Crypt Orchids

by David J. Schow

Crypt Orchids is the fourth short story collection by the World Fantasy Award-winning multimedia author David J. Schow. It is a gathering of forboding fiction that grabs the cutting edge barehanded and stays right in your face "until you want to go down on your knees and mumble for mercy" according to best-selling novelist John Farris.

Genres: Horror

232 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

David J. Schow is an American author of horror novels, short stories, and screenplays, associated with the "splatterpunk" movement of the late '80s and early '90s. Most recently he has moved into the crime genre.

Reviews

[Zachary Owen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This volume of short stories is David J. Schow's tribute to Robert Bloch, who penned an introduction to Crypt Orchids before he passed. As such, most of the content is centered around psychopaths and human follies, which is what the bulk of Bloch's bibliography was concerned with. There is also a stage adaptation of Robert Bloch's story "The Final Performance." Mr. Schow's prose is fine as ever, sharp and witty, lean and muscular, but showy where it pays to take risks. He even writes reminiscent of Bloch's style in several pieces, right down to the Psycho author's love of alliteration and wordplay.

Particular standouts include "Dusting the Flowers" which concerns a cutting-edge artist, a nightclub of wannabe vampires, and a tugboat dwelling serial killer who dumps his victims into a polluted river. There's also a humorous take on tired Hollywood execs and stilted television in "Seeing Things." Schow includes another entry in his Scoop-canon (a series of stories involving a down-on-his-luck criminal) with "Scoop Bites the Dust." Fans of the series Masters of Horror may be interested in "Pick Me Up" which was adapted for the show by Larry Cohen. My personal favorite story may have been "Refrigerator Heaven."

I've enjoyed every David J. Schow book I've read and plan to continue reading him for a long time.

[Kylie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked Gills, and Dusting the Flowers (though I don't agree with the characters' sentiments), but I have Dusting... in a different anthology and I wasn't too struck by the other stories as I'm more of a supernatural horror fan.

[Jeff McIntosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice collection...with aforeward written by, and later interview with, Robert Bloch,

Many of the stories would fall intoo the category of suspense/crime - my favoorites being "Scoop Bites the Dust", "Melodrama, an "The incredible True Facts"...

All in all, a solid collection.


Jeff McIntosh