A Handful of Fears…

Fears Unnamed – Tim Lebbon

What better way to celebrate the holiday season than by reading a collection of four horror novellas, preferably written by an author whose work I enjoy? Lebbon’s Fears Unnamed includes the stories Remnants, White, The Unfortunate and Naming of Parts.

Remnants

The shortish Remnants is a first person narrative, narrated by Peter, a middle class individual with a typically dull home life. Peter has an adventuresome friend by the name of Scott, and the two occasionally get together to engage in interesting sojourns to foreign lands. Upon receiving a disturbing message from Scott regarding Scott’s dead son Matthew, Peter finds himself in an Ethiopian desert with an apparently addled Scott, who claims to have found the City of the Dead.

Lebbon succeeds in creating a claustrophobic, disturbing piece, filled with psychological turmoil and supernatural happenings. The ‘ghosts’ he creates are standard fare within the genre, though I thought he did well with a familiar concept. I’m not sure I loved the ending of the story, but I did appreciate that the author leaves it to the reader to determine what actually happened to Peter and Scott.

White

A supernatural cataclysm is the impetus for the story White. A small group of people finds themselves isolated in a rural area when The Ruin occurs, an unexplained catastrophe of global proportions. For the unlucky group, it manifests itself as a neverending snow storm, which happens to hide extremely dangerous doppleganger-like entities.
 
This story is also told from the first person perspective, though the narrator appears to be anonymous. He is a grieving widower, a man who is self-involved and not very likeable, to be honest. While it’s easy to tell he wants to join his wife in death, he lacks the intestinal fortitude to do so.
 
He is joined in his hopeless situation by five others: Ellie, the pragmatist of the group; Rosalie, the unhelpful cynic; Hayden, the antisocial cook; the good but none-too-bright Charley; and Brand, the useless stoner. Ellie and Rosie are memorable characters, and they have more than a few good scenes between them. Hayden turns out to be a more interesting character than expected, as he has a traitorous bent. Charley is a stereotypical bimbo, and Brand is surprisingly surly for a pot smoker.
 
Lebbon does create a series of creepy monsters, and the snow itself takes on ominous overtones. The underlying vibe of stir craziness is also well developed. The dialogue between characters isn’t up to the author’s usual standards. I thought the ending was very effective, though.
 
The Unfortunate

The Unfortunate tells the story of Adam, a man involved in a massive plane crash who is saved from the brink of death by an exotic race of beings who call themselves Amaranth. Not knowing if these beings are angels, demons, gods or aliens, Adam unwittingly makes a deal with them, in which he will have good fortune in exchange for his belief in them. Of course, all is not as it seems, and Adam soon finds himself in opposition to the Amaranth, as well as his own new-found luck.

The story’s principal, Adam, is an interesting figure, a man who struggles with his various life goals (e.g. successful career, contented and healthy family), but manages to maintain a zest for life and a balanced worldview. It’s clear how conflicted he becomes, when he realizes his good fortune has dire consequences for all those around him.

Alison and Jamie, his wife and son, respectively, suffer from a lack of development, though they are not really central figures in the story. However, a bit more page time would have given more resonance to Adam’s commitment to his family.  I did enjoy the antics of Maggie, Adam’s agent. A randy old girl with busy hands, she’s a welcome bit of humour in an otherwise dark story.

Lebbon’s monsters/angels the Amaranth are definitely memorable. An odd hybrid of Strieber’s Grays and horror movie wraiths, the Amaranth are initially benign and enigmatic, but gradually transform into frighteningly inscrutable and brutally cruel avatars.
 
Well written, suspenseful and insightful, The Unfortunate is just fantastic.

Naming of Parts
 
This story follows the trials and tribulations of one family during a pandemic event that transforms most of the general population into zombies of the traditional type (i.e. homicidal flesh-eaters).

Precocious preteen Jack is the focus of the tale, as he struggles to control his fears in an obviously catastrophic situation. As he watches his family and society at large crumble, he manages to maintain his sanity by using his older sister’s method of breaking down and identifying his concerns, thus making them manageable, more or less. Of course, that doesn’t prevent tragedy after tragedy from occurring…
 
Gray and June, Jack’s parental units, display impressive survival instincts for a yuppie couple. Gray is very much the stoic, dispassionate father figure, his sole goal being to protect his young family. June is warmer, being just shy of stereotypical as the loving mother with a smidgeon too much bad luck… And finally there’s older sister Mandy, an enlightened, rebellious woman who is very close to her younger sibling, and tries to impart her wisdom to Jack. I found Mandy to be the most engaging character within the story, even though her story is told in flashback form.

While Lebbon’s zombies are more or less traditional, he did put a little twist or two into the mix, which I enjoyed. And considering the shortness of the story, it doesn’t feel rushed or incomplete, either. All in all, Naming of Parts is much better than average for stories in this particular sub-genre. 
 
Remnants:  7 out of 10
White:  7 out of 10
The Unfortunate:  9 out of 10
Naming of Parts: 9 out of 10
 
Overall rating:  8 out of 10