Tales Nocturnal: A Collection of Stories of the Uncanny

Tales Nocturnal is a new collection of seventeen stories by Tim Foley.  It is published by the Drugstore Indian Press imprint from PS Publishing, in a 100 copy signed and numbered hardcover, and in a regular trade paperback edition. The cover art by Danielle Serra is nicely atmospheric.  

The tales in the collection range from the year 2000 to the present (three stories are newly published herein). Foley has published these stories in three distinct time periods:  2000-2005, four stories; 2013-2016, seven stories; and 2020 to the present, six stories.  Tales Nocturnal collects the bulk of Foley's output, from respected small press magazines like All Hallows and Supernatural Tales, and other places. I know of only one published story not collected herein, and that one was published in A Book of the Sea (Egaeus Press, 2018), edited by Mark Beech. 

The stories are not arranged chronologically, which ordering would have put two hommage stories at the very beginning.  "An Effect of Moonlight," dedicated to F. Marion Crawford, recalls certain aspects of Crawford's "The Screaming Skull" (1908); and "Flowers  along the Seawall," dedicated to Amelia Edwards, modernizes her "A Phantom Coach" (1864). Foley was more ambitious with his third tale, "Galen's Closet," which opens the collection. It works nicely as a kind of surreal take where the closet of a San Francisco Goth fan gives off sinister vibes, evidently related to the fact that a murder took place in this apartment. 

Many of Foley's characters are introspective, and the tales  follow their obsessions, often over what they think they are seeing or experiencing. In "Snowman, Frozen" a writer staying at a friend's isolated cabin sees a snowman in the distance--it becomes two, and later, three snowmen. "The House Opposite" tells of a couple forced to downsize to a smaller apartment, but the man becomes obsessed with the rundown house across the street. "The Sound of Children Playing" deals with another obsession, that given in the title. 

"Emir" is one of the best tales in the book, bringing in old occult books and their deleterious effects without resorting to silly Lovecraftian yog-sothothry. "Aneurism" starts with harrowing description of the experience of having an aneurism, and associates the experience with a childhood traumatic experience. 

Foley's stories work better when they center on uneasiness and are recounted with the author's own vision.  They work less well when they are mere riffs on common tropes, as with "The Ghost of Niles Canyon," which is a vanishing hitchhiker tale with a twist at the end. 

Overall, it's an interesting and promising collection.