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badseedgirl's review against another edition
3.0
As in most anthologies, there were hit and miss stories in this book for me.
The Deep End by Robert McCammon: I liked this story, and found the scenes in the pool both tense and scary, but I'm not sure I cared all that much for the ending. 3 stars
Interval by Norman Prentiss: I did not care for this story all that much. I found the characters to be universally unlikable and so that made me less interested in the story itself. I did like the premise, but it reminded me of the Twilight Zone Episode "The Howling Man." 2 stars
If These Walls Could Talk by Shawntelle Madison: One of my favorite stories in the book. I liked both the premise and the structure of the story. I thought the story was one thing but then there was a twist at the end I did not see coming. 4 Stars
The Night Hider by Graham Masterson: I had never heard of Mr. Masterson and he seems to be write short stories almost exclusively, but this might have been my favorite story in the book. The possibility that C.S. Lewis' Christian Allegory, [b:The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe|100915|The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Chronicles of Narnia, #1)|C.S. Lewis|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1353029077l/100915._SY75_.jpg|4790821] could be something more, very intriguing. 4 stars
Whatever by Richard Matheson: I do not care for stories told in journal/letterform in general, with the possible exception of Max Brooks, so this one would probably have been a miss for me anyway. It was an interesting story but I'm not sure it was really horror. 2 stars
The Deep End by Robert McCammon: I liked this story, and found the scenes in the pool both tense and scary, but I'm not sure I cared all that much for the ending. 3 stars
Interval by Norman Prentiss: I did not care for this story all that much. I found the characters to be universally unlikable and so that made me less interested in the story itself. I did like the premise, but it reminded me of the Twilight Zone Episode "The Howling Man." 2 stars
If These Walls Could Talk by Shawntelle Madison: One of my favorite stories in the book. I liked both the premise and the structure of the story. I thought the story was one thing but then there was a twist at the end I did not see coming. 4 Stars
The Night Hider by Graham Masterson: I had never heard of Mr. Masterson and he seems to be write short stories almost exclusively, but this might have been my favorite story in the book. The possibility that C.S. Lewis' Christian Allegory, [b:The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe|100915|The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Chronicles of Narnia, #1)|C.S. Lewis|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1353029077l/100915._SY75_.jpg|4790821] could be something more, very intriguing. 4 stars
Whatever by Richard Matheson: I do not care for stories told in journal/letterform in general, with the possible exception of Max Brooks, so this one would probably have been a miss for me anyway. It was an interesting story but I'm not sure it was really horror. 2 stars
bigbookgeek's review against another edition
4.0
Another stellar collection in this series! I enjoyed the first volume, and found myself liking the stories in the second volume even more!
We start out with "The Deep End" by Robert R. McCammon. To read a horror short by him was great, especially with recent news of his return to the genre! This was a chilling story about a father seeking revenge against a an unknown nemesis. Norman Prentiss' "Interval" was a great modern take on a common theme: beings who hang around to feed off of sorrow and loss. Next up was "If These Walls Could Talk" by Shawntelle Madison. The author is new to me, and I'm curious to read more of her work now, this story was a chilling tale of stalker madness! My favorite story in this collection was "The Night Hider" by Graham Masterton. Masterton never disappoints! In this tale, we have a haunted wardrobe linked to C.S. Lewis, the evil within consumed him and inspired Narnia, and how a woman decades later works with her lover to defeat the evil within! Finally, we have "Whatever" by Richard Christian Matheson: my least favorite of the bunch. I found the story tedious and until the very end, had no clue what was going on or where he was going.
All in all, this is a fantastic collection, and I cannot wait to read the third volume in the series!
We start out with "The Deep End" by Robert R. McCammon. To read a horror short by him was great, especially with recent news of his return to the genre! This was a chilling story about a father seeking revenge against a an unknown nemesis. Norman Prentiss' "Interval" was a great modern take on a common theme: beings who hang around to feed off of sorrow and loss. Next up was "If These Walls Could Talk" by Shawntelle Madison. The author is new to me, and I'm curious to read more of her work now, this story was a chilling tale of stalker madness! My favorite story in this collection was "The Night Hider" by Graham Masterton. Masterton never disappoints! In this tale, we have a haunted wardrobe linked to C.S. Lewis, the evil within consumed him and inspired Narnia, and how a woman decades later works with her lover to defeat the evil within! Finally, we have "Whatever" by Richard Christian Matheson: my least favorite of the bunch. I found the story tedious and until the very end, had no clue what was going on or where he was going.
All in all, this is a fantastic collection, and I cannot wait to read the third volume in the series!
dnemec's review against another edition
3.0
I've read several of these, so when this was on sale for $.99, I jumped on it. I liked a couple, loved a couple, and thought one was beyond weird.
