Darkside: Horror for the Next Millenium (Paperback)

by John Pelan (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
The best anthology editors inspire their writers to stretch their abilities, to pull their writing craft up another notch. It's evident from Darkside: Horror for the Next Millennium that John Pelan is such an editor. This anthology of 30 tales serves up one smart, biting story after another. It reaches across preexisting boundaries into the possible future of horror with such assurance it invites comparison to Dennis Etchison's The Cutting Edge or Thomas Monteleone's Borderlands. All of the stories are original, some by established masters such as Steve Rasnic Tem, Lucy Taylor, and Thomas Ligotti, and quite a few others by promising newcomers such as Wayne Edwards, Brian McNaughton, Caitlin R. Kiernan, and Christa Faust. The stories range from those with striking premises--a poet who writes his best poems on the skin of a woman, poems that can only be captured in photographs because of how quickly they fade--and those that reinvent familiar themes through the wit and verve of their execution. --Fiona Webster

Product Description
Prepare yourself for a chilling excursion to the dark side of fiction through the most frightening places that linger just beyond the imagination. With its haunting tales of dread that will stab an icy shaft of fear straight into your very soul, Darkside: Horror For the Next Millennium is modern macabre fiction at its very best. Welcome to the new definition of terror.... *

Features tales by Bram Stoker Award winners Edward Lee, Jack Ketchum, and Elizabeth Massey, and two-time Bram Stoker Award nominee Lucy Taylor *

Also contains stories by such noted authors as Caitl'n R. Kiernan, Wayne Edwards, Adam-Troy Castro, Thomas Ligotti, Robert Petitt, Lauren Fitzgerald, K.K. Ormond, Sean Doolittle, Steve Rasnic Tem, Sue Storm, D.F. Lewis, Roman Ranieri, Christa Faust, Brian McNaughton, S. Darnbrook Colson, Alan M. Clark,Jeffrey Osier, Yvonne Navarro, Deirdra Cox, James S. Dorr, Brian Hodge,Larry Tritten, Roberta Lannes, Wayne Allen Sallee, t. Winter Damon,Randy Chandler, Robert Jo Levy, and David Bo Silva

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Roc; Reprint edition (January 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451456629
• ISBN-13: 978-0451456625
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,420,500 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Cliches, Bad Writing, Gratuitous Sexual Violence: i.e. DRECK, July 27, 1998

By	Chi Chi ([e-mail]) (Washington D.C.) - See all my reviews

Although this collection contains a few outstanding finds, they are buried in a pile of unrelenting dreck.

After opening with Robert J. Levy's "Skinwriters," an imaginative, terrifically well-written piece, the collection descends into a mire of mindless violence and bad writing.

Look, I'm an ardent, lifelong fan of horror fiction, and my disgust with this book is not related to "shock" or to an inability to handle its subject matter -- which is unremittingly violent, brutal, and sadistic. What is repellent is that this explosive subject matter is given slipshod, sensationalistic treatment: there is no artistry here, no concern for anything beyond immediate shock value.

This is the kind of sloppy writing, sloppy thinking, and disdain for any reader's intelligence that gives the entire genre of horror a bad name.

Even the good writers here seem to have phoned in their stories. After all, I expect dreck from someone like Roberta Lannes (I can't tell you what her story was about, because I fell asleep reading it), but I do expect more from writers like Steve Rasnic Tem, who turned in a piece of incomprehensible mush, and Lucy Taylor, whose piece must have been meant as a joke. Elizabeth Massie is a superb writer, but her contribution here, co-written with Robert Pettit, is weak, silly and pointless.

And that arrogant subtitle -- Horror for a new millenium? Please. "New" is the last thing anything here is. This is nothing but a garbage heap of worn-out cliches and mind-numbing, repetitive, gratuitous sexual violence. By my count, at least 80% of the stories dealt with sexual abuse/incest, with nothing new to say, no new twists or insights. Either that subject is the theme to this anthology or, as I suspect, merely indicative of a dwindling supply of imagination among the authors represented here.

If you want truly superior anthologies of horror fiction, check out Robert Bloch's "Psychos," a rollicking collection of stories that really zing and zap, or ANY anthology edited by Stephen Jones. As for Darkside, that's where it belongs -- in the darkest side of your dumpster.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Thirty tales of horror ranging from creepy to downright gruesome!, July 6, 2006

By	Schtinky "Schtinky" (California) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

John Pelan does it again, putting together a great collection of modern-day horror masters, along with intriguingly ghoulish stories from some fresh names. If you are a fan of the short-story horror anthologies as I am, you won't want to miss this first edition of Pelan's 'Darkside' books.

Table Of Contents:
'Skinwriters' by Robert J. Levy
'Ice Dreams' by Elizabeth Massie and Robert Petitt
'Wasting' by Lauren Fitzgerald
'Backseat Dreams & Nightmares' by K.K. Ormand
'The Stick Woman' by Edward Lee
'Soul Of The Beast Surrendered' by Wayne Edwards
'October Gethsemane' by Sean Doolittle
'Scars' by Lucy Taylor
'Ystrey orm' by Brian McNaughton
'Tears Seven Times Salt' by Caitlin R. Kiernan
'One-Eyed Jack' by S. Darnbrook Colson
'Elena' by Steve Rasnic Tem
'Family Album' by Adam-Troy Castro
'Having Eyes, See Ye Not?' By Sue Storm
'Sisters In Death' by D.F. Lewis
'Window Of Opportunity' by Roman Ranieri
'Envy' by Christa Faust
'The Man Of Her Dreams' by Alam M. Clark
'For The Curiosity Of Rats' by Jeffrey Osier
'The Stranger Who Sits Beside Me' by Yvonne Navarro
'In Pieces' by Deidra Cox
'Voices Lost & Clouded' by David B. Silva
'If Memory Serves' by Jack Ketchum
'The Tears Of Isis' by James S. Dorr
'Stick Around, It Gets Worse' by Brian Hodge
'Voices In The Black Night' Larry Tritten
'Stealing The Sisyphus' Stone by Roberta Lannes
'The Nightmare Network' by Thomas Ligotti
'Fiends By Torchlight' by Wayne Allen Sallee
'... & Thou Hast Given Them Blood To Drink' by t. Winter Damon & Randy Chandler

With such a line-up, I can only mention a few of my favorites. 'Skinwriters' is a haunting tale of a writer's success putting pen to milk-white flesh. 'Wasting' will give you a terrifying view of anorexia. 'The Stick Woman' showcases Edward Lee at his sickest, flaunting his uncanny fetish for amputations and poo. 'Soul Of The Beast Surrendered' brings you into contact with the strangest imaginary friends I've ever read about. 'Scars' calls upon a deadly evil lurking in a small African village. 'Ystery Orm' left a vicious chill settled in my spine after reading it: this is the place of a nightmare, strange buildings with unexplainable entrances containing nothing but empty, crawling dread. 'Tears Seven Times Salt' left me feeling damp, shivering with cold, fright, and mystery. 'Voices In The Black Night' is a tale of words captured from library books by a strange man.

'Darkside: Horror For The Next Millennium' is the first of Pelan's 'Darkside' collections. Be sure to pick up 'The Darker Side: Generations Of Horror', 'Walk On The Darkside: Visions Of Horror', and 'Lost On The Darkside: Voices From The Edge Of Horror' if you like this collection. Horror is back, creeping around your house at night, settling its poison to the bottom of your water glass, and howling at the moon as you turn restlessly in your sleep. Light a candle, pour a glass of wine as red as blood, and settle into your armchair for a full night's reading pleasure with a 'Darkside' book. Enjoy!

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Three stories in this book absolutely worth reading, February 27, 1999

By A Customer

"Skinwriters" by Robert J. Levy, "For the Curiosity of Rats" by Jeffrey Osier, and "The Stranger Who Sits Beside Me" by Yvonne Navarro all are top-notch fiction, intent on illumation instead of grossout. They are all so VERY good that they stand out as tremendous achievements in an anthology that otherwise runs the gamut from interesting all the way down to thoroughly repugnant.