As evidenced by my small bookcase I’m a fan of short fiction
horror(and horror in general) there’s nothing I love more than a good horror
story. On the flipside there is nothing
I despise more than a bad horror story(except for maybe bad sci fi see: Mission Earth). Because
of this I have amassed a sizable collection of short story anthologies. One of my favorite things about these
collections is being exposed to authors I wouldn’t be likely to find anywhere
else or had no prior knowledge or interest in.
I’m a big Joe R. Lansdale and Karl Edward Wagner(see: Complete Drive-In and Karl Edward Wagner)
fan and it’s all because I read their stories in one horror anthology or another. Sometimes it’s not the author but the story I
find more compelling. Many authors will
step outside their comfort zones to write a really good horror story. Other times a short story will influence a
movie or series, which is the case with Clive Barker’s "Forbidden"(The Candyman),
"Hellbound Heart"(the novella that influenced the Hellraiser series), and
"Haekel’s Tale"(Masters of Horror episode of the same title).
Scary Stories to Tell
in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz
It’s about time someone made a collection of stories for
fucked up little kids like me. The weird
thing is I remember this being a very popular book amongst my other classmates
in elementary and it was even featured in the monthly book ordering pamphlet
our teachers would give us. The stories
in this book are macabre and downright terrifying. I think that’s why we liked it so much. It took the kid gloves off and wasn’t afraid
to give us nightmares. It was my first
exposure to urban legend classics like the escaped maniac with a hook for a
hand, the babysitter being taunted by phone calls from within the house, the ominous
vehicular stalker who keeps turning on his high beams, and of course Bloody
Mary(this one was particularly frightening to me because the myth got passed
around a lot among my friends when I was young and we even tried it a few
times. To this day I don’t like to be in
dark bathrooms for very long). There’s a
section in the back that informs the reader where all these stories originated
from. I must confess as a child I didn’t
bother with this part but as an adult I find it interesting. When I was 13 I was able to afford a casket shaped
box set that contained the first Scary Stories with some fake blood and an
audiotape of the stories being enacted.
I wish I still had that tape. I’d
pop it in the nearest tape player right now.
Accompanying the stories are macabre and quite frightening illustrations
by Stephen Gammell. Every time I read
these stories the nostalgia makes me feel like a kid again and I’m reading
them for the first time. I own
the omnibus that collects all 3 books in one and I highly recommend “Scary
Stories to Tell in the Dark” both to children and adults alike.
From the Borderlands:
Stories of Terror and Madness – Edited by Elizabeth Monteleone and Thomas
Monteleone
The stories in this collection aren’t so much scary but just
plain odd. Most of the stories I’ve read
from this one are more about inner turmoil rather than visceral physical
threats. There’s a story about a guy who
has that certain special look that people just warm to and the man who claims
he has the face of god and offers to make a deal for it, there’s a story where
a man wakes up with different hands every morning, a man who is slowly
disappearing, and my personal favorite about a man who steals a pair of panties
from a woman he lusts after, plants them in the ground, and a woman grows out
of them. I originally bought this
collection solely for the Stephen King story which is also good and fits with
the theme of the book but not nearly as creative as the other entries. It’s a good book and it gives me an
impression of what the stories might have been like in early issues of Weird
Tales. Check it out but be forewarned
due to the quirky nature of the stories they can be hit or miss and just like
any good anthology when they miss they miss bad.
Dark Forces – Edited by
Kirby McCauley
I briefly went over this in my Who Is Karl Edward Wagner
article which you can view here: Karl Edward Wagner
I got this book as a gift from mother in 1995 making it one
of the oldest books I own. If you’ve
been paying attention to this blog you’re probably shocked to find as much as I
read my oldest book is only 17 years old(if you want to get technical it’s one
of the oldest books I’ve had in my possession not my oldest book). When I was in sixth grade most of the books I
was interested in were R.L. Stine and Christopher Pike. Both authors released several books a year
and usually when I was done reading them I would loan them out and wouldn’t
really care if my friends lost or kept them.
To Stine’s credit there was a series called Goodnight Kiss about teen
vampires that I treasured and if I still had it I might be tempted to reread
and review it here. And Christopher
Pike’s Wicked Heart is a pretty good one too but I’m getting a little off
topic. Because I was more interested in
reading young adult novels I wasn’t too interested in reading the more adult
themed stories in this book. There are
several things that set this collection apart from the others I own. It was first appearance of Stephen King’s “The
Mist”, Karl Edward Wagner’s “Where the Summer Ends”, Dennis Etchison’s “The
Late Shift”, and the Silver John story “Owls Hoot in the Daytime” by Manly Wade
Wellman(see Who Fears the Devil?). All these stories are
amazing and make this collection worth buying.