Definitely the best of the lot, in my humble opinion, were The Deep End by Robert McCammon and The Night Hider by Graham Masterton. Perhaps because of the summers I spent lifeguarding at community pools, I thought The Deep End presented a fascinating tale of the dangers of swimming, but not quite for the typical reasons. The Night Hider presents the fascinating problem of collecting antiques with dubious pasts.
Overall, another quality collection of stories.
Definitely the best of the lot, in my humble opinion, were The Deep End by Robert McCammon and The Night Hider by Graham Masterton. Perhaps because of the summers I spent lifeguarding at community pools, I thought The Deep End presented a fascinating tale of the dangers of swimming, but not quite for the typical reasons. The Night Hider presents the fascinating problem of collecting antiques with dubious pasts.
Overall, another quality collection of stories.
mad_about_books's review
5.0
This second volume of DARK SCREAMS does not disappoint. You can always rely on Cemetery Dance and Brian Freeman and Richard Chizmar to have a finger on the pulse of what is best in the horror genre.
The beauty of horror is its multifaceted face. We who read it know all the tropes from ghosts to vampires to zombies. We also know that some of the most chilling novels and stories in the genre are the ones that injure the psyche. These are the tales we know can happen. Then there is that fine line between supernatural horror and psychological horror that makes us pause, look for reality where none exists or look for comfort in that which cannot. DARK SCREAMS, VOLUME TWO dares to look horror head on, no matter the consequence.
The Deep End
by Robert R McCammon
Sometimes a reader connects with a story in ways the author surely never intended. In the very first paragraph of the story, the words "where his son had drowned two weeks ago" could have been my words. The loss of a child of any age is unbearable beyond belief. My son, a bit more than twice the age of the victim, had a wife and two babies; things Neil would never have. The devastating grief of a father for his son (or, in my case, a mother for her son) warrants the darkest of screams.
McCammon is a masterful storyteller that I met for the first time between the covers of his epic, Armageddon tale SWAN SONG, in 1987. I am never disappointed by his writing.
Interval
by Norman Prentiss
One of the big problems with reviewing a short story anthology is that it can be really hard to just hint at the content of a particular story without giving it all away. While reading "Interval," I was struck by the way it changed focus from one dark idea to another. Each one could lead to a different conclusion, but instead each was more and more like collapsing a spyglass in that the scope became less distant.
If These Walls Could Talk
by Shawntelle Madison
The haunted house theme is one of horror's greatest tropes. It differs from the classic ghost story by making an inanimate object the main character in a study of good and evil. Walls cannot talk, but they can certainly tell a dark tale.
The Night Hider
by Graham Masterton
If you read horror, you have read Graham Masterton; he is, after all, one of the genre's grand masters. How do you deal with the monster under the bed, the thing in the toilet, the creature in the closet? These things send me under the covers, head first, and silently screaming.
Whatever
by Richard Christian Matheson
I've noticed that music has become an integral part of recent stories and novels of a dark and horrific nature. Maybe it's just the choices I've made, and maybe it's because my somewhat eclectic taste in music and literature were bound to come together. Sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll can be a very dark and disjointed roller coaster ride.
The beauty of horror is its multifaceted face. We who read it know all the tropes from ghosts to vampires to zombies. We also know that some of the most chilling novels and stories in the genre are the ones that injure the psyche. These are the tales we know can happen. Then there is that fine line between supernatural horror and psychological horror that makes us pause, look for reality where none exists or look for comfort in that which cannot. DARK SCREAMS, VOLUME TWO dares to look horror head on, no matter the consequence.
The Deep End
by Robert R McCammon
Sometimes a reader connects with a story in ways the author surely never intended. In the very first paragraph of the story, the words "where his son had drowned two weeks ago" could have been my words. The loss of a child of any age is unbearable beyond belief. My son, a bit more than twice the age of the victim, had a wife and two babies; things Neil would never have. The devastating grief of a father for his son (or, in my case, a mother for her son) warrants the darkest of screams.
McCammon is a masterful storyteller that I met for the first time between the covers of his epic, Armageddon tale SWAN SONG, in 1987. I am never disappointed by his writing.
Interval
by Norman Prentiss
One of the big problems with reviewing a short story anthology is that it can be really hard to just hint at the content of a particular story without giving it all away. While reading "Interval," I was struck by the way it changed focus from one dark idea to another. Each one could lead to a different conclusion, but instead each was more and more like collapsing a spyglass in that the scope became less distant.
If These Walls Could Talk
by Shawntelle Madison
The haunted house theme is one of horror's greatest tropes. It differs from the classic ghost story by making an inanimate object the main character in a study of good and evil. Walls cannot talk, but they can certainly tell a dark tale.
