Wentwood Tales is an imprint of Three Imposters press dedicated to producing chapbooks of short-form weird fiction influenced by Arthur Machen and the Welsh landscape. The first of these is Jon Gower’s ‘Creep’ which, if I’m honest, doesn’t quite seem to launch the series off to an auspicious start. There are vague elements of Machenesque folk horror involved in the narrative, and on occasion ‘Creep’ echoes Machen’s style in its more sardonic phases; but overall there is nothing here which really seems to speak to a profound or primordial exploration of the metaphysical topography of rural Wales which one typically finds in Machen’s work; thus, whilst I approach this from the perspective of an uncouth southerner, this feels like a horror story set in Wales rather than a Welsh horror story.
That said, my anticipation is that the next two chapbooks in the series - Catherine Fisher’s ‘The Tunnel’ and Matthew G. Rees’ ‘The Word’ (and which should be winging their way to me as we speak) - may perhaps demonstrate a closer affiliation to Machenesque moods and themes; and in other respects, ‘Creep’ is to be commended: it is not, by any means, a bad piece of weird fiction - and as a chapbook is a high quality production with regard to the Three Imposters’ usual standards; in addition to which, it is great to see a resurgence of limited edition weird fiction chapbooks such as this in an increasingly digitised age.
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