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Dark Terrors #5
Dark Terrors 5: The Gollancz Book of Horror
The latest volume of the world's biggest and most acclaimed original horror anthology series includes new short stories and novellas by modern masters of dark suspense
576 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
8 people are currently reading
118 people want to read
About the author
Stephen Jones
282 books347 followersStephen Jones is an eighteen-time winner of the British Fantasy Award.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
December 13, 2013
Average to bad short stories,except for Pelican Cay,which was excellant.
November 4, 2025
First among equals in unmatched power and emotion:
"The Abortionist's Horse" (A Nightmare)(2000) Tanith Lee
"Honeysuckle" (2000) William R. Trotter
"Pelican Cay(1999)novella by David Case
"Alicia" (2000) Melanie Tem
"The Girlfriends of Dorian Gray" (2000) Gregory Frost
1. "At Home in the Pubs of Old London" by Christopher Fowler
A seemingly charming man who frequents London's historic pubs is revealed to be a serial killer whose murderous acts are motivated by a nostalgic fixation on the enduring nature of those establishments.
2. "Valentia" by Caitlín R. Kiernan
A paleontologist travels to a remote Irish island to investigate the mysterious death of her colleague and the desecration of an ancient fossil trackway, uncovering an unsettling connection to local legends of water fairies and "Deep Ones."
3. "Barking Sands" by Richard Christian Matheson
A hateful young boy's dysfunctional family finds themselves murdered by concealed indigenous people after violating the sanctity of a holy burial ground on a remote Hawaiian beach.
4. "Everything, in All the Wrong Order" by Chaz Brenchley
A cruel teacher of pain murders his two young, impressionable students for progressing beyond his control and committing their own murder, thus completing his lesson that pain is always divisible.
5. "Savannah Is Six" by James Van Pelt
A guilt-ridden father, whose brother drowned years ago, believes his daughter's life is saved by the ghost of the deceased boy, prompting him to finally ask his estranged wife for a divorce.
6. "Now Day Was Fled As the Worm Had Wished" by Brian Hodge
A man and his two lovers retreat to an abandoned English manor to perform a private wedding ceremony, only for one of them to be consumed by a colossal, ancient stone face in the garden wall, a symbol of the dangerous elder forces they had been seeking.
7. "Why Rudy Can't Read" by David J. Schow
A violent, abusive man with the power to read surface thoughts is killed by his secretly supernaturally gifted girlfriend immediately after he loses his ability and expresses a loving change of heart.
8. "No Story in It" by Ramsey Campbell
A failing science fiction author, unable to write the final story for his new collection, descends into paranoia and madness, culminating in a murder-suicide that mirrors the tragic vision he intended for his book's cover.
9. "Witch-Compass" by Graham Masterton
A disgraced businessman returns to his parents' home in Connecticut and uses a magical African "witch-compass" that guides him to wealth and sexual satisfaction through a series of increasingly horrific moral and criminal acts.
10. "The Proposal" by Nicholas Royle
A man struggles to hold onto his relationship while confronting a menacing ghost that appears in his girlfriend's reflections and seems to be leading her toward a deadly encounter on a nearby railway track.
11. "Changes" by C. Bruce Hunter
A woman goes with two male friends to a secluded, vine-covered cabin where the men engage in a dark, cyclical ritual that results in one of them committing suicide via Russian Roulette.
12. "The Abortionist's Horse (A Nightmare)" by Tanith Lee
A pregnant woman is driven to a horrifying miscarriage by the haunting sound and presence of a long-dead local abortionist and her spectral horse.
13. "The Handover" by Michael Marshall Smith
The last few aging men of a dying Montana mining town fulfill an old pact to remove the town sign after the death of the last woman, Naomi, signifying the final, emotional "handover" of their community.
14. "Pearl" by Roberta Lannes
An artist with a malignant tumor becomes pregnant and is driven insane by delusions that the pregnancy is a monstrous, rapidly growing parasite, which leads her to starve herself to death to protect her husband from the growing horror.
