Customer Reviews

Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters

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Langan's story collection strikes me as the ungainly product of honest literary ambition kneecapped by tired (and unintentionally humorous) horror trappings. His characters and literary style are actually more interesting and imaginative than his supernatural elements. "Mr Gaunt" and "On Skua Island," for all their effective creation of dread atmosphere and tension, conclude with cheesy and ludicrous rampages by homicidal skeletons and bog mummies that produced giggles in this reader. If the setups for both stories hadn't been so strong, I might not have laughed so hard at the climaxes, or felt so disappointed. The novella "Laocoon" is a perceptive portrait of a gifted but failed artist, but is undercut by a predictable ending that reduces this overlong story to little more than a bloated TWILIGHT ZONE episode (and a lesser one at that). I agree with reviewer Randy Cook when he cites the provocatively titled "Episode Seven: Last Stand Against The Pack In The Kingdom Of The Purple Flowers" as the strongest of this uneven lot. It boasts an unusual and imaginative structure and leaves you wanting to find out what happens next, even as you really don't need to (on account of the fullness of the story that Langan presents here).

To conclude, Langan demonstrates a good enough sense for creating reality, mood, and character that I would prefer to see him leave horror and fantasy behind and try his hand at non-genre fiction.

I consider myself a connoisseur of horror anthologies. Ok, not a very good one, but I read enough that I know what I like, I know what, in my opinion, constitutes a good story, and I am acquainted with a lot of the established masters of the genre.

Or at least I think I am. And then I discover another new writer that I can't believe I have never heard of.

"Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters" is a collection of 4 exceptional long-ish short stories and 1 excellent novella. I was initially a little skeptical to purchase an anthology of only 5 stories by one author that I hadn't heard of. The story premises and reviews, however, hooked me, and I decided to obtain a copy.

I enjoyed this book! His style is very...literary, I think I can say. His description and sketching of character background is incredible. If writing about less gruesome subject matter, his work would definitely find a wide audience among people who love a strong, descriptive turn of phrase.

But he is talking about gruesome subject matter, thank God! The first story, "On Skua Island" was probably my favorite. In this tale, a professor travels to a remote island off the coast of Scotland to study a relic. Naturally, he soon regrets this decision. I'll admit that the beginning caught me off guard (a group of friends are discussing scary stories in an Oceanside house on a gusty winter night). Though the action was slow at first, I immediately found myself chuckling at the conversation that the friends were having (I thought the interaction the author created was brilliant and dead-on). Then the story began in earnest, and the unfolding atmospheric creepiness was top-notch. When the climax hit, I was a tiny bit disappointed because the build-up was so great, but the story ultimately is still a winner.

I felt even more torn about the title story "Mr. Gaunt." This story hits the ground running right away: A young man's father has just died and has left a cassette recording for his son to be played upon his death. The deceased then begins a very odd and disturbing story about a member of the family...and the butler. I found the build-up in this tale very chilling, very disturbing...and, again, was quite let down by the Big Revelation. Nonetheless, the character building and plot build-up that Mr. Langan weaves still make it an awesome work of fiction in my mind.

The story "Tutorial" was also excellent. A horror story for writers about writing, I found it quite creepy with an "ok" ending.

The awesomely-named "Episode Seven: Last Stand Against the Pack in the Kingdom of the Purple Flowers" is a post-apocolyptic tale with a very unusual writing pattern. Very creative, very non-linear. What's so damn scary about this tale is the lack of knowledge for the protagonists. They have no idea what happened to the World, to civilization. But they have their theories, many of which sound so wild...but you're actually afraid that they might be correct. Again, the characters' portraits are very strong and three-dimensional.
The final story, "Laocoon, or, the Singularity," is a novella. The plot itself was very creepy to me: A failed artist/struggling art teacher finds a very strange statue in the alley by his house. The figure is...not human. He adopts it. Not wise.
This story goes into character development even more deeply than his other stories. To be honest, I was rather annoyed at times by the relentless backstory upon backstory. It was done extremely well, and Mr. Langan is absolutely brilliant at it...but well, I wanted to get back to what was happening with that damn statue. And this time, when the end came, I personally was caught off guard and found the ending very satisfying. A great horror story, if a little heavy on the "man's search for himself" topic.

Though I didn't absolutely love the stories, I did greatly enjoy them for their originality of voice and intellectual way that they were written. Mr. Langan's writing is a fresh breath in the genre. Recommended!

Similar to many others, I have also been hugely impressed with this collection, and would like to get hold of the next book by this author. The stories in this collection are:

1) On Skua Island: A Mummy/Zombie/ancient-horror story, that succeeds in getting our attention with its old-world charm and once-fashionable-no-sadly-abandoned format of story-telling around the fire. It is very good, and despite its length, is taut & gripping.

2) Mr. Gaunt: A horror story involving occult, monstrous uncle and his even-more-horrifying companion, and a somewhat-predictable ending.