But if that isn’t enough to convince you it also has stories by Ray
Bradbury, Richard Matheson and Richard Christian Matheson, and a grisly
Christmas story by Robert Bloch. If this
book suffers from anything it’s the presence of both Ramsey Campbell and Lisa
Tuttle. As stated before I own a lot of
short story collections and these two authors show up in quite a few of
them. I’ve read a few stories by them
and time and time again have been sorely disappointed. I can’t honestly call either of them horror
writers because their stories are always watered down and have ambiguous
endings that are left to the reader’s speculation. They go for cerebral and emotional scares but
they just end up flaccid and boring. You
can skip those stories but the rest of the book is pretty good and I definitely
suggest it. As a side note I’d like to
go into the introduction because it is one of the better ones I’ve read. It goes into the history of Weird Tales,
August Derleth, Arkham House, and was responsible for my interest in H.P.
Lovecraft.
The Best of H.P.
Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre by H.P. Lovecraft
How many times have you read or listened to a “best of”
collection and thought the title was fraudulent? I don’t know about you but I’ve found a lot
of things with Best in the title anything but.
Omitting a story here and there for length(“Cool Air” and “Herbert West
Reanimator”), “The Best of H.P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and
the Macabre” is not one of them. The stories collected here, “The Call of Cthulhu”, “The Rats in the Walls”(influenced the
Stephen King story and movie “The Graveyard Shift”), “The Outsider”(adapted as
Stuart Gordon’s “Castle Freak”), “The Colour Out of Space”(adapted as “The
Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill” in “Creepshow”), and my personal favorite “The
Shadow Over Innsmouth”(adapted as “Dagon” by Stuart Gordon) are among Lovecraft's best. The stories in this volume are so influential
they’ve gone on to be adapted into countless movies and TV episodes(uhhhh for
better or worse, most often worse) not to mention influencing spin-off stories of their
own. The Cthulhu Mythos itself has been
expanded with its own fan fiction(once again for better or worse). This volume is a great introduction for
readers unfamiliar with Lovecraft’s works.
I’ve read every story in this book and some twice. It also features an introduction by Robert
Bloch who credits Lovecraft with influencing him to become a writer. “The Best of H.P. Lovecraft” is an amazing
book and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Blood Lite: An
Anthology of Humorous Horror Stories - Edited by Kevin J. Anderson
You’d think horror and comedy are two genres that don’t mix
well and for the most part you’re right.
I was almost broke and stood around the book department of Wal-Mart
debating with myself whether I should get this book or not. My biggest argument was whether I wanted to
waste $5.97 on this book just for the Jim Butcher “Dresden Files” story. I’m glad I figured what the hell and bought
it anyway because this has some really good and unique stories in it. I feel the need to point out two of the worst
stories in this anthology simply because I can never quite make my mind up
which I hate more. D.L. Snell’s “Love
Seat Solitaire” is clearly the most poorly written in this or any of the
anthologies I’ve mentioned. You know how
people complain about how the protagonists in modern horror movies are assholes
so we don’t care if horrible things happen to them? D.L. Snell has created the same thing only in
short story form. The story opens with 3
of the most reprehensible and stupid characters I’ve ever read playing “Street
Fighter 2” in their dirty, disgusting, dilapidated house. The house is haunted by the previous occupant and true to form they taunt and mock the ghost. It should be obvious that the ghost gets
pissed and kills one of them and for added gross out “humor” attacks the other
while he’s on the can and he shits all over himself. Due to the idiotic and immature fratboy
dialogue in this story and the dated video game references this story was a
chore from the very beginning and just got worse as it went on. Charlaine Harris(whom we can blame for “True
Blood” on showtime) gets top billing on the cover and her story, “An Evening
With Al Gore” is almost as painful as Snell’s.
As you can imagine from the title this story has a heavy handed
environmental message. That normally
wouldn’t bother me but it’s like reading the novelization of “Birdemic”. Like “Birdemic” the environmental message is
so obvious it’s like someone hitting you over the head with a heavy wooden
mallet. In it a couple invites the
world’s worst corporate polluters to a benefit dinner showing “An Inconvenient Truth”. At the end they ask for donations and accuse
their guests of destroying the world.
Some agree to give money to the cause and halt their polluting but
others refuse and then the couple turn into werewolves and kill everybody. There’s many reasons why this story doesn’t
fit here, it’s not funny, it’s way too preachy, and it’s downright boring. The horror element only comes out in the last
two pages of the story and the payoff and punch line is really lame. It’s like watching a chronically unfunny stand-up
comedian continually bomb onstage. As
bad as those stories are 2 out of 21 isn’t bad.
The “Dresden Files” story here is good, there’s a really weird story by
Joe R. Lansdale about a werebear, a story about a cute newborn baby changing
things for the better in hell, a story about a couple of thrill seekers who can
only get in the mood when in mortal danger, and a ghost begging a medium to
excise his friend who is stuck in a dead body.
My two favorite stories deal with Lovecraftian elements. “The Sound of Blunder” by J.A. Konrath and F.
Paul Wilson where two bumbling thieves steal the necronomicon and accidently
start using it. In “The Eldritch
Pastiche from Beyond the Shadow of Horror” by Christopher Welch a troubled
Cthulhu fan fiction writer goes to Fan Fiction Anonymous meetings. He is later told by a representative of the
real Cthulhu the only reason the dark god doesn’t destroy earth is because he
enjoys their bad fan fiction so much and since he is the worst one he must
continue writing. Just like “From the
Borderlands” some of the stories can fall flat but out of the 3 Blood Lites
this one is my favorite.