15. "Beauregard" by Eric Brown
A cynical writer is visited by his college friend, Beauregard, a self-proclaimed mystic who claims to be on the run from the ghost of his former lover, who committed suicide after he shared his dark knowledge of reality with her.
16. "Necromimicos" by Nancy Kilpatrick
A woman named Amulette, spiritually fractured by the loss of her lover Etienne, seeks him out in a cemetery crypt where she achieves a dark, ecstatic reunion with his corpse to regain the will to live.
17. "The Bootleg Heart" by Joel Lane
A sexually repressed student's voyeuristic obsession with the loud orgasmic cries of his upstairs female neighbor leads him to discover that his medical student neighbor has murdered her and is playing a loop of her death-cries.
18. "Saturday" by Cherry Wilder
A group of friends is killed in a Voodoo ceremony at a remote Pennsylvania restaurant after the playwright narrator is plagued by unsettling visions of death.
19. "The Girlfriends of Dorian Gray" by Gregory Frost
A handsome gourmet uses a magic ring to transfer his gluttony and its physical consequences onto his successive fiancées until he is trapped and victimized by a female chef who is also a powerful sorceress.
20. "Bottle Babies" by Mary A. Turzillo
A young girl's eccentric parents confine her older, developmentally challenged brother in a large glass bottle, driving her to a desperate state where she seeks help from local fairies to free him before she is locked away herself.
21. "Going to Series" by Kim Newman
A cynical production team plans a depraved reality TV show, It's a Madhouse!, by deliberately selecting a small group of volatile, sociopathic, and vulnerable individuals to confine on an island to create maximum destructive drama.
22. "Haunts" by Lisa Tuttle
A woman who was part of a high school ghost-hunting group forms a physical relationship with the woman who shot and killed her friend, Hutch, after realizing the haunting was a shared premonition of the tragedy.
23. "My Present Wife" by Dennis Etchison
A woman being stalked by her violent ex-boyfriend is abducted by another man at a party who uses similar predatory tactics and calls her by her ex-boyfriend's name, suggesting he is also a killer.
24. "Alicia" by Melanie Tem
A young girl's unnaturally strong sexual and emotional power leads her first boyfriend to suicide and causes her father to withdraw from his marriage as he becomes the focus of her increasingly obsessive attention.
25. "The Haunted Bookshop" by Brian Stableford
A first person literary skeptic narrator (perhaps Brian Stableford?) and Lionel Fanthorpe investigate a second-hand bookshop whose haunting the narrator initially dismisses as merely a peculiar miasma of coal dust and the spirit of unread books, only to experience an intense, reality-breaking sense of déjà vu.
26. "Starfucker" by Mick Garris
A once and former film director discovers a secret service that uses magic or science to resurrect dead Hollywood stars for sexual encounters, a service he pays for to spend a night with the real Jean Harlow, only to find the experience strangely disturbing.
27. "Destroyer of Worlds" by Gwyneth Jones
A mother is tormented by her inability to remember the face of her vanished seven-year-old son, Christopher, whom she tries to summon back as a ghost to discover the truth of his death.
28. "The Geezers" by Peter Straub
Four elderly friends who regularly work out at a university gym are questioned by police after one of their group, a retired homicide detective, is brutally murdered, revealing deep, complicated pasts among the friends.
29. "Honeysuckle" by William R. Trotter
A writer reflects on his intense, magical love affair with a woman from a secluded North Carolina farm, realizing too late that she had genetically manipulated him to be the father of her hybrid children and intended to transform him into a plant/human lifeform.
30. "Final Departure" by Gahan Wilson
The last man on Earth is found by a sympathetic alien who, having also survived a similar isolation, gently persuades him to leave his loneliness behind and board the alien ship.
31. "Pelican Cay" by David Case
A reporter investigating a biochemist on a small Florida Key island becomes trapped with two locals after a contagious chemical agent turns most of the island's population into murderous ghouls, leaving them to fight for survival in the lighthouse. Less Romero than the "end of history."
