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A review by books_n_pickles
A Book of Horrors by
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!