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The Binge-Watching Cure II: An Anthology of Horror Stories
You know you want to read more. You remember losing yourself in books. You recall how exciting the adventures were, how late you stayed up following your favorite characters, and how you cried, gasped, or bit your nails. But how to start reading again when binge-watching TV is so easy and — let’s be honest — fun? You start slowly, of course. Baby steps. First, with a story that’s only twitter-sized in length. Then the next, a mere seventy-five words. Then a few hundred words, followed by progressively longer tales until you’re reading novels without even knowing it. That’s assuming you survive the terror. That’s The Binge-Watching Cure II, a collection of petrifying tales, each longer and more frightening than the one before. The first edition of The Binge-Watching Cure encompassed a range of genres, but BWC II is all about the things that scare us. In this book, you’ll discover what happens when the color red disappears from the world, learn why a man and his son are doing nightly drills to prepare for a mysterious threat, read about a man’s romantic entanglement with a werewolf, enjoy steampunk dystopia, be horrified by the side effects of a new weight-loss drug, discover an aspect of zombies more terrifying than you ever imagined, feel the speed that accompanies ghosts when they crash drag races, and more. So kick off your shoes and cure your binge-watching. And be sure to leave a light on.
472 pages, Paperback
Published December 27, 2019
2 people are currently reading
8 people want to read
About the author
Bill Adler
334 books15 followersBill Adler pursued his goal of being the P.T. Barnum of books by conceptualizing, writing, editing, compiling and hustling hundreds of them — prompting one magazine to anoint him “the most fevered mind” in publishing.
Mr. Adler achieved early success by collecting and publishing letters children had written to President John F. Kennedy. He followed up with children’s letters to Smokey Bear, Santa Claus, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew and President Barack Obama, among many others.
He helped popularize novels written by political, entertainment and sports celebrities, supplying ghostwriters and even plots. He signed up beauty queens to write diet and exercise books.
As an agent, his clients included Ronald Reagan, Nancy Reagan, Howard Cosell, Mike Wallace and Ralph Nader.
Mr. Adler was best known for his own titles. He wrote “What to Name Your Jewish Baby” (1966) with Arnie Kogen and “What Is a Cat? For Everyone Who Has Ever Loved a Cat” (1987). In 1969, he compiled “The Wit & Humor of Richard Nixon.” In 1995, he published “Cats’ Letters to Santa.”
One of his more famous tricks — a word he preferred to gimmicks — was the 1983 mystery novel “Who Killed the Robins Family?” by Bill Adler and Thomas Chastain. On the cover was an offer of a $10,000 reward for solving a series of fictional murders.
A team of four married couples from Denver won by coming up with the answers to 39 of 40 questions posed in the book. The book reached No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list in January 1984 and remained there for the better part of a year, selling about a million copies.
“Ideas are my mistress,” Mr. Adler told United Press International in 1986, saying he used his “given abilities to conceptualize books.”
It was People magazine that commented on Mr. Adler’s “fevered mind” in 1983, adding that publishing traditionalists regarded book packagers like Mr. Adler as “money-crazed barbarians with the sensibilities of turnips.”
Referring to Mr. Adler’s books, Roger W. Straus Jr., president of the publisher Farrar, Straus & Giroux, told People: “They’re pretty chintzy, as a rule. It’s like throwing a quarter in the street. If you listen attentively, you find out it ain’t silver when it hits the ground.”
Others disagreed. “I consider Bill Adler unparalleled in the publishing industry — terribly, terribly original,” Mr. Cosell said.
One of Mr. Adler’s best-selling books was a collection called “The Kennedy Wit.” The president’s aides approved the project early in the administration, but Kennedy was said to have been angry about it, causing Random House to drop the idea. Mr. Adler suspected that the president had not wanted his humor emphasized so soon after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961.
After 35 more publishers turned the book down, Mr. Adler finally obtained a $2,500 advance from Citadel Press, a small publisher. The book, released in 1964, after the president’s assassination, was on the New York Times best-seller list for more than six months and sold more than 1.4 million copies.
William Jay Adler was born in Brooklyn on May 14, 1929. His parents died when he was a child, and he was raised by relatives. He attended Brooklyn College for three years and was drafted into the Army, then trained as a flamethrower for the Korean War.
After finding out that flamethrowers led infantry into battle, he applied for Armed Forces Radio, saying he had experience in broadcasting, though he did not. He was a disc jockey in Tokyo until his discharge in 1953. He then worked in broadcasting, as humor editor at McCall’s magazine and as a book editor for Playboy, where he first came up with book ideas.
One brainstorm was to ask the Kennedy White House if he could read mail sent to the president. In a time of much looser security, he was allowed to spend the day copying letters in the White House pos
Mr. Adler achieved early success by collecting and publishing letters children had written to President John F. Kennedy. He followed up with children’s letters to Smokey Bear, Santa Claus, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew and President Barack Obama, among many others.
He helped popularize novels written by political, entertainment and sports celebrities, supplying ghostwriters and even plots. He signed up beauty queens to write diet and exercise books.
