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emiemzy's review against another edition
3.0
Read my full review here:
http://sunbran.blogspot.com/2014/07/favourites-book-of-horrors.html
http://sunbran.blogspot.com/2014/07/favourites-book-of-horrors.html
jmeszaros's review against another edition
3.0
Some stories in this collection were really good and worth a read. Others not so much. I really wish I skipped those but I’m not that kind of person who can do such things or never finish a book.
klou1985's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.0
trudilibrarian's review
3.0
I really, really wanted to love this collection. I was so stoked to get my hands on it (as excited as I get about short story anthologies anyways). It contains an original story by Stephen King for heaven's sake, not to mention other original contributions from some of the genre's heaviest hitters including: [a:Ramsey Campbell|18253|Ramsey Campbell|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1206546639p2/18253.jpg], [a:John Ajvide Lindqvist|479779|John Ajvide Lindqvist|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1230566222p2/479779.jpg] and [a:Dennis Etchison|44806|Dennis Etchison|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1329263872p2/44806.jpg].
I think what frustrated me the most about this collection is that the majority of the stories have great beginnings but fizzle out on underwhelming, meh endings. Regardless of how pregnant with potential the premise, none of the authors really nail it, hit it out of the park, stick the landing (pick your metaphor, I got plenty).
That's not to say I didn't enjoy myself, because I did. I just expected more. I wanted that punch to the solar plexus, that tingly feeling of dread or shivery sensation of creep. Instead, I was moderately entertained and mildly amused.
Not surprisingly, one of the strongest is Stephen King's "The Little Green God of Agony", which carries a Twilight Zone or Creepshow vibe. A master of suspense, King controls the mounting tension on this one near perfectly. Anyone who is aware of King's long road to recovery after his near fatal accident won't be surprised to see him turn his writer's eye to the subject of excruciating pain. A pain so intolerable, one can only imagine the body has been possessed by an evil entity that feeds off the agony. While the ending is not that surprising really, it sure is sweet getting there.
King may be my sentimental favorite of the collection, but Swedish writer [a:John Ajvide Lindqvist|479779|John Ajvide Lindqvist|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1230566222p2/479779.jpg] (author of [b:Let the Right One In|943402|Let the Right One In|John Ajvide Lindqvist|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327893384s/943402.jpg|928338]) offers the most original and beautifully executed story. "The Music of Bengt Karlsson, Murderer" is a darkly imagined ghost story about grief that resonates with sadness and desperation. A mother dies suddenly, and in the vacuum of a father and son's loss a ghost finds its way in. Not just any ghost. A murderer of children. This one actually wormed its way in and unnerved me. The writing is very good. It's really hard to believe that the same country that exported ABBA, has given us Lindqvist. Both are fantastic, but one of these things is not like the other.
The story idea I was most excited about came from horror legend Ramsey Campbell called "Getting It Wrong". It's a deadly games premise whereby a radio quiz show called Inquisition requires its contestants to answer questions correctly ... or bad things happen. I love the set-up on this one. Imagine taking a show like "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" and amping up the stakes so it's not money you're winning or losing, but the right to keep limbs intact, or eyeballs in your head. Now you're really in the hot seat. You have a life line, literally. So, idea? Perfect. Set-up? Pretty damn fine. Final denouement? Meh. This story could have been so much more, with just a little more meat on its bones.
Finally, Elizabeth Hand's novella "Near Zennor" just sucked me in and kept me turning the pages. It takes place on the English moors and has a very Gothic vibe. A man loses his wife suddenly and finds some old letters she wrote when she was just a girl to the author of a series of children's books. It becomes a mystery that he wants to investigate and he travels to the place where she spent one summer in 1971. This is an odd story that I couldn't quite make up my mind about as I was reading it, but still, it's very strong and I couldn't put it down even when there didn't seem to be anything really happening.
Overall, a fair collection with a couple of pieces worth the price of admission.
I think what frustrated me the most about this collection is that the majority of the stories have great beginnings but fizzle out on underwhelming, meh endings. Regardless of how pregnant with potential the premise, none of the authors really nail it, hit it out of the park, stick the landing (pick your metaphor, I got plenty).
That's not to say I didn't enjoy myself, because I did. I just expected more. I wanted that punch to the solar plexus, that tingly feeling of dread or shivery sensation of creep. Instead, I was moderately entertained and mildly amused.
Not surprisingly, one of the strongest is Stephen King's "The Little Green God of Agony", which carries a Twilight Zone or Creepshow vibe. A master of suspense, King controls the mounting tension on this one near perfectly. Anyone who is aware of King's long road to recovery after his near fatal accident won't be surprised to see him turn his writer's eye to the subject of excruciating pain. A pain so intolerable, one can only imagine the body has been possessed by an evil entity that feeds off the agony. While the ending is not that surprising really, it sure is sweet getting there.
King may be my sentimental favorite of the collection, but Swedish writer [a:John Ajvide Lindqvist|479779|John Ajvide Lindqvist|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1230566222p2/479779.jpg] (author of [b:Let the Right One In|943402|Let the Right One In|John Ajvide Lindqvist|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327893384s/943402.jpg|928338]) offers the most original and beautifully executed story. "The Music of Bengt Karlsson, Murderer" is a darkly imagined ghost story about grief that resonates with sadness and desperation. A mother dies suddenly, and in the vacuum of a father and son's loss a ghost finds its way in. Not just any ghost. A murderer of children. This one actually wormed its way in and unnerved me. The writing is very good. It's really hard to believe that the same country that exported ABBA, has given us Lindqvist. Both are fantastic, but one of these things is not like the other.
The story idea I was most excited about came from horror legend Ramsey Campbell called "Getting It Wrong". It's a deadly games premise whereby a radio quiz show called Inquisition requires its contestants to answer questions correctly ... or bad things happen. I love the set-up on this one. Imagine taking a show like "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" and amping up the stakes so it's not money you're winning or losing, but the right to keep limbs intact, or eyeballs in your head. Now you're really in the hot seat. You have a life line, literally. So, idea? Perfect. Set-up? Pretty damn fine. Final denouement? Meh. This story could have been so much more, with just a little more meat on its bones.
Finally, Elizabeth Hand's novella "Near Zennor" just sucked me in and kept me turning the pages. It takes place on the English moors and has a very Gothic vibe. A man loses his wife suddenly and finds some old letters she wrote when she was just a girl to the author of a series of children's books. It becomes a mystery that he wants to investigate and he travels to the place where she spent one summer in 1971. This is an odd story that I couldn't quite make up my mind about as I was reading it, but still, it's very strong and I couldn't put it down even when there didn't seem to be anything really happening.
Overall, a fair collection with a couple of pieces worth the price of admission.
ozias's review against another edition
I can't rate this overall because the stories inside range from 1* to 4*
vomit_eagle's review
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
5.0
A great collection of horror tales. that's the best thing I can say without giving anything away.
georgiaxwhitehead's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
snicksnacks's review against another edition
4.0
More gothic and atmospheric than horror. Very enjoyable in a gentle kind of way. I particularly enjoyed the second-last story set in historic lovely Cornwall.
books_n_pickles's review
3.0
I wanted to read something appropriately spooky for Halloween. I reached for [b:Frankenstein|89476|Frankenstein|Mary Shelley|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1328867280s/89476.jpg|4836639]...but I think I read that earlier this year. (GoodReads needs a way to mark re-readings.) Fortunately this book has been haunting my shelves for a while, yet another one courtesy of Macmillan's Free Book Day.
I'm not usually a fan of horror, but when I think of horror I'm usually thinking of terrifying movies. For written stories, I think the short story format captured everything best. I was able to sample different authors without committing to a longer book--which was a good thing, since I didn't even find most of the stories that creepy/horrific.
This was especially disappointing when I read the Stephen King story. Blasphemous as it may be, this was actually the first Stephen King I've read, and I wasn't too impressed. It wasn't much worse than anything I'd read in my typical fantasy fiction, I found a misplaced modifier, and this glorious sentence: "Tonya had come to the doorway and now stood beside Melissa, staring with wide eyes and a dishwiper hanging limp in one hand." (19) It...sounds like her wide eyes are hanging limp in her hands. Also, what is a dishwiper? A dishcloth? A sponge? A quick Google search doesn't clear up the question...
Anyway, it was kind of amusing to notice, as I went through the stories, which ones were my favorites. I think anyone who knows me could have picked them out! They featured strong elements of fantasy, diversity, history, and women:
>> "The Coffin-Maker's Daughter", by Angela Slatter, took place in a world of high fantasy with a complex, slowly-revealed-but-not-spelled-out culture surrounding death. Three of the four main characters are women, and the main character is strongly attracted to the daughter of her latest client. I think that was the only example of nonstandard sexuality we got in the whole collection. The story was far too short compared to the others--I would happily read an entire book set in this world.
