Visitants: Stories of Fallen Angels and Heavenly Hosts

by | Mar 24, 2011 | Reviews | 0 comments

Oh how nice, a book about angels. Wait,  what’s that doing on a website called Horror World? Oh yeah there was that whole “fallen angel thing” that gave birth to the father of all evil, lies, sins and overall naughtiness. So maybe this collection of 27 tales of all things angelic, most of which are reprints but with a few new stories as well, does have a home here. Oh and if you gage things purely based on the quality of the stories, then it certainly does.

This anthology offers a nice wide range of genres to keep things fresh and the reader guessing what kind of tale they’ll get. Yes there’s horror to be found here, but also humor, a few that read as sci-fi and others that smack of fantasy. There are even those that are not easily classifiable and are truly moving, and that’s coming from a card carrying agnostic. If you’re a fan of many flavors of writing then you’ll really get a kick out of this book, but if you only like one type of tale, then not only do I feel sad for you, but you might not like Vistants as much.

As for big names, yeah this book has more than a few. Arthur Machen, Ramsey Campbell, Neil Gaiman, Richard Christian Matheson, Graham Masterton, Robert Silverberg, Michael Marshall Smith, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro and that’s just a taste. With 27 stories (ok five of them are tiny tales by Jay Lake scattered throughout the book) there’s going to be lots of names you know and more than a few that you don’t. But that’s the great thing about books like this; it allows you to get to know new authors you otherwise wouldn’t.

Now for the stories. Well cross my heart, hope to die, and may angels beat me up if I lie, but there wasn’t a clunker in the whole book. But there were some that I liked more than others. To me, Ramsey Campbell can do no wrong and he does so again with his wonderful “With the Angels”.  Chelsea Quinn Yarbro does a great job exploring religious zealotry with “The Spinning Wheel Compleat”. Arthur Machen is as “classic” as I like to get with my reading and his “The Bowmen” earns the title of classic (without quotes) with every word. “Plague Angel” by Yvonne Navarro is a pure horror story about a demon haunted house and on the other side of the spectrum there’s “Basileus” by Robert Silverberg that had me grinning like a goon from the first page. The always fantastic, and usually fanciful, Neil Gaiman does his usual bang-up job melting two genres together with his hard-boiled angel detective tale, “Murder Mysteries”.

I could go on and on, but if the six stories I highlighted here don’t whet your appetite for this book, then (A) I don’t know what will and (B) don’t worry, there’s still 21 tales here for you to discover your own favorites. If this hedonistic, non-believing infidel can enjoy this collection then I know you can too. Touched by an Angel this book is not and thank God for that.

About Brian Sammons