As an agent, his clients included Ronald Reagan, Nancy Reagan, Howard Cosell, Mike Wallace and Ralph Nader.
Mr. Adler was best known for his own titles. He wrote “What to Name Your Jewish Baby” (1966) with Arnie Kogen and “What Is a Cat? For Everyone Who Has Ever Loved a Cat” (1987). In 1969, he compiled “The Wit & Humor of Richard Nixon.” In 1995, he published “Cats’ Letters to Santa.”
One of his more famous tricks — a word he preferred to gimmicks — was the 1983 mystery novel “Who Killed the Robins Family?” by Bill Adler and Thomas Chastain. On the cover was an offer of a $10,000 reward for solving a series of fictional murders.
A team of four married couples from Denver won by coming up with the answers to 39 of 40 questions posed in the book. The book reached No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list in January 1984 and remained there for the better part of a year, selling about a million copies.
“Ideas are my mistress,” Mr. Adler told United Press International in 1986, saying he used his “given abilities to conceptualize books.”
It was People magazine that commented on Mr. Adler’s “fevered mind” in 1983, adding that publishing traditionalists regarded book packagers like Mr. Adler as “money-crazed barbarians with the sensibilities of turnips.”
Referring to Mr. Adler’s books, Roger W. Straus Jr., president of the publisher Farrar, Straus & Giroux, told People: “They’re pretty chintzy, as a rule. It’s like throwing a quarter in the street. If you listen attentively, you find out it ain’t silver when it hits the ground.”
Others disagreed. “I consider Bill Adler unparalleled in the publishing industry — terribly, terribly original,” Mr. Cosell said.
One of Mr. Adler’s best-selling books was a collection called “The Kennedy Wit.” The president’s aides approved the project early in the administration, but Kennedy was said to have been angry about it, causing Random House to drop the idea. Mr. Adler suspected that the president had not wanted his humor emphasized so soon after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961.
After 35 more publishers turned the book down, Mr. Adler finally obtained a $2,500 advance from Citadel Press, a small publisher. The book, released in 1964, after the president’s assassination, was on the New York Times best-seller list for more than six months and sold more than 1.4 million copies.
William Jay Adler was born in Brooklyn on May 14, 1929. His parents died when he was a child, and he was raised by relatives. He attended Brooklyn College for three years and was drafted into the Army, then trained as a flamethrower for the Korean War.
After finding out that flamethrowers led infantry into battle, he applied for Armed Forces Radio, saying he had experience in broadcasting, though he did not. He was a disc jockey in Tokyo until his discharge in 1953. He then worked in broadcasting, as humor editor at McCall’s magazine and as a book editor for Playboy, where he first came up with book ideas.
One brainstorm was to ask the Kennedy White House if he could read mail sent to the president. In a time of much looser security, he was allowed to spend the day copying letters in the White House pos
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 13, 2020
A mixed bag, but better than some horror anthologies I've read.
Short version
Liked: Page 6B, Cadaver Feet, Redless, Don't Look Back, Endangered Species of the Animal Kingdom, and The Middle Aged Vampire's Guide to Unliving
Ones I didn't feel emotionally invested or optimistic about enough to finish were Sack Race to the River, Losing Your Fear, Nocturnal Pods, Bronze Gods, Car Chasers, Love Nest, Tom the Ghost, and Missing Link
The ones I finished and didn't like or disliked are Mr Gold's Cold, Wood Chipper's Bane, They Came In Waves, Losing It, The Light, and Body Farm.
More Elaboration:
Losing It was the farthest into the area of offensively bad. It has little to offer the reader other than a squicky kind of gore, and is saddled with a lot of fat hate and monomaniacal focus.
I have rarely read good short fiction about zombies, and They Came In Waves is no exception. Guessed the twist from the outset and the story has nothing to offer beyond that twist.
Car Chasers is a story that some readers might enjoy, but I found it too stereotypical and aggressively cishet to sit through. It pulls off the job of being an archetypal local folktale a bit too well to be an enjoyable or original story.
Body Farm is another one that might appeal to some people. I found it's conclusion about mental illness and its effect on ghosts just a bit too cruel and senseless.
Bronze Gods, I'm simply not into dystopias. I can't say much good or bad about it because once I understood the premise I checked out in search of things more suited to my tastes.
I checked out of Nocturnal Pods as soon as incest reared its head. Following on the heels of "rape-traumatized protagonist" it's just... a bit too much for me to stomach. No shade if you can, but that's not the type of grossness I'm looking for.
Love Nest just didn't seem to offer anything fresh, or enough of a character hook to keep me interested to find out what more depth was going on. Also a bit male gazey for my tastes.
Tom the Ghost...well I just didn't care that much about Tom as a person, and I came to this anthology for thrills and chills, not urban fantasy comedy.
Missing Link starts out pretty tolerable, but the twerp of a male lead got on my nerves and the monster premise isn't Enough to be scary. Again, I'm here for horror, not urban fantasy.
