Ana Kai Tangata Tales of the Outer the Other the Damned and the Doomed

I'm fascinated by where horror is headed in the 21st century. Which contemporary issues will find their expression in Gothic? How do creators work with new media? What happens to the classic tropes? Ana Kai Tangata offers a quiet and powerful answer. Scott Nicolay's short stories return us to the classic tale of dread, where a protagonist is gradually immersed in unease, then terror. Nicolay's approach to horror is fascinating. He's very serious, although some opening lines are hilarious, and there are quiet nods to the tradition (Poe at Kindle location 824, for example). Most of the stories point to a rich range of non-genre literary sources, from Ezra Pound to the Bible to Jessica Tarahata Hagedorn. Nearly every story has an embedded tale, the revelation of which either sets up a mystery or undermines the protagonist's reality. Every story is deeply grounded in a specific intellectual or professional domain, be it archaeological technique, Easter Island minutiae, New Jersey police codes, or Navajo culture. We learn about linguistics, the bullfrog's life cycle (although it won't help us), bad federal policies from the 1930s. You'll notice that the preceding paragraph uses words like "each" and "every" and "most", and that brings me to my sole criticism of the collection. Many of the stories contain so many similar elements that reading them all in a row can weaken their power. I started anticipating certain tropes (dead fathers, hidden cave mouths) and phrases (snipe hunt). One theme, however, became stronger through repetition. Ruin and decay shoot through Ana Kai Tangata, backgrounded as settings and foregrounded as plot points and issues to consider. Nicolay forces us to consider urban decay, falling-apart communities, bitterly ruined towns, and people suffering poverty, physical distress, and mental trauma. This dark theme is very much in the Gothic tradition, and the collection explores it with sympathy and without flinching. Nicolay's style carries this thematic engagement off. Most of the time his prose is direct, showing us scenes of decay and dread, yet he never lets us escape a protagonist's mental state through internal monologues, which humanizes every scene, especially since each protagonist is very flawed. At the same time he's capable of passages that stretch beyond those features, into something like noir or otherwise twisted lyricism:A diffuse blade of sun angled through the window slot to cut the shadows. (2831) Jagged bands of leached alkali spread out around each pond. Approaching close to one he saw dead brown weed choking the wide lens of stagnant water, ranks of fuzzy fronds straining to reach the surface yet failing, the still pool fixed as a vast decrepit moss agate, dismal exercise in vegetal futility. (2468)Nicolay is also skilled in understated descriptions and phrases that chill, like "soft frogs" (you'll see: 2678). To selected stories: The title story, "Ana Kai Tangata", is a long exploration of Easter Island, with an interesting mythos. It does a fine job of introducing horror early on, yet calibrating things well enough to keep suspense and dread in play throughout. "Phragmites" begins with archaeology, moves into a study of Native American sociology (who stays close to their people, and who leaves), then goes deeply underground. "Eyes Exchange Bank" is a Thomas Ligotti tribute story, and does a good job of approximating that author's blend of nightmare, surrealism, and decay. "The Bad Outer Space" is unusual, and won me over right away as the book's second story. It's a first person reflection by a young boy about his family and a new friend, which veers into something close to cosmic horror, without leaving that perspective. Very well done and sad. "Tuckahoe" is even more unusual, although it has at its core standard Nicolay elements: a messed-up protagonist, gradual immersion into dread, engagement with professional details (here, New Jersey policing). But it's longer, and the end is a surprise. Horror shifts away from the Lovecraftian doomful mode into two-fisted adventure, and the change of pace is actually refreshing. I need to say something about the stories' endings, and must cloak that in spoilers.(view spoiler)[All but one story ends very badly, with the protagonist's terrible death via monsters, usually. Those finale moments are very neatly told, elegant dooms with a few words sketching out horror and demise.For example, one creature "didn't much resemble a spider at all, regardless of size. Spiders only have eight legs." (2674) . "Geschäfte" reveals its monsters in a nice surprise, without straying from the tale's conceit. (hide spoiler)] In short, strongly recommended for horror readers. This is an author whose work I'll seek out.