Book Review: Not a Speck of Light by Laird Barron

 

Not a Speck of Light by Laird Barron

372 pages, Paperback

Published September, 2024 by Bad Hand Books, LLC

 

Audio of my interview with Laird on this book! 

 

Video of the interview 

 I don’t know Laird Barron as well as some authors, we have had nice interactions with the podcast, but most of my relationship with Laird is as a reader, and a Twitter follow. I felt so deeply for his close family and friends when he was sick in 2022/23 I nervously followed the news like most of the horror fiction community. So, I don’t want anyone to think I am making light of this situation.  It was scary for us fans too, we didn’t want to lose one of the best writers of cosmic horror, the writer behind the amazing Ishiah Coleridge trilogy. 

I understand how scary this would be for Laird, who has written about near-death experiences he had earlier in life. When Laird worked his way back to health I had a feeling that this man with his fingers on the pulse of the dark beating heart of the cosmos would come back with power. When I heard there was a new collection, I knew I had to read it. A Laird Barron book is always a cause for celebration, a collection is even more reason as LB is one of the best short story writers on the planet. Now add the weight of his recent brush with death and I knew this was going to be the most powerful collection in a career of strong work. 

Not a Speck of Light is Barron’s 5th collection, and it appears most of the stories from before LB’s latest brush with death but two of the most powerful tales in the collection, ‘Mobility’ and the title story both seem influenced by the events in his life. Strangely it predated the illness. That said I don’t think it is possible to come that close and not experience a new relationship with the cosmos. The first story Laird wrote in recovery was the title story, Not a Speck of Light is a bit of a dark painful dog love story, it is a powerful heart-pounding story that I wish never existed as it does. It took a recovering man turning his pain into a beautifully dark art for it to happen.

The prose as always is poetic, lyrical, and fine-tuned to paint a picture in your mind’s eye. Barron blends noir, cosmic, and moments of humor with a sense of grand literature. The quality of the word-to-word prose is hard to describe with hyperbole, and I feel it is getting better. Having written a trilogy of street-level noir modern Barron has clarity enough in the fantasy stories that his early stories didn’t excel in. 

The collection is divided into four stylistically unified parts. Part one is called Blood Red Samaritans. My guess is these stories were more character based stories Part two being Wandering Stars which was more cosmic horror, section three has the most informative name. “Alan Smithee is Dead,” Smithee is the pen name directors put on movies they are embarrassed by. I don’t think Barron is saying these are bad, they are not. I think he is admitting to their pulpy nature.  The last sections are called Fear Sun and Lake Terror.

 

‘Soul of Me’ was my favorite story of the collection It has the wild fantasy feel of Jack Vance Dying Earth novels, and in a way has the far future pastoral feel of Clifford Simak. It is a short piece, but worth every penny I spent on the book. “In your final incarnation on this miserable, blood-soaked world, you are Rex. Spot, Fido, Roscoe, yellow, ramp, rusty, Rin Tin Tin, Buck, and the others, the ever-popular others, yes, those two. But always and forever Rex. The last of your kind and the kinds that came before.”  

Rex is a character that I love. This universe and character need a novel or novella. PLEASE Laird.

This collection shows how playful the author is with titles, but also how he grounds his tales in the living breathing landscapes of Upstate New York and of course Alaska, his childhood home state.

“Alaska is a damned big, empty place bordered by nowhere. Between frigid temperatures and snowfalls as deep to a giraffe, it has weapons to kill anything more complex than Iraq. Civilization exists in tiny, disenfranchised pockets surrounded by a howling void. Basically, it's the universe and microcosm.

There's always plenty of tinfoil hat theories and superstitious legends to go along with all that frozen tundra lost radar sites fronting for secret nuclear launch silos aimed at Russia; FEMA concentration camps for the inevitable apocalypse, UFO observation bases; etc, etc..”

Not a Speck of Light is the best collection of stories by an author who has excelled at the powerful short story. Every story is powerful. Every page drips with dark energy. All in a beautiful package with amazing black and white art to open every story. Get it now.