Customer Reviews

THE DODD, MEAD GALLERY OF HORROR.

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There is a 1996 republished collection of this 1983 collection with the shorter title Gallery of Horror (Roc Fiction), and cover highlighting the big name authors in big letters so get whichever one is cheaper.

Some of Horror's best authors are in this collection but to be honest these are not their best stories. Saying that though, fans of horror legends Stephen King or Bernard Taylor will still want to read the inclusions by these masters. So will David Morrell fans with his sensational story The Typewriter, although this story has appeared in a few different collections so you may well have come across it before. I have to be honest and say there are a fair few fillers in here as well so I wouldn't be paying a collectors item price for these stories. A far better short story collection by the same editor (Charles L. Grant) is titled Final Shodows which also has stories by Bernard Taylor and other authors who appear in this one. A modern day anthology worth owning is Mystery Writers of America Presents Death Do Us Part: New Stories about Love, Lust, and Murderwhich is full of high quality stories with only two average stories in the whole collection. Dangerous Women is also very good.

Anyway the best tales within The Gallery of Horror are Out of Sorts by Bernard Taylor, a classic werewolf tale about a woman who discovers he husband is having an affair and decides to do something about it. The Typewriter by David Morrell about a writer who finds a hideous old typewriter in a junk shop. Whenever he types something on it the keys type something else. Nona by Stephen King is all right but not in the same league as The Mist from Skeleton Crew or any of the stories in Four Past Midnight. Nona is the story of a hitchhiker wronged by those he comes across who meets a female also in the same predicament and they decide to turn the tables in a bid to get where they need to go.

The other stories include tales about an evil old man mentally torturing a little girl, an antique bookstore owner disappearing in his overgrown backyard, a domestic argument being constantly interrupted by the terrifying attacks of a centipede, a group of people planning a trap to kill the Easter Bunny and a Nazi worshipper in a padded cell, vampire tale set in World War II, and victim of racism who decides to take revenge by killing jumping from a tower. Stories and authors are -

Something Nasty by William F Nolan

Canavan's Backyard by Joseph Brennan

The Conqueror Worm by Stephen Donaldson

Death to the Easter Bunny by Alan Ryan

The Rubber Room by Robert Bloch

Petey by T.E.D Klein

The Sunshine Club by Ramsey Campbell

Down Among the Dead Men by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois

The Crazy Chinaman by John Coyne

Nunc Dimittis by Tanith Lee

Derelicts by Steve Rasnic Tem

In Darkness Angels by Eric Van Lustbader

The Arrows by Theodore Sturgeon

Aim for the Heart by Craig Shaw Gardner