3) Tutorial: Thinly veiled autobiographical story where an emerging & ambitious author tries to break away from the shackles of form, and faces some truly harrowing opponents who force him into formality.

4) Episode Seven: Last Stand Against the Pack in the Kingdom of the Purple Flowers: The best story, which is apocalyptic, super-heroic, and very tightly told with back-and-forth narrative with strong characterization.

5) Laocoon, or The Singularity: A failure because of its length and interminable ponderings through which the protagonist is forced through.

A very good collection. Recommended to all lovers of horror.

First, a caveat: I am not much of a fan of horror fiction, and I can't claim to be widely read or schooled in this genre. For some time this year, though, I've had a hankering for some solid stories of horror and suspense with a supernatural edge to them. Langan, for the most part, satisfied these literary hunger pangs.

It's important to note that some of the trappings of modern horror are almost entirely absent: there's very little "on-screen" gore in these stories, and Langan does not devote hundreds of words to the blood that is shed in his stories. They also do not feature graphic sex - whether that's a bonus or ding is up to you. I think the stories were much stronger for not being explicitly gory; Langan accomplishes much through suggestion, imagination, and traditional yet effective scare tactics (sounds, shadows, intimations). As far as the absence of sex - the stories don't seem to need it, which tells me Langan knows what he's doing. (Letting the story dictate the tone and contents, rather than shoving elements in simply to include them.)

Of the five stories, three are very strong; one is "OK", and one I found, frankly, boring. When he's on his game, Langan successfully builds then delivers scares, chills and adrenaline-fueled scenes of horror. "On Skua Island" takes a few pages to get going, but once it's into the main tale, I was gripped and couldn't put it down. Borrowing elements from both Lovecraftian and Victorian horror traditions without being cheap pastiche, the story provides a neat twist on a classic monster. Langan explains the very obvious tonal shift in the story in his end notes; while I understand his reasoning, I'm not sure how necessary or succesful it was - but the "real" story doesn't suffer from it.

"Mr. Gaunt" takes its time reaching both climaxes, but the real horror hits just as the story ends. I found Mr. Gaunt's "reveal" deliciously horrorifying and creepy, and you definitely can taste his victim's fear and confusion.

"Tutorial" is amusing, but a bit self-indulgent. Some neat images and scenes, though it's nothing overly special.

"Episode Seven" borrows heavily from Stephen King's The Stand among other post-acopalyptic stories, as well as a touch of Lovecraft (the plants, the shadows of immense beasts), and yet it works very, very well. The style is radically different from the first three stories, and this was a weclome change of pace. It also helps communicate a greater urgency and sense of action. Langan's ability to describe action really shines here; I'd like to see more of this from him. The story also manages to fool the reader; the climax seems to be one of the protagonist's efforts against a monstrous "Pack", but it's really in the other lead character's head and heart as the action plays out.

"Laocoon" was a real disappointment; it felt far too much like postmodern horror, with unlikable characters, dreary, pointless lives and a lot of culturally self-aware characters. Unfortunately, the story moves very slowly, and bores more than horrorifies.

Langan's love for an earlier era of writing and storytelling is very much on display in this collection; overall, I think that's a good thing. He pulls off telling some satisfyingly creepy and scary stories, often with layers of meaning and literary relevance, and avoids using a lot of the cheap and easily exploited tools of modern horror. Despite the uneven nature of the collection, I think it's worth reading. I look forward to his next story - or stories.

***SPOILERS BELOW***

Langan is a superlative stylist, yet this initial collection shows more of a promising future than a presently engaging body of work. The two leading pieces, "On Skua Island" and the eponymous "Mr. Gaunt" are elegantly written tales that build atmosphere and then squander it on dopy monsters and ludicrous situations. "Skua Island" feature a Viking mummy (!) decimating a squad of SAS troopers on a remote Scottish island, and "Mr. Gaunt" turns out to be an animated skeleton who wedges some overly curious teen into a flesh-eating sarcophagus.

Neither concept really matches the sophistication of the writing and I ultimately found both stories diminished because of the hokey creature feature aspects. At one point, the animated skeleton chases the inquisitive teen through the streets of downtown Edinburgh and casts a magic spell to keep the chase from being seen (and giggled at) by other pedestrians. Nothing says "Harry Pottter knockoff" more than animated skeletons casting invisibility spells while chasing teen bumblers...

Besides the relative lack of polish in scenario creation, Langan has an even more troubling tendency - use of either overly common tropes or overly obvious plot points. Examples: in "Skua Island", the Viking mummy is found interred with a mysterious sword. After the corpse reanimates and starts wreaking havoc, it proves invulnerable to gunfire...hmm, how can it be stopped? Wait... maybe that sword the creature was buried with? Mm-hm.