"The Abortionist's Horse" (A Nightmare)(2000) Tanith Lee
"Honeysuckle" (2000) William R. Trotter
"Pelican Cay(1999)novella by David Case
"Alicia" (2000) Melanie Tem
"The Girlfriends of Dorian Gray" (2000) Gregory Frost
1. "At Home in the Pubs of Old London" by Christopher Fowler
A seemingly charming man who frequents London's historic pubs is revealed to be a serial killer whose murderous acts are motivated by a nostalgic fixation on the enduring nature of those establishments.
2. "Valentia" by Caitlín R. Kiernan
A paleontologist travels to a remote Irish island to investigate the mysterious death of her colleague and the desecration of an ancient fossil trackway, uncovering an unsettling connection to local legends of water fairies and "Deep Ones."
3. "Barking Sands" by Richard Christian Matheson
A hateful young boy's dysfunctional family finds themselves murdered by concealed indigenous people after violating the sanctity of a holy burial ground on a remote Hawaiian beach.
4. "Everything, in All the Wrong Order" by Chaz Brenchley
A cruel teacher of pain murders his two young, impressionable students for progressing beyond his control and committing their own murder, thus completing his lesson that pain is always divisible.
5. "Savannah Is Six" by James Van Pelt
A guilt-ridden father, whose brother drowned years ago, believes his daughter's life is saved by the ghost of the deceased boy, prompting him to finally ask his estranged wife for a divorce.
6. "Now Day Was Fled As the Worm Had Wished" by Brian Hodge
A man and his two lovers retreat to an abandoned English manor to perform a private wedding ceremony, only for one of them to be consumed by a colossal, ancient stone face in the garden wall, a symbol of the dangerous elder forces they had been seeking.
7. "Why Rudy Can't Read" by David J. Schow
A violent, abusive man with the power to read surface thoughts is killed by his secretly supernaturally gifted girlfriend immediately after he loses his ability and expresses a loving change of heart.
8. "No Story in It" by Ramsey Campbell
A failing science fiction author, unable to write the final story for his new collection, descends into paranoia and madness, culminating in a murder-suicide that mirrors the tragic vision he intended for his book's cover.
9. "Witch-Compass" by Graham Masterton
A disgraced businessman returns to his parents' home in Connecticut and uses a magical African "witch-compass" that guides him to wealth and sexual satisfaction through a series of increasingly horrific moral and criminal acts.
10. "The Proposal" by Nicholas Royle
A man struggles to hold onto his relationship while confronting a menacing ghost that appears in his girlfriend's reflections and seems to be leading her toward a deadly encounter on a nearby railway track.
11. "Changes" by C. Bruce Hunter
A woman goes with two male friends to a secluded, vine-covered cabin where the men engage in a dark, cyclical ritual that results in one of them committing suicide via Russian Roulette.
12. "The Abortionist's Horse (A Nightmare)" by Tanith Lee
A pregnant woman is driven to a horrifying miscarriage by the haunting sound and presence of a long-dead local abortionist and her spectral horse.
13. "The Handover" by Michael Marshall Smith
The last few aging men of a dying Montana mining town fulfill an old pact to remove the town sign after the death of the last woman, Naomi, signifying the final, emotional "handover" of their community.
14. "Pearl" by Roberta Lannes
An artist with a malignant tumor becomes pregnant and is driven insane by delusions that the pregnancy is a monstrous, rapidly growing parasite, which leads her to starve herself to death to protect her husband from the growing horror.
15. "Beauregard" by Eric Brown
A cynical writer is visited by his college friend, Beauregard, a self-proclaimed mystic who claims to be on the run from the ghost of his former lover, who committed suicide after he shared his dark knowledge of reality with her.
16. "Necromimicos" by Nancy Kilpatrick
A woman named Amulette, spiritually fractured by the loss of her lover Etienne, seeks him out in a cemetery crypt where she achieves a dark, ecstatic reunion with his corpse to regain the will to live.
17. "The Bootleg Heart" by Joel Lane
A sexually repressed student's voyeuristic obsession with the loud orgasmic cries of his upstairs female neighbor leads him to discover that his medical student neighbor has murdered her and is playing a loop of her death-cries.
18. "Saturday" by Cherry Wilder
A group of friends is killed in a Voodoo ceremony at a remote Pennsylvania restaurant after the playwright narrator is plagued by unsettling visions of death.
19. "The Girlfriends of Dorian Gray" by Gregory Frost
A handsome gourmet uses a magic ring to transfer his gluttony and its physical consequences onto his successive fiancées until he is trapped and victimized by a female chef who is also a powerful sorceress.
20. "Bottle Babies" by Mary A. Turzillo
A young girl's eccentric parents confine her older, developmentally challenged brother in a large glass bottle, driving her to a desperate state where she seeks help from local fairies to free him before she is locked away herself.
21. "Going to Series" by Kim Newman
A cynical production team plans a depraved reality TV show, It's a Madhouse!, by deliberately selecting a small group of volatile, sociopathic, and vulnerable individuals to confine on an island to create maximum destructive drama.
22. "Haunts" by Lisa Tuttle
A woman who was part of a high school ghost-hunting group forms a physical relationship with the woman who shot and killed her friend, Hutch, after realizing the haunting was a shared premonition of the tragedy.
23. "My Present Wife" by Dennis Etchison
A woman being stalked by her violent ex-boyfriend is abducted by another man at a party who uses similar predatory tactics and calls her by her ex-boyfriend's name, suggesting he is also a killer.
24. "Alicia" by Melanie Tem
A young girl's unnaturally strong sexual and emotional power leads her first boyfriend to suicide and causes her father to withdraw from his marriage as he becomes the focus of her increasingly obsessive attention.
25. "The Haunted Bookshop" by Brian Stableford
A first person literary skeptic narrator (perhaps Brian Stableford?) and Lionel Fanthorpe investigate a second-hand bookshop whose haunting the narrator initially dismisses as merely a peculiar miasma of coal dust and the spirit of unread books, only to experience an intense, reality-breaking sense of déjà vu.
26. "Starfucker" by Mick Garris
A once and former film director discovers a secret service that uses magic or science to resurrect dead Hollywood stars for sexual encounters, a service he pays for to spend a night with the real Jean Harlow, only to find the experience strangely disturbing.
27. "Destroyer of Worlds" by Gwyneth Jones
A mother is tormented by her inability to remember the face of her vanished seven-year-old son, Christopher, whom she tries to summon back as a ghost to discover the truth of his death.
28. "The Geezers" by Peter Straub
Four elderly friends who regularly work out at a university gym are questioned by police after one of their group, a retired homicide detective, is brutally murdered, revealing deep, complicated pasts among the friends.
29. "Honeysuckle" by William R. Trotter
A writer reflects on his intense, magical love affair with a woman from a secluded North Carolina farm, realizing too late that she had genetically manipulated him to be the father of her hybrid children and intended to transform him into a plant/human lifeform.
30. "Final Departure" by Gahan Wilson
The last man on Earth is found by a sympathetic alien who, having also survived a similar isolation, gently persuades him to leave his loneliness behind and board the alien ship.
31. "Pelican Cay" by David Case
A reporter investigating a biochemist on a small Florida Key island becomes trapped with two locals after a contagious chemical agent turns most of the island's population into murderous ghouls, leaving them to fight for survival in the lighthouse. Less Romero than the "end of history."
August 23, 2017
Overall, I liked this book. As with any collection, there will be some stories you love, some which pass you by. It is the nature of the beast.
The ones that stood out for me were:
* At Home in the Pubs of Old London by Christopher Fowler
Brilliantly original and well-written, I immediately wanted to read the story again. A great choice to open the collection.
* Barking Sands by Richard Christian Matheson
Barking mad, but short and fun.
* Savannah is Six by James Van Pelt
Wonderful slow-build of tension and emotion and loss. Reminded me of something by Stephen King, maybe Pet Sematary.
* Why Rudy Can’t Read by David J. Schow
This was brilliant. Clever, full of character, and unexpected. I read it twice.
* Changes by C. Bruce Hunter
This didn't really click for me until I realised what it was about, and re-read a few sections to examine the misdirection.
* The Abortionist’s Horse (A Nightmare) by Tanith Lee
I didn't think this was scary at first, and yet I felt my neck hair prickling at one point. I tried to work out how Tanith had done that. I think it is her excellent use of language and viewpoint, with subtle images that don't need to be described to death, they do their work by letting your imagination do its work.
* Pearl by Roberta Lannes
A mix of feminine style and body horror.
* Bottle Babies by Mary A. Turzillo
Delightfully bonkers.
* Going to Series by Kim Newman
I've long admired Kim Newman. His writing, his knowledge of horror. This was a weird story. On one hand it was brilliantly told and riveting in its presentation - on the other hand, it ended just when I wanted to know a lot more. It was probably his point, and I applaud it in a way - but I also felt a bit cheated. An interesting set of responses.
* Haunts by Lisa Tuttle
A well-written tale that does what it set out to do.
* My Present Wife by Dennis Etchison
Horror within the everyday, yet hidden in plain sight. I think it works because you know there is a threat, as the protagonist does - but not what, where, or when.
* Alicia by Melanie Tem
A good idea, well-delivered; I couldn't help feeling it could have had a wow factor if it had been turned up a notch.
* Destroyer of Worlds by Gwyneth Jones
An emotional story of obsession and loss that is relatable and hits hard, compelling you to read on, only slightly let down by the unanswered questions in the ending.
* Pelican Cay by David Case
A satisfying tale that ticks all the boxes for me.
The ones that stood out for me were:
* At Home in the Pubs of Old London by Christopher Fowler
Brilliantly original and well-written, I immediately wanted to read the story again. A great choice to open the collection.
* Barking Sands by Richard Christian Matheson
Barking mad, but short and fun.
* Savannah is Six by James Van Pelt
Wonderful slow-build of tension and emotion and loss. Reminded me of something by Stephen King, maybe Pet Sematary.
* Why Rudy Can’t Read by David J. Schow
This was brilliant. Clever, full of character, and unexpected. I read it twice.
* Changes by C. Bruce Hunter
This didn't really click for me until I realised what it was about, and re-read a few sections to examine the misdirection.
* The Abortionist’s Horse (A Nightmare) by Tanith Lee
I didn't think this was scary at first, and yet I felt my neck hair prickling at one point. I tried to work out how Tanith had done that. I think it is her excellent use of language and viewpoint, with subtle images that don't need to be described to death, they do their work by letting your imagination do its work.
* Pearl by Roberta Lannes
A mix of feminine style and body horror.
* Bottle Babies by Mary A. Turzillo
Delightfully bonkers.
* Going to Series by Kim Newman
I've long admired Kim Newman. His writing, his knowledge of horror. This was a weird story. On one hand it was brilliantly told and riveting in its presentation - on the other hand, it ended just when I wanted to know a lot more. It was probably his point, and I applaud it in a way - but I also felt a bit cheated. An interesting set of responses.
* Haunts by Lisa Tuttle
A well-written tale that does what it set out to do.
* My Present Wife by Dennis Etchison
Horror within the everyday, yet hidden in plain sight. I think it works because you know there is a threat, as the protagonist does - but not what, where, or when.
* Alicia by Melanie Tem
A good idea, well-delivered; I couldn't help feeling it could have had a wow factor if it had been turned up a notch.
* Destroyer of Worlds by Gwyneth Jones
An emotional story of obsession and loss that is relatable and hits hard, compelling you to read on, only slightly let down by the unanswered questions in the ending.
* Pelican Cay by David Case
A satisfying tale that ticks all the boxes for me.
