basis for updated stories. Raven of Destiny(1984) is
similarly based on the legend of an ancient Celtic
warrior and explorer, and Island of Shadows(1991),
the best of his sword and sorcery work, features a
female warrior in ancient Britain. Ravenmoon
(1988) is a very impressive work that blends tradi-
tional fantasy and horror, mixing themes and
moods in a historical setting. Druids identify a
newborn child as the embodiment of a terrible
curse and exert considerable effort to ameliorate
the child’s impact.
Although Tremayne has written no fantasy or
horror novels for more than a decade, concentrat-
ing instead on his detective series, he continues to
contribute occasional outstanding short stories, in-
cluding “The Specter of Tullyfane Abbey” (2001)
and “The Bridge of Sighs” (2002). A good selec-
tion of Tremayne’s short fantasy fiction appeared as
My Lady of Hy-Brasil (1987), while The Aisling
(1992) has a much darker tone. His success in the
mystery genre has deprived the fantasy and horror
field of one of its potentially outstanding writers.
“A Tropical Horror”William Hope Hodgson
(1904)
With personal experience of the sea in his back-
ground, it is not surprising that several of the bet-
ter horror stories of William Hope HODGSONare
set entirely or in part aboard oceangoing vessels, as
is the case with this early, exceptionally intense
monster story. The protagonist is one of several
sailors aboard the Glen Doonwho are faced with
imminent death when their ship is boarded by a
sea serpent, never described in exact detail but
clearly an oversized snake with tentacles and
claws. The creature dominates the deck, driving
the protagonist and a young boy into hiding in a
metal-walled structure while the others aboard es-
cape below deck or up into the rigging.
The serpent is intelligent, powerful, and pa-
tient. It manages to pluck some of the men from
the rigging, although others climb beyond its
reach. The captain organizes a counterattack using
their signal cannon, which wounds the beast but
not seriously enough to drive it off, and it responds
by killing its attackers. On more than one occasion
the protagonist believes that the creature has re-
turned to the sea because it remains silent for so
long, on one occasion even jostling the vessel to
suggest that it had gone over the side, but in every
case it is waiting for them to emerge.
The siege is finally lifted by another physical
attack on the serpent, but by then all but the pro-
tagonist have died, even the men in the rigging,
who have succumbed to exposure after two days
without water or shelter. The story is told in the
present tense, a device that conflicts with its jour-
nalistic prose style and an affectation Hodgson
abandoned for the bulk of his work. Writers as di-
verse as Peter Benchley, Mel Odom, and Piers AN-
THONYwrote entire novels involving an undersea
creature’s predation on humans, but Hodgson de-
livers much of the same impact in only a few pages.“Trucks”Stephen King(1973)
Sometimes horror stories are well grounded in logic
and seem completely plausible. Authors often exert
great efforts to convince us that the irrational is ra-
tional, that vampires could exist even though they
would quickly multiply and overwhelm the living
population, that ghosts haunt houses even though
there has never been any serious evidence that this
is true, and so on. Some horror is, in fact, techni-
cally science fiction. Monsters could be mutations,
visitors from outer space, or genetically engineered.
This verisimilitude is designed to draw the reader
more completely into the fictional world so that we
can share the emotions of the characters. On the
other hand, there are occasional stories that seize
on some interesting but totally implausible device
and run with it, as is the case with this short but in-
tense story by Stephen KING.
Much of the action has already taken place
when the story opens. All the trucks and buses in
the world have become animate and hostile to hu-
mans. The protagonist is one of a handful of sur-
vivors trapped in a gas station and convenience
store on a highway while a number of trucks prowl
the parking lot, waiting to run down anyone who
strays outside. A terrified man promptly and un-
wisely abandons cover and is knocked into a ditch,
an incident designed to make certain the reader
understands what is happening. The situation
rapidly deteriorates from that point on. Although354 “A Tropical Horror”