>> "Roots and All", by Brian Hodge, is set in modern rural Appalachia (I think, please forgive me this detail!), the kind of locale perfect for characters both proud and despairing in an environment that can alternate between beauty and ruin. We get a man and a woman as main characters: relatives, which means we get to sidestep stupid romance, but not the predictable brother and sister. Both are unique, brave but flawed. We also get two older women who play strong roles in the story: the main characters' recently deceased grandmother, who left them a shocking surprise in the attic with more than a few strings attached; and her neighbor, who provides crucial information for the story. Neither old woman is held up on a pedestal as the wise "fairy godmother" sort or discounted as a dotty old lady: they're flawed but integral, bringing weight and subtle but critical information into the story.
>> "A Child's Problem", by Reggie Oliver, was pretty much a novella. It's an ekphrastic story, one based off an 1857 painting of the same name that was created by an inmate of Bedlam. In Oliver's tale, he has the curious patronage of (apparently fictional) Sir George St. Maur, who (a short preface implies) directs the artist to create a work that incorporates elements from childhood experiences at a gloomy estate with his uncle. We get historical fiction, ghosts, riddles, a delightful woman who shows up late in the story, a giant old house with dusty secrets, and a young protagonists who turns out to be much cleverer than the reader realizes at first.
>> "Near Zennor", by Elizabeth Hand, was another novella that really felt like it should have kept going: it ended quite abruptly with only an implied "big reveal"--which is extremely effective in a short story. It wasn't like she left anything out, but it did feel like the end of this story was the beginning of another that I would happily read. The main spooky happening is another campfire-type story, not that creepy, but the mystery keeps you going. Okay, yes, this one was a bit slow at parts, particularly where Hand is describing the confusing crisscrossed jumble of old stone fences in the English countryside, but it was a "slow burn" kind of story with layered narratives and a good cast of characters.
>> I also enjoyed Caitlin R. Kiernan's "Charcloth, Firesteel and Flint", Richard Christian Matheson's "Last Words" ( both were almost more character sketches/studies than plotted stories, but with really intriguing characters), Dennis Etchison's "Tell Me I'll See You Again" (a girl main character and some slight urban fantasy).
(I just noticed now that three of these four stories I listed have women who are important to the story even though they're absent from it--so yay on the importance, not so yay on the dead women.)
The only story that I found genuinely creepy was "Ghosts with Teeth" by Peter Crowther. This was probably a combination of the fact that I'm familiar with the kind of community that the main characters live in and that I've found situations similar to it (loosely--i don't want to give away the ending!) in other media disturbing. Robert Shearman's "Alice Through the Plastic Sheet" was just weird--I really couldn't figure out what was supposed to be scary about it. Seemed to me that it was the story of unfriendly neighbors from the perspective of a whiny, privileged man. The ending is completely lame--I really don't get what's supposed to be scary about it.
Overall, this was a good little Halloween-appropriate collection!
I'm not usually a fan of horror, but when I think of horror I'm usually thinking of terrifying movies. For written stories, I think the short story format captured everything best. I was able to sample different authors without committing to a longer book--which was a good thing, since I didn't even find most of the stories that creepy/horrific.
This was especially disappointing when I read the Stephen King story. Blasphemous as it may be, this was actually the first Stephen King I've read, and I wasn't too impressed. It wasn't much worse than anything I'd read in my typical fantasy fiction, I found a misplaced modifier, and this glorious sentence: "Tonya had come to the doorway and now stood beside Melissa, staring with wide eyes and a dishwiper hanging limp in one hand." (19) It...sounds like her wide eyes are hanging limp in her hands. Also, what is a dishwiper? A dishcloth? A sponge? A quick Google search doesn't clear up the question...
Anyway, it was kind of amusing to notice, as I went through the stories, which ones were my favorites. I think anyone who knows me could have picked them out! They featured strong elements of fantasy, diversity, history, and women:
>> "The Coffin-Maker's Daughter", by Angela Slatter, took place in a world of high fantasy with a complex, slowly-revealed-but-not-spelled-out culture surrounding death. Three of the four main characters are women, and the main character is strongly attracted to the daughter of her latest client. I think that was the only example of nonstandard sexuality we got in the whole collection. The story was far too short compared to the others--I would happily read an entire book set in this world.
>> "Roots and All", by Brian Hodge, is set in modern rural Appalachia (I think, please forgive me this detail!), the kind of locale perfect for characters both proud and despairing in an environment that can alternate between beauty and ruin. We get a man and a woman as main characters: relatives, which means we get to sidestep stupid romance, but not the predictable brother and sister. Both are unique, brave but flawed. We also get two older women who play strong roles in the story: the main characters' recently deceased grandmother, who left them a shocking surprise in the attic with more than a few strings attached; and her neighbor, who provides crucial information for the story. Neither old woman is held up on a pedestal as the wise "fairy godmother" sort or discounted as a dotty old lady: they're flawed but integral, bringing weight and subtle but critical information into the story.
