THE CENTURY'S BEST HORROR FICTION #77: A review of "The Man Who Loved the Midnight Lady" by Barry N. Malzberg

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Here we have another unusual choice from Pelan. Malzberg has been known to produce a few horror tales (and to even edit horror themed anthologies), but primarily, he’s known for his SF work. Once again, this is more of an SF piece, but there is certainly enough horror here to justify Pelan’s choice.



This time, our unnamed narrator hails from the future, and he’s a scholar of trains. He studies them by going back in time and riding them, observing. It is unclear as to how he time travels, but clues in the story strongly point to a very QUANTUM LEAP-ish way. In one instance, he goes back in time as the politician who joined the east and west coasts with the golden spike. Since it’s not very likely that he went back in time and built up a good enough reputation for himself so he could be elected to office in order to drive that golden spike at the proper time, we can only assume that he “Leaped” into the body of that politician.


We witness a few of his sojourns into the past, and in what seems like a throwaway moment, he meets the titular midnight lady. While on the Yankee Clipper, he meets a beautiful young woman and is absolutely charmed by her. She pushes him away, though, and later admits that she’s actually a ghost. It is suggested that she got in a family way while being unmarried, and as a result, she committed suicide by jumping from this train. It is her punishment to spend eternity riding this train.


(This, by the way, is not a spoiler. This happens in the middle of the story, and as such can’t be a spoiler.)


Truth be told, there are no spoilers for this tale. While Malzberg is an astounding writer, this is one of his weaker tales. There seems to be no point. We see a few vignettes of the narrator riding trains and getting into trouble, and in one instance, falling in love, but that’s all we get. He falls in love. So what? He only ever mentions the midnight lady one more time in the story, and that’s at the very end.


Yes, this is horror, perhaps more horror than SF. But is it worthy of this volume? Probably not, even though Pelan said it was one of the stories he knew he’d put in, regardless of competition. Why? The love story that is supposedly the center of the story is practically incidental. It seems like a sin to say a Malzberg story is a pass, but . . . pass.


[This story first appeared in MIDNIGHT SPECIALS, and it cannot be read online at this time.]