Book Review: The Short Stories of Lincoln Crisler

Happy (belated) New Year, fiends! I don’t make New Year’s resolutions, but with every New Year I hope to discover previously unknown authors while still making time to revisit my old favorites. I am pleased to open 2011 with a review of two short story collections by an author that was a stranger to me, and is probably new to you, Lincoln Crisler. His name may elicit a chuckle, but this is not a pen name it’s real! In fact, his mother’s maiden name was Ford. I couldn’t make this up. Now is a great time to get acquainted with Crisler’s work since his first novella Wild will be released in digital and paperback format in March 2011 from Damnation Books. If you taste-test Crisler’s writing in his short story collections, Despairs & Delights and Magick & Misery, you will find promising genre fiction of a wide spectrum – unconventional tales of the undead, stories of old fashioned witchcraft, urban legend-inspired campfire stories of curses steeped in folklore, brutal tales of revenge, and even alien abduction – all proving that Crisler has the chops to expand on the short story format and move into bigger territory.

The first collection of ten stories Despairs & Delights was released in 2008 by Arctic Wolf Publishing and clocks in at just 129 pages. It opens with one of the more humorous entries of the bunch, “Farewell Engagement,” that finds young punk band The Veins picking up an extra gig in a rundown club outside of Philly. Despite nearing the end of their exhaustive tour and looking forward to a night off, hopes of a big paycheck sway the band to accept. Unfortunately for them this gig could be their last as they’ll be playing to a crowd who rocks from beyond the grave! “Farewell Engagement” is much like an episode from Tales from the Crypt with a severed tongue-in-cheek attitude that ends with a grotesquely didactic message. While this is a lighthearted tale of terror, Crisler seems to take his queues from modern master of the macabre Clive Barker who has a similar tale concerning a play performed for the undead in “Sex, Death, and Starshine” from Barker’s Books of Blood.

Crisler’s stories aren’t all fun and games, some of them have a more serious and sinister edge. The second story and one of the serious entries “Knight of the Living Dead” follows Anders who, against all warning, takes a deadly shortcut through the Dark Oaks and meets the Queen of the Undead who gives him a calamitous ultimatum. This is a spooky little tale fit for sharing around the campfire. “Knight of the Living Dead” highlights Crisler’s ability to craft a chilling atmosphere, but also his talent to create his own frightening folklore. Crisler also proves he can elicit a disturbing blend of arousal and disgust from his Queen of the Undead, the kind worthy of an immortal Siren. The combination of attraction and horror can be a difficult one to make, but Crisler pulls it off effortlessly.

“The Hitchhiker” (written when Crisler was just 16!) is the sixth and probably my favorite story. It follows Jason on his travels as he feeds his lycanthropic hunger to stay alive until he meets Julie. His fate takes a sentimental turn when he is seduced by Julie and their one night of passion ensures his monstrous legacy. This is one of the longer stories and one that I would love to see Crisler revisit and perhaps expand. This is a frightening, but heartwarming werewolf tale that leaves many questions unanswered and has potential to reopen the saga.

Another standout in this collection is the final story “Vacation” which is more science fiction than the rest of the collection and definitely the strangest. This unconventional hardboiled tale focuses on a detective haunted by an abduction case in which he found Maggie Powers too late, another child-victim who suffered at the hands of the George River Strangler. When fate gives him a second chance for redemption he discovers an unbelievable extraterrestrial plot at the center of which lies the most important piece; earth’s innocent children. This is another entry that has the potential for further development into the long story format.

There is no particular thread connecting the stories in Despairs & Delights, but instead is a showcase of the variety of tools in Lincoln Crisler’s toolbox (which probably sits next to a severed head). Zombies, witches, aliens, werewolves, and scorned ex-husbands populate the haunted landscape of this collection, sometimes humorous, tongue-in-rotted-cheek and other times darkly serious, brutal, and chilling. All Crisler’s tales make up “a piece of my life you’ve plucked off the shelf” and in that respect are all personal and unique to his experiences and the vastness of his disturbed imagination.

Crisler’s second short story collection and the stronger of the two, Magick & Misery, was released in 2009 by Black Bed Sheet Books and contains 10 twisted tales fitting of its title. This book will introduce you to a strange byzantine world despite its concise 96 pages with seemingly standard tales of revenge, curses, and a monster under the bed, but Crisler switches it up with the kind of perverse surprises you’ve come to expect from an episode of The Twilight Zone.

Crisler proves he is able to build his own mythos, like in “The Seven O’clock Man” which features the proverbial monster-under-the-bed that has haunted one generation to the next, but one of my favorites, and arguably the strongest story in the bunch, is “Old Stooping Lugh” which originally appeared in Shroud’s “Abominations” anthology. The terrible fate that befalls a cruel Irish mobster unfolds in this age-old tale of curses when he executes his malicious and brutal methods on the wrong North Boston cobbler.

Another standout story, and one that illustrates Crisler’s strength in the science fiction arena, is “Seymour’s Descent.” “Seymour’s Descent” is set in a futuristic world in which robot CYMR-5 travels to an alternate dimension to observe other life forms. As with most Crisler stories there is more than meets the eye when CYMR-5 quickly realizes this is not the alternate dimension he, or his scientist-creator, expected. As CYMR-5 goes to gruesome lengths to fit into this new world the reader will have to decide if this is normal robot behavior or the grotesque result of a malfunction in travel.

Both of these collections, which are available at Amazon.com, bode promising for an author interested in progressing to the full-length novel format. Lucky for you, dear reader, Lincoln Crisler is releasing his first novella Wild this March. I am very excited about this release because I think Crisler’s writing talents will be fully realized in a novella or novel giving him the opportunity to properly explore all the bizarre ideas that populate his imagination. Be sure to sign up for his newsletter to stay abreast of all things Crisler and to take advantage of any sneak peeks of his upcoming novella. Visit his website where Crisler offers an insider’s scoop on his exploits in the writing world, useful tips on navigating tools of the web, ideas for budding authors and information about all his projects past, present, and future.