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Just finished reading a fantastic anthology called Enter at Your Own Risk: Fires and Phantoms. My review...
Although gay-themed writing has come out of the closet in the last decade, there seems to be a self-imposed closet in the genre. For some reason, much of it strays into the bodice-ripper territory of the Harlequin Romance penny novel. We are traveling down a nice plot and STOP INSERT EROTIC comes along. Enter At Your Own Risk: Fires and Phantoms breaks that mold with a fantastic collection of Gothic ghost tales of the gay flavor.
There is the touch of erotic here and there. There is love lost and love avenged. Some come out of the closet and some wish they had. There are two stellar Gothic classics included among the modern writers. Edith Wharton’s “The Eyes” and “In Kropfsberg Keep” by Ralph Adams Cram remind us that we’ve been in literature long before we were allowed to be literature. Among the current crop, there are a few standout tales here. Robbie Anderson’s “When You are Right” and B.E. Scully’s “Time For One More Show” are both intensely frightening stories of revenge from beyond the grave. “The Neglected Ones” By Joshua Skye is a haunting tale of loneliness and the depths to which a young man will go to end those feelings. Richard Hall’s masterpiece “Country People” is included here. “Promises in the Dark, Whispers at Dawn” by Vincent Waters paints a vicious and violent picture of guilt, perceived sin, and hate. T. Fox Dunham’s “Last Dance in the Rain” explores fear, isolation, and panic in a wonderfully accurate Civil war setting.
Seventeen stories and a fantastic introduction by Robert Dunbar round out this marvelous anthology. Each one captures the Gothic tradition established by Poe, Byron, Shelley and others a century ago. Haunting, painful, mournful, vengeful… make sure this one’s in your trick or treat bag this year!
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