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Ghost Stories: The Best of the Daily Telegraph's Ghost Story Competition
In 2010 thousands of people submitted ghost stories to The Daily Telegraph's first ghost story competition. Standards were chillingly high and only the spookiest went through to the shortlist of six. Presented here are short stories from Gill Baconnier, Justin Crozier, Ceri Hughes, Pat Black, Craig Drew and the winner, Richard Crompton, whose story ‘Friends’ is an uncanny take on social networking. Currently available only in ebook form they are the perfect company for a long winter's night.
46 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 16, 2010
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135 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
August 7, 2014
In 2010, the Daily Telegraph launched a ghost story competition, with the six winning entries published in this short ebook. I'd had it on my Amazon wishlist for ages, and as it's only 87p I'm not sure why I didn't buy it earlier. Anyway, I decided I was in the mood for some ghost stories this weekend so I impulse-bought it.
A couple of things to note about the stories are:
1. I assume there was a very limited word count for any stories entered into this competition, as all of them are extremely short. This obviously limits what can be done with them and often makes the conclusions feel incomplete and unsatisfying. I think the better-written stories in the collection could have been turned into something far more effective if the authors had been given a higher word count to play with.
2. As absolutely every other review of this anthology on Goodreads and Amazon has pointed out, poor editing spoils the reading experience. For some reason, there are lowercase letters at the beginning of sentences and lowercase 'I's and proper nouns all the way through the book. Really not sure how this has ended up happening, but it's very annoying!
The six stories are:
Grace by Gill Baconnier: There were some beautiful turns of phrase in this story, but in other places it was clunky and felt rushed. I was interested, but not really compelled.
Daniel's Caul by Ceri Hughes: I really didn't like this. Poorly written with cringeworthy dialogue and a rather baffling plot.
A Hollow Cause by Craig Drew: This was more like it: well-written, interesting and properly fleshed-out central character, effective building of tension. The schlocky ending let it down, though.
The Rites of Zhou by Justin Crozier: Another good one in terms of style and theme, but there really wasn't space to resolve it all within such a short story. The ending was far too abrupt.
Gimme Shelter by Pat Black: Quite atmospheric, but too obviously amateurish - it reminded me of something you might have come up with for a GCSE English assignment and definitely didn't feel as accomplished as the previous two.
Friends by Richard Crompton: The winner of the competition, and it's not hard to see why as this was definitely the most original of the stories. I enjoyed it but, again, wished it could have been much longer.
I enjoyed a few of these tales but, overall, the collection was more frustrating than anything else. I'm glad I satisified my curiosity, but there are lots and lots of superior ghost stories out there!
A couple of things to note about the stories are:
1. I assume there was a very limited word count for any stories entered into this competition, as all of them are extremely short. This obviously limits what can be done with them and often makes the conclusions feel incomplete and unsatisfying. I think the better-written stories in the collection could have been turned into something far more effective if the authors had been given a higher word count to play with.
2. As absolutely every other review of this anthology on Goodreads and Amazon has pointed out, poor editing spoils the reading experience. For some reason, there are lowercase letters at the beginning of sentences and lowercase 'I's and proper nouns all the way through the book. Really not sure how this has ended up happening, but it's very annoying!
The six stories are:
Grace by Gill Baconnier: There were some beautiful turns of phrase in this story, but in other places it was clunky and felt rushed. I was interested, but not really compelled.
Daniel's Caul by Ceri Hughes: I really didn't like this. Poorly written with cringeworthy dialogue and a rather baffling plot.
A Hollow Cause by Craig Drew: This was more like it: well-written, interesting and properly fleshed-out central character, effective building of tension. The schlocky ending let it down, though.
The Rites of Zhou by Justin Crozier: Another good one in terms of style and theme, but there really wasn't space to resolve it all within such a short story. The ending was far too abrupt.
