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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best of the Year, December 30, 1999
This review is from: The Nightmare Chronicles (Mass Market Paperback)
The Nightmare Chronicles by Douglas Clegg is the peak literary achievement of a novelist and short story writer who has truly developed his talent, disregarding the standard formulae of either paint-by-numbers fiction-writing or gross-out extremist writers. This collection is the point in which pulp meets literature head-on. In this collection of short fiction, Clegg has managed to conjure up some of the most disturbing tales in which the supernatural touches everyday life, where paranoia meets truth, and where dreams and nightmares cross over into day-light. For anyone looking for standard fare, The Nightmare Chronicles is not the book. If you want something scary that appeals to light and mindless reading, try Goosebumps or a Young Adult book, find an Anne Rice vampire novel or pick up the latest commercial mishmash. This is not a book for horror lovers alone, but for readers who really enjoy a superb experience with fiction. But, if you are a serious reader of the best that genre fiction has to offer, try this collection of short stories. Someone here mentioned this has no plot. Well, of course it does not have a plot; it's a collection of short fiction. This should be obvious to anyone who has actually gotten beyond the first page of this book. The characters are ordinary but thrust into the mouth of terror, disturbance, and shadow. The imagery within these tales is startling. Of the tales, the best are "White Chapel," "I Am Infinite; I Contain Multitudes," "Underworld," and one of the most interesting short horror stories I've ever read, "The Rendering Man." I have read two of Clegg's novels, both of which were good, but I have no doubt that it is in the short story, as exemplified in The Nightmare Chronicles, that he excels.
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The most disturbing book, January 4, 2000
This review is from: The Nightmare Chronicles (Mass Market Paperback)
I am new to Douglas Clegg's fiction, but I can guarantee that The Nightmare Chronicles will be just the first in a long line of books I'll read by this guy. What struck me about this collection of short stories was that it is like entering a room with someone who is going to tell you stories in the dark. The set up of the kidnapping story that wraps around the dozen or so short stories in this book is intriguing but doesn't overpower the main event. The main event are some of the most delicious short stories of terror I've read since I read early Stephen King, Robert Bloch, or Richard Matheson. Clegg is not as much of a structuralist as those other writers. One can almost feel him going with the imagery in some cases over the plot. I would go so far as to suggest that what this writer finds in the horror of his fiction is beauty and some kind of kinship. "White Chapel" is a standout, as is "I Am Infinite; I Contain Multitudes." They're like bookends to the other stories, some brief "The Little Mermaid," some a bit overly complicated like "Chosen." One or two of the stories seemed ragged to me, but still inspired. The reason I'm writing this review is because I bought the book here and something in it definitely spoke to me. There is something very personal in this collection. I recommend it to readers who want horror fiction that goes beyond the page.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Through the looking glass, darkly, May 18, 2000
This review is from: The Nightmare Chronicles (Mass Market Paperback)
I found out about Douglas Clegg from Amazon.com's "customers who bought books by Peter Straub also bought books from the following authors" list. Straub's Ghost Story is to this day one of my all time favorite books. Another one of my favorites is Boy's Life by Robert McCammon (I sure hope he reconsiders retirement). When I started to read some reviews of Clegg's works and saw that they were drawing comparison to McCammon as well as Straub, along with Dan Simmons and Stephen King (two of my other perennial favorites), I knew it was time to check this guy out. So I immediately placed an order for his new novel You Come When I Call You. But my anticipation got to me. Imagining how great it would be to be reading a new author on the par with these other greats, I decided I couldn't wait the three or four days for the book to arrive by UPS. So I went downtown to my local used bookstore and bought a copy of The Nightmare Chronicles. Right off the bat, the cover made me feel I was in McCammon country. A paperback original short story collection with a darkish blue graveyard in the foreground and a huge moon looming in the background. Just like McCammon's Blue World. Since that was the first book I read by McCammon, I thought this was probably a good place to start with Clegg. The first story, "Underworld," did remind me of McCammon. The next one, "White Chapel," was very Dan Simmons-esque. It takes place in India and features a woman reporter trying to track down a psychopath who has been transformed into a kind of cult religious figure. Very Jospeh Condrad, for that matter. By the time I was on page thirty or forty, I was already very impressed with Clegg's writing style. It's similar in ways to McCammon, but tends to have the more visceral bite of Clive Barker or Joe R. Lansdale's edgier stuff. Although his style is similar to these other authors, it is also very much his own. What I liked right away was the amount of small, perceptive, telling detail with which Clegg imbues his writing. Reading Clegg, you very quickly get the reassuring feeling that you're in the hands of someone who knows what he's doing. Clegg is great at pulling you into his stories by setting up a bizarre premise which leaves you hungering to find out exactly what is going on. More often than not, he never tells you exactly what's going on, but only nudges you in the general direction. The stories slowly get stranger and stranger as you make your way through this well-written book. A couple big themes soon emerge which tie the stories together rather impressively. First off, Clegg seems to be fascinated with the idea of religion and penance. Characters are often trying to atone for things they have done. The concept of brutality as an act of love is also present in several of the stories (as in "Of Mice and Men," where George kills Lenny out of his love for him). Flowers, vaginas and various types of openings are a symbol which shows up repeatedly. Clegg's stories often deal with the origins and endings of things, with the physicality of life and death and the doorways that communicate between the two worlds. I thought The Nightmare Chronicles was a very well-written, truly scary collection of stories, and I would easily give it five stars for the writing alone. However, I felt the stories tended heavily toward the darker side of the spectrum. So if you're not into delving the pyschology of the insane and the ruthless, as I tend not to be, these stories may not be your exact cup of tea. But no matter what, you're bound to appreciate Clegg's well-honed story-telling skills. That's what got me in the end. Also worth noting, this book just recently won the Bram Stoker Award for best horror collection.
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