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A review by elbell1012
A Collapse of Horses by Brian Evenson
4.0
This was my first time reading any of Brian Evenson's work, but it will not be my last. Each story was so captivating and unsettling, he knows how to evoke such a sense of dread in such short works. Since this is an anthology, I will rate each story individually and take the average for the total.
1) Black Bark: 4 at first I thought this was not a strong opening- the final story changed that
2) A Report: 3.5 This one has the same feeling at 1984 and We. a man gives a report and end up in a solitary cell
3) The Punish: 4 A story about a childhood game and the resolution of it
4) A Collapse of Horse: 3 one of the stories in this anthology where you are not sure what's real. Is the character crazy or just the world around him? A man's home and the number of children he has changes around him while no one else seems to notice
5) Three Indignities: 2.5 maybe I just didn't get this one, it kinda just seemed like minor surgical body horror
6) Cult: 4 another very strong one. A man feels compelled to do whatever his ex tells him to despite the fact that she stabbed him and ran away. You just want to yell at him to leave her
7) Seaside Town: 4.5 This one I was not expecting to like as much as I did. A reclusive man and a woman vacation to a town by the seaside that is not all that it seems
8) The Dust: 5 My favorite story in here. This one blended science fiction and horror into an amazing concoction. We have a team of men in an underground compound drilling for ore on another planet. As the days go by, dust begins to seep in and cover everything so thickly it breaks their ventilation equipment and the men are left with a finite supply of oxygen.
8) BearHeartTM: 4.5 tell tale heart meets build-a-bear. After losing his baby, a man is haunted by the stuffed bear that contains a recording of his dead child's heartbeat.
9) Scour: 3 we follow a woman through fear and then complacency in a world where is rains sand
10) Torpor: 2 this one just didn't really stick out to me.
11) Past Reno: 5 another favorite. The less you know, the more your mind fills in the blanks. A man find himself in what seems to be a never ending desert on his way to Utah for the reading of his father's will.
12) Any Corpse: 5 My second favorite story in here. Mysterious field filled with meat that falls from the sky and "furnishers" that harvest and sell it
13) The Moans: 4 not super unsettling but a very interesting story about a man who is observing a little community
14) The Window: 3 Inter-dimensional break-in? ghost story? projection of your consciousness?
15) Click: 5 Another great one. After a man's head trauma nothing is as it seems. You know as little as he does
16) The Blood Drip: 4 and it all comes back around here. The first story is referenced as a story within this one, making it a great closer. Vampires.
We average out at about 4.1. All in all, great collection
Spoiler
1) Black Bark: 4 at first I thought this was not a strong opening- the final story changed that
2) A Report: 3.5 This one has the same feeling at 1984 and We. a man gives a report and end up in a solitary cell
3) The Punish: 4 A story about a childhood game and the resolution of it
4) A Collapse of Horse: 3 one of the stories in this anthology where you are not sure what's real. Is the character crazy or just the world around him? A man's home and the number of children he has changes around him while no one else seems to notice
5) Three Indignities: 2.5 maybe I just didn't get this one, it kinda just seemed like minor surgical body horror
6) Cult: 4 another very strong one. A man feels compelled to do whatever his ex tells him to despite the fact that she stabbed him and ran away. You just want to yell at him to leave her
7) Seaside Town: 4.5 This one I was not expecting to like as much as I did. A reclusive man and a woman vacation to a town by the seaside that is not all that it seems
8) The Dust: 5 My favorite story in here. This one blended science fiction and horror into an amazing concoction. We have a team of men in an underground compound drilling for ore on another planet. As the days go by, dust begins to seep in and cover everything so thickly it breaks their ventilation equipment and the men are left with a finite supply of oxygen.
8) BearHeartTM: 4.5 tell tale heart meets build-a-bear. After losing his baby, a man is haunted by the stuffed bear that contains a recording of his dead child's heartbeat.
9) Scour: 3 we follow a woman through fear and then complacency in a world where is rains sand
10) Torpor: 2 this one just didn't really stick out to me.
11) Past Reno: 5 another favorite. The less you know, the more your mind fills in the blanks. A man find himself in what seems to be a never ending desert on his way to Utah for the reading of his father's will.
12) Any Corpse: 5 My second favorite story in here. Mysterious field filled with meat that falls from the sky and "furnishers" that harvest and sell it
13) The Moans: 4 not super unsettling but a very interesting story about a man who is observing a little community
14) The Window: 3 Inter-dimensional break-in? ghost story? projection of your consciousness?
15) Click: 5 Another great one. After a man's head trauma nothing is as it seems. You know as little as he does
16) The Blood Drip: 4 and it all comes back around here. The first story is referenced as a story within this one, making it a great closer. Vampires.
Spoiler
We average out at about 4.1. All in all, great collection