Now for me to be positive for a change.
Cadaver Feet delighted me with how bizarrely sweet it was. It almost feels like it would work as a song or prose-poetry.
Redless was a thing of fleeting beauty and sheer subtle wrongness. It's prose is good and the character is strong, but it sells me on the uniqueness of the premise alone.
Don't Look Back has a good old campfire juicyness, and the pacing reads more like a flash fiction piece than a full-fledged story of 5,000 words. I personally believe that the hero makes it out alive. If the threat was really as powerful as he thinks, it wouldn't have showed any anger/frustration or bothered with the ruse. I also think that M. R. James would approve of the author's reticence.
Endangered Species of the Animal Kingdom is the real star of the show. It's got psychological resonance, disturbing speculation built up by multiple dark possibilities, a magical realism flow, and lots of chilling ambivalence.
I reveal myself as a bit of a hypocrite, because Middle Aged Vampire's Guide to Unliving is unquestionably urban fantasy, but it engaged me in exactly the way that Tom the Ghost and Missing Link didn't. Could have used a somewhat stronger ending but at least it managed not to whizz everything down its leg.
Short version
Liked: Page 6B, Cadaver Feet, Redless, Don't Look Back, Endangered Species of the Animal Kingdom, and The Middle Aged Vampire's Guide to Unliving
Ones I didn't feel emotionally invested or optimistic about enough to finish were Sack Race to the River, Losing Your Fear, Nocturnal Pods, Bronze Gods, Car Chasers, Love Nest, Tom the Ghost, and Missing Link
The ones I finished and didn't like or disliked are Mr Gold's Cold, Wood Chipper's Bane, They Came In Waves, Losing It, The Light, and Body Farm.
More Elaboration:
Losing It was the farthest into the area of offensively bad. It has little to offer the reader other than a squicky kind of gore, and is saddled with a lot of fat hate and monomaniacal focus.
I have rarely read good short fiction about zombies, and They Came In Waves is no exception. Guessed the twist from the outset and the story has nothing to offer beyond that twist.
Car Chasers is a story that some readers might enjoy, but I found it too stereotypical and aggressively cishet to sit through. It pulls off the job of being an archetypal local folktale a bit too well to be an enjoyable or original story.
Body Farm is another one that might appeal to some people. I found it's conclusion about mental illness and its effect on ghosts just a bit too cruel and senseless.
Bronze Gods, I'm simply not into dystopias. I can't say much good or bad about it because once I understood the premise I checked out in search of things more suited to my tastes.
I checked out of Nocturnal Pods as soon as incest reared its head. Following on the heels of "rape-traumatized protagonist" it's just... a bit too much for me to stomach. No shade if you can, but that's not the type of grossness I'm looking for.
Love Nest just didn't seem to offer anything fresh, or enough of a character hook to keep me interested to find out what more depth was going on. Also a bit male gazey for my tastes.
Tom the Ghost...well I just didn't care that much about Tom as a person, and I came to this anthology for thrills and chills, not urban fantasy comedy.
Missing Link starts out pretty tolerable, but the twerp of a male lead got on my nerves and the monster premise isn't Enough to be scary. Again, I'm here for horror, not urban fantasy.
Now for me to be positive for a change.
Cadaver Feet delighted me with how bizarrely sweet it was. It almost feels like it would work as a song or prose-poetry.
Redless was a thing of fleeting beauty and sheer subtle wrongness. It's prose is good and the character is strong, but it sells me on the uniqueness of the premise alone.
Don't Look Back has a good old campfire juicyness, and the pacing reads more like a flash fiction piece than a full-fledged story of 5,000 words. I personally believe that the hero makes it out alive. If the threat was really as powerful as he thinks, it wouldn't have showed any anger/frustration or bothered with the ruse. I also think that M. R. James would approve of the author's reticence.
Endangered Species of the Animal Kingdom is the real star of the show. It's got psychological resonance, disturbing speculation built up by multiple dark possibilities, a magical realism flow, and lots of chilling ambivalence.
I reveal myself as a bit of a hypocrite, because Middle Aged Vampire's Guide to Unliving is unquestionably urban fantasy, but it engaged me in exactly the way that Tom the Ghost and Missing Link didn't. Could have used a somewhat stronger ending but at least it managed not to whizz everything down its leg.
May 14, 2020
I gotta say I liked the Horror edition every bit as much as the first volume. Every story was unique in more ways than merely its length. Not every story was to my taste -- sometimes I'm not certain what was more frightening -- the world of the story itself or the mind of the person who wrote it! Noticed the odd typo, but hey, they happen to the best of us! Overall, a hard book to put down, kept me reading well into the night. Something here for any reader who enjoys horror and its various subgenres. My favourite story by far was Spencer Koelle's "Swear Not by the Moon": Brilliant and Bravo, Mr. Koelle, you nailed it!
Read
January 4, 2020DNF
October 7, 2022
Some stories were good, some were boring, some were terribly bad and strange all at once.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews