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A review by thisisbert
Dark Cities by Christopher Golden
3.0
My life is worse for having read the first story. If gratuitous shock factor is what you're looking for in a horror tale then The Dogs may be the story for you, but to me the shock scene felt cheap in the context of this particular story and, to be honest, pretty poorly written.
The rest of the collection I mostly enjoyed. A couple I think failed to quite hit the 'urban terror' theme head on and were just stories that happened to take place in a city, which was a little disappointing. On the other hand Nick Cutter's The Crack was one of the best in the collection and it definitely fell into this category, so I wasn't too mad at it.
Overall a 3.5 star read. Lots of nice 3 and 4 star stories, a couple I'd give 5, one 2 and unfortunately the first story was a 1 from me. I probably would have given this book a 4 star overall if the first story hadn't been the first story, even if it were still in the collection. It was vastly different from the other stories in terms of the content level so either you hated it and went into the rest of the stories with a sour taste, or you loved it and found the rest of the book disappointing because it was such a shift. I had a strong negative reaction to the story and took a break from the book before continuing, but if I'd already been enjoying the book and hit it in the middle I would have just mowed right through it and kept going, one blip in an otherwise pretty solid collection.
The rest of the collection I mostly enjoyed. A couple I think failed to quite hit the 'urban terror' theme head on and were just stories that happened to take place in a city, which was a little disappointing. On the other hand Nick Cutter's The Crack was one of the best in the collection and it definitely fell into this category, so I wasn't too mad at it.
Overall a 3.5 star read. Lots of nice 3 and 4 star stories, a couple I'd give 5, one 2 and unfortunately the first story was a 1 from me. I probably would have given this book a 4 star overall if the first story hadn't been the first story, even if it were still in the collection. It was vastly different from the other stories in terms of the content level so either you hated it and went into the rest of the stories with a sour taste, or you loved it and found the rest of the book disappointing because it was such a shift. I had a strong negative reaction to the story and took a break from the book before continuing, but if I'd already been enjoying the book and hit it in the middle I would have just mowed right through it and kept going, one blip in an otherwise pretty solid collection.