Reviews

Borderlands 5 by Thomas F. Monteleone, Elizabeth E. Monteleone

macabresiren's review against another edition

3.0

You can tell how well I enjoyed a book by how long it took me to read. This one, clock in at 20 days. Now given your own opinion & reading speed that could be either fast or slow, for me, it's slow. Very slow. I've read books several inches thicker than this one in far less time. A book of short stories like this should have taken me no more than 2-3 days, through the week. But here we are. Nearly three weeks after my beginning it. I'm finally finished.

Given how much the editors talked this up at the beginning, I had prepared myself for something spectacular. Instead I found a largely cliche book of short stories with a few gems hidden here and there. Stories like "A Thing" and "The Food Processor" stick in my head as being particularly horrible. (Maybe I just lack a certain understanding, but....I doubt it.)
Father Bob & Bobby was particularly...well, it was one of those stories where certain scenes of it embed themselves into your brain.

I don't know. I wanted to love this collection. It just seemed like for all the blathering in the introduction regarding the quality of the stories, I went forward expecting a whole lot more.

jenniferlwatson's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.0

ratleyreads's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.0

emheld's review against another edition

2.0

Eh. Some stories were great, but so many left me cool or just unhappy with the time spent reading them. And it certainly took me quite a while to plow thru this. I kept putting it down, lacking any driving motivation to finish other than to get it off my "currently reading" list.

I think it's because many of the stories have a brand of "horror" that isn't something I like - somewhat real-world pervy "human horror" as opposed to the supernatural. The stories that stood out as exceptional, aside from King's, had high concepts and/or an element beyond human understanding.

Again, eh. Largely forgettable. Not stories of terror and madness, except a few. No, these are tales of creeps and disturbing portraits of humanity.

wombat_88's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

vdarcangelo's review against another edition

4.0

Faves:

Gary A. Braunbeck: "Rami Temporalis"

Holly Newstein: "Faith Will Make You Free"

Adam Corbin Fusco: "N0072-JK1"

Brian Freeman: "Answering the Call"

Dominick Cancilla: "Smooth Operator"

Bentley Little: "The Planting"

John McIlveen: "Infliction"

Gene O'Neill: "Magic Numbers"

Tom Piccirilli: "Around it Still the Sumac Grows"

Bev Vincent: "One of Those Weeks"

rbz39's review against another edition

3.0

Picked this up at a paperback store and enjoyed its grab-bag of spooky stories. Some are humerous, others dark, but all tend towards the bizarre and supernatural. While I enjoyed most of the stories, several of the tales contained graphic sexual violence or disturbing content so I would recommend reading in bursts. Several times I had to put the book down because I was reviled by the content within. Regardless, they are well written and certainly scary so I would recommend! The Stephen King story at the end is a fun concept, but not the best one of the bunch.

innae's review against another edition

2.0

Finally finished reading this. Obviously there was a reason it took so long. Many of the stories are just not to my liking.

I did like The Food Processor because it was sick and wrong...

and I LOVED Stationary Bike which is Stephen King's addition to this anthology.

So many of the stories were just WEIRD. and would mean more thought than I want to put into stories at this point in my life

bill_gauthier's review against another edition

5.0

My story "The Growth of Alan Ashley" is in this book. It pretty much gave me a career.

acknud's review against another edition

4.0

Pretty good collection of stories. There were the usual losers that you find in a collection such as this but there were some real gems as well. The Goat, Prisoner 392 and Story Time with the Bluefield Strangler all come to mind as good reads.