Midnight Walk

by Lisa Morton (Editor), Jodi Renée Lester (Contributor), R.B. Payne (Contributor)

This all-original horror anthology features 14 tales of terror and suspense: Jodi Kaplan Lester's "The Guixi Sisters" describes three Chinese-American children who have an especially strong connection to their heritage; Armand Constantine's "Monsoon Devil" offers up an American stranded in India seeking a legendary demon; in "The Tennatrick", John Palisano creates a wildfire-starting monster in Southern California; a young boy undergoes a Halloween rite of passage in Richard Grove's "Silver Needle"; in "The Measure of a Man" by George Willis, 19th-century Zulu warriors fight something far worse than British invaders; Mike McCarty's "The Grieving Process" offers a middle class husband learning to cope with more than just the death of his wife; Vince Churchill's "Late Check-In" puts a new spin on the classic ghost tale set in a lonely, deserted inn; "Inside Out" by Lisa Majewski gives a vain model a particularly loathesome come-uppance; in the novelette "Diana and the Goong-si", Lisa Morton provides a look at 19th-century China seen through the eyes of a British noblewoman in search of her missing husband; Del Howison's "Alley Oops" is a vicious little twist-of-fate story about an elderly woman and a robber; Kelly Dunn's "The Mysterious Name" rips the veneer of wealth from a well-to-do small town and finds evil lurking beneath the surface; in "Eddie G. at the Gates of Hell", R. B. Payne limns a serial killer trying to survive a road trip; "The Bear Who Swallowed the Sky" by Jason M. Light mixes Native American folklore and contemporary dread as a man fights to save his family; and Joey O'Bryan's "The Svancara Supper Society" is a novelette set in a future where synthetic food becomes all too addicting. The book also includes an introduction by Stoker Award-winning author Lisa Morton.

Genres: Horror

258 pages, Paperback

First published May 16, 2009

About the author

Lisa Morton is a screenwriter, author of horror fiction, and Halloween expert. She is a winner of both the Black Quill and Bram Stoker Awards, and her short stories have appeared in more than 50 books and magazines. Her first novel, THE CASTLE OF LOS ANGELES, was released by Gray Friar Press in 2010, and her first collection, MONSTERS OF L.A., was published by Bad Moon Books in October 2011. She is a native and lifelong resident of Southern California, and currently resides in the San Fernando Valley.

Reviews

[Vince Liaguno · Rating 5 out of 5]

The problem with horror, editor Lisa Morton theorizes in her introduction to Midnight Walk, is that the genre is trying too hard to cling to its old ways. She goes on to cite the thematic expansion of other literary genres while lamenting the fact that horror fiction seems firmly rooted in the Stephen King era, circa 1980, when evil settled into suburbia and hasn’t ventured out of the cul-de-sac since. Blame it on the housing market, but chances are that falling home prices aren’t so much the culprits as are lackluster imitation promulgated by a lazy publishing industry and the disconcerting lack of imagination of unchallenged readers. But that’s a discussion for another time.

What Morton sets forth in this tale of fourteen short stories – written primarily by writers residing in the American Southwest – is an expansion on the themes and settings of modern horror. From the Far East to the Indian ghetto, the backdrops of these tales offer distinct flavorings to the terrors at their core. And while some of the horrors might be familiar horror tropes at first glance – zombies, ghosts, malevolent faeries, urban legends – the cultural fine points Morton and company imbue each tale with will have you looking at these genre staples in an entirely new way.

Read the rest of the review here.

[Isidore · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ambitious but disappointing anthology. In her introduction, Morton promises unformulaic tales, but on the whole the results are characterized more by a superficial exoticism than new ways of creating fear or wonder: here the zombies show up among Zulus instead of North Americans, but they're still the same old zombies.

The level of craftsmanship is uneven: Palisano's "The Tennatrick" and Willis's "The Measure of a Man" (the Zulu yarn) are quite weak, while O'Bryan's "The Svancara Supper Society", although clever in places, is far too predictable (and does O'Bryan really believe that people in 2100 are still going to be using terms like "newbie" and "rockstar"? Think how much slang has changed since 1920, and you will see what I mean). For me, the best tales were Constantine's unusually constructed "Monsoon Devil", and "The Bear Who Swallowed the Sky", a well-written and insightful story by Jason M. Light.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this anthology of horror shorts because an online friend of mine wrote one of its stories. The book arrived, I cracked it open to my friend's story (because, hello, that's the most interesting one), and realized I'd read it before. As a person who registers all their books on Bookcrossing, I went back to search my shelf there and couldn't find it. So unless I'm a time traveler, a psychic, or caught in some sort of horror story loop I don't want to consider, I must have borrowed this book from the library.

As a fan of horror, what's not to love in a compilation of scary shorts? As a fan of people who have the courage to share their creativity, what's not to love about reading a snippet of a friend's fertile imagination? I very much enjoyed both the imagination and writing showcased in this book, but especially in The Measure of A Man, a chilling zombie story with an interesting new angle and a poignant twist.

[M. Pelczar · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this anthology for the simple fact that it is different. Horror is woefully lacking in diversity, as Lisa Morton points out in her excellent introduction. And diversity is the common thread which weaves these stories together. All of them feature unusual settings, characters, or situations. While I enjoyed most of the 14 stories included, some of them deserve special praise; Richard Grove's "Silver Needle," R. B. Payne's "Eddie G. at the Gates of Hell," and Mike McCarty's "The Grieving Process" were my favorites by far.

[Jeannie Sloan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nothing special.I guess I didn't really like the stories very much.I had a hard time liking the main protagonists and there was a level of cruelty that I didn't like about the stories.Also not a lot of happy endings.