on planet earth - this time on a flying saucer. This yarn, although a pleasant enough read, is merely a short, sharp (but vastly inferior) rewrite of the tale which opened the book.
Even a moderately humerous last line joke fails to rescue this one.
WISEL
Half a dozen disparate bods are travelling in a train carriage, when a enigmatic looking seventh gets on. Even more striking is the newcomer's bag - made from a shimmering crocodile skin type fabric, sporting a gaudy sticker showing an unusual building and some unintelligible script.
When asked about the image, he replies the language is "Comric", and the image is of the Red Range Hotel on Mars.
The chap is surely just joking. Surely?
Not much to say about this short four-and-a-half pager - other than another bloody alien.
In fact the oddest thing about this tale, is that it actually somehow becomes less interesting once our tourist from Mars drops in.
THE PONDERER
The Ponderer is a name given to a rocky outcrop of cliff face which resembles a giant in thought. Having finally come up with a solution to whatever it was thinking about, the huge stone figure comes alive, picks up a peasant working in a nearby field, and requests of him another problem to solve.
A remarkable silly tale, which works best, if at all, if the reader accepts the whole yarn is naught but a heat-induced hallucination by the paeon.
SOLE SOLUTION
In a sort of companion piece to the previous tale, here we are presented with two pages of tedious internal monologue ramblings, before a whiny self-important God decides to create the universe.
I thought this one rather clever back when I read it back in the day. Indeed, I plagiarised it for an entry to the school magazine (It got rejected).
Reading it back today, it comes across as incredibly pretentious and dull. And anyway, wasn't God supposed to have already created "the heavens and the earth" BEFORE deciding a bit of light would be useful?
THE RHYTHM OF THE RATS
The sole survivor of a light plane crash in (we are led to believe) central Europe stumbles into a remote mountain village. Although treated well by the villagers, the narrator notices a few decidedly weird things about his surroundings. The local women appear to view him with a peculiar mixture of lust and fear, and he does not encounter any children in the village - also why is he being locked up for the night, ostensibly for his own safety?
All begins to become clear after dark, when a brightly coloured figure appears from the woods playing the most hypnotically entreating music.
A bit of an update, or sequel even, to the Pied Piper of Hamelin fable this one. With EFR retaining that particular revelation as his trademark sting-in-the-tail/tale with this one.
Indeed, we get two stings for the price of one here. A bargain.
ME AND MY SHADOW
Trimble is a downtrodden mouse of a man, bullied by his obnoxious wife, his overbearing boss, by pretty much everyone really. Until he is introduced to his pugnacious shadow, that is.
Another one written in a gritty Spillane noir style, the tale at times reminded me of Woody Allen's Play it Again Sam. But, ultimately, this one does not really go anywhere of interest.
Basically, we see Trimble being bullied a lot - then watch the perpetrators get their come-uppance after, with his shadow's help, Trimble has grown a pair of (metaphorical) balls.
I did smile, though, at EFR's last line image, although did find myself wondering if the whole narrative had been naught but a set up for that gag.
BITTER END
The world's first manned flight to Mars has returned some months late. But minus it's co-pilot, and pilot James Vail has gone on the run, reluctant to share his account of events.
I really liked this one - it perhaps representing a microcosm 0f all that is good about the author's writing: a gripping melange of sci-fi and horror, with a delicious last line revelation.
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