Horror Novel Reviews Presents: One Hellacious Halloween Volume 1 features over 30 brand new, exclusive short stories from some of today's most promising new authors. From Terry M. West to Russell James to V.E. Hunter and Ian McCain along with Donald Conrad, this seasonal collection is loaded with killer tales designed to terrify come October 31st... and beyond!
One Hellacious Halloween from Horror Novel Reviews is a book of flash fiction with 30 stories in it all having to do with Halloween. This book has humor, horror and lots of quick quirky stories that would be fun to tell around a campfire.
This anthology includes a story from Horroraddicts.net's own Emerian Rich called "Soul Taker 2.0". It's about a game programmer named Tory who is designing an add on pack to an online game called Soul Taker. To play the game you have to sign over your digital soul and all your supernatural fantasies come true, but there is a price to pay. I felt like Emerian really put some research into this story which made it seem more real and I loved the ending.
Terry M. West also has a story in this anthology called "The Hairy Ones," which is about religion and marriage and what kind of horrors people are willing to put up with for the sake of both. This was a story that managed to be disturbing using the power of suggestion rather than being violent. I felt that this was one of the better stories in the book.
This book was a fun read and will do a good job getting you in the mood for Halloween. There were a lot of good ideas and stories in this book such as "Werewolf Dentists From Hell" and "The Halloween House". The stories were so quick that you didn't have a chance to get bored and it will introduce you to several new writers. Which leads me to the one thing I didn't like about the anthology. There were no author bios, so if you like an author from this collection you will have to look them up to learn more about them. I think it would be fun to read a story from One Hellacious Halloween everyday in October to get you in the mood for Halloween, but these stories are entertaining all year-long.