Currently Reading
October 6, 2024TOC
‘Everything, in All the Wrong Order’ by Chaz Brenchley
‘Beauregard’ by Eric Brown
‘No Story in It’ by Ramsey Campbell
‘Pelican Cay’ by David Case
‘My Present Wife’ by Les Daniels
‘At Home in the Pubs of Old London’ by Christopher Fowler
‘The Girlfriends of Dorian Gray’ by Gregory Frost
‘Starfucker’ by Mick Garris
‘Now Day Was Fled as the Worm Had Wished’ by Brian Hodge
‘Changes’ by C. Bruce Hunter
‘Destroyer of Worlds’ by Gwyneth Jones
‘Valentia’ by Caitlín R. Kiernan
‘Necronomicos’ by Nancy Kilpatrick
‘The Bootleg Heart’ by Joel Lane
‘Pearl’ by Roberta Lannes
‘The Abortionist’s Horse (A Nightmare)’ by Tanith Lee
‘Midday People’ by Tanith Lee
‘Witch-Compass’ by Graham Masterton
‘Barking Sands’ by Richard Christian Matheson
‘Going to Series’ by Kim Newman
‘The Proposal’ by Nicholas Royle
‘Why Rudy Can’t Read’ by David J. Schow
‘The Handover’ by Michael Marshall Smith
‘The Haunted Bookshop’ by Brian Stableford
‘The Geezers’ by Peter Straub
‘Alicia’ by Melanie Tem
‘Honeysuckle’ by William R. Trotter
‘Bottle Babies’ by Mary A. Turzillo
‘Haunts’ by Lisa Tuttle
‘Savannah is Six’ by James Van Pelt
‘Saturday’ by Cherry Wilder
‘Final Departure’ by Gahan Wilson
"Bottle Babies" by Mary A. Turzillo - Allie and her brother are being abused by their parents when she receives aid from garden fairies.
"The Abortionist's Horse (A Nightmare)" by Tanith Lee - wc
‘Everything, in All the Wrong Order’ by Chaz Brenchley
‘Beauregard’ by Eric Brown
‘No Story in It’ by Ramsey Campbell
‘Pelican Cay’ by David Case
‘My Present Wife’ by Les Daniels
‘At Home in the Pubs of Old London’ by Christopher Fowler
‘The Girlfriends of Dorian Gray’ by Gregory Frost
‘Starfucker’ by Mick Garris
‘Now Day Was Fled as the Worm Had Wished’ by Brian Hodge
‘Changes’ by C. Bruce Hunter
‘Destroyer of Worlds’ by Gwyneth Jones
‘Valentia’ by Caitlín R. Kiernan
‘Necronomicos’ by Nancy Kilpatrick
‘The Bootleg Heart’ by Joel Lane
‘Pearl’ by Roberta Lannes
‘The Abortionist’s Horse (A Nightmare)’ by Tanith Lee
‘Midday People’ by Tanith Lee
‘Witch-Compass’ by Graham Masterton
‘Barking Sands’ by Richard Christian Matheson
‘Going to Series’ by Kim Newman
‘The Proposal’ by Nicholas Royle
‘Why Rudy Can’t Read’ by David J. Schow
‘The Handover’ by Michael Marshall Smith
‘The Haunted Bookshop’ by Brian Stableford
‘The Geezers’ by Peter Straub
‘Alicia’ by Melanie Tem
‘Honeysuckle’ by William R. Trotter
‘Bottle Babies’ by Mary A. Turzillo
‘Haunts’ by Lisa Tuttle
‘Savannah is Six’ by James Van Pelt
‘Saturday’ by Cherry Wilder
‘Final Departure’ by Gahan Wilson
"Bottle Babies" by Mary A. Turzillo - Allie and her brother are being abused by their parents when she receives aid from garden fairies.
"The Abortionist's Horse (A Nightmare)" by Tanith Lee - wc
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 25, 2009
Another of Stephen Jones' mammoth collections of contemporary short horror stories. This has to be one of the biggest I've ever seen, and you get your money's worth with dozens of stories.
Things kick off to a fine start with AT HOME IN THE PUBS OF OLD LONDON, an atypical effort from Christopher Fowler with spellbinding atmosphere. The follow up, Caitlin R. Kiernan's VALENTIA, is an effectively eerie story of archaeology off the coast of Ireland, making great use of mythology.
The next trio are less inspired. BARKING SANDS by Richard Christian Matheson doesn't have time to get going and is almost over before it starts, while EVERYTHING, IN ALL THE WRONG ORDER by Chaz Brenchley, is a grim and unpleasant story of sadism against children. James Van Pelt's SAVANNAH IS SIX is a touching ghost story at odds with the rest of this volume's contents.
