Dark Tales #10 Review

This is my first experience of Dark Tales, a glossy A5 magazine that’s filled, predictably, with stories of a dark slant. It advertises itself as a magazine of fantasy, horror and SF, but disappointingly for me contained little in the way of SF. Still, reviewers can’t be choosers, as the old saying goes.

Read my review at UK SF Review.

UK SF Review is no longer on line, so the review is republished here:

This is my first experience of Dark Tales, a glossy A5 magazine that’s filled, predictably, with stories of a dark slant.  It advertises itself as a magazine of fantasy, horror and SF, but disappointingly for me contained little in the way of SF.  Still, reviewers can’t be choosers, as the old saying goes.

 Merlins Pool is a story about fishing by Trevor Hicks.  That makes it sound dull.  It’s actually very atmospheric and with a sense of the mysterious that makes it quite a satisfying read.

 John Morgan’s Still Life is a very short piece that shows what lengths some people will go to for art.  Like all good flash fiction it gets to the point quickly, and that point is nice and sharp.

 Sophie Duffy’s heroine in Hot and Cold is a lonely woman haunted by memories of her twin sister who went missing on the way to school over 20 years earlier.  Now an estate agent, she feels strangely drawn to a creepy old house.  There’s a nice balance of suspense being built, then shaken off as the woman dismisses her fears, that build to an over all emotive tale.

 In The Model Colin Leonard gives us another troubled artist.  this one blind and under the seemingly beneficent influence of a mysterious woman who has served as his muse.  The story is told from the artist’s viewpoint, rather cleverly considering his blindness, and you really come to appreciate his dark world.  I may have missed something at the end though.  Although it built to a dramatic climax, I didn’t quite see what it was.  Ironically enough.

 Caroline Bates’ traveller from another village brings Another Cautionary Tale to his eager listener’s crowded into the local tavern.  He weaves a dreadful tale of death and destruction, sketching the background characters and audience with just enough detail to bring them to life and get you involved.  It’s a story very well told, both by the man in the bar and by the author.

Dennis Michael Skeet provides another piece of flash fiction in Escape.  Being so short I can’t say much more than it’s an alternate history tale about Hitler.  Or is it?

 The Binding is a somewhat gruesome tale from Paul Neads in which an actor has discovered some ethereal way of binding a group of other worldly creatures to himself.  It’s divided up into scenes like a screenplay, to tie in with the main character’s occupation, a character who comes across as convincingly disturbed.

 A property developer recounts his terrifying ordeal at an old mansion in The Blue Room by A.J.Humphrey.  I didn’t find it particularly terrifying though as it was told in the first person, thus ensuring the narrator’s survival.  There were a couple of nice little twists, but not the drama of some of the other stories.

 The Lady, Eve presents Priya Sharma’s tale of another tortured artist, this one a man who seemingly binds up his models’ very essence in the sculptures he creates.  The dialogue and relationship between his wife and his latest model / mistress are very well written, and although we never actually meet the artist, his sorrowful tale is very involving.

 A Winter’s Tale by Alison Theaker is the story of a betrayed woman’s revenge and her plan to do away with the evidence.  Although it’s competently written, I didn’t get a sense of emotion or tenseness to really draw me in.

 So it really is a volume of dark tales, with a mixture of mystery, humour, and chills.  But no science fiction.

End.