Reviews

From Dark Places by Emma Newman

ephemerawoman's review

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2.0

This is a series of very short stories, some of them vignettes and I found it a pretty hit and miss bundle sadly.
It's a format I'm not overly fond of, done well you get Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected or a really good 2000AD Future Shock, done poorly and well it's a lot less fun.

A couple of Newman's stories here are excellent and do hit those heights, but, not really enough for me to love this.

staciajayne's review

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4.0

This is a wonderful and refreshing book of short, modern horror stories. There are 25 short stories in all and no losers in this collection, each individual story stands out on its own. Some are touching, some are humorous, others satisfyingly macabre but every story has a sharp unexpected twist at the end. The authors imagination seems limitless here and she approaches classic horror themes such as zombies and bargaining with the devil in a new and unexpected way. If you are a fan of the Pan Horror books or Tales from the Crypt, you will love these stories. Equally, if you are a fan of well written modern short stories, you won't be disappointed. I am looking forward to reading more by E J Newman.

hetlevenvaneenboekenworm's review

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5.0

You can find my review of this book on my blog:

http://mybookaddiction.blogspot.com/2011/04/review-from-dark-places-by-ej-newman.html

alanbaxter's review against another edition

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4.0

From Dark Places is a collection of short fiction from E J Newman. The title is well placed, as the stories are all dark in a variety of ways. They explore subjects from the existential to the personal, from infidelity to murder, from the supernatural to the super normal and they’re all bloody good.

A lot of these stories are really short, flash fiction pieces capturing a vibe or an event and searing a single scene onto the reader’s brain with uncomfortable clarity. Some of the tales are longer, exploring all manner of things from Creation to madness.

Newman writes with a tight turn of phrase, many a well placed word and an eye for place and setting that makes all these tales of urban unease extremely convincing. She inhabits her characters, their distinctive personalities entrancing. Newman explores the speculative with ease; gods, demons and angels inhabit these pages as much at home as the cheating spouses, spurned lovers and ugly, foul-mouthed orphans.

Some of the stories have a bit of fun to them, some a touch of the absurd or the surreal, all an edge of darkness that plays nicely with our boundaries of comfort.

Emma Newman is a powerful emerging voice in dark fiction and From Dark Places is an excellent selection of her work. I’ll be watching out for more of her stuff. You should too.

You can get a signed copy of the book directly from Emma at her website here. Or you can order from Amazon here. Follow Emma on Twitter at @EmApocalyptic.

havelock's review

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dark tense
  • Strong character development? No

4.0

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