The Night Hider
by Graham Masterton
If you read horror, you have read Graham Masterton; he is, after all, one of the genre's grand masters. How do you deal with the monster under the bed, the thing in the toilet, the creature in the closet? These things send me under the covers, head first, and silently screaming.
Whatever
by Richard Christian Matheson
I've noticed that music has become an integral part of recent stories and novels of a dark and horrific nature. Maybe it's just the choices I've made, and maybe it's because my somewhat eclectic taste in music and literature were bound to come together. Sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll can be a very dark and disjointed roller coaster ride.
daynpitseleh's review against another edition
2.0
I received this from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
The Deep End - An alright story. I didn't care for the ending very much, and I don't think I would have liked the story as much if I hadn't worked at a pool as a kid.
Interval - Clearly the best story in this collection. An interesting and thought provoking concept that was only made more so by the fact that I was reading the story on the one year anniversary of the disappearance of the Malaysian flight.
If These Walls Could Talk - The premise to this story started out cool, but the ending was weird. It might have been better as a novella, because it felt rushed.
The Night Hider - A very interesting concept that fails in execution. This story answers the question - where did C. S. Lewis come up with the idea of Narnia being in the back of a wardrobe? The ending was a bit disappointing.
Whatever - Honestly, I didn't really see how this story fit into the collection at all. I probably would have liked it more if it had been in a different collection.
Overall, the collection was all right. One standout, two alright stories, one eh and one what? (or more precisely, whatever). Can't say that I would really recommend it, although Interval might be worth a read.
The Deep End - An alright story. I didn't care for the ending very much, and I don't think I would have liked the story as much if I hadn't worked at a pool as a kid.
Interval - Clearly the best story in this collection. An interesting and thought provoking concept that was only made more so by the fact that I was reading the story on the one year anniversary of the disappearance of the Malaysian flight.
If These Walls Could Talk - The premise to this story started out cool, but the ending was weird. It might have been better as a novella, because it felt rushed.
The Night Hider - A very interesting concept that fails in execution. This story answers the question - where did C. S. Lewis come up with the idea of Narnia being in the back of a wardrobe? The ending was a bit disappointing.
Whatever - Honestly, I didn't really see how this story fit into the collection at all. I probably would have liked it more if it had been in a different collection.
Overall, the collection was all right. One standout, two alright stories, one eh and one what? (or more precisely, whatever). Can't say that I would really recommend it, although Interval might be worth a read.
verkisto's review
2.0
For the most part, I'm not interested in short stories. I've read some that have made a tremendous impression on me ("Chivalry", anyone?), but I'm more interested in longer fiction. I think it's because I want to read a story with a narrative arc, and shorter fiction seems to be more focused on an image, or an emotion, or a particular scene. I wouldn't have read either of the two Dark Screams volumes I've read, save for they were on sale.
Volume Two collects five short stories from a mix of well-known authors and lesser-known authors, with a couple of reprints, much like Volume One did. It starts off with Robert R. McCammon's "The Deep End", from 1987, which is about a haunted swimming pool. It hearkens back to McCammon's heyday, and the story reflects that; it's a decent story that's well-paced and compelling, even if it is a little laughable. It's solid, but nothing groundbreaking, and unfortunately it's the best of the bunch.
Norman Prentiss makes his second appearance in the series with "Interval", a story that's effective, if disjointed. Prentiss builds tension well in this story about a plane crash, but he seems to have trouble deciding on what kind of story he wants to tell. It starts off as a suspense story but then goes full-horror at the midpoint. The supernatural element felt silly, but Prentiss created an effectively creepy scene near the end of the story.
"If These Walls Could Talk" by Shawntelle Madison follows, and is pointless and forgettable. A woman travels to a remote house to prepare it for filming, but winds up being a victim of a past connection. The imagery and setting are good, but it lacks that narrative arc I mentioned above. It feels incomplete, like it's the opening chapter of a larger work.
Graham Masterson is up next with "The Night Hider", a ridiculous story about the wardrobe that inspired C.S. Lewis. The dialogue is stilted, and the characters are unconvincing. They make stupid decisions just because the story needs them to, and they're so thinly drawn that there's no connection to them. Masterson is a well-known author, and this is a newly-published work, so it surprises me that it's such a poor story.
Finally, Richard Christian Matheson wraps up the anthology with "Whatever", a story about a popular band from the '60s and '70s. I like RCM's short-short fiction, and one thing I noticed with this work is that he writes his stories like they're prose poems, with his short sentence fragments that convey a moment, an item, or a feeling. It gets tiresome in his longer works, and this story takes up a good third of the entire anthology. I don't understand its place in the "dark" category, but this is also the other reprint, so maybe the editors were just going for name recognition here.
