Customer Reviews

999: Twenty-nine Original Tales of Horror and Suspense

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Opinion: Short story collections are usually filler reading for me. Read a story in between properly long novels. This book I just read straight through for various reasons. It opens with a good old zombie story that is not my cup of tea, but is well done, "Amerikanski Dead at the Moscow Morgue" by Kim Newman. "The Ruins of Contracoeur" by Joyce Carol Oates is one of my favorites. Its a story of a disgraced judge and his family being forced to move in a family inherited mansion out in the country, far from the political world of Washington. The kids have started seeing people without faces prowling around the grounds and children from the neighborhood are suddenly being murdered by a madman. "The Owl and the Pussycat" by Thomas M. Disch is also excellent and slightly suspenseful but not very horrific if you know what I mean. I really like the way this story was unfolded (and I cannot really describe it without giving things away). Another story that I found excellent was "The Grave" by P. D. Cacek. Its a story about a very wierd, psychotic school librarian, her relationship with her mother, and something she found on the way home from school one day, done with enough of realism to make it extremely creepy. "Itinerary" by Tim Powers was interesting but I did not follow it very well. I got lost in the details of this ghostly time-travel story, possibly as a result of my being tired when reading that story. "The Rio Grande Gothic" by David Morrell and "Angie" by Ed Gorman are two more great stories. "Rio Grande is about a cop who gets a little too curious about a certain intersection in Santa Fe where shoes keep appearing in the middle of the road. This was one of the longer stories but was very good. I don't know what to say about "Angie" other than I liked it and that is a little frightening. "The Tree Is My Hat" by Gene Wolfe was the first Wolfe story of any kind I have read. His story was just so-so to me...but in an interesting way. "Hemophage" left me wanting more. This story by Steven Spruill fits between 2 books of a trilogy and it feels like it. I really liked the everyman way that vampires are dealt with. "Rehearsals" by Thomas F. Monteleone was a pretty good about a blue collar worker who never made much of himself and the dreams he had as a youth. What happens to him when he gets a job at a theater as a janitor is pretty cool although not terribly scary. One of my favoritre stories in the collection was the last story "Elsewhere" by William Peter Blatty (The Exocist guy). A realtor gets a very big incentive to sell a dormant house with a haunted reputation. She gathers up some "experts" on hauntings and a writer to spend some nights in the house and prove it isn't so she can sell it. The character interaction is pretty good here, and even more so after the punch is delivered near the end. This story brought to mind a recent movie. So much so that I wonder if the movie got the idea from this story.

Neil Gaiman and Stephen King have stories published in this collection, King's "The Road Virus Heads North" I have read before. Some of the stories that I didn't like or disappointed me were "The Shadow, The Darkness" (too long and boring), "Knocking" (no real punch, just kinda blah), "Growing Things" (short and unscary), and "The Theater" (haunted vegetables above a bookstore. The rest of the stories were average, no real feeling either way for me.

Recommendation: If you are a fan of the genre or of any of these authors, read this. Zombie stories, vampire stories, creatures in the woods stories, evil heart of man stories, suspensful stories, it's all here. It is well worth it with many more likeable stories than not. 4 out of 5 stars.

The horror genre is by far my favorite. The bookshelves in my home are overflowing with horror, thriller and suspense novels. And anthologies.

This one has easily taken the place of my favorite horror anthology.

There's something here for everyone: vampires, zombies, haunted houses, ghosts, time rifts and perhaps the scariest of all - the evil humans are capable of.

There's only a few here I didn't care for: 'Growing Things', 'Des Saucisses, Sans Doute' and 'The Theater'. The latter disappointed me most I think because I am a huge fan of Bentley Little and his short story was just up to par with his usual writings, in my opinion.

However, considering there are 29 stories in this anthology, and I only was disappointed with three of them, and that they were all pretty short, speaks volumes for this book.

'Good Friday' is an excellent, scary vampire tale. 'Hemophage' was also a great vampire story. I just wish it had been longer.

The longer stories are real gems. 'The Ruins of Contracoeur', 'Rio Grande Gothic' and 'Mad Dog Summer' are just suberb.

In my opinion, Sarrantonio saves the best for last. William Peter Blatty's 'Elsewhere'. This is simply a wonderful, good old story of a hanuted house and the ghosts that do the haunting.

If you love horror and short horror stories, then this anthology is a must have addition to your library.

This is the type of stories that die-hard horror fans are looking for. Sci-fi and horror combined, plus a dose of good old fashioned Stephen King-type horror. Awesome!

Most of the stories in this collection are not very good, and at least one is in no way a horror story. I bought the Kindle edition, and it is a travesty. Almost every page there is some kind of spelling error, which is very apparently from the book being scanned and not proof-read before sold. In the editor's introduction of the first author, he calls the writer a "hack" which is a comic misspelling, but not funny considering I paid $12 for this failure or a collection.

Although now a decade old, this anthology remains quite dear to me. Thanks to Sarrantonio, I was introduced to quite a number of new Horror Authors; those who don't get the same marketing blitz as King or Koontz. And thank Cthulhu for that! While some of the "Old Guard" stand up and take notice here (Campbell, Blatty, Oates, ect.), I also got to check out short works by Kim Newman and Neil Gaiman. While I was already a fan of both authors, I soon started following Edward Lee and F. Paul Wilson as well.

To me, just about every tale in this anthology is excellent. Not only excellent, but important. It's a great sampling of what some of the finest horror writers of today are producing.

Having read a lot of horror short stories collections, namely many of the "mammoth book" series, this came in at far better than any of it's competitors. While all of the stories may not be "horror" or "bone-chilling" a few of them are just that, and overall there isn't one that I had to trudge through or see how many more pages were left to it before I could get to the next tale. An excellent collection.

Usually I don't care for short story collections but this particular collection kept me reading into the night. It also had some stories that let my over active imagination keep me awake! At first I was put off by the number of zombie stories but in reconsidering, and imagining late at night, I realized that each one was done well. The only disappointment was Rick Hautala's Knocking, but Joe R. Lansdale's Mad Dog Summer and William Peter Blatty's Elsewhere more than made up for the minor disappointment.

Chilling, scary, disturbing and gross. Bottom line: very entertaining and just plain fun for any horror fan! Plus, you get the extra added bonus of "discovering" some new writers you may not have heard of before but will definitely want to follow from now on. Hope you get as much of a kick out of this as I did - it's money (and time) well-spent!

As most people could guess, this is a mixed bag of short stories and one novella. There's something in here to suit a lot of differing tastes, but that quality is also its drawback; few people are going to like all of the authors.

I liked Blatty's story, and the Stephen King outing was pretty good too. Some of the lesser known works are entertaining in a quick read sort of way. I did not care for the Joyce Carol Oates story but admit I haven't read anything else by her. JCO's tale read so cold and objective that I just couldn't get into it, and nor could I sympathize with the blighted, over-privileged family depicted therein. The lady can turn a phrase, of that there's no doubt, but her tone is something I find off-putting. (Okay, everything's in shambles, I get it. Now can someone, somewhere be likable or at least intriguing?)

Regardless of the differing opinions of horror/suspense readers concerning our pet authors' merits, this collection is a good library borrow for a business trip. It would make for nice entertainment on the plane or in the hotel, so long as folks don't expect too much profundity from these intentionally lightweight stories.

Not stuff that's going to change the world but it beats reruns of Law and Order.

I love short stories of any kind. Horror is a favorite. This book had some great moments, but like all anthologies, there are a few stories that a below par. Over all, it is a good book and was worth the purchase. Entertaining.