Since at least 2008 I’ve had something by John Langan on my ‘to-read’ list, but still hadn’t followed through. Reviews of his collection Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters caught my attention back then. Subsequent talk and praise of his 2016 novel The Fisherman brought him back to my attention, and horror fans still mention and recommend that book frequently in 2025 discussions. Equally strong praise for his latest collection from Word Horde, Lost in the Dark and Other Excursions leading up to its publication this month finally drove me to act.
I only regret not more proactively seeking out and purchasing a copy of Mr. Gaunt those seventeen years back.
Now, even though I hadn’t cracked open a Langan book proper, I’ve certainly come across stories by him in “Best of” or themed anthologies. Any fan of dark fantasy or horror short fiction who has decently read a variety of things in the last decades should have come across his work similarly at the very least. But there’s something gained, a breadth, in the reading of a complete collection of short stories by the same author that can’t be gleaned by the occasional run in with singular works spread over time and fading memory.
If you already have read and followed Langan’s writing as a fan, you know the quality and have either already gotten this or can use this as a reminder to do so. But if you haven’t read Langan, get this collection and be introduced.
Although Langan might be classified as a writer of weird, dark, or horror fiction, he should equally be placed in phylogeny as literary fiction, that is to writing that celebrates and shows off artistry of craft. His work is a full bundle in that regard: stories of wide ranging talent that also entertain and unsettle. The depth and relative complexity of that writing does however then demand a bit more reader attention than more basic pleasure reading might ask. Langan’s style holds closer to classic horror and literature than most modern day writers go for, particularly those on the best-seller shelves. Yet, his themes, characters, and plots are certainly modern and fresh compared to those inspirations of another era.
In an introduction to this new collection, Victor Lavalle writes:
There are many writers who I might classify as related to him, but they strike me as ancestors, forebears not contemporaries. Algernon Blackwood; M.R. James; T.E.D. Klein; Henry’s James’s keen interest in human consciousness; and that master of the expansive short story, Alice Munro. So maybe it’s more precise to say no one writes like John Langan these days.
Lavalle is right, but it would perhaps be even more, more precise to say that he also writes in startling ways that even those giants couldn’t foresee or achieve.
The ability of Langan to impress became evident to me with the first story of Lost in the Dark and Other Excursions. “Madame Painte: For Sale” is one of the more shorter, lighter, and comical stories of the collection. Just as I started to enjoy and get into the story, Langan breaks out the second-person.
The one thing that I really can’t stand reading fiction. I usually just stop and move on because it pulls me out of the reading experience like nothing else, as if someone were running nails on a chalkboard beside me. But here I gritted my teeth and bore onward. Thankfully for me that second person effect isn’t used continuously in the story so I managed to get through and still enjoy the tale over all for what it was. And it’s about a cursed garden gnome, which is just fantastic; in Langan’s capable hands even an element that turns a reader off can’t destroy the overwhelming positive parts that hit.
I hesitate to call writing in the second person a gimmick, but I would say that it is at least gimmick-adjacent, a more nontraditional, even experimental approach to storytelling that people could adore if done well enough to land. Interspersed through this collection are other stories in that vein, ones that reveal an artist exploring the medium of written storytelling, such as “Snakebit, or Why I (Continue to) Love Horror” or “Errata.” These also go into the meta realms of genre and the writing craft.
Ultimately I’m hard pressed to write about the individual stories of the collection because they are all so good, but often in very varied ways, and the best thing that I can say is to simply go and discover them all. Only two of the thirteen are original to the collection, however the remaining eleven come from a diversity of publications that I think most would be highly unlikely to have previously read them all. Even then, it’s worth reading any again within the context of their arrangement here. Several come from themed anthologies edited by Ellen Datlow, but even considering the many of those I’ve read myself, none happened to include the ones used for entries in this.
Highlights of the collection for me would include the title novella “Lost in the Dark,” “My Father, Dr. Frankenstein”, “Errata”, “Natalya, Queen of the Hungry Dogs”, and “Oscar Returns from the Dead, Prophesizing.” Several stories in the collection feature the sea, or water in general, as a major component in some way. For whatever reason I seemed to not connect with those as much, including “Haak,” a story involving Pan and Peter Pan that many other readers point to as a favorite. Perhaps because I know very little about either of these characters I reacted to the story less strongly.
Although we’re just getting this review up now, I read Lost in the Dark and Other Excursions just prior to Uncertain Sons and Other Stories by Thomas Ha, which was featured earlier this month on our podcast. Together these two collections restored a passion for short fiction in me, and were simply inspiring in both the formulation of the individual stories and the act of compiling them into an album-like collection. Langan includes story notes as an appendix to the collection that reveal some of his inspirations and thoughts behind what fills the pages.
Next to Stephen Graham Jones’ The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, Langan’s and Ha’s collections would rank as top reads so far this year, whether limiting to horror or talking just in general. They’re all similar in their unsettling brilliance while showcasing unique voices. I’d encourage everyone not to miss out.
