Customer Reviews

999: New Stories of Horror and Suspense

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

`You felt as if you were bleeding to death, only inside your head...' This excellent description of feeling uncomfortable comes early on in the new Stephen King story to be found in this horror anthology. In the story, the narrator is viewing a particularly horrible painting, which is going to have a particularly horrible effect on his life. But it's also an appropriate description of how a good horror story should make a reader feel: threatened, in danger, in a quiet way. Reading horror is different to watching it at the movies - it's easy to feel scared in a dark cinema. A bit harder, though, to do it through a book. 999, a collection of previously-unpublished work in the horror genre, does it - and does it many times. The anthology contains a short novel from William Peter Blatty, author of the famed scary novel The Exorcist; novellas by David Morrell (creator of the Rambo books and also a fine horror writer) and Joyce Carol Oates; and more than two dozen shorter pieces - including an effort from Stephen King, The Road Virus Heads North. Many readers will turn to the King story first, and they won't be disappointed. It's short, sharp and shocking, and will frighten even the most sceptical realist. In the story, bestselling horror novelist Richard Kinnell buys a painting at a yard sale. It shows a deathly figure driving a car, and it's theme of horror and death appeals to Kinnell. From the moment he buys the picture, Kinnell is doomed. The reader knows this, but it's a tribute to King's skill at the macabre that over twenty pages of steadily-mounting paranoia and suspense pass before the bloody conclusion is reached. Once done with King readers will turn to the less well-known authors here, hoping that standards aren't too bad. For example, the first story in 999 is by Kim Newman, an writer of moderately prominent vampire tales. Newman's story, Amerikanski Dead at the Moscow Morgue, is almost as good as King's. It is set in a gruesome Moscow of the near-future and has American citizens from all walks of life wandering around the Russian capital as zombies, with an appetite for fresh human flesh. The atmosphere of freezing fear in a chaotic Moscow is brilliantly conveyed in the story, and the horror of how the zombies have to be dealt with chills the bones. Most of the other stories in 999 are of a similarly high standard - they will provide chills of fear and horror in a hot Perth summer. The apocalyptic theme to many of the stories is summed up in the book's title. 999 is a contraction of the year of its publication, but it is also 666 - the Number of the Beast and the figure that heralds the End of Days.

Unlike some of the others, I thought Stephen King and Joyce Carol Oates' stories were beneath their usual genius, but I loved "Rio Grande Gothic" and "Mad Dog Summer." However, it amazes me that fewer people have singled out the return of William Peter Blatty with "Elsewhere." The story is arguably the best in the "999" collection, as several characters (including the flamboyant Terence Dare) wander through a haunted mansion in search of spirits. Doesn't sound too original, I know, but we are in the hands of the master of "The Exorcist." "Elsewhere" shines.

In his introduction to this book, editor/contributor Al Sarrantonio makes clear his high hopes that 999 will prove a worthy successor to such landmark horror anthologies as DARK FORCES and GREAT TALES OF TERROR AND THE SUPERNATURAL. The dust jacket even goes so far as to declare of 999: “Not only is this the largest anthology of original horror/suspense fiction of all time…but it is also the finest.” As it turns out, however, neither the editor’s high hopes nor the dust jacket’s hyperbole are justified. 999 is in fact a very average collection of horror tales, with stories that range from pretty awful at worst to quite good, though not exactly excellent, at best, and the bulk of material falling somewhere between those points.

Frankly, there are few high points in this collection. Furthermore, the high points of 999 are not particularly striking as far as horror tales go, and are only distinguishable as the points of greatest contrast to the indifferent and unmemorable horror storytelling that comprises most of 999’s entries.

Still some readers might enjoy Tim Power’s haunting & unusual ghost story “Itinerary,” my favorite story here, which manages to be witty, fantastic (in the truest sense of the word), and melancholy without straining for effect. Kim Newman’s lead-off story, set in a U.S.S.R. under siege from walking dead American tourists, is a great, well-written combination of creepy horror and understated black humor, and makes a strong start for the book. Thomas M. Disch’s “The Owl and the Pussycat” delivers a deep bite in the gentle tones of an innocent children’s story. Ramsey Campbell’s “The Entertainment” lacks the potency of much of his stunning short fiction and bears a little too much resemblance to Robert Aickman’s classic chiller “The Hospice,” but is nonetheless a thoroughly sinister piece of work suggesting the unnatural horrors that can hide behind seemingly harmless grins.

But then there’s no avoiding the negatives. Bentley Little’s “The Theater” starts off as a dully written reprise of Ramsey Campbell’s infinitely more frightening “The Show Goes On,” and quickly segues into a goofy psychodrama driven by the zero-personality main character’s unhealthy obsession with vegetables. Stephen King cruises through with a by-the-numbers tale of a demonic painting that could make for a passable episode of NIGHT GALLERY—one could be forgiven for thinking the editor was satisfied enough just having King’s name to plaster on the cover, so minor is his contribution. Peter Schneider’s “Les Saucisses, Sans Doute” might be well-intended in its mockery of the pretensions and cheesy glamor rife in “extreme” splatter-shock horror, but this short piece is too slight, the kind of thing one might scribble up to pass a lazy lunch-hour. Quite disappointingly, T.E.D. Klein’s “Growing Things,” a surprise contribution from this all-too-unprolific writer, also turns out to be a little insubstantial.

The best that can be said is that there are some fine, if unremarkable stories between the covers of 999. However, the “good” stories are not good enough nor in sufficient proportion to invite comparisons with truly exceptional horror anthologies, such as the two volumes mentioned at the beginning, or THE OXFORD BOOK OF ENGLISH GHOST STORIES, THE DARK DESCENT, and the SHADOWS series, to name but a few others.

I polished it off in about 3 days. Each story fulfilled the promise of editor Sarrantonio; You got introspective, you got edgy, then you simply got Scared. King's THE ROAD VIRUS HEADS NORTH, while brief, offers enough mental fodder to keep the skin tingling. F. Paul Wilson's GOOD FRIDAY preaches the meat of that old saying; There's nothing like a Jersey Girl (even if she is a nun). Morrel's RIO GRANDE GOTHIC, while not inherently supernatural, offers enough of the "normal" world of psychoses to keep you on the edge of your seat word by heartpounding word. By far one of the most well rounded collection of stories I have read in years. It will hold a prominent place on my bookshelf and merits reading again and again.

As an avid reader of horror anthologies, I enjoyed 999 more than most because of the quality of work and authors selected. I would rate this work favorably with such horror anthologies as Dark Forces, Stalkers, Metahorror and my favorite, Silver Scream. Not all of the stories are outstanding of course, but I particularly enjoyed the stories by Ligotti, Oates, Campbell and Lansdale. Ligotti and Lansdale fans should pick this one up just for their stories alone.

I have a dog-eared copy of Kirby McCauley's "Dark Forces" - probably the best collection of horror and suspense thus far. "999" is a close second. It's always fun to read material from unfamiliar writers, but less fun to read the old stand-bys. King's short story is predictable and self-derivitive; and William Peter Blatty's novella is so filled with purple prose and almost Bulwer-Littonish bad writing that I couldn't even finish it. And Joyce Carol Oates is good -- as usual, but her point of view confused me. Who is the narrator? One of the children? Which child?

There were quite a few editorial thorns in this anthology as well. In "An Exultation of Termagants" one character's name is spelled LILLY at one point, and then it inexplicably changes to LILY thereafter. Is there a reason for this? Did I miss something? In other stories fine, unimportant details are not kept track of very well. (A blue Jeep Cherokee is later described as a green Jeep etc.) Minor, nit-picky points, but I still get annoyed by things like that.

Overall, though, this is a fun collection to have and I'm keeping an eye on some of the lesser-known writers. Go ahead: buy this one!

Talk about a wide selection modern horror, this collection ranges from the supernatural to the twisted darkness of your next door neighbor. The thought of popping stitches are forever branded in my mind from Edward Lee's ICU. MAD DOG SUMMER will leave you contemplating how well you really know those around you long into the night.

This is a very good book with a lot of different writers across the horror spectrum. I want to read more Joyce Carol Oates after this reading.

In the introduction of 999, Al Sarrantonio expresses the hope that this volume will spawn a resurgence of literate horror stories and prove the harbinger of a new golden age of the genre. Sorry, Al, no way. Some of the stories are good but most are mediocre. "Mad Dog Summer" by Joe R. Lansdale is quite good while some, like the "...Zodiac..." story, read as if the author just threw something at Sarrantonio to get him off their back.
It's not a bad book - something you might pick up what you have nothing currently at hand you want to read - but certainly not the catalyst that Mr. Sarrantonio envisioned.

Great writers. Mediocre stories for the most part. Yes, the Stephen King story is good and so is the F. Paul Wilson story. But some of the other stories must have been written on a break between their major works. The one exception is the Joe Lansdale novellas (Mad Dog Summer). This is a truly great story.