The Gorgon Flower (John Richards, UQP)

John Richards’s The Gorgon Flower is a collection of six short stories (and the title novella), for fans of the macabre and peculiar. This is a collection both classic and modern, with roughly half the stories having contemporary settings, while the others are historical, leaning toward the Gothic. Among the subjects in this collection are the logistical difficulties of being a guardian angel, a supernatural task for a police consultant (to check if a criminal really has a devil on their shoulder), mathematicians who uncover proof of alternate dimensions and promptly vanish, as well as an artist whose paintings become more valuable after his death—because he’s still painting them. The centrepiece of the book, however, is the titular novella. In extracts from the journal of a 19th-century botanist, which become more bizarre and incredible as time passes, this story follows a doomed expedition into the heart of the Congo in search of a rare plant with strange, unnatural properties and gruesome appetites. All the stories in the collection are good, but I think I prefer the period ones, which hit a nice Gothic sweet spot. They’re more Arthur Machen than Edgar Allan Poe, because the causes of terror are not just fear and anxiety but also very real things going bump in the night. With beautifully descriptive and tension-building prose, this is a great collection for folks who like their creepy stories clever and atmospheric.

Books+Publishing reviewer: Stefen Brazulaitis has been a bookseller with a special interest in science fiction and fantasy for thirty years and is the owner of Stefen's Books in Perth WA. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

Category: Friday Unlocked reviews Reviews