I can imagine that this story would have been scary when it was published in 1913, when human air travel was still brand new. While it was well-written and a quick listen with a good narrator, I have to disagree with my beloved Stephen King - I didn't think it was scary, and I was underwhelmed. ( )

Having enjoyed Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, decided to give some of his other genre stories a try. The "tales of suspense" in this collection turn out to be just what one might expect: fairly tightly plotted, imaginative, and presented in Doyle's characteristic style: a little dry, a little remote, but pleasant and accessible ... in other words, rather like a trustworthy mid-priced red wine from a familiar winery. (Just my vintage!) Have summarized each story below, partly to aid my recollection, partly to give potential readers an idea of what to expect.

Remember when science fiction authors wrote about monsters in space, because we didn’t know any better? The Horror of the Heights, the first tale in this outing, might be considered a sort of prequel, set in the days when aerialists strove to set ever-higher altitude records. Not hard to imagine these early pilots might have been genuinely trepidatious about what awaited them up there, beyond the clouds!

The Tale of Blue John Gap presents us with more monsters, this time inhabiting old Roman mining shafts in a British village. What I love about this story is how Doyle invokes evolutionary forces in crafting his denoument – a somewhat daring authorial choice at the time, but would you expect any less from the author of Lost World?

And since we're speaking of monsters, let us invoke Lot No. 249, which has a definite “Saturday Horror Matinee” feel to it. When was the last time you read a good, old fashioned mummy story? This one’s just the right blend of nostalgia and creepy.

Selecting a Ghost finishes out the silly/creepy stories, recounting the tale of a newly rich British gentleman who is so disappointed to discover his newly acquired manse doesn’t come equipped with a ghost, he sets out to buy one. Lots of wonderful humor here, as well as, in my opinion, some of the best writing in the book.

An American’s Tale reads more like a tall tale than a genuine attempt at suspense, but don't hold that against it. Like me, you may have a hard time figuring out which is more entertaining: Doyle's preposterously insulting American frontiersman stereotypes, or the idea that the American West once teamed with vast tropical rainforests. Mark Twain might have been proud to add this to his canon.

The Parasite is one of three stories about the potential powers of “mesmerism,” because you just don’t know what those souls are going to get up to when they leave your body, do you? In this story, the mesmeric powers are wielded by an infatuated medium, with deadly results.

Later, in The Great Keinplatz Experiment, mesmerism once more goes awry, accidentally depositing the wrong souls back into the wrong bodies. (Don’t you hate it when that happens? )

Finally, there’s The Winning Shot, which posits a sort of “mesmeric projection” to explain the tragic results of a shooting competition. (Besides monsters, Doyle does love a good romantic triangle – they’re everywhere in these stories, including this one.)

And then, just when you're starting to worry Doyle’s gone a little over the edge, we get Da Profundis, in which a fairly familiar “psychic” phenomenon – reported sightings by family members of their loved ones at the moment of their passing, even though hundreds/thousands of miles separate them – is provided with a satisfyingly scientific (if rather gruesome) explanation.

Through the Veil is a very short story about reincarnation. I actually hoped this one would be longer, but at least you don’t have to wait for the satisfying twist at the end. I could see someone turning this into one of those supernatural romance novels that seem to dominate the YA shelves these days.

The Los Amigos Fiasco incorporates that technological miracle of Doyle’s day: electricity. The conundrum: is it such a good idea to start executing people by electric chair when it was electricity that famously reanimated Frankenstein’s monster?

Alas, cool technology isn't quite enough to save The Great Brown-Pericord Motor, perhaps the weakest story in this collection. I’m sure the motor itself would have been a wonder in its day, but the story of the acrimonious relationship between the inventors doesn’t present anything new or particularly interesting, and the denoument feels psychologically inauthentic.

And then there's Our Midnight Visitor, which doesn't need technology to generate kicks - just a handful of beloved, reliable "Boy's Life" narrative tropes: a mysterious stranger, a remote island, and treasure. Because anything more would just be gilding the lily, right?

Which leads me to my favorite story in the collection, enticingly titled Danger!, again a tale of adventure rather than the supernatural, in which a tiny country of little importance takes on and wins a war against the mighty British nation by means of a few subs and a very clever plan. Never mind that Doyle hasn’t even bothered to develop any of the characters or that, in parts, the thing reads like a dry military briefing – the cleverness of the plan and my curiosity over whether it would work were more than enough to keep me reading.

In other words, there's plenty of nostalgic entertainment here, and if Doyle isn't exactly Alice Munro, perhaps we can all agree that's not such a bad thing after all? ( )

A collection of some of Arthur Conan Doyle's creepy short stories of the supernatural, the macabre and the just plain weird, The Horror of the Height & Other Tales of Suspense (first published in 1913 and reprinted in 1992 by Chronicle Books) is another example of the excellent Conan Doyle works which tend to get eclipsed by Sherlock Holmes. Don't get me wrong, the Holmes mysteries are among my favorites, but there's so much more!

From creepy creatures (in the air or under the ground) to the undead, to paranormal possession, Conan Doyle's mastery of the odd and unexplainable (with his signature touches of humor) is on full display here.

http://philobiblos.blogspot.com/2008/07/book-review-horror-of-heights.html ( )