Mistress of the Dark – Stories of the Macabre (volume 1) is Del Gibson’s debut anthology. I can’t say that my level of anticipation didn’t skyrocket when I got this book just the other day. And though this is not really about the book itself, but rather the first story in it, I must comment on the amazing quality of the cover. It’s like touching something with a texture between silk and velvet! I absolutely love it! 

Another thing, which I don’t love, and isn’t part of the actual story or words either is the overall page layout, the type setting and the line spacing does not really agree with my eyes. I think the line spacing might be double and that’s a bit too much I think. But on the other hand, the text is rather big and I have no problem with the font so it’s relatively easy to read.

Since the author is a native English speaker and I’m not, I won’t fall into the trap of having strong opinions about wordings and such things even if that is of immense importance when it comes to written stories. Although I must confess I was a little bit confused at times since I, a Swede, probably use a mix of British English and American English mixed with some poorly translated idioms, was confronted by a vocabulary designed by a New Zealandic author.

Never mind. I just needed to set a baseline.

One Lost Soul

One Lost Soul is the first story in the book and it’s about life and death. It’s hard to go into detail without spoiling anything. Since it’s such a short story there isn’t very much layering and or complex character development.

My impression was that I was a little bit confused at the beginning, partly because of some word choices that seemed odd to my Swedish brain, but also because I couldn’t really see the picture that was painted in front of me. It’s described in detail but I couldn’t find a special object to connect it to. And how could I. How do you describe an ordinary home? You can’t very well say that there’s any extraordinary object in the room or any paintings by Rembrandt on the walls.

But once I got into it I found the story intriguing. I did have some suspicion in which way it would go at the end but I wasn’t sure. Basically I was right so I think the twist and the realization could have been more dramatic and shocked me a little more. But as a whole I’m pleased with the story and I’m looking forward to the next. 

Searching for Lucy

Again, it’s a story that is very easy to get into. This one involves spirits and a ouijaboard, something that always draws my attention. I like ouija boards, although I don’t know if I’m brave enough to actually own one myself. I do like the aesthetics of them for sure. 

I think the tension in this one is seamlessly built up. It starts off with quite an ordinary story, we don’t know so much, just that Lucy is missing and that a paranormal investigating team is on the case. With each page the tension grows stronger and gets more exciting. I can almost feel the change from sentence to sentence sometimes. They get more and more intense, it’s hard to explain the feeling. I like the story and although there is an ending to it, I’m still not sure if there’s more to the story or not. On one hand it seems finished, but on the other hand there is something that leaves it open. I like that!

I found that language, for me, a bit more challenging. There were a few unknown words to me. I had no problem reading them into the context anyway so it wasn’t a problem. It felt strange that the entire story is written in present tense and not past tense, that confused me a little. But it’s consistent throughout the entire story so I guess there’s an artistic choice attached to it.

Problems

The third story in the book is the one that has affected me the most so far. The first four or five pages or so really build up tension and create something truly terrifying. Also, a reason why I like it so much might be that it’s the closest thing to my own way of writing so far. It’s very Introspective and explores the inner mind in another way than the previous stories. 

It does not manage to keep the grip on me all the way through though. But on the other hand, about halfway through or so, I noticed something else. The prose becomes something that I only can describe as poetry. There’s something about the rhythm to it. Not the sentences themselves but the concept. How certain things repeat themselves over and over in a rhythmic manner brings out the beauty. 

It’s also a story where I couldn’t really foresee where we would end. It could have gone in all kinds of different directions. For me, this is the best story in the book so far!

The Graveyard Shift

This is the first story in Mistress of Darkness – Stories of the Macabre (volume 1) that I don’t really get. I understand the story and so on, but I can’t really get into it. It doesn’t bring me in like a fish trying to catch a lure. Again, just in Searching for Lucy, the story is written in present tense and it feels so odd to me that I have a hard time adapting. That probably says more about me than the story though. Except one part where it’s actually IS written in past tense.

At first I thought I caught a mistake and I spent some time trying to figure out where it went wrong. It took me a while but I found out that it was actually quite logical. It wasn’t a mistake, it was just me not paying enough attention.

There isn’t much more I can say about this story. I didn’t really connect to it and that’s that.

An Earthly Experience

This one wheeled me in right from about the very first sentence. It almost has something Twilight Zoneish about it. Plus that I’ve always had a soft spot for stories where culture is described by an outsider that really doesn’t understand. It often gives an ironic or satirical tone. And I think that applies here as well. It might not be a horror story at its core but it’s also lighthearted and there are certainly deeper concepts here as well. 

What would it be like to live without emotions? Without physical form? Do we humans have an advantage as we can feel pain, but also euphoria? The story is highly introspective and it fits me like a hand in glove! It might not be a ghastly ghost story or a demonic murderer at large, and there might be a strong invälvment of sci-fi, but I really like this story. This is definitely one of the highlights so far!

We deal with human loss and uncertainties and also face a somewhat unclear end. I like that. I want to interpret a story. It doesn’t really matter if it’s a film, a piece of music or a written story. I want MY imagination to take me hostage and be triggered by the story. I don’t want to be told in detail what’s really going on. I think this story manages to do that task quite well!

Broken in the Dark

Broken in the Dark is essentially a nightmare. Perhaps not from start to finish, there is some transportation between the interesting events too. But that’s on the other hand necessary to give the reader a somewhat comprehensible story. As the story itself contains ups and downs, mostly downs if I’m to be completely honest, we need the passages between the intensities as well. If we just put one intense event on another without giving anyone a chance to breathe in between it will be pretty stale.

So.. basically a camping trip gone wrong, very wrong. I don’t want to spoil this so how should I put it… There are dates and years involved in the story which could have been used in a more general way. I realize that the description is vague but involving start and end dates gives the story a finite period to exist in. If it could be described in another manner I think the impact would be even bigger.

But Broken in the Dark is another story I really enjoyed in this collection of short stories. I could see where it was headed beforehand but there were certainly certain elements in there that came as a surprise to me as well. Or… surprise might be the wrong word, At least it wasn’t what I expected then and there. Does that sound good? This was a great one!

The Gilded Mirror

The Gilded Mirror is one of those stories that leaves me with a somewhat ambivalent feeling. I like the premise of the story. Mirrors are always fun (and kind of scary). They represent something that we really cannot see without it. You might think that the reflection of a mirror is just a representation of reality, but it isn’t. Everything is a reverse in a mirror. It’s not the same.

But in stories like these it’s of course not that simple. Often the mirror has its own life or acts like a portal into another world or dimension. Pretty scary stuff really. And I do think that this factor gets through with the words describing the story.

But it also feels a little flat, a little stale. As there is something missing that gets robbed from us. Something that we deserved to know but never got. Now, I don’t really know what it is, it’s one of those things that it’s hard to put a finger on. I might have an abrupt ending? But on the other hand, that’s something that is usually a strength. You know, an ending where not everything is clear and you have to interpret the story.

Maybe it’s the lack of interpretation options? The ending might be abrupt, but it’s also very definite. I think the main thing is that I would have wanted more. I wanted the terror, the mystique and, frankly, the horror, to last longer. I think this is one of the stories that really could have benefited from being deeper explored. But beggars can’t be choosers and I still like it. I’m just a little ambivalent about it.

The House on Broken Hill

Whenever there’s a house on a hill, or even a house mentioned in the title of a story my thoughts go directly to a ghost story of some kind. And by ghost story I also include poltergeists and demonic possession in one way or another. Maybe not strictly every single time but more often than not. And this, of course, goes for The House on Broken Hill as well. I was expecting a ghost story.

I read a few pages and suddenly I wasn’t convinced anymore. Was this instead a story about child molestation? Of course these two elements would be easy to combine. Just look at the iconic Freddy Krüger. Was it a story about survival? Or was it just terror and horror?

Anyway, it took me a few pages to get into the story and in hindsight I wish that the buildup would have lasted a little longer. I would have loved it if the story painted a little more background before going into the mid section and then ending. 

On the other hand, when the end is starting to come I would also have enjoyed a little more terror. No, that’s the wrong phrasing, not more terror, longer terror. If there were a few more pages at the end where the story could be alive a little longer it would have been even better. So in this case, I feel like the story is a little too short and didn’t get the chance to develop as much as it would have needed. Overall very nice though.

Extreme Quarantine

The penultimate story in Mistress of Darkness – Stories of the Macabre (volume 1) is Extreme Quarantine. It’s probably the most gruesome story in the entire collection. I say that knowing full well that I have one more story to go, but I doubt anything coming after this will top it in that aspect. What happened when the Covid pandemic hit the fan and quarantines were necessary for survival? Well, for most people it was a blessing, maybe not in the heat of the moment but it no doubt saved countless lives.

In this story though, the person under quarantine is a serial killer and is not really happy about it at all. How will he be able to satisfy his cravings when he’s locked away all alone? Well, let’s just say that this turns into a tale of body horror that should revolt most people’s perceptions. I’ll leave the story at that to not spoil it too much.

I can, however, say that even though it is the shortest story so far, it is the one I can see a film adaptation of the most. I’m not a screenwriter but I would think that Extreme Quarantine would be fairly easy to adapt to the screen and I hope someone will do it! This is a story that would suit the screen. I don’t think it could be stretched out to a feature film but a short shouldn’t be too hard. I like this one!

Dead or Alive

The anthology ends with a rather short story where the concept of zombies are being handled. It’s also pretty introspective but there’s almost no time to neither build up a premise nor to construct a tense and suspenseful ending. I’m pretty neutral about this story. It doesn’t really add anything for me, nor does it take away anything from the rest of the stories. It’s more of a parentheses in the greater concept of stories.

Of course there is some kind of problematization at the very end. Who the story ends with the status of the protagonist is not really clear, which is a positive thing. I like stories where the interpretation can work either way and where I, as a ready get to decide, what I think is the correct conclusion. 

Bottom Line

So… if we add all these pieces together, will we get the sum of its parts? Do we get something more? Something less? I would say that we get something more. It’s not like the stories that might be less than perfect lowers the overall experience. It’s to be expected that every story is not for everyone. Especially if the stories are handling different topics and also a difference in the style in which they are written.

We have introspective stories, which is right up my alley, but we also have more descriptive ones where the inner journey is not as present. It’s two different things and should be considered in different ways. Of course, both kinds of stories describe something, but one of them might focus more on the physical manifestation of the author’s imagination. Others, as I said, are more introverted and focus more on thought, about the protagonist’s own experiences and thoughts. 

I was a bit bothered with the layout as I mentioned in the beginning, but on the other hand. It adds to the experience if you’re able to turn the page more often, at least for me that doesn’t have English as my first language. It makes me feel “smarter” or more fluent. Of course, none of these things should really affect the rating as they have nothing to do with the wording of stories told. But it’s still a part of the overall experience. 

Story Wise, I’m satisfied. I get a lot of different stories for my money. The average length of them might not always be enough to do the stories justice but they are just about the right length for a few minutes of reading at bedtime and I don’t need to make an abrupt pause in the middle of a story. I like that!