Black Ceremonies – Book Review

by | Mar 19, 2015 | Book Reviews, Reviews | 0 comments

imagesBlack Ceremonies
Charles Black
Parallel Universe Publications
January, 2015
Reviewed by Jess Landry

With nods to Miskatonic University, ocean-dwelling creatures and everyone’s favourite grimoire, fans of Lovecraft will appreciate the often subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) acknowledgements to one of horror’s most renowned talents in Black Ceremonies by author Charles Black.

The collection of thirteen supernatural stories starts out with a few promising tales, but unfortunately loses steam as it draws to a close. The fatal flaw is that some of the narrative is a little awkward. Stories like The Obsession of Percival Cairstairs and The Necronomicon use the old-school, 1st person story structure (i.e.: narrator sees an old friend, old friend has a secret, narrator can only listen in shock and awe as old friend recounts horrific tale, bad thing happens to old friend), which is all fine and dandy, but their endings throw off any momentum that may have been building Percival Cairstairs, as an example, is told from the perspective of Henry Farringdon and ends its interlude with a nice twist, only to segue into an epilogue now told by another narrator (a character called ‘Black;’ it’s not clear if this is the author adding himself into the story or just someone randomly named Black) who is now speaking to former narrator Farringdon. Most of the epilogues (only one is actually identified as an ‘epilogue’ throughout the whole book) seem a little unnecessary; I believe the stories would’ve been better off without them.

It’s also worth noting that the main characters of all thirteen stories are men. Yes, there are women in most of the stories, but 99.99% of them are used only as objects rather than fleshed out as actual characters. A little variety goes a long way, and it would’ve been nice to see a heroine in action rather than a bevy of cardboard seductresses and victims.

The stand-out tale in the collection is The Madness Out of the Sea, although its ending suffers from the aforementioned fatal flaw. Told from the 1st person perspective of Father Michael O’Donnell, a weary traveler comes seeking sanctuary at the church. The traveler tells the Father his tale of wreckage and sea creatures, and how he’s on the run from their vengeful wrath. The Father grants him sanctuary for the night only to find the traveler gone without a trace the following morning. The final paragraph switches to a new voice without warning – it recounts (also in 1st person) how Father O’Donnell went missing and how what we’ve just read what actually a letter written by the Father himself. The last paragraph, we come to find, was written by Dr. Thomas Hodgson who has the Father’s letter in his possession. If we flat-out ignore the final, seemingly unnecessary paragraph, the story itself is not half-bad.

All-in-all, cutting the epilogues and doing some quick formatting may have assisted with clarity of the narrative structure in this collection, but ultimately the lack of cohesion and abruptness of prose makes Black Ceremonies a little difficult to enjoy.

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