A piratical rabbi who fights zombies. A man-eating Sasquatch in a top hat. An intrepid ghost hunter who dares meet the Devil on his own turf. These are some of the characters whose paths you’ll cross in A MEETING AT THE DEVIL’S HOUSE AND OTHER STORIES.
Welcome to the imagination of Richard Dansky, where legends walk, angels whisper, and unicorns are forced into impossible hopes. Explore the darkest chambers of the human heart or meet face-to-face with evil beyond understanding, as the stories in this collection will terrify and delight in equal measure.
Dark bleatings, my lovely tribe! Today I’m excited to talk about Richard Dansky’s newest short story collection, which is by far one of the weirdest collections I’ve read. I mean that as a compliment, of course. Weird and peculiar are comfortable places for me because I am quite weird and peculiar. So let’s get into the stories!
BEER AND PENNIES: This one is a great opener. It was sort of like a cross between Adam Nevill’s ‘The Ritual’ and Stephen King’s ‘The Man in the Black Suit’. Two guys go to a specific spot in the woods to try to see the Devil. Be careful what you wish for!
THE THIRTY-NINTH LABOR OF REB PALACHE: A pirate with a guardian angel! Ahoy mateys!
WISHING WON’T: A narrator spins us a yarn about a boy that tries to befriend something lurking in a well by feeding it. A great old-fashioned type of monster story and one of my favourites in the book!
LONG OVERDUE: You’d think you could trust a library.
LABOR COSTS: What we have here is a factory of indentured slaves… but can they ever actually work off their debt?
MEEMAW’S FROGS: I loved this one! It’s weirdly mysterious. Meemaw buys her grandson Luther some frogs, and the kid just adores them. He trust his dad to feed them while he’s away on a trip, and dad sucks so that doesn’t go well. What follows is… kind of hilarious.
MEETING IN THE DEVIL’S HOUSE: The title story, and for good reason! Two strangers meet at a house, thinking they’d be the only one there to meet…. a certain person. It’s spooky and full of dread, this one.
EMPTY BOX: This one is peculiar, scary fiction at its finest. A bitter, lost, resentful man sees a fortune teller for advice following his divorce. She offers him a nasty mode of revenge, but of course…
COIN DROP: Another absolutely nuts idea for a story and I loved this one too. A vending machine is not just a mere vending machine! It contains fancier chocolate than it should… and possibly secrets about the universe. My favourite line in the whole book is in this story, and it’s this: “Door to one of God’s starter universes, a place where physics didn’t work out.” My imagination started working overtime when I read that. I’d love an expansion on these starter universes, Richard!
REB PALACHE AND THE DIBBUK: Reb is back and this time… er… well the title says it.
THE WISDOM OF NIGHTINGALES: A court of birds takes pity on a lonely, captive princess. I do not know how Dansky’s imagination works, I really don’t. How does he come up with these concepts? I like it though!
LICKING ROADKILL: Another banger. Cole is found under the influence (of something), literally licking roadkill. Well, his family… they can’t have that. He’s a liability! I loved this one because it took a sharp turn I wasn’t expecting.
THE UNICORN AT THE SOIREE: Richard – I say this with the utmost respect – are you alright?!
A SPLASH OF BLUE: There are people known as “Bloods” that have very special abilities, and one of them goes missing. This, again, was wonderfully odd and has scary expansion potential!
A FINGER’S WORTH OF COAL: I appreciated this because I’m a Welsh person and we have a long, grim history with coal. Hijinx ensues on a train.
THE BEAST OF SICA HOLLOW: Something’s a bit hungry.
ON SEAS OF BLOOD AND SALT: Reb Palache strikes again!
Overall, there are a lot of weird and wonderful ideas and stories in this collection. I enjoyed it verily, and though the Reb stories weren’t my personal favourites, I do like how they punctuated the start, middle, and end of the collection. I’m wondering if that character appears elsewhere in Dansky’s work. I’d recommend this to fans of strange and peculiar fiction over hardcore horror fans, although there is horror to be found amongst these pages. I’d call it horror light though, so if you’re looking for guts galore, this ain’t it. If you’re looking for truly weird ideas, this is the right place!
Happy Goat Horror 
Leave a comment