Tales for a Stormy Night: Library Edition

by Yuri Rasovsky (Compiled By), Guy de Maupassant (Contributor), Ambrose Bierce (Contributor)

Just in time for Halloween comes this volume of late-night listening for lovers of mischief, the macabre, and literature. Fifteen tales, plays, and poems offer a witch's brew of readings and dramatizations seasoned with music and sound effects.

Genres: Fiction, Horror, Audiobook, Classics, Thriller, Short Stories

Audio Cassette

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Julie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story collection features 14 creepy classics by famous authors including Edgar Allan Poe, Guy de Maupassant, Edith Wharton, H.P. Lovecraft, Robert Louis Stevenson and more. None of the stories are really scary, but all are very atmospheric and creepy.

This audio book is about 8 hours long. Most of the stories are presented as audio plays with a full cast. I enjoy old radio dramas, so I like this sort of audio performance as opposed to straight reading of the stories. The recording quality in places is less than stellar, with lots of hiss, echo and distortion. I have hearing loss and there were a couple stories that were difficult for me to understand because of the poor quality of the recording. Some of the narrators are also difficult to understand or just had annoying voices. At times some of the performances tended towards over-acted melodrama. I don't enjoy listening to a story read by someone using a booming bass voice like they are doing a voice over for a commerical or movie trailer. But the majority of the stories and performances are quite good. Some of my favorite stories are included in this collection.

This is definitely a collection for fans of classic creepy tales! Well worth a listen, despite the recording quality and performance issues.

[Antonio · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection shows some knowledge of the horror genre and its classical masters.

The narrators were fantastic.

Though the choices were expected, the stories chosen from the authors were interesting.

[Hillary · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a hit and miss for me. I did find short stories that I enjoyed but it the narrators were the big miss for me

[Bibiana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Only one or two good stories in here.

[Aimee]

DNF

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent collection! The low average rating seems entirely unfair. As with any compilation, some stories aren't as strong as the rest but overall they were very good.

[Yvonne Mendez · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great compilation of old school horror stories, written by Allan Poe, HP Lovecraft and many others. Some of the stories I knew by heart from when I was a kid, some were new to me and all were very interesting to read and compare them to modern stories. The prose, the structure was so different and at this point I didn't find any of them scary, but you can see how they could have been scary way back when. I really enjoyed this book!

[Jill · Rating 2 out of 5]

Surprisingly disappointing. I audiobooked this one. It's a great collection of authors, and it's well-read, but the works themselves, I didn't find to be all that riveting. There were a few surprise endings among them, but mostly, I just wanted to finish it off.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the stories were fabulous and some were okay. I was a bit surprised that all the stories weren't scary. They were all clever, but not all scary. Maybe clever counts as a chiller too?

[Rita Halpert · Rating 2 out of 5]

The stories were hit or miss.