Read This: Miss Linwood Entertains

Miss Linwood Entertains, John Linwood Grant’s upcoming collection, is full of stories as complex and strange as any aficionado of literary weird fiction could wish for. Deeply felt and imaginative, the sixteen stories here run the gamut from slyly humorous to starkly grim. And every one of them is a delight, gorgeously written and surprisingly real, no matter how uncanny the events in them may become.

And they are uncanny. These stories are full of Lovecraftian whimsy, ancient magic, subtle horrors, and playful digressions from the more traditionally serious fare.

***

Grant has an extraordinary talent for creating convincing characters–young or old, privileged or poor, mortal or not–and setting them in convincingly detailed milieu. There, he explores the human condition in the face of the unfathomable. The horrors of war are made more so by inexplicable forces. The indignities of age find redress in secretive eldritch powers. Witches and vampires lurk among mere mortals, getting by as best they can. Adventurers set off into the unknown, and find things other than what they seek. Common folk discover the veiled histories of alien gods, where the sacred and the profane become blurred. 

Choices are made, and consequences earned, with an artful internal logic that keeps the characters always true to themselves.

***

Ten stories included in Miss Linwood Entertains have appeared in other publications, but six are new to this collection: ”Those Who Stay”, a gorgeous tale of the inhabitants of a strange, sentient seaside hotel; “Pretties”, a postapocalyptic vignette, dreamy and weird; “By Welten Tarn”, which captures the bleak, empty unknowing of cosmic horror as it unfolds around a lonely young girl; “Autumn’s Crooked Smile”, a brief, grotesque inversion of a Halloween tradition; “A Reckoning” another vignette, richly detailed; and “I Never Liked Him Anyway”, a wry look at senseless murder told from the viewpoint of the weapon.

***

Miss Linwood Entertains is an eclectic  selection of  fine, haunting tales from a master storyteller. John Linwood Grant has a keen eye for the details that make both his characters and their arcane and otherworldly experiences believable. This collection is an evocative joy to read, and I recommend it highly.