The Devil's Children [Import] [Paperback]

ed Michael Parry (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 216 pages
• Publisher: Futura (1974)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0860078140
• ISBN-13: 978-0860078142
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,112,101 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4.0 out of 5 stars "...I crossed my room to seize him, to strangle him, to kill him!", August 21, 2010

By 

Mark Louis Baumgart (Michigan, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Devil's Children (Paperback)

The now forgotten British anthologist Michel Parry was the Ellen Datlow of her time. She wrote three novels and edited at least thirty-five anthologies featuring everything from mainstream to erotic horror. Unfortunately her last anthology was twenty-five years ago, but at her prime, her (mostly British) anthologies were paperback mainstays. Her job here (in 1974) was to fashion an anthology dealing with the theme of demonic possession, which was meant to cash in on the (then) current hit movie "The Exorcist".

Taking the idea and running with it, she gave us this twelve story "The Devil's Children" anthology ranging from the classic to the obscure, and in-between.

******This anthology features TWO stories by Robert Bloch (1917-1994). In my mind the story 'Enoch' is, at least, a minor classic. Originally from "Weird Tales" and 1946, this story features young Seth, whose mother has made a deal with, well, SOMEBODY. In exchange, the lonely swamp dwelling Seth gets a companion called Enoch. Enoch is a small, invisible demon that takes care of Seth, but, he has one inarguable demand. Seth has to kill and decapitate people, with Enoch then having his way with the heads. Unfortunately, Seth has gotten careless, gotten caught, and a small-town sheriff is gonna find out just how real Enoch really is. Top flight entertainment, told in Bloch's masterful "everyman's" voice, this story has a typical Bloch twist at the end, but thankfully, none of his puns. Five stars.

******The other story, (story #10) from "Weird Tales" and 1949 is the Lovecraftian 'The Unspeakable Betrothal' in which the over imaginative young Avis has visitations in her dreams from alien creatures. She wants to go with them back to their home, only she has to be "altered" first. She is thought demented, and put in a "home" and cured. As the story goes on, she grows up, and then her caregivers die, and she backslides, and starts to dream again. Avis is clearly a forties goth, and again, Bloch does a masterful job of people building, but the ending is a little too arbitrarily shocking. It could have been better, so this story only rates four stars.

******The second story, from the collection A Mirror of Shalott and 1907, is 'Father Meuron's Tale' by the Catholic priest R. H. Benson (Robert Hugh Benson: 1871-1914), and who was the brother to A. C. and E. F. Benson, both of whom also wrote horror fiction. It's no surprise that this story deals with a very traditional demonic possession. A young priest is attending a dinner, when an older, more experienced priest (Father Meuron) decides to tell a story of his youth when he was involved in exorcising a demon from a young woman. We've read this story a hundred times before, Benson being a priest, gives it a sense of authenticity. Easy to read, and gets an entertaining four stars.

******The third story is 'Vacant Possession' by Ramsey Campbell (1946-) and is original to this anthology. This is a short, talky, almost stream-of-consciousness story about somebody who is turned into a zombie, then kilt, then is resurrected, to that resurrecter's regret. Forgettable, and reads like a first draft. Two stars.

******Next is an honest to gosh classic, and is 'The Horla' by Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893) who died in an insane asylum. A young man may be losing his mind as he notices that water and milk are drunk during the night, although he never wakes. Then book pages turn, windows open and shut by themselves, and he feels like something is draining his energy. What is it? Is this a possession story or a vampire story? Falls into the same category as 'The Damned Thing' by Ambrose Bierce; stories that deals with alternate invisible creatures. May be the first story dealing with psychic vampires. The boy is clearly mad however. Gets better every time I read it. Five stars.

******H. P. Lovecraft's (Howard Phillips Lovecraft: 1890-1937) "Weird Tales" (1937) story 'The Thing On The Doorstep' is sensationalistic, pulpy, predictable, sexist, and highly entertaining. Edward Derby has married Asenath Waite, or has he? Why is Derby suddenly so obsessed with Asenath? Why his sudden mood changes? Where did Asenath suddenly go? And what is the thing that smells like a rotten corpse that is stalking Derby's friend? The whole thing reads like a campfire story, the ending is impossible, and often reads like a weird menace story. I don't care. Five stars.

******'Saunder's Little Friend' (from "Weird Tales": 1948) by August Derleth (1909-1971), who was also the best early championer of H. P. Lovecraft, is the next story. And again Parry stretches the definition of possession as the last surviving relative of Agatha (Saunders?) is willed the entire estate on the grounds that he refrains from altering Agatha's favorite room. Yeah, you know where this is going. Animated devil dolls, spontaneous combustion, and predictable from the get go. Like Robert Bloch, Derleth specialized in stories about the common person, and from what I've read of his, even at his worst, he was always fun and readable. Sorry, I'm a fan, four fun stars.

******Roger Pater is another Catholic priest (Gilbert Roger Hudleston: 1874-1936) and his story 'A Porta Inferni' is reprinted from his collection Mystic Voices (1923). A self-styled occult dabbler gets involved with some mediumistic activities and is possessed by a long dead villain. He is discovered in an insane asylum by his long out-of-touch friend who has since become a priest. More of an occult, religious cautionary tale about how amateurs shouldn't fool around with the supernatural. An okay read, totally Christian in its outlook, and a serious bit of occult fiction, three stars.

******Henry S. Whitehead (1882-1932) was only forty years old when he died, and he is best known for the voodoo possession story 'Jumbee'. 'The Lips' is from the birth years of "Weird Tales" (1929), and deals with a voodoo curse put upon a white slaver by a haughty black slave. This could easily be a companion piece to the later, by seventy years!!!, Dubaku by Edward M. Erdelac. Sensationalistic in its old-fashioned pulp style, it has a typical "shocking" pulp twist that doesn't quite work. Whitehead was ANOTHER priest, and this predictable vengeance story gets a bonus star because of its condemnation of slavery. Four stars.

******What is there to be said about Richard Matheson (1926-)? He has produced novels like Hell House (Bantam Horror, N7277), A Stir of Echoes (both of which deal with possession), What Dreams May Come: A Novel, I Am Legend, and Bid Time Return, along with stories like 'Prey', 'Duel' and 'Little Girl Lost' which became a "Twilight Zone" episode, and then the movie Poltergeist. He influenced Stephens King and Spielberg, and he is represented here by 'From Shadowed Places' from a 1960 issue of "The Magazine Of Fantasy & Science Fiction" back when it was a quality magazine. A great white hunter humiliates a powerful witch doctor to disastrous results. It's up to a neophyte young black female Houdon to save his sorry butt. Memorable for its detailed depiction of a non-sensationalistic voodoo ritual, the authenticity of which I can't vouch for, the "hero" being black, and female, and for being the first important incidentally erotic horror story in a mainstream publication. Yeah, it might date a little, but it is STILL light-years ahead of much occult fiction STILL being published. Again, not really a horror story, but more of a cautionary story. Five stars.

******J. A. Cuddon (John Anthony Bowden Cuddon: 1928-1996) was a Catholic writer of note, evidently, and 'Isabo' is ANOTHER exorcism story, and it is just a MESS. First a young girl is possessed, the demon GOES to the mother, she GOES to a priest, a psychologist, and an occultist. The occultist tells her to eat pork, she hates pork, but does it anyway, it doesn't "cure her". She is forced to go back to the priest, who now has a Bishop and an old exorcist to help him. It turns out the pork possessed her (?), even though she was possessed BEFORE she ate the pork. This story makes absolutely no sense, but it was originally published in the obscure original anthology Splinters edited by Alex Hamilton in 1968, and shouldn't even get one star, but you can't go lower here.

******John Collier (John Henry Noyes Collier: 1901-1980) closes out the volume with the absurdist humor story 'The Possession Of Angela Bradshaw' and reads like a cross between a horror story as written by James Thurber and Monty Python. I can say no more, although I think I would like it better with multiple readings, and its origin is unknown to me, but the story is reprinted from PRESENTING MOONSHINE Stories by John Collier. (1941) and gets three stars, although fans of this type of humor will rate it much higher.

Three priests, three Lovecraftians, five stories from "Weird Tales"; witchcraft, Satanism, demons, ghosts, humor, improper attitudes, what's not to love? Four stars. To see what this book looks like check out my "customer images".