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jmneil27's review against another edition
4.0
I really enjoyed this short story collection. If you like Stephen King or Dean Koontz, these are definitely in that category of horror/thriller. With these collections I can be satisfied if a few of the stories are great but this was a hidden gem for sure. The title short story I wasn't sure about at the beginning but the ending was the cherry on top.
the_enobee's review against another edition
4.0
I give 5 stars for the short stories and 3 stars for the novella. There is some quintessential McCammon here. Any fan of his will love these stories.
bmg20's review against another edition
⭐⭐⭐⭐ "Yellowjacket Summer" A mother and her two kids stop at a rural gas station but find bigger problems than the heat.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ "Makeup" A small-time thief steals a dead horror star's makeup case and quickly learns its contents are more than just makeup.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "Doom City" A man who awakens one morning to find a skeleton in bed where his wife had been the night before.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "Nightcrawlers" A Vietnam veteran comes seeking shelter from the storm and the nightmares of his past.
⭐⭐⭐ "Pin" The unsettling ravings of a madman.
⭐⭐⭐ "Yellachile's Cage" A young man in prison finds hope in his imagination.
⭐⭐⭐ "I Scream Man" A man suffers from hallucinations beyond his control.
"He'll Come Knocking at Your Door" The devil arrives to trick-or-treat on Halloween to collect his due.
"Chico"
"Night Calls the Green Falcon" A retired cinema superhero takes up his cape again to stalk a real-life prostitute's murderer.
"The Red House"
"Something Passed By" Water becomes combustible, concrete turns to quicksand, people move swiftly toward old age or infancy.
"Blue World" Father John Lancaster battles temptations of the flesh and becomes a better priest as he saves the life of a cocaine-snorting porn queen.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ "Makeup" A small-time thief steals a dead horror star's makeup case and quickly learns its contents are more than just makeup.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "Doom City" A man who awakens one morning to find a skeleton in bed where his wife had been the night before.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "Nightcrawlers" A Vietnam veteran comes seeking shelter from the storm and the nightmares of his past.
⭐⭐⭐ "Pin" The unsettling ravings of a madman.
⭐⭐⭐ "Yellachile's Cage" A young man in prison finds hope in his imagination.
⭐⭐⭐ "I Scream Man" A man suffers from hallucinations beyond his control.
"He'll Come Knocking at Your Door" The devil arrives to trick-or-treat on Halloween to collect his due.
"Chico"
"Night Calls the Green Falcon" A retired cinema superhero takes up his cape again to stalk a real-life prostitute's murderer.
"The Red House"
"Something Passed By" Water becomes combustible, concrete turns to quicksand, people move swiftly toward old age or infancy.
"Blue World" Father John Lancaster battles temptations of the flesh and becomes a better priest as he saves the life of a cocaine-snorting porn queen.
mvatza57's review against another edition
Not for me. Don’t really enjoy overly sexual books.
jimmypat's review against another edition
3.0
An uneven, but generally fun collection of short stories. McCammon is not the greatest writer, but he is a fine storyteller and a few of these stories really stood out, especially "Night Calls the Green Falcon" and "Yellowjacket Summer". I really did not like "Blue World" and gave up early on that one as I found it unpleasant (maybe because I am Catholic?).
mkaminski34's review against another edition
4.0
Robert McCammon baby!!! The titular novella (Blue World) at the end of the book is worth the price of admission on its own. A pornstar gets murdered by a psycho…one of her colleagues goes to confession and confides in a catholic priest who has a crisis of faith and begins to fall in love with her….I’ll stop there.
The rest of the stories range from great to above average. The thing with McCammon is, even when the stories don’t stick the landing, they are so well written that you don’t feel like you’ve wasted your time. He is truly one of the greats and I look forward to reading everything that he has to offer.
The rest of the stories range from great to above average. The thing with McCammon is, even when the stories don’t stick the landing, they are so well written that you don’t feel like you’ve wasted your time. He is truly one of the greats and I look forward to reading everything that he has to offer.
donnakaye64's review against another edition
5.0
A collection of short stories that are definitely bent.
jdhacker's review against another edition
dark
emotional
funny
inspiring
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
This is the first McCammon I read (though I followed it up with Usher's Passing). Blue World is a wide ranging selection of his short fiction work from the 80s and early 90s, plus the titular novella.
The collection is a pretty broad cross-section of his short fiction; horror (He'll Come Knocking), thriller/slasher (Blue World), science fiction (Red House), fantasy (Nightcrawler), and Twilight Zone-esque (I Scream Man) stories are all represented here. The influence of script writing on McCammon's style is evident across genres, which helps keeps the pacing as reasonably fast a short story tends to demand. It also lends itself to satisfying endings, though ones that do not always explain what we've just experienced (Doom City).
While I have seen complaints the stories fail to address more timeless themes in favor of what would be more commercially successful at the time, I feel that's definitely an off-base claim. Like Michael Shea, a lot of our main characters to tend be from the working class or poor who are sometimes driven to criminalized behaviors based on that (Makeup), and though the trappings of those experiences may have shifted over the decades, their struggles are as easy to identify with now as then. Though main characters are almost all white, and for the most part men, we do have a number of strong female characters (Yellachile's Cage, Night Calls the Green Falcon, Blue World), and main characters ranging in age (Yellowjacket Summer) from children to the elderly (Night Calls the Green Falcon). McCammon does a masterful job of creating evoking strong relatable emotions and creating sympathetic (though not always easily identified with) characters in the limited space he has for each story.
I would normally single out strong shorts from the collection, but with the possible exception of Pin they're all standouts.
The collection is a pretty broad cross-section of his short fiction; horror (He'll Come Knocking), thriller/slasher (Blue World), science fiction (Red House), fantasy (Nightcrawler), and Twilight Zone-esque (I Scream Man) stories are all represented here. The influence of script writing on McCammon's style is evident across genres, which helps keeps the pacing as reasonably fast a short story tends to demand. It also lends itself to satisfying endings, though ones that do not always explain what we've just experienced (Doom City).
While I have seen complaints the stories fail to address more timeless themes in favor of what would be more commercially successful at the time, I feel that's definitely an off-base claim. Like Michael Shea, a lot of our main characters to tend be from the working class or poor who are sometimes driven to criminalized behaviors based on that (Makeup), and though the trappings of those experiences may have shifted over the decades, their struggles are as easy to identify with now as then. Though main characters are almost all white, and for the most part men, we do have a number of strong female characters (Yellachile's Cage, Night Calls the Green Falcon, Blue World), and main characters ranging in age (Yellowjacket Summer) from children to the elderly (Night Calls the Green Falcon). McCammon does a masterful job of creating evoking strong relatable emotions and creating sympathetic (though not always easily identified with) characters in the limited space he has for each story.
I would normally single out strong shorts from the collection, but with the possible exception of Pin they're all standouts.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Confinement, Drug use, Child death, and Body horror