Second point: "Gaunt"'s evil sorcerer tells our hero "I hoped you would replace me, but you lack the appropriate temperament. But someone close to you may be a better match to learn my secrets..." (Bwa ha hah hah!) Now considering there is exactly one other character in the story, who also happens to be the hero's son, it is not much of a cliffhanger as to how this one is going to play out.

Finally, my favorite overused trope: after initial Viking mummy attack, the remaining 9 SAS squad survivors decide to split up to track down the mysterious assailant. A pair of two man teams head out in different directions, whilst the remaining 5 troopers remain behind to guard the camp site. Surprisingly enough, the 4 men sent out never return.... I guess SAS small unit tactics are cribbed from old Scooby Doo episodes!

The sad thing is that most of the rest of the stories in Mr. Gaunt don't even reach the mixed standards set by Skua and Gaunt. "Tutorial" involving an aspiring young horror writer (whose massively wretched prose is quoted throughout apparently as a serious example of creative work) who is tortured and intimidated by a panel of evil inquisitors who are trying to drive him away from genre literature. I am not sure if this is meant to be funny (it's not) or is rather one of the lamest whiny rants ever put in print by a disgruntled genre maven who "don't get no respect" from John Barth fans. In any case, it ain't horror.

"Laocoon" involves a whiny wanna-be artiste intellectual with marital problems who's stuck working in a video store. Sure enough, Mr. Tarantino finds a mysterious life-size model of a Giger-esque Alien, and his preoccupation with the model leads to a mysterious transformation... This would be an OK concept if covered in maybe 15 pages or so, but Langan's lengthy tale goes on and on involving us in the drab minutiae of our loser protagonist's dull life. In his after story notes, Langan tells us that he couldn't place this story into a venue because of its great length. Buddy, that ain't the only problem here, but wading through a long dull tale featuring a bland protagonist who can't score with his jailbait coworker at Blockbuster just adds insult to injury.

Finally, "The Pack" is probably the best story in the book, featuring an experimental writing style and a setup very similar to mid-career King (think "The Mist" with more psychological acuity and less coherence...) This is an enjoyable read and the best overall tale in here.

I feel bad panning Langan's book. He pays careful detail to plotting details, pacing, and character, all usual trouble spots with horror short fiction, so it is encouraging to see him get these vital elements right most of the time. He creates mood and tone, and I think his best work is ahead of him.

To compare (perhaps unfairly) Laird Barron's far superior Imago Sequence collection with Langan's book shows the problem; Barron's "Old Virginia" has a setup remarkably similar to "On Skua Island", (soldiers in rural isolation playing cat and mouse with dark forces) yet Barron's story is genuinely scary and the beastie (when it comes) is both unexpected and genuinely frightening.

I hope that Langan will take his superior writing skills and use them in a more creative and more acutely horrific style in the future. Here is a young author to watch, though maybe not quite a book worth buying.

Not the best. He likes to copy other writers' style alot, but should concentrate on developing his own. Also, showing more doesn't necessarily make things scarier.

I'm not a huge fan of horror fiction-- I reviewed this collection for a librarians' database-- but I loved "On Skua Island." It's a modern mummy tale featuring one of the most horrifying monsters I've encountered, ever. Wonderful, thrilling stuff. All these stories aren't as successful, but on the basis of that Skua Island mummy I suggest you give Langan a try.

'Mr Guant and Other Uneasy Encounters' is a collection of five stories by John Langan. The stories carry a feel of the old fashioned ghost story. While the stories can be a bit uneasy, they do not rely on graphic violence and gore to scare the reader. I found this refreshing.

'On Skua Island' is the story of a college professor who is asked to visit an archealogical site. The group taking him are covert and milataristic, but that doesn't seem to cause any fear. Strange. This is the story that didn't connect with me.

'Mr Guant' is a great story. A deathbed confession and warning from a father to his son leads to a strange uncle and his servant. This was my favorite story. Once the father's tape recording starts to play I was hooked.

'The Tutorial' was a fun story. 'Laocoon...' was a bit long and a bit predictable.

"Episode Seven...' was a grat story. It opened a number of questions that are not addressed, but that is what makes this story so enjoyable.

I would definitely recommend this collection to fans of horror stories.

John's first collection was released in late (I'm talking, 11:58 December 31st late) December, and on the strength of great reviews and word of mouth, is going into a second printing already. As others have noted, John's style is very much in the tradition of Henry and M.R. James, but at the same time, he's doing his own thing. His own thing is painstakingly crafted fiction that takes its time building mood, character, and narrative drive. That's not to say that every story is a quiet contemplation of horror. There are, frankly, just wild and chaotic scenes of action-terror (for lack of a better phrase), particularly in "On Skua Island" and "Mr. Gaunt," and these scenes are such an incredible rush/release because of masterful slow burn build-up. The best story in the bunch, however, is "Episode Seven: Last Stand Against the Pack in the Kingdom of the Purple Flowers," which is an experimental and eye-blink paced apocalyptic nightmare.