BOOK REVIEW: BEDTIME STORIES BY RUSSELL SMEATON

The 15 pieces within Bedtime Stories are driven by story, character, and emotion rather than by purple prose or pointless padding; 

​The moment you crack open Russell Smeaton’s Bedtime Stories, it becomes apparent that this isn’t your average horror collection. There’s no congratulatory foreword, self-aggrandizing introduction, or overly indulgent author’s note. Turn the page and the first thing you see is a table of contents. Turn the page again and you’re onto the first story. No muss, no fuss.
 
Of the 15 tales included here, only five run longer than ten pages. Many are half that. The whole thing runs less than 200 pages total, with the final two reserved for a short acknowledgements list and a roll-call of the book’s Kickstarter backers. Even the graphic design adopts a kind of slick minimalism that makes this look less like a collection of fiction and more like a professional software manual.
 
At first glance, you might worry that such austerity reflects bland utilitarian writing. What it really reflects, though, is unpretentious writing. The 15 pieces within Bedtime Stories are driven by story, character, and emotion rather than by purple prose or pointless padding; these are quickly paced, no-frills page-turners that encourage you to keep reading from the moment you crack open the front cover until you reach the very end.
 
Right off the bat, “Monday Morning” wins you over with a darkly comic slice-of-life portrait of a mid-level pencil-pusher trying to improve his love life despite the unfortunate practicalities of corporate-mandated cannibalism. Following that, “Balls” goes for a somewhat more serious Twilight Zone approach, focusing on the before and after of an unexplained apocalypse that transforms all humans into strange, stationary metal spheres. A tongue-in-cheek final line helps maintain a disarming sense of playfulness, but that only serves to make you drop your guard as “The Street” comes ripping around the corner.
 
Beginning as a breezy Bradbury-esque snapshot of childhood nostalgia, “The Street” lures you into thinking it might be, at most, a spooky-fun story about neighborhood kids trick-or-treating and encountering a weird lady handing out Easter eggs instead of Halloween candy. Maybe there will be a mordant Edward Gorey-style punchline, you think.
 
Then you read a line like “The creature felt the summoning pull at its bones. It followed the calling to a large garden where it found small animals that had been prepared, carefully crucified on small wooden crosses,” and your stomach drops out. Gorey? No. Gory? Yes.
 
While “The Street” sneaks in a few touches of wry humor, this tale pulls no punches. This is Horror-with-a-capital-H; it’s violent, twisted, and grim, with a narrative that includes occultism, suicide, child murder, monstrous birth, and even references to pedophilia. “The Street” shows that while Smeaton’s authorial voice is often amiable, that same quality doesn’t always carry over to his subject matter.
 
As if sensing the need for a palate cleanser, Bedtime Stories follows “The Street” with “Spells,” an over-before-you-know-it charmer (with a delightful undercurrent of fridge horror) about a doting father all too happy to humor his 7-year-old daughter’s attempts to do magic. “King Bryan” follows with a sweet-but-sad tribute to living, loving, and dying told from the perspective of a surprising source. Utilizing a similarly bittersweet tone, “Stoned” details the last earthly moments of a lonely beach-bum who lives in his van and spends his days getting high and surfing, all the while yearning for something he can’t quite name.
 
Then comes “Milk.”
 
Like “The Street” before it, this story hits you like an uppercut to the jaw. Here, a happily married couple visit a recently opened goat farm whose dairy products are becoming unusually popular with the locals. Soon enough, the wife becomes pregnant and, soon, finds that her baby has an insatiable craving for… well, you can guess.
 
It’s hard to say more without giving away too much, so let’s just say that “Milk” reads a little like a mash-up between the 2016 film The Witch and Piers Anthony’s controversial short story “In the Barn.” What really makes this tale stand out is the choice to leave its greatest horrors unspoken. Smeaton implies more than he explicates, and even if his hints aren’t always subtle, the effect is still strong.
 
