Meet Me In the Middle of the Air
By Eric Schaller
Eric Schaller’s debut collection of weird dark fiction is like one of those great first albums put out by a band that’s been writing songs and practising them in clubs for years. Drawing on two decades of material, these are bold, original stories that startle the reader at nearly every turn of the page.
Schaller is an experimental writer, but the risks he takes work because he has the narrative chops to back them up. Even such horror-genre stand-bys as zombies and witches are made refreshingly new in these pages, while the best stories, like “The Assistant to Dr. Jacob” and “Going Back for What Got Left Behind” have an air of Robert Aickman about them only with a more contemporary and transgressive psychological flavour.
A book that’s been a long time coming, Meet Me In the Middle of the Air leaves us eager for what’s next, but not wanting the author to feel in any rush.
Alex on SF 