>> "A Child's Problem", by Reggie Oliver, was pretty much a novella. It's an ekphrastic story, one based off an 1857 painting of the same name that was created by an inmate of Bedlam. In Oliver's tale, he has the curious patronage of (apparently fictional) Sir George St. Maur, who (a short preface implies) directs the artist to create a work that incorporates elements from childhood experiences at a gloomy estate with his uncle. We get historical fiction, ghosts, riddles, a delightful woman who shows up late in the story, a giant old house with dusty secrets, and a young protagonists who turns out to be much cleverer than the reader realizes at first.
>> "Near Zennor", by Elizabeth Hand, was another novella that really felt like it should have kept going: it ended quite abruptly with only an implied "big reveal"--which is extremely effective in a short story. It wasn't like she left anything out, but it did feel like the end of this story was the beginning of another that I would happily read. The main spooky happening is another campfire-type story, not that creepy, but the mystery keeps you going. Okay, yes, this one was a bit slow at parts, particularly where Hand is describing the confusing crisscrossed jumble of old stone fences in the English countryside, but it was a "slow burn" kind of story with layered narratives and a good cast of characters.
>> I also enjoyed Caitlin R. Kiernan's "Charcloth, Firesteel and Flint", Richard Christian Matheson's "Last Words" ( both were almost more character sketches/studies than plotted stories, but with really intriguing characters), Dennis Etchison's "Tell Me I'll See You Again" (a girl main character and some slight urban fantasy).
(I just noticed now that three of these four stories I listed have women who are important to the story even though they're absent from it--so yay on the importance, not so yay on the dead women.)
The only story that I found genuinely creepy was "Ghosts with Teeth" by Peter Crowther. This was probably a combination of the fact that I'm familiar with the kind of community that the main characters live in and that I've found situations similar to it (loosely--i don't want to give away the ending!) in other media disturbing. Robert Shearman's "Alice Through the Plastic Sheet" was just weird--I really couldn't figure out what was supposed to be scary about it. Seemed to me that it was the story of unfriendly neighbors from the perspective of a whiny, privileged man. The ending is completely lame--I really don't get what's supposed to be scary about it.
Overall, this was a good little Halloween-appropriate collection!
alexctelander's review against another edition
4.0
When British author Stephen Jones set out to bring the anthology that would become A Book of Horrors together, his goal was to make the world realize that the concept of the horror story and the ability to frighten and terrify readers in a number of ways is still alive and well, contrary to what the likes of sparkling vampires, hunky werewolves, and all the other former denizens of the world of terror that have now been romanticized have shown. Jones does just this in A Book of Horrors.
The collection opens with a new story from Stephen King, “The Little Green God of Agony,” about a man who has suffered much and continues to be in constant agony from a debilitating accident he had some time ago and is still recovering from. His physical therapist believes he just isn’t working hard enough to recover fully. But another man believes otherwise, and he plans to bring this little green god of agony out of him. “The Man in the Ditch” from Lisa Tuttle begins with a woman in a car sighting a dead man by the side of the road and goes from there. The book also features a new and original tale from John Ajvide Lindqvist , bestselling Swedish horror author of Let the Right One In. “The Music of Bengt Karlsson, Murderer” has the same feel of many of his other works, with the hard, cold landscape of Sweden, the importance of family and how it deals with loss, and what it means to live in the house where a murderer killed himself.
A Book of Horrors will be enjoyed by any horror fan, and by anyone looking to give the genre a try, as the stories range from monster to ghost to psychological; all kinds of horror are available for the reader in this collection.
Originally written on September 27, 2012 ©Alex C. Telander.
For more reviews, go to Bookbanter
The collection opens with a new story from Stephen King, “The Little Green God of Agony,” about a man who has suffered much and continues to be in constant agony from a debilitating accident he had some time ago and is still recovering from. His physical therapist believes he just isn’t working hard enough to recover fully. But another man believes otherwise, and he plans to bring this little green god of agony out of him. “The Man in the Ditch” from Lisa Tuttle begins with a woman in a car sighting a dead man by the side of the road and goes from there. The book also features a new and original tale from John Ajvide Lindqvist , bestselling Swedish horror author of Let the Right One In. “The Music of Bengt Karlsson, Murderer” has the same feel of many of his other works, with the hard, cold landscape of Sweden, the importance of family and how it deals with loss, and what it means to live in the house where a murderer killed himself.
A Book of Horrors will be enjoyed by any horror fan, and by anyone looking to give the genre a try, as the stories range from monster to ghost to psychological; all kinds of horror are available for the reader in this collection.
Originally written on September 27, 2012 ©Alex C. Telander.
For more reviews, go to Bookbanter