I don't expect to read any more releases in this series, even if they go on sale. The quality isn't that great, and reviews of later releases suggest that the quality keeps going down. The best story in the collection is solidly mediocre, at best, and the rest of the works just aren't worth the time.
Volume Two collects five short stories from a mix of well-known authors and lesser-known authors, with a couple of reprints, much like Volume One did. It starts off with Robert R. McCammon's "The Deep End", from 1987, which is about a haunted swimming pool. It hearkens back to McCammon's heyday, and the story reflects that; it's a decent story that's well-paced and compelling, even if it is a little laughable. It's solid, but nothing groundbreaking, and unfortunately it's the best of the bunch.
Norman Prentiss makes his second appearance in the series with "Interval", a story that's effective, if disjointed. Prentiss builds tension well in this story about a plane crash, but he seems to have trouble deciding on what kind of story he wants to tell. It starts off as a suspense story but then goes full-horror at the midpoint. The supernatural element felt silly, but Prentiss created an effectively creepy scene near the end of the story.
"If These Walls Could Talk" by Shawntelle Madison follows, and is pointless and forgettable. A woman travels to a remote house to prepare it for filming, but winds up being a victim of a past connection. The imagery and setting are good, but it lacks that narrative arc I mentioned above. It feels incomplete, like it's the opening chapter of a larger work.
Graham Masterson is up next with "The Night Hider", a ridiculous story about the wardrobe that inspired C.S. Lewis. The dialogue is stilted, and the characters are unconvincing. They make stupid decisions just because the story needs them to, and they're so thinly drawn that there's no connection to them. Masterson is a well-known author, and this is a newly-published work, so it surprises me that it's such a poor story.
Finally, Richard Christian Matheson wraps up the anthology with "Whatever", a story about a popular band from the '60s and '70s. I like RCM's short-short fiction, and one thing I noticed with this work is that he writes his stories like they're prose poems, with his short sentence fragments that convey a moment, an item, or a feeling. It gets tiresome in his longer works, and this story takes up a good third of the entire anthology. I don't understand its place in the "dark" category, but this is also the other reprint, so maybe the editors were just going for name recognition here.
I don't expect to read any more releases in this series, even if they go on sale. The quality isn't that great, and reviews of later releases suggest that the quality keeps going down. The best story in the collection is solidly mediocre, at best, and the rest of the works just aren't worth the time.
crystaltydings's review
dark
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
3.5
steveatwaywords's review
4.0
This second outing in the series scored many more hits, with nearly each story offering something curious enough to hold interest: a unique idea for a demon, a play on the furniture of C.S. Lewis, even a simple monster hunt in the local public pool. The capper is Matheson's odd, too-long, but impenetrably fun prose of a rock band expose which barely qualifies as belonging to the genre: I spent most of the read trying to figure out why it made its way in.
beckylej's review
3.0
Dark Screams volume 2 features five tales of very different sorts of horror - a little something for everyone. Literally. Here's the full TOC:
Robert R. McCammon: The Deep End
Norman Prentiss: Interval
Shawntelle Madison: If These Walls Could Talk
Graham Masterton: The Night Hider
Richard Christian Matheson: Whatever
As with volume 1, this collection is a mix of new and old - McCammon's tale of underwater terror originally appeared in 1987 and Richard Matheson's odd story of a rock band's rise and fall first appeared in 1997. The remaining three are new to the collection: "Interval" features a demon that feeds on tragedy; "If These Walls Could Talk" forces a TV producer to face down her dark past; and Masterton's tale is woven around a very famous wardrobe.
Like I said, a mix of all sorts of horror. I must admit that McCammon's story is by far my favorite in this particular installment - it would be, I have a serious fear of underwater creepy crawlies!
Robert R. McCammon: The Deep End
Norman Prentiss: Interval
Shawntelle Madison: If These Walls Could Talk
Graham Masterton: The Night Hider
Richard Christian Matheson: Whatever
As with volume 1, this collection is a mix of new and old - McCammon's tale of underwater terror originally appeared in 1987 and Richard Matheson's odd story of a rock band's rise and fall first appeared in 1997. The remaining three are new to the collection: "Interval" features a demon that feeds on tragedy; "If These Walls Could Talk" forces a TV producer to face down her dark past; and Masterton's tale is woven around a very famous wardrobe.
Like I said, a mix of all sorts of horror. I must admit that McCammon's story is by far my favorite in this particular installment - it would be, I have a serious fear of underwater creepy crawlies!
jeanne25's review
3.0
This is a collection of 5 short stories. As with Volume 1, there were a couple of stories I loved, a couple that were "ok" and one I really disliked but told myself that (being a short story), it would be a disgrace not to finish it. If we were allowed half stars, I would realistically give it a 3.5. Worth reading for the really good stories.