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ionsquareatkreuzberg 's review for:
Haunted Nights
by Ellen Datlow, Lisa Morton
Man, I don't even know where to start with this review. This book was, hands down, the greatest short fiction anthology I've ever read. While not all of the stories would be ranked as five stars in my opinion, none of them were bad, which is almost impossible when compiling an anthology in my opinion, and the good ones are THAT good, some of them being *six* stars out of five. While I don't want this review to drone on and on about how amazing this collection is, let me at least say a few things about some of my favorite stories from the collection:
"Dirtmouth" by Stephen Graham Jones: I've been reading Mr. Jones' short stories for a while now, originally discovering him through his 2014 collection 'After the People Lights Have Gone Off,' and I have to say this is his strongest short story that I've read to date. It's a creepy tale about a dead mother come back to life and her interactions with her living husband on Halloween night, and Jones writes it in this perfect conversational prose that makes it feel like you're almost watching a police interrogation recording (you'll understand this after reading the story) instead of reading a short story.
"A Small Taste of the Old Country" by Jonathan Maberry: Not only the best story in the whole collection (along with "Lost in the Dark"), but arguably among the top five short stories I have ever read. It's that good, I promise you. The plot concerns Nazis who fled from Germany to Argentina and their dinner with a baker on Halloween night one year not long after the end of WWII, and, while you can see the ending coming from near the beginning, it's the journey that gets you there that is what's so fascinating in the end, and the twist near the end in regards to the identity of the baker was genius. This is just a truly well-written, fascinating, tremendous piece of fiction.
"Witch Hazel" by Jeffrey Ford: An unrelenting, awesome story about a 19th century village and the legend of supernatural happenings with two sisters and powers that seem to take control of their minds and the subsequent bloodbath that follows their transformation. The prose and style is impeccable and reads almost like it's a true non-fiction piece in some history magazine.
"A Kingdom of Sugar Skulls and Marigolds" by Eric J. Guignard: This story also blew me away. Focused on a young Hispanic man living near Los Angeles, it recounts the tale of his lost family members, his lost best friend, and a wild trip through the land of the Day of the Dead. It touches on different parts of Mexican folklore, incorporates slang and dialogue that is so damn authentic, and it includes a touching, tender moment between two male best friends that you often don't see in contemporary horror. Guignard pulls everything off perfectly, and I walked away from the story still thinking about it days later, especially thinking about the way he was able to combine the dialogue and history and folklore and action of the story all together, wrapping it up with a perfect bow at the end and leaving me with a tremendous lasting impression.
"Lost in the Dark" by John Langan: This is the only short story I think I've ever read in my life that was framed to be like a documentary/interview that was fully fleshed out. Sound confusing? It's hard to describe, but it's amazing, one of the only five-star short stories I've ever read. It deals with a Blair Witch-type found footage movie that may be actually more true than the creator originally let on and the author's subsequent investigation of the movie and the creator. Best short story of the collection along with "A Small Taste of the Old Country."
"Dirtmouth" by Stephen Graham Jones: I've been reading Mr. Jones' short stories for a while now, originally discovering him through his 2014 collection 'After the People Lights Have Gone Off,' and I have to say this is his strongest short story that I've read to date. It's a creepy tale about a dead mother come back to life and her interactions with her living husband on Halloween night, and Jones writes it in this perfect conversational prose that makes it feel like you're almost watching a police interrogation recording (you'll understand this after reading the story) instead of reading a short story.
"A Small Taste of the Old Country" by Jonathan Maberry: Not only the best story in the whole collection (along with "Lost in the Dark"), but arguably among the top five short stories I have ever read. It's that good, I promise you. The plot concerns Nazis who fled from Germany to Argentina and their dinner with a baker on Halloween night one year not long after the end of WWII, and, while you can see the ending coming from near the beginning, it's the journey that gets you there that is what's so fascinating in the end, and the twist near the end in regards to the identity of the baker was genius. This is just a truly well-written, fascinating, tremendous piece of fiction.
"Witch Hazel" by Jeffrey Ford: An unrelenting, awesome story about a 19th century village and the legend of supernatural happenings with two sisters and powers that seem to take control of their minds and the subsequent bloodbath that follows their transformation. The prose and style is impeccable and reads almost like it's a true non-fiction piece in some history magazine.
"A Kingdom of Sugar Skulls and Marigolds" by Eric J. Guignard: This story also blew me away. Focused on a young Hispanic man living near Los Angeles, it recounts the tale of his lost family members, his lost best friend, and a wild trip through the land of the Day of the Dead. It touches on different parts of Mexican folklore, incorporates slang and dialogue that is so damn authentic, and it includes a touching, tender moment between two male best friends that you often don't see in contemporary horror. Guignard pulls everything off perfectly, and I walked away from the story still thinking about it days later, especially thinking about the way he was able to combine the dialogue and history and folklore and action of the story all together, wrapping it up with a perfect bow at the end and leaving me with a tremendous lasting impression.
"Lost in the Dark" by John Langan: This is the only short story I think I've ever read in my life that was framed to be like a documentary/interview that was fully fleshed out. Sound confusing? It's hard to describe, but it's amazing, one of the only five-star short stories I've ever read. It deals with a Blair Witch-type found footage movie that may be actually more true than the creator originally let on and the author's subsequent investigation of the movie and the creator. Best short story of the collection along with "A Small Taste of the Old Country."