A Glow of Candles and Tales from the Nightside: The Early Short Stories of Charles L. Grant

Charles L. Grant was a big name in the world of horror fiction during the 80s. He wrote a bunch of horror novels set in an imaginary town called Oxrun Station, and he edited many (many) anthologies of short stories. I read 2 short story collections by him recently, A Glow of Candles and Tales from the Nightside. When you read about this guy online, you always see people throwing about the phrase “quiet horror”. Don’t let that fool you into thinking this is horror-lite or anything like that. Grant just uses atmosphere quite effectively. It’s quiet in the sense that you won’t often see where the horror is going to come from. In truth, there were a couple of times when the horror was so quiet that it seemed to pass me by, and I was left only in a state of mild bewilderment.

Both books were published in 1981, but I read A Glow of Candles first. It’s actually labelled as “darkening horror” on the cover. Some of the stories in here are more sci-fi or fantasy than horror. I feel like this stuff would fit into the same category as Ray Bradbury’s early stories. The second collection, Tales from the Nightside was published by Arkham House. These stories are more straightforward spooky in nature, and I don’t mean that in a negative sense at all. I enjoyed this collection more. Also, this book has the same cover as one of my favourite albums.

The below are brief summaries of the stories in these volumes. These are mostly for my own reference. Some of the stories appear in both, so I have just included them in the order I read them in.

A Glow of Candles

A Crowd of Shadows	Robot murderer child of real parents is actually real boy of murderer androids parents.
Hear Me Now, My Sweet Abbey Rose	Family goes to Oxrun on vacation. Daughter gets murdered. Ghost returns for a sentence.
Temperature Days on Hawthorne Street	Milkman brings anything you ask for. Very Stephen Kingish
Come Dance with Me on My Pony’s Grave	Vietnam vet adopts kid. Neighbour kills kids pony. Kid gets neighbour with jungle magic.
The Three of Tens	Pretty good story about a man selling curse boxes at fairground that creates murderous stalker corpse
The Dark of Legends, the Light of Lies	Set in future, a writer tries to write, but people are too educated to read horror fiction so he kills people. Not sure if I got the point here.
The Rest Is Silence	Ghostly stalker murderer in Oxrun. Kills journalists friends
White Wolf Calling	Kid across the road has werewolf parents
A Glow of Candles, a Unicorn’s Eye	An actor kills some directors and  goes on the run because drama is dying. Futuristic sci-fi that isn’t really sci-fi. Very similar to the art story beforehand. Not good.
Caesar, Now Be Still	Principal not happy with teachers thing on Julius Caesar. Teacher decides to quit, but then turns into vampire?
When All the Children Call My Name	Good story about an ex-cop who starts working at a playground where really weird killer kids play.
Secrets of the Heart	Car crash victims arrive at house of psychic magic child. Also psycho. Kills them.

Tales from the Nightside

Coin of the Realm	Toll booth workers are depressed and summoned by Egyptian god of death
Old Friends	An abused child makes friends with the darkness in the cellar where he is punished.
Home	Weird neighbour has little darlings (creepy child monsters) who eat pets and people. Reminded me of another story by this guy. (When All the Children Call my Name)
Night of Dark Intent	Reporter goes to  seance for a story but the people there turn out to be dead zombies
If Damon Comes	Weird neglected kid comes back from the dead
The Gentle Passing of a Hand	Crippled kid wants to become magician but his sleight of hand tricks kill and reanimate people
From all the Fields of Hail and Fire	Creatures are coming out of the ground and setting fire to houses and kidnapping children. Local child takes matters into his own hands
The Key to English	Kid is uncomfortable at creepy school. Breaks into storeroom and finds the schools staff secret
Needle Song	Old woman plays music that drains neighbours of happiness. Some kind of vampire
Something There Is	A horror writer cant find his muse.  Too airy fairy. Not much plot

These stories were pretty good. I’m not going to rush out and read more Charles L. Grant, but I definitely won’t rule out coming back to him in the future. The main reason that I don’t want to check out his novels is that they’re mostly set in the same place, and I reckon if I were to read one of them I’d have to commit to reading the rest. While I haven’t read any other Grant, I read one of his wife’s novels a few years back.