Following that, Bedtime Stories again wisely let the air out of the room, summoning forth its first (but certainly not last) overtly Lovecraftian tale, “Spider Chords,” a winking, druggy riff on “Nyarlathotep” and “The Music of Erich Zahn.” After that, “Nine Lives” offers a thoughtful meditation on reincarnation as viewed from the perspective of a sentimental cat.
 
“Snake Charmer” return to the HPL well for a grisly little chiller about a vaguely xenophobic white tourist investigates the serpent deity Yig within the context of India’s pungi street-performer tradition. Seemingly in retort to the old-school pulpiness of “Snake Charmer,” “These Guys” meanwhile takes a somewhat unsuccessful stab at experimental story-structure.
 
The first half of “These Guys” unfolds via the stream-of-consciousness inner monologues of a trio of horny dudebros attending a rowdy beach party. But then the second half unceremoniously returns to a more standard third-person POV. This shift makes the whole story feel uneven and undercooked; it’s arguably one of Bedtime Stories’ few glaring missteps, detracting from an otherwise enjoyable, if slight, dalliance with Lovecraft’s Deep Ones.
 
“The Path out of Ulthar” fares far better, adopting a romantic, dreamlike tone as it shares the final reminiscences of a frequent visitor to HPL’s fabled feline metropolis. Taking a more comical approach to the Old Gent’s legacy, “Destination R’lyeh” concerns a Cthulhu fanboy who types the watery resting place of everyone favorite’s favorite Old One into his GPS… and actually receives directions there!
 
Finally, closing out Bedtime Stories is “Circus of Crows,” which combo-breaks the recent string of Lovecraft-centric yarns in favor of something more akin to Bradbury, albeit with a surprising streak of perversion. Here, a flock of black birds heralds the arrival of a traveling carnival to a dead-end midwest town, and a young girl finds herself drawn to its handsome ringmaster. Unfortunately, the man’s, ahem, unconventional appetites require greater sacrifice than his would-be lover realizes.
 
All told, Bedtime Stories makes for an ideal afternoon read, one you’ll likely finish in a single sitting. That’s a testament not simply to the stories’ length, but to their effortless readability as well. These stories are short for no other reason than Smeaton knows what does and does not need to be said. There are few wasted words here.
 
Even when Smeaton does try his hand at longer stories, his instinct towards stripping a narrative down to its most essential parts serves him well. “Milk” is a perfect example; as previously noted, “Milk” makes excellent use of suggested horrors rather than explicit ones, showing how much more a writer can achieve by not saying anything as opposed to saying too much.
 
It’s only when Smeaton tries to embellish instead of simplify that he stumbles. “The Street,” for instance, has a tendency to switch character perspectives frequently. While this kind of omnipresent “god’s eye view” approach to narration does give the piece an enjoyably homespun vibe—it feels less like you’re reading a story and more like someone is telling you one, perhaps ‘round the proverbial campfire—it is nevertheless confusing at times. The POV switches can come so quickly that they feel jarring, and they’re sometimes all too easy to miss.
 
What’s more, “The Street” feels like it’s building to an ending that doesn’t come until later. Or, more accurately, it feels like it ends twice. The story slightly overstays its welcome, losing momentum in the process. Arguably, it could have had a much stronger impact by ending earlier and going out with a bang.
 
That said, despite its flaws “The Street” is still one of the best and most memorable tales in Bedtime Stories, so make of that what you will. Its grotesque nature is made all the more horrifying by virtue of the contrast between it and the tales directly preceding and following.
 
Indeed, Smeaton’s range as a writer may be his most appealing feature. Throughout Bedtime Stories he showcases an impressive talent for flipping the script on a dime, going from fairy tales to Weird Tales without warning, occasionally within the very same piece. For a reader, that’s enticing. It keeps you guessing. More importantly, it keeps you turning those pages, eager to see whether what waits for you is a nightmare or a dream.
 
Sometimes it’s both.

REVIEW BY WILLIAM TEA