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Title: Mirror of the Night and Other Weird Tales
Series: ———-
Author: Edwin Tubb
Rating: 3 of 5 Stars
Genre: Horror Anthology
Pages: 148
Words: 59K
I was talking with somebody, at some time (I think it was Snapdragon Alcove) and she asked if I’d ever read anything by E.C Tubb. I hadn’t, so I decided to rectify that situation with this standalone collection of short stories by him.
Tubb was quite interested in the supernatural and more specifically, the occultic supernatural. But he was also just fine writing about messed up humanity.
One of the stories is about an older man who has had a stroke. He is convinced his wife has been taken over by an alien and in the end kills her. Only the reader knows everything the narrator is seeing and thinking has been corrupted by the stroke he had. That was the non-occultic kind of scary.
Then you have a story about a guy who robs a cultic temple and takes the jewel from the idol’s forehead. It is a snakegod and he convinces a friend to help him get back to Britain. On the ship ride back, he is mysteriously crushed to death in a locked cabin. The friend returns the jewel and becomes an adherent of the snake god cult.
Tubb is better known (or so I gather) for a science fiction series called Dumarest. I don’t know a thing about it, but after this collection, I’m going to track down a couple and see how they compare. While I wasn’t particularly wowed by this collection, it kept my interest and made me want to check out more by Tubb.
★★★☆☆
Table of Contents:
MIRROR OF THE NIGHT
THE ANCIENT ALCHEMIST
THE ARTIST’S MODEL
SNAKE VENGEANCE
THE ENEMY WITHIN US
STATE OF MIND
SELL ME A DREAM
THE WINNER
THE WITCH OF PERONIA
SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY
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