Brian Hodge's unusually-monikered NOW THE DAY WAS FLED AS THE WORM HAD WISHED is a great modern ghost story in the M. R. James tradition - I really dug the weird stone giants. David J. Schow's WHY RUDY CAN'T READ was, I thought, a load of rubbish and more sadism for the sake of it. Ramsey Campbell returns to form with NO STORY IN IT, another bleak and depressing realist outing for the top horror author. Graham Masterton's WITCH-COMPASS is an old-fashioned pulp story with added grue.
Nicholas Royle and Michael Marshall Smith both try their hand with the old-fashioned ghost story with THE PROPOSAL and THE HANDOVER respectively, although neither story is among their best. Still, they're better than C. Bruce Hunter's too-ambiguous CHANGES and Tanith Lee's THE ABORTIONIST'S HORSE (A NIGHTMARE), which was just too distasteful for me to enjoy. Even that one pales into comparison to PEARL, Roberta Lannes' horror tumour story.
Far better is BEAUREGARD, a piece by Eric Brown, in which the author successfully channels the spirit of Lovecraft himself in a supremely atmospheric piece of writing.
NECROMIMICOS, a story about a woman stalking graveyards at night by Nancy Kilpatrick, seems to be a goth's wet dream rather than a real story, but Joel Lane scores with THE BOOTLEG HEART, a psychological suspense yarn with a genuinely chilling denouement. I didn't care much for Cherry Wilder's SATURDAY, which was written in an abstract style I found difficult to read.
The next story is one of the best in the anthology. Gregory Frost comes up trumps with THE GIRLFRIENDS OF DORIAN GRAY, a monstrous updating of the Wilde story. Then we have Mary A. Turzillo's BOTTLE BABIES, an exceptionally weird fantasy/horror hybrid that succeeds despite the dark subject matter. Kim Newman updates the epistolary format to modern times in GOING TO SERIES with mixed results while Lisa Tuttle's HAUNTS is a successful romantic ghost story.
Dennis Etchison's MY PRESENT WIFE is something of a subdued and lacklustre effort from this usually sound author, but Melanie Tem's ALICIA is quite exceptional and probably her best work. THE HAUNTED BOOKSHOP sees Brian Stableford mixing fact and fiction with the presence of author and TV host Lionel Fanthorpe but Mick Garris's STARFUCKER, a jaded look at Hollywood, makes for a rough ride.
DESTROYER OF WORLDS, by Gwyneth Jones, has a misleading title and is actually about child abduction, while Peter Straub's THE GEEZERS is a solid thriller from the experienced author.
The last three tales collected here make up a mixed trio, with two outstanding efforts and Gahan Wilson's irrelevant FINAL DEPARTURE in the middle. The first is William Trotter's HONEYSUCKLE, a long and subtle story covering plenty of ground throughout the highly unusual storyline. The last story is the best: David Case's PELICAN CAY, a novella length zombie outing full of action, excitement and bloodshed, just like a film written down on paper. It's scary stuff that doesn't disappoint.
All in all this is a great collection, if a little overwhelming!
Things kick off to a fine start with AT HOME IN THE PUBS OF OLD LONDON, an atypical effort from Christopher Fowler with spellbinding atmosphere. The follow up, Caitlin R. Kiernan's VALENTIA, is an effectively eerie story of archaeology off the coast of Ireland, making great use of mythology.
The next trio are less inspired. BARKING SANDS by Richard Christian Matheson doesn't have time to get going and is almost over before it starts, while EVERYTHING, IN ALL THE WRONG ORDER by Chaz Brenchley, is a grim and unpleasant story of sadism against children. James Van Pelt's SAVANNAH IS SIX is a touching ghost story at odds with the rest of this volume's contents.
Brian Hodge's unusually-monikered NOW THE DAY WAS FLED AS THE WORM HAD WISHED is a great modern ghost story in the M. R. James tradition - I really dug the weird stone giants. David J. Schow's WHY RUDY CAN'T READ was, I thought, a load of rubbish and more sadism for the sake of it. Ramsey Campbell returns to form with NO STORY IN IT, another bleak and depressing realist outing for the top horror author. Graham Masterton's WITCH-COMPASS is an old-fashioned pulp story with added grue.
