What do you think?
Rate this book
Fever Dream Ghost Book
A collection of 15 short stories about different kinds of ghosts.
- GenresFictionParanormal
36 pages, chapbook
First published January 1, 2005
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 31, 2014
Urgent, haunting, mischievous.
Kevin Fanning delivers on ghosts, fish/stars, a goat hand puppet and death by ice cream. Best of all, he's always letting you in on a secret, or a dare, or a dream... star dust.
Kevin Fanning delivers on ghosts, fish/stars, a goat hand puppet and death by ice cream. Best of all, he's always letting you in on a secret, or a dare, or a dream... star dust.
November 6, 2011
If you are going to write one of those books the universe has preordained for me to read, you should name it “Fever Dream Ghost Book.” And then you should be Kevin Fanning. So, bad luck for you, because you are not Kevin Fanning.
I’ve been saving this special for October. It was worth it and then some.
I’ve been saving this special for October. It was worth it and then some.
July 1, 2008
Okay, I know people have concerns about "Vanity Publishing." Or whatever term we wish to use for independent publishing. Self-publishing. Whatever. And they are legitimate concerns. I do not want the bookshops to fill up with spelling errors and even worse fantasy. I would never really buy a book off some random dude on the Internet. But Kevin Fanning is not a random dude.
Perhaps an overlooked value of publishing short fiction online is that it becomes an introduction to the author. So if ever they decide to go ahead put something physical on offer, they will have already proved themselves to an audience, however big or small. And the proof sits there for anyone who needs it in future.
I think what I'm saying is: self-publishing, as an industry, is going to result in more shit, generally, than the output of the publishing industry (although they are also doing really well on the shit-front lately). But it doesn't matter, because Kevin Fanning has already been vetted by me. I love to read Kevin Fanning. So it's not really a surprise that I love the book of stories Kevin Fanning wrote and sold to me, is it?
So buy the book, and if you need more convincing than that (and why wouldn't you?) it's all there.
***
Aaaanyway. I ordered this Friday evening and it was waiting in work Monday morning. That's a little scary, right? A little supernatural?
I took a good long lunch and read it sitting in the park in intermittent sunshine. Twice the hairs jumped up on the backs of my arms, and I started laughing, something I do to cover the fact that I'm embarrassed at myself.
Last night I lay down to my first night in a new apartment, and I'd left my phone plugged in across the room and accidentally left it turned upright, because everything is new confusing. Its small torch shone a pale, greenish light over the wardrobe, throwing shadows up against the walls and ceiling. I lay there for quite a while, thinking about ghosts.
Perhaps an overlooked value of publishing short fiction online is that it becomes an introduction to the author. So if ever they decide to go ahead put something physical on offer, they will have already proved themselves to an audience, however big or small. And the proof sits there for anyone who needs it in future.
I think what I'm saying is: self-publishing, as an industry, is going to result in more shit, generally, than the output of the publishing industry (although they are also doing really well on the shit-front lately). But it doesn't matter, because Kevin Fanning has already been vetted by me. I love to read Kevin Fanning. So it's not really a surprise that I love the book of stories Kevin Fanning wrote and sold to me, is it?
So buy the book, and if you need more convincing than that (and why wouldn't you?) it's all there.
***
Aaaanyway. I ordered this Friday evening and it was waiting in work Monday morning. That's a little scary, right? A little supernatural?
I took a good long lunch and read it sitting in the park in intermittent sunshine. Twice the hairs jumped up on the backs of my arms, and I started laughing, something I do to cover the fact that I'm embarrassed at myself.
Last night I lay down to my first night in a new apartment, and I'd left my phone plugged in across the room and accidentally left it turned upright, because everything is new confusing. Its small torch shone a pale, greenish light over the wardrobe, throwing shadows up against the walls and ceiling. I lay there for quite a while, thinking about ghosts.
May 10, 2009
I'm going to ramble in this review. Just want to warn you all up front.
I didn't think I'd ever get to read Fever Dream Ghost Book.
I don't remember when exactly I started reading Kevin Fanning's work - I don't remember a lot of things, and maybe that's why I identify with his work so much, or maybe it's the fact that he has roots in Connecticut, where I've lived my entire life, or maybe it's just that kfan's a phenomenal writer. I don't know. I do know that when I got into Kevin Fanning, he had released three of these little chapbooks. It was only possible to buy one of them (Twelve Times Lost, which I still don't own a physical copy of, unfortunately - an issue I'm going to fix in the next few days), and I didn't think I'd ever get a chance to reread them. At that point, I honestly didn't mind - I loved his fiction, but I didn't really expect something wildly different in his chapbooks.
Then I read The Location Scout and I fell in love.
In my GoodReads review of TLS, I came off as something of an irrational fanboy, and maybe I am, because I am just in love with what kfan does in these chapbooks - the intertwining, linked narrative presented in the separate sections of The Location Scout grabbed me.