The Mammoth Book of
Terror – Edited by Stephen Jones
When I said “Dark Forces” was one of the oldest books I own
this one is no doubt the oldest since I acquired it before I got “Dark
Forces”. This is a pretty solid
anthology. Omitting the Lisa Tuttle and
Ramsey Campbell stories every story in this collection is good. The stories range from 1932 to 1991 making
this a very diverse collection. Clive
Barker’s “The Last Illusion” features his recurring characters Harry d’Amour
and Philip Swan. Barker would go on to
write and direct “The Lord of Illusion” featuring these characters. David J. Schow’s “Bunny Didn’t Tell Us” is a
dark comedy about grave robbers unearthing an undead pimp. Just like “Dark Forces” this one has Dennis Etchison’s
“Late Shift”(as stated before its first appearance was in “Dark Forces”), a
story about zombie slave labor in Los Angeles.
“The Mammoth Book of Terror” was also where I was first exposed to Karl
Edward Wagner’s “The River of Night’s Dreaming”. Also featured is an F. Paul Wilson favorite
of mine called “Buckets” and a gruesome story by Graham Masterton called “Pig’s
Dinner” that was made to order especially for this collection. “The Mammoth Book of Terror” is another collection
I highly recommend if you can get your hands on a copy.
Best New Horror Vol. 15
– Edited by Stephen Jones
While I’m on the subject of Stephen Jones I might as well
add another of his collections. I own a
few of Stephen Jones’ “Best New Horror” series and this is the absolute
best. I recently bought “The Best of
Best New Horror” which features stories from the first 20 volumes of the
series. I was shocked to find that not
only was what I considered the best story of this volume omitted in place for a
far weaker one but both Lisa Tuttle and Ramsey Campbell were in it. Well maybe that last part isn’t so shocking
since Ramsey Campbell and Stephen Jones are BFFs and he’s appeared in every
single year of the series. But I
maintain that Lisa Tuttle and Ramsey Campbell should never appear in anything
with “Best” in the title, unless of course it’s Best of Mediocre Horror. My favorite of the stories in this volume is
Mike O’ Driscoll’s haunting “The Silence of the Falling Stars”. For some reason this story just really struck
a chord with me. I empathize with the
main character’s loneliness and the story’s sense of solitude. Even if this was the only good story in this
volume “Best New Horror 15” would still be my favorite for exposing me to this
story. As it turns out “The Silence of
the Falling Stars” is not the only good story in this book but it left the most
lasting impression.
The Best Horror From
Fantasy Tales – Edited by Stephen Jones and David Sutton
Well why not add another Stephen Jones collection while I’m
at it. With the exception of Tuttle and
Campbell this man really knows his horror and that’s why I own so many of his collections. This is a
collection of stories from a pulp magazine I had never heard of. I picked it up brand new(I think it may have
been an overstock) from a secondhand bookstore because it had Jones’ name on
it. Surprisingly Ramsey Campbell is in
this collection and for once(and only once) his story doesn’t suck. I couldn’t tell you why I read his story in
the first place after so many disappointments but I think I may have been enjoying
this book so much I didn’t want it to end.
Anyway his story is a pretty effective Cthulhu mythos. Joining Campbell is Robert Bloch with another
great Lovecraftian story. Hugh B. Cave,
Manly Wade Wellman, Karl Edward Wagner, and Clive Barker are among the other big
names. It’s not hard to believe that
these stories appeared in a pulp mag.
I’d say compared to some of the other anthologies I’ve listed here this
only is merely okay.
The Night Shift by
Stephen King
Just to get an idea of how good this collection of short
stories is 9 of the 20 stories have been adapted for movies and television and
in some cases adapted more than once.
Stephen King’s “Maximum Overdrive” was considered so bad that they
remade it as “Trucks”. Personally it’s
one of my favorite b-movies and the Ac/Dc soundtrack features some of their
most recognizable hits. Even Stephen
King admits he didn’t like it and he was “coked out of his mind” during
production. Despite its faults just like
Plan 9 and The Room it is very enjoyable and includes some moments from the
short story that were filmed exactly how I saw them in my mind. “Children of the Corn”, a story about a small
town populated by children who have killed all the adults, was adapted to the
1984 film starring Linda Hamilton.
“Sometime They Come Back” was very loosely adapted to the 1991
movie. “The Lawnmower Man” however has
absolutely nothing to do the 1992 movie of the same name. “The Ledge”, “Quitters INC.”, and “The
Boogeyman” were adapted for the 1985 movie “Cat’s Eye”. This is one of my favorite King adaptations
and aside from the butchered version of “Boogeyman” none of the stories are
horror. Some of my favorites in this
collection to the best of my knowledge have never been adapted to movies. “The Last Rung on the Ladder” is a melodrama
about a man mourning the death of his sister.
“Strawberry Spring” is a story about a rash of murders culminating with
the protagonist’s realization that he is the killer. The reason why I am including this collection
rather than any of King’s other collections is the stories in this collection
have a different tone than any of the others.
There’s a prevailing dread and gloom throughout most of the stories that
seems missing from his later work.
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