Nicholas Royle and Michael Marshall Smith both try their hand with the old-fashioned ghost story with THE PROPOSAL and THE HANDOVER respectively, although neither story is among their best. Still, they're better than C. Bruce Hunter's too-ambiguous CHANGES and Tanith Lee's THE ABORTIONIST'S HORSE (A NIGHTMARE), which was just too distasteful for me to enjoy. Even that one pales into comparison to PEARL, Roberta Lannes' horror tumour story.
Far better is BEAUREGARD, a piece by Eric Brown, in which the author successfully channels the spirit of Lovecraft himself in a supremely atmospheric piece of writing.
NECROMIMICOS, a story about a woman stalking graveyards at night by Nancy Kilpatrick, seems to be a goth's wet dream rather than a real story, but Joel Lane scores with THE BOOTLEG HEART, a psychological suspense yarn with a genuinely chilling denouement. I didn't care much for Cherry Wilder's SATURDAY, which was written in an abstract style I found difficult to read.
The next story is one of the best in the anthology. Gregory Frost comes up trumps with THE GIRLFRIENDS OF DORIAN GRAY, a monstrous updating of the Wilde story. Then we have Mary A. Turzillo's BOTTLE BABIES, an exceptionally weird fantasy/horror hybrid that succeeds despite the dark subject matter. Kim Newman updates the epistolary format to modern times in GOING TO SERIES with mixed results while Lisa Tuttle's HAUNTS is a successful romantic ghost story.
Dennis Etchison's MY PRESENT WIFE is something of a subdued and lacklustre effort from this usually sound author, but Melanie Tem's ALICIA is quite exceptional and probably her best work. THE HAUNTED BOOKSHOP sees Brian Stableford mixing fact and fiction with the presence of author and TV host Lionel Fanthorpe but Mick Garris's STARFUCKER, a jaded look at Hollywood, makes for a rough ride.
DESTROYER OF WORLDS, by Gwyneth Jones, has a misleading title and is actually about child abduction, while Peter Straub's THE GEEZERS is a solid thriller from the experienced author.
The last three tales collected here make up a mixed trio, with two outstanding efforts and Gahan Wilson's irrelevant FINAL DEPARTURE in the middle. The first is William Trotter's HONEYSUCKLE, a long and subtle story covering plenty of ground throughout the highly unusual storyline. The last story is the best: David Case's PELICAN CAY, a novella length zombie outing full of action, excitement and bloodshed, just like a film written down on paper. It's scary stuff that doesn't disappoint.
All in all this is a great collection, if a little overwhelming!
March 3, 2023
As a horror anthology it has all the strengths and weaknesses of its genre - but I believe its strengths far outweigh any weaknesses - I do believe the reason I keep reading horror anthologies is that the genre contains so much good writing and that, and this of course will not be news to anyone who reads horror/suspense, the best of the writing has nothing to do with ghosts, goblins or things that go bump in the night - or at least not things that are necessarily supernatural. At its best this is a fine collection of stories, at its worst there are some mediocre and probably forgettable stories - but I think quality overwhelms the lesser stuff. I doubt if I will convince many who don't already read these sort of anthologies to take it up - which is a pity - but for those who do enjoy this sort of writing you will not be disappointed.
One small addendum - of course you find that all sorts of things in these sorts of stories become outdated - such as a haunted bookshop! I know bookshops still exist but honestly now-a-days one is more likely to imagine a ghost of a bookshop then a ghost in a bookshop - still it doesn't distract from the reading pleasure - and that particular story is rather good and surprising.
One small addendum - of course you find that all sorts of things in these sorts of stories become outdated - such as a haunted bookshop! I know bookshops still exist but honestly now-a-days one is more likely to imagine a ghost of a bookshop then a ghost in a bookshop - still it doesn't distract from the reading pleasure - and that particular story is rather good and surprising.
March 6, 2008
As with all anthologies, it's a mixed bunch. The stories by Lisa Morton, Charles Wagner and Kim Newman were excellent - smart, scary and memorable. I was happy to see a Jeff Vandermeer story here, as he rarely disappoints, and his story was my favourite here.
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