Gimme Shelter by Pat Black: Quite atmospheric, but too obviously amateurish - it reminded me of something you might have come up with for a GCSE English assignment and definitely didn't feel as accomplished as the previous two.
Friends by Richard Crompton: The winner of the competition, and it's not hard to see why as this was definitely the most original of the stories. I enjoyed it but, again, wished it could have been much longer.
I enjoyed a few of these tales but, overall, the collection was more frustrating than anything else. I'm glad I satisified my curiosity, but there are lots and lots of superior ghost stories out there!
February 7, 2017
Review soon
September 19, 2020
A collection of great short stories that aren’t outwardly SPOOKY but leave you with a bit of a spine tingle. I enjoyed them.
November 15, 2018
If you are looking for ghost stories and cold chills down your spine you will be soooo disappointed. But if you are ok with some melancholy and atmosphere then this will be fine. I found the stories haunting but in the way old photos stay with you. Only the first even tried to be scary if you ask me and the title is hugely misleading but once I made my peace with it, they were fine.
November 24, 2017
Gave up on this book which isn't like me. It's lots of short stories and had too many mistakes in it.
May 3, 2018
My favourite stories from this collection are Friends and Gimme Shelter. Though others like Caul and Grace are pretty chilling as well.
December 7, 2019
Some good writing
Liked the one titled Friends best ...what visuals! And something to think about regarding social media and what happens after death.
Liked the one titled Friends best ...what visuals! And something to think about regarding social media and what happens after death.
June 1, 2013
This book was not bad, but if you're looking for scary ghost stories, keep looking. None of the stories in this collection are at all scary, nor are they intended to be. They are interesting. They might even be considered literature. But they are just simply relayed to the reader without any attempt to make them spooky or otherwise "ghostly". I have to admit I was a bit disappointed; I had this book on my TBR list for most of a year, before I finally spent the $0.82 for it (yeah, I'm a big spender). The stories were interesting, like I said, but I was looking for something spooky, eerie, scary, gory, whatever. Just not "interesting".
May 22, 2011
The poor editing made reading some of these stories hard work in some places. I also found the stories quite variable. Some I really enjoyed and some I got to the end of feeling I must have missed something. I particularly enjoyed 'Gimme Shelter' which was a chilling tale and 'Friends' which was clever and up to date. The extract of 'The Small Hand' was enjoyable and I went on the buy the full version.
June 28, 2013
Disappointing. If I did not know better, I would assume that the endings were actually cut off of some of the stories.
January 17, 2014
Stories to brief
some of the stories you get into them and then they end like it needed more or it makes you want more.
some of the stories you get into them and then they end like it needed more or it makes you want more.
March 30, 2014
Interesting
not a bad book, but sometimes a bit stuffy reading. some of the short stories were good. nice book for the beach.
not a bad book, but sometimes a bit stuffy reading. some of the short stories were good. nice book for the beach.
September 24, 2013
good thing it was free.
December 14, 2016
I was rather disappointed with this short e-book. I suspect that "The Telegraph" made the parameters too tight for many writers. I saw the competition advertised and thought of entering it myself but you had to keep the body of the story so light (to avoid exceeding the maximum word count) that I could not enter something that I considered fully formed. As a consequence there are a few cliffhangers (which are a little disappointing) and a few where the authors have seriously pared the story back to reach the acceptable word count. Despite these rather bad comments this book is still worth a purchase for a few reasons. Some of the tales are very good and work well even in short form.
The book is either free or costs so little that I did not notice the cost and you get to read seminal tales from quite a few that may well become excellent writers given a little more space to exercise their imaginations and word skills a little more. There are a few writers included in this volume that I feel will produce something of worth.
The book is either free or costs so little that I did not notice the cost and you get to read seminal tales from quite a few that may well become excellent writers given a little more space to exercise their imaginations and word skills a little more. There are a few writers included in this volume that I feel will produce something of worth.
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October 4, 2018Very interesting.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews