"We have enough to last us another year" - Margery
Ticonderoga continue their excellent catalogue development with The Hall of Lost Footsteps, a collection of fifteen tales from the pen of Sara Douglas. While Douglas is probably better known to our fantasy cousins I was actually quite pleased to get my hands on this collection, if only because Ms Douglas' work is something I must admit to being ignorance about. Hey if you travel the dark passages of gloomy mansions there's not enough time in the day to check out sunlit glades full of all manner of mythical creatures. Anyways the reader gets a bunch of stories and a fair helping of tales from the Axis Trilogy, so something there for most readers would be my verdict. Let's breach the sunshine.
Quite often review sites become the abode of strange bedfellows, and on the face of it I would have to say one of the stranger mixes is renowned fantasy Author Sara Douglas appearing on the pages of ScaryMinds. It's like either a dream come true for this site, or Douglas' worse virtual nightmare. Hey Sara, in cyberspace no one can hear you scream. But if you were to dig a little deeper, as is our wont, you might just be in for a pleasant surprise as Douglas heads off the bright path into the deep dark woods. If you definitely don't like horror then either Ms Douglas is going to shock the hell out of your expectations, or you might just be pleasantly bushwhacked by what the genre can offer in the hands of a skilled wordsmith.
Douglas lulls the fantasy reader with her lead off story in the collection, and then rips one hell of an off break from it. Of Fingers and Foreskins has all the trappings of high fantasy, but does so in a sort of tongue in cheek fashion, leading the unwary reader into deeper water. I was actually captivated by this tale of misplaced belief and other ways of viewing beliefs. Things are definitely in the horror hinterland in the second story, The Field of Thorns as Douglas delivers a cunningly constructed tale that for mine reminded of Bram Stoker's most infamous novel. There's that same period charm, yet with darker more morbid underpinnings. You get the feeling Sara Douglas would have been right at home writing at the time of the Bronte sisters, and taking it all down a darker alleyway. Don't worry we're not talking a story written like it had been crafted centuries ago in an idiom that no longer has relevance to the modern world, like all the tales Douglas delivers in this collection the reading is easy, and the hours are going to slip away as you become engrossed in the narrative.I'm certainly not going to reminisce about each individual story, though I at least would have had fun doing so, suffice it to say that in the first part of the collection Douglas establishes her bona fides as a dark genre writer in quite a startling fashion. I definitely didn't get what I was expecting, and rocked on with that development.
Possibly disconcerting to some dark genre followers will be the middle block of the collection, here we're talking fantasy tales from Douglas' award winning Axis Trilogy. If you are after werewolves loping through mist shrouded night time moors then you are definitely out of luck as Douglas throws on some glimpses of what went down in her high fantasy novels. I'm not calling this a deal breaker, for sure just between you and me I'm going to score the trilogy, but if you can't stand fantasy then flip through the six tales that go to make up the sequence. For those who don't mind a little unicorn butter on their midnight toast, dial on in to see what all the excitement was about when Douglas hit the streets running with her fantasy blockbusters.
The final third of the collection see's the Author throw off her fantasy mantel completely and go buck nekkid wild on the streets of horror-town. The Mistress of Marwood Hagg shows Douglas able to hit the revenge yarn, pity they didn't have utes back in 1583, in particular grotesque fashion. That story rocks kids. And for mine the best tale in the collection, Black Heart, wouldn't be out of place as the basis for an Aussie Masters of Horror entry. If you want period horror, and who doesn't on occasion, Douglas demonstrates her ability to get down in the dark genre trenches with the best of them.
As stated previously there are plenty of other tales I haven't mentioned, tackle the collection to discover them for yourself, well worth the time in Country yo.
Overall then I would say The Hall of Lost Footsteps is a well-constructed collection that journeys through the quieter paths of the dark genre wood. While there are some traditional horror tropes on display, things tend to come at the reader from more of an oblique angle than the reader may be used to. I rather enjoyed the experience of reading Sara Douglas' collection, but perhaps wanted something a bit more bloody on the fork by collection end. Not a criticism as such, Douglas writes generally in the fantasy end of the speculative fiction world, just a general feeling that things were somewhat constrained. Definitely a book worth reading for your own enjoyment or you could purchase a few copies for Xmas pressies.
As usual Ticonderoga deliver a high quality professional package that makes you wonder why their product isn't on prominent display down the high street. The team are keeping the good name of Australian Independent Press to the fore, and that's something to be applauded.
The Hall of Lost Footsteps is available from most notable Aussie online stores, and a number of foreign sites as well. If needing more information then hit the official Ticonderoga site for all the good oil.
Sara Douglas doing horror, hell yeah!