Today my mother (I'll mention here that I'm 16, so I have a good excuse to be living at home, thank you very much) looked at me quizzically and asked me if I'd ordered anything from Illinois. I hadn't, and was puzzled until she handed me an envelope. The sender's name was "kfan." I was not expecting this.
In the chapbook he sent me, kfan wrote "Hi Jim - Found this lying around recently. Enjoy! KF" This is 2009, mind you, and FDGB was released in 2005. Unless Fanning did a reprint, I never expected to get a chance to read this book - and now here it was, sitting in front of me.
An hour ago I turned my computer off, turned my music off, and read Fever Dream Ghost Book. Then I read it again, and I read the endnotes this time. Then I read The Location Scout again, just for posterity.
So with that, I have to say - while I think I prefer The Location Scout, Fever Dream Ghost Book is brilliant. At it's best, FDGB is better than anything in The Location Scout - specifically, #47 spoke to me more than I'm willing to admit here, and when I read the endnote to For If You Had Lived, I nearly cried. I don't know Kevin Fanning, but even then, his writing speaks to me.
One of the things I love about kfan is the fact that, as fantastical as some of his stories are, I still wonder if they're true - his creative non-fiction is nearly indistinguishable from his fiction, and that makes everything he writes have this almost magical quality to it. I can't describe it, I guess, but it's there. The endnotes in this book were nice - they let me peek behind the curtain to see what was real and what wasn't, and that's a unique privilege with kfan.
I feel like I'm gushing a little bit - and hell, you know what, I am, because, in the end, I don't know how else to write about something like this. It's just great.
I didn't think I'd ever get to read Fever Dream Ghost Book.
I don't remember when exactly I started reading Kevin Fanning's work - I don't remember a lot of things, and maybe that's why I identify with his work so much, or maybe it's the fact that he has roots in Connecticut, where I've lived my entire life, or maybe it's just that kfan's a phenomenal writer. I don't know. I do know that when I got into Kevin Fanning, he had released three of these little chapbooks. It was only possible to buy one of them (Twelve Times Lost, which I still don't own a physical copy of, unfortunately - an issue I'm going to fix in the next few days), and I didn't think I'd ever get a chance to reread them. At that point, I honestly didn't mind - I loved his fiction, but I didn't really expect something wildly different in his chapbooks.
Then I read The Location Scout and I fell in love.
In my GoodReads review of TLS, I came off as something of an irrational fanboy, and maybe I am, because I am just in love with what kfan does in these chapbooks - the intertwining, linked narrative presented in the separate sections of The Location Scout grabbed me.
Today my mother (I'll mention here that I'm 16, so I have a good excuse to be living at home, thank you very much) looked at me quizzically and asked me if I'd ordered anything from Illinois. I hadn't, and was puzzled until she handed me an envelope. The sender's name was "kfan." I was not expecting this.
In the chapbook he sent me, kfan wrote "Hi Jim - Found this lying around recently. Enjoy! KF" This is 2009, mind you, and FDGB was released in 2005. Unless Fanning did a reprint, I never expected to get a chance to read this book - and now here it was, sitting in front of me.
An hour ago I turned my computer off, turned my music off, and read Fever Dream Ghost Book. Then I read it again, and I read the endnotes this time. Then I read The Location Scout again, just for posterity.
So with that, I have to say - while I think I prefer The Location Scout, Fever Dream Ghost Book is brilliant. At it's best, FDGB is better than anything in The Location Scout - specifically, #47 spoke to me more than I'm willing to admit here, and when I read the endnote to For If You Had Lived, I nearly cried. I don't know Kevin Fanning, but even then, his writing speaks to me.
One of the things I love about kfan is the fact that, as fantastical as some of his stories are, I still wonder if they're true - his creative non-fiction is nearly indistinguishable from his fiction, and that makes everything he writes have this almost magical quality to it. I can't describe it, I guess, but it's there. The endnotes in this book were nice - they let me peek behind the curtain to see what was real and what wasn't, and that's a unique privilege with kfan.
I feel like I'm gushing a little bit - and hell, you know what, I am, because, in the end, I don't know how else to write about something like this. It's just great.
February 28, 2010
I keep thinking about the father ghost communicating to his son by way of a goat hand puppet and the dream where you are running through a house with countless secret rooms and at the last minute gain two uneasy, unasked-for sidekicks. But my favorite was "Icy Death," which I found hilarious with its ice cream and eye rolls. This collection is available in Kindle format.
April 23, 2008
Haunting, lovely, with a dash of humor. This collection of stories and vignettes was a pleasure to read.
September 13, 2010
This is the first book I bought for my new Kindle. It was creepy in exactly the right way.
February 13, 2012
I love how Kevin Fanning writes these little stories. There's a wonderfully personal voice to them.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews