Shivers VII

Shivers #7

by Richard Chizmar (Editor), Clive Barker, Norman Partridge

Shivers VII contains more than 100,000 words of chilling fiction from more than two dozen of today's most popular authors of horror and suspense including Stephen King, Clive Barker, Graham Masterton, Ed Gorman, Bill Pronzini, Lisa Tuttle, Kaaron Warren, Del James, Lisa Morton, Roberta Lannes, Scott Nicholson, Bev Vincent, Brian James Freeman, Norman Prentiss, and many others.

Of special note to collectors: "Weeds" by Stephen King was originally published in Cavalier magazine in May 1976 and in Nugget magazine in April 1979, but has not been reprinted since, although it was adapted as "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill" for Creepshow in 1982. "The Departed" by Clive Barker was originally published as "Hermione and the Moon" in The New York Times on October 30, 1992.

Featuring original dark fiction with a handful of rare reprints, Shivers VII is available only from Cemetery Dance Publications.

Table of Contents:
"The Departed" by Clive Barker
"Red Rover, Red Rover" by Norman Partridge
"Breakbone" by Bill Pronzini
"The Storybook Forest" by Norman Prentiss
"Simple" by Al Sarrantonio
"Born Dead" by Lisa Tuttle
"The Baby Store" by Ed Gorman
"A Lonely Town in Alaska" by Darren Speegle
"Zombie Dreams" by Tim Waggoner
"Echoes" by Don D'Ammassa
"Bone by Bone" by Scott Nicholson
"Sleeping with the Bower Birds" by Kaaron Warren
"Memory Lake" by Robert Morrish
"That Long Black Train" by Travis Heermann
"Beholder" by Graham Masterton
"Feel The Noise" by Lisa Morton
"Plant Life" by Greg F. Gifune
"I Am Become Poe" by Kevin Quigley
"Arbeit Macht Frei" by Del James
"Bovine" by Joel Arnold
"Depth" by Rio Youers
"GPS" by Rick Hautala
"Room 8" by Roberta Lannes
"Severance Package" by Bev Vincent
"As She Lay There Dying" by Brian James Freeman
"Weeds" by Stephen King

Genres: Horror, Anthologies, Short Stories, Fiction

410 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2013

About the author

Richard Chizmar is a New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Amazon, and Publishers Weekly bestselling author.

He is the co-author (with Stephen King) of the bestselling novella, Gwendy’s Button Box and the founder/publisher of Cemetery Dance magazine and the Cemetery Dance Publications book imprint. He has edited more than 35 anthologies and his short fiction has appeared in dozens of publications, including multiple editions of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and The Year’s 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories. He has won two World Fantasy awards, four International Horror Guild awards, and the HWA’s Board of Trustee’s award.

Chizmar (in collaboration with Johnathon Schaech) has also written screenplays and teleplays for United Artists, Sony Screen Gems, Lions Gate, Showtime, NBC, and many other companies. He has adapted the works of many bestselling authors including Stephen King, Peter Straub, and Bentley Little.

Chizmar is also the creator/writer of the online website, Stephen King Revisited. His fourth short story collection, The Long Way Home, was published in 2019. With Brian Freeman, Chizmar is co-editor of the acclaimed Dark Screams horror anthology series published by Random House imprint, Hydra.

His latest book, The Girl on the Porch, was released in hardcover by Subterranean Press, and Widow’s Point, a chilling novella about a haunted lighthouse written with his son, Billy Chizmar, was recently adapted into a feature film.

Chizmar’s work has been translated into more than fifteen languages throughout the world, and he has appeared at numerous conferences as a writing instructor, guest speaker, panelist, and guest of honor.

Reviews

[Karl]

Table of Contents:

9 - "The Departed" by Clive Barker
17 - "Red Rover, Red Rover" by Norman Partridge
37 - "Breakbone" by Bill Pronzini
49 - "The Storybook Forest" by Norman Prentiss
61 - "Simple" by Al Sarrantonio
69 - "Born Dead" by Lisa Tuttle
70 - "The Baby Store" by Ed Gorman
93 - "A Lonely Town in Alaska" by Darren Speegle
113 - "Zombie Dreams" by Tim Waggoner
131 -"Echoes" by Don D'Ammassa
145 - "Bone by Bone" by Scott Nicholson
157 - "Sleeping with the Bower Birds" by Kaaron Warren
170 - "Memory Lake" by Robert Morrish
209 - "That Long Black Train" by Travis Heermann
235 - "Beholder" by Graham Masterton
257 - "Feel The Noise" by Lisa Morton
265 - "Plant Life" by Greg F. Gifune
283 - "I Am Become Poe" by Kevin Quigley
293 - "Arbeit Macht Frei" by Del James
305 - "Bovine" by Joel Arnold
317 - "Depth" by Rio Youers
345 - "GPS" by Rick Hautala
361 - "Room 8" by Roberta Lannes
371 - "Severance Package" by Bev Vincent
383 - "As She Lay There Dying" by Brian James Freeman
397 - "Weeds" by Stephen King

This copy is signed by Richard Chizmar and is one of 750 copies.

[Brett Littman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Many more gutters than strikes. Weeds is of course the crown jewel.

[Patrickmalka · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Shivers anthologies, volumes 5 and 6, were important to me because they presented a wide range of horror stories across several generations of writers and horror sub genres, all from an important indie horror publisher. Some of the writers I follow religiously are ones I found in these anthologies.

Shivers 7 is similar in scope but with a bigger page count. The stories in it are uneven at best. Especially from the veteran authors. It's a funny thing when you can tell that you are reading a writer's five hundredth short story. Perfectly told and overall, not all that interesting. That's how I felt about a lot of the stories in this anthology unfortunately. The few I really enjoyed made the whole thing worth reading and to be fair, those I really disliked leaned hard on tropes I don't enjoy much to begin with. They tended to be mean which is fine, but mean without believable motive, and that's where I check out. Also didn't help that the table of contents this time around lacked diversity (in more ways than one). Really hard to ignore.

[Kevin Lucia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly recommend picking this up. Definitely a great read, packed with some fantastic stories.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most of the stories here are decent but the only ones that really excelled were by Graham Masterton and Kaaron Warren. Overall, an average collection.

[Greg Chapman · Rating 5 out of 5]

An awesome collection of some of the world's best horror writers.

[Noelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love reading anthologies that have stories that grip me so hard I have to put it down for a few minutes just to digest what I have read. I truly enjoyed almost every story in this. “The Carbon Dreamer” by Jack Dann wasn’t really my sort of tale, but all of the others were great.

[Carrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant collection of stories. The only one I could say I didn't like was "Beholder" but that's because I have serious eye squick!

[Jenni Hurd · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love scary stories by great writers. This is a great scary book!

[Julie Washington · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good collection of stories.

[tyRonE hArDing · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some great stories including "Weeds" by Stephen King

[Eric Bauman · Rating 4 out of 5]

As with all anthologies, this one is a nixed bag: some great stories, lots of okay ones and a few that I just didn't get. For me, most of the stories were okay, one or two were head-scratchers. Here are the three that I found really effective.

+ "Weeds" by Stephen King. If you've seen "Creepshow," then you know the basic plot. Unlike the movie, which played it for laughs, this story (originally published at least five years before the movie) plays it straight--and creepy.

+ "Beholder" by Graham Masterson. It wouldn't be fair for me to give away anything about this story. The journey is exquisitely built and I was cringing the whole time I read.

+ "Arbeit Macht Frei" by Del James. As this "boys visits Auschwitz with his parents" story unfolded, I was expecting a denouement where boy becomes Nazi. It went a different, more satisfying way, I'm happy to say.

Not a bad anthology overall.

[Bill Borre]

“Depth” by Rio Youers - James buys a painting with four blood stains on it and eventually realizes that it is a confession and map to the grave of three people the artist had murdered. After digging up the victim's remains and placing the painting in the hole James plans to murder his brother and ex-wife and create his own painting.

"Bovine" by Joel Arnold - wc
"Plant Life" by Greg F. Gifune - wc
"The Baby Store" by Ed Gorman - wc
"That Long Black Train" by Travis Heermann - wc
"Arbeit Macht Frei" by Del James - wc
"Breakbone" by Bill Pronzini - wc
"I Am Becoming Poe" by Kevin Quigley - wc
"Born Dead" by Lisa Tuttle - wc

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

All these stories are excellent examples of horror fiction but five of these will stick with you long after you finish the book. There is the growing terror of Red Rover, the revulsion and visceral horror of Break Bone, the sense of utter hopelessness of Beholder, the shocking ending of GPS and the first appearance in any anthology of the Stephen King epic Weeds which is the basis of the Lonesome Death of Jordy Verril which the King himself played so perfectly in the movie Creepshow. This is a great addition for any horror collection and a must have for any Stephen King collector's library.

[Jeff Pfeiffer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked most of the stories, but I'd have to say that Memory River, and Arbeit Macht Frei are stand outs in this book. It's a lovely collection of horror short stories by some less known authors and a few well known ones such as Steven King and Clive Barker. It's definitely worth a read at night beside the fire place, or if you're out somewhere camping in the wilderness.

[Leah Polcar · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a nice little collection. However, no story really stuck out or stayed with me, but nothing was really horrible either. I am a fan of Chizmar and he collected some very good authors here. If you are a fan of horror short stories, you could do worse.

[Donald · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are a ton of great stories from a ton of great authors.