Welcome to volume one of the Demonic Visions 50 Horror Tales series. This book features short horror tales by some of the best horror writers from around the world. Each book within the series will feature new work by each of these writers, both the established, and new up and coming talent. Volume one features tales of cannibalism, murderous underworlds, zombie carnage, portals to alternate dimensions, and many, many more demented masterpieces. So enjoy, and I hope that you will join us for the entire Demonic Visions saga which is intended to last many, many years and span many, many volumes…
Table of Contents
1.ROOM SERVICE by Michael Schomaker 2.A TASTE FOR LIFE by Patrick Freivald 3.THE G.A.T.E. by James Pratt 4.LOST ALLEYS by Jeffrey Thomas 5.CIGARETTES AND MURDER by Kerry G.S. Lipp 6.THE TANK by Rob Smales 7.WHEN THEY TURN ON YOU by Maggie Carroll 8.THAT THING SHE USED TO CALL RING by Johannes Pinter 9.WATER by Jeani Rector 10.INDIAN CARPET by Chris Reed 11.THE CHASE by K. Trap Jones 12.THE MICROWAVE TOWER by Julianne Snow 13.CORPUS DELECTABLE by Sydney Leigh 14.LAST WORDS by S.C. Hayden 15.IN THE LONDON FOG by Doug Robbins 16.WORLDS COLLIDE AND THEN SEPARATE by Vince Liberato 17.STAY by Devlin Giroux 18.HUNT by Michael Schomaker 19.HEADLIGHTS by Mark Slade 20.SABBATICAL IN THE OHIO METHLABS by Joe McKinney 21.CHRISTMAS NIGHT by Christopher Conlon 22.THE MILE LOW CLUB by Rebecca Fung 23.PARTY FAVORS by Chris Leek 24.CAULIFLOWER by Chris Reed 25.SICKNESS UNTO DEATH by A.J. French 26.BLACK GOLD by Jeff McFarland 27.CRUEL MADAME by Naching T. Kassa 28.TATZELWURM by Nicholas Paschall 29.DAISY EYES by April Bullard 30.PARASITIC by C.L. Hesser 31.THE THING IN THE RIVER by J.T. Seate 32.TESTAMENT OF FLESH by Bruce L. Priddy 33.LOVER’S LAMENT by Marc Shapiro 34.ROBERT by Charles D. Bennett 35.URBAN LEGEND by J. T. Seate 36.THE ITCH by Julianne Snow 37.GONE AWRY by Adam Millard 38.SKIN SIN by Shaun Avery 39.THE SINCEREST FORM OF FLATTERY by Rick McQuiston 40.LIQUID: by Robert Friedrich 41.EVIL JIMMY by Michele Tallarita 42.CROSSROAD BLUES by Marc Sorondo 43.THOSE FOUR FALLS by Justin Hunter 44.STAY SCARED by Rick McQuiston 45.THE MEMORY OF LOVE by Peter Adam Salomon 46.THE EGG SAC by Ken MacGregor 47.SKRATTI by Nicholas Paschall 48.BLOODLESS by William Holden 49.SELF HELP by Raymond Gates 50.SCORNED by Winifred Burniston 51.*Bonus Tale* THE BOX by Matt Drabble
I became inspired to write classically-styled short horror after purchasing a collection of old horror tales at a yard sale. The book featured works by F. Marion Crawford, William Hope Hodgson, Seabury Quinn, le Fanu, Robert Chambers, and many other of the early masters.
Mostly just tedious and dull, but occasionally pointlessly disgusting. I read about half of these short stories and found nothing of value whatsoever. Maybe some of the ones in the second half are OK, but I doubt it.
When compiling an anthology, it would be nice if the stories had been edited and proofread to ensure the stories were complete. This did not happen. Of fifty stories, only a handful could be classified as a short story, meaning it is a complete story with a beginning, middle and end. The bulk of these come across as very rough outlines in need of more thought and work.
The ones I enjoyed are: The Chase K Trap In the London Fog Evil Jimmy The Mile Low Club Lover’s Lament Skin Sin Cruel Madame The Box.
Out of fifty stories, that’s not a good batting percentage—17.6%. Many of the stories need a lot more editing. It seemed that submissions were accepted without the shorts being reviewed. Some of the works, such as Cauliflower were just plain disgusting and ridiculous.
The one thing that was done right was ending this anthology with, “The Box.” It showed there’s hope on the horizon.
I won’t be looking into any of the books in this series.
Recently when I got my kindle I had my eye on this collection. I've been reading it off and on but I enjoyed every spine tingling tale. It was interesting coming across a few of my favorite authors. Can't wait to start on volume II!!
To be fair, let it be known that I did not finish the collection. I was very excited about it and the two collections that follow it based off of: 1) the wickedly cool cover art 2) the fact that it was an opportunity to find new and exciting authors and 3) because a good deal of the stuff being published through small presses or getting self published is actually quite good.
Unfortunately, Mr. Robertson let me down with this one. As I did not finish, I will keep it short and give three simple reasons why.
1)The writing almost across the board is subpar. The stories I read were all either incredibly cliche events or were simply meant to gross the reader out and went no further beyond that initial disgust. Amateurs are constantly striving to break out in collections like these, but of the dozen stories I read none made me think, "Man, this is someone I need to look out for in the future."
2)The formatting was atrocious. There are no page numbers, stories stop and start in odd places and leave strange gaps in between pages, and the whole collection is full of spelling and grammatical errors.
3)Mr. Robertson has a handful of books/collections published, so to see how poorly this one was handled saddened me right from the start. The moment I opened it up and read his introduction I knew I'd be disappointed; it consisted of a few grammatical errors and that awful formatting I referred to earlier.
All I can say is that I hope the other two collections are vast improvements over this one. Otherwise, I've wasted money that could have been spent on books much more worthy of my time.
It's hard to objectively critique a book that features one of my own stories - of course it's a great book! And you should buy multiple copies!
In all seriousness, for fans of horror there will be something in this collection for everyone. My picks were Lost Alleys by Jeffrey Thomas, When They Turn on You by Maggie Carroll and Those Four Walls by Justin Hunter. And of course Self Help by Raymond Gates ;)