Don't Open This Book

by Marvin Kaye (Editor), Edward D. Hoch (Contributor), A.M. Burrage (Contributor)

39 tales of weird fantasy, taboo science and souls in torment.

The Problem of the Country Mailbox by Edward D. Hoch
The Bargain by A.M. Burrage
The Sins of the Father by Carole Bugge
The Moving Finger Types by Henry Slesar
The Story of Obbok by Darrell Schweitzer
Revised Expectations by Kathleen C. Szaj
The Pandora Heart by Tanith Lee
Don't Open That Book! by Patricia Mullen
Genesis for Dummies by Patrick Lobrutto
Turn the Page by Zenna Henderson
Become So Shining That We Cease to Be by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
The Resurrection by Christine Jacobsen
The Confession of Brother Blaise by Jane Yolen
Never Again the Same by L. Jagi Lamplighter
The Temple by H.P. Lovecraft
The Green Thumb by John Gregory Betancourt
Famous First Words by Harry Harrison
The Super Alkaloid by Jack Snow
"I Am a Fine Musician..." by Roberta Rogow
Obituary by Isaac Asimov
One-Shot Beamish and His Wonderful Feminals by Jack Sheckley Patent Pending by Arthur C. Clarke
The Monster-Maker by William C. Morrow
The Maladjusted Classroom by H. Nearing, Jr.
Black Bargain by Robert Bloch
The Devil in Manuscript by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Feeling Lucky by Laura J. Catanzariti
Mendoza by Andrew Warren
Satan's Home Page by Ron Goulart
Professor Lubermayer's Final Lecture by Marvin Kaye
Cinnabar by Jean Paiva
Message from Hell by Robert Sheckley
A Child of Earth and Hell by Jessica Amanda Salmonson
The Master's Thesis by David Madden
DP! by Jack Vance
Repeating Echo by J. Timothy Hunt
The Shadowy Street by Jean Ray
The Bear Garden by Aline Myette-Volsky
The Testament of Magdalen Blair by Aleister Crowley

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Fiction, Fantasy, Anthologies, Science Fiction, Literature

593 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Marvin Nathan Kaye was an American mystery, fantasy, science fiction, horror author, anthologist, and editor. He was also a magician and theater actor. Kaye was a World Fantasy Award winner and served as co-publisher and editor of Weird Tales Magazine.

Reviews

[Jean-Pierre Vidrine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like any anthology, there are a few stories here that aren't so great. Most of these duds get out of the way pretty early on in the book and the rest of the tales are good when they are not great.
Some stories go along with the titular theme entirely literally. These tales tend to be more amusing than horrific. The rest (excepting the aforementioned duds) are mind-bending horror that the title of the book is quite right in warning the reader away from. And that's all the more reason to disobey the title and read them.

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

A long collection of 39 stories all relating in some way to the concept of forbidden and/or dangerous writing, Don't Open This Book skews towards the horror genre, but also has some fantasy, mystery, and science fiction tales. As is usually the case with any anthology of short stories I read, a few of these were wonderful, some fairly bad, and all the rest in the middle somewhere. In the first category, there is "The Shadowy Street" by Jean Ray and Tanith Lee's "The Pandora Heart."

[Darnoc Leadburger · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like to buy random stuff at library sales. It's not enough for me to simply stick within the tried and true; I have to be special. I got this book at a local sale in August of 2022 at my friend's urging, because the cover was cool. Perfectly valid reason. I'd read a Marvin Kaye anthology before - The Dragon Quintet - three or four years ago, and I remember that it was good, if nothing else. This collection is a bit stranger; it's supposed to be about books that you shouldn't open and forbidden knowledge, but it's not that simple. There are some pretty good and memorable stories in here and a lot of chaff that hasn't been threshed out. I'm not exactly looking forward to this review because it's 39 little reviews, but I'll try my best two keep them down to two sentences a piece, I swear.

-"The Problem of the Country Mailbox" by Edward D. Hoch, a 1994 detective story about Dr. Sam Hawthorne being recruited by a bookseller to where delivered books are disappearing to which kicks off with an exploding book, starts the collection off on a high note. Clever, well-paced, and charming. 8/10.
-"The Bargain" by A. M. Burrage may be the premier story of haunted stamp books. Fleet and inconclusive but memorable. 7/10.
-Carole Bugge takes on Tibetan dreamwalking in "The Sins of the Father." Doesn't relate to the anthology's theme by much but it slowly reveals an interesting story. 7.25 rounded to 7.5.
-"The Story of Obbok" by Darrel Schweitzer is a fictional fable or myth in which our titular poet asks the gods for a great poem; believe it or not, this doesn't go to plan. Fun enough for another 7.25 turned 7.5.
-Never read Henry Slesar before (except for something from Dangerous Visions, apparently), but maybe I should, because "The Moving Finger Types" - a fun story about the production company that writes the world's life stories - is pretty fun. 7.5/10.
-"Revised Expectations" was the first kind-of-flop for me. Kathleen C. Szaj's story shows a little girl entering Great Expectations to change the meaning. Thing is, I read Great Expectations earlier this year, and didn't really enjoy it. 6.5
-Finally, reading some Tanith Lee in "The Pandora Heart," in which a low-standing princess watches as the forbidden-knowledge filled pandora's hear fruit destroys her kind of crappy family. There's a cute cat, and like everything else so far, it's decently well written. 7.5.
-"Don't Open That Book!" by Patricia Mullen is a well-deserving titular story. It's very thematic with these great themes of parenthood and trying not to damage your children in the ways you were damaged, all wrapped up with a little girl visiting Oz. Easy 8/10.
-"Genesis for Dummies" by Pat LoBrutto was pretty dang short and pretty dang unmemorable. 5/10.
-Now that we're into the second portion of the book, we drift away from its unique theme and see "Turn the Page by Zenna Henderson, in which a grade school class reunion deals with the fact that their old teacher was magic by ignoring it. Seems like the teacher was an irresponsible idiot to me, but... whatever. 7/10.
-The scariest one yet is "Become So Shining That We Cease to Be" by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, apparently someone I'm supposed to read more of. A young college professor hears voices above her apartment. Eventually they suck her in. 7.5? I rated this one that high?
-Our digression into less distinguishable weird/horror begins with Christine Jacobsen and "The Resurrection." A priest thinks that strange woman is his dead mother. I marked it as 6/10.
-"The Confession of Brother Blaise" by Jane Yolen - an author I don't usually get along with - is a deathbed confession relating to demonic impregnation. Interesting enough for a 7/10.
-Even though it's not speculative, L. Jagi Lamplighter's "Never Again the Same," in which a young boy's Asian grandfather tricks him into learning to read with tales of a demonic book , is cute and yet meaningful. 7.5, and better than the other 7.5s.
-I've read Lovecraft but never "The Temple." It's different for him, taking place in a submarine during World War II, but it's still got his flavor. Not too impactful to me; 6.5.
-If you like killer plants, you'll like "The Green Thumb" by John Gregory Betancourt. I didn't know housewife gardening competitions could be this brutal. 7/10.
-"Famous First Words" by Harry Harrison is about recording sounds from the past - a concept I've encountered three times in the last seven months or so (between J. G. Ballard and Florence McLandburgh) - and this time it's about recording important speeches. It's good, but something about this collection just dulls the differences in the contributors' styles and prose. 7.5
-Drugs; i.e. "The Super Alkaloid." Not sure what Jack Snow's point was in writing about hallucinogenic cocaine, but 7/10 either way.
-""I Am a Fine Musician..."" by Roberta Rogow combines two of my favorite things: music (even if it's simply a bunch of great piano composers) and time-travel. It's funny, and if it had better themes, it would rate higher. Just don't know what it has to do with "don't open this book"... 7.5/10.
-I like Asimov, and I like "Obituary." A mad scientist sees how well his rivals are talked about in their obituaries and comes up with a time-travelling scheme to get the recognition he thinks he deserves. It's told from his wife's perspective, which is cool. 7.5/10.
-"One Shot Beamish and His Wonderful Feminals" by Jay Sheckley is more squeamish than beamish. He makes six-inch-tall sex-dolls clones of his coworker, and... the story ends by her seducing him !? What the Hell. Well enough written, but... ugh. 6.... nah, 5/10.
-I've heard of the Arthur C. Clarke's White Hart, and "Patent Pending," a bar story about a guy who learned to store experiences, is my first experience. I wasn't a good reader during this one. 6/10.
-"The Monster-Maker" by W. C. Morrow... we're getting to the sad part, folks. This wasn't bad, where a Victorian surgeon is approached by someone and he more-or-less turns him into a monster, but... eh, not my thing either. 6/10.
-I feel like I'm not smart enough for "The Maladjusted Classroom" by H. Nearing, Jr. A physics professor finds a way to share his classroom with an Army general by turning the classes into two dimensions... I think it was clever? 6.5/10.
-"Black Bargain" by Robert Bloch. Here we go. All about satanic deals and that drek. This one's about a guy who makes a deal and gets a rival in return - his own shadow. Not bad. 7/10.
-"The Devil in Manuscript" by Nathaniel Hawthorne. This writer thinks there are demons in the book he wrote, and his friend thinks he's crazy. You do you, man. 6/10.
-""Feeling Lucky"?" asks Laura J. Catanzariti. Not with these stories, I'm not. A down-and-out guy answers a job posting. Apparently a demon posted that job. I mean... these aren't badly written, I just don't see the point of them. 6/10. It's not you, it's me.
-Andrew Warren's "Mendoza" is... weird. They're a forty-year-old man's journal entries about his mother babying him when he's sick. But the writer said it was Hell... whatever, 6/10.
-I kind of like "Satan's Home Page" by Ron Goulart. This screenwriter's wife makes a deal on his behalf. The demon can turn anything into gold . 6.5/10. Fun ending...
-"Professor Lubermayer's Final Lecture" by Marvin Kaye, our editor-in-chief. This professor makes a bet with one of his students: is the afterlife real? Not annoying. Nice and smug ending. Another 6.5.
-"Cinnabar" by Jean Paiva, in which one college student's rebound turns out to be a succubus. Do I feel bad for the guy? I mean, I probably should. 6/10.
-I truly liked "Message From Hell" by Robert Sheckley. This guy is a writer and he's dreaming and his douchey ex-brother-in-law appears asking him to write a story about him because Hell values artists and even people referenced in stories and crap very highly. Pretty clever ending. 7.5/10.
-"A Child of Earth and Hell" by Jessica Amanda Salmonson, in which a deformed kid discovers his subterranean origins, is kinda moody and interesting, but also... eh. 6.5/10.
-I suppose "The Master's Thesis" by David Madden is more clever than other stories of the mundane yet bizarre. This kid really wants him to read his thesis... but does he really exist? I dunno. 6.5/10.
-"DP!" by Jack Vance (I've finally read Vance!) reminded me of Capek's War With the Newts. It's about an underground variety of homo sapiens coming up from their natural habitat after underground lava destroys it. Poignant and brilliantly told through newspaper articles. Yet... stories in this book have a very hard time feeling greater than a 7.5, I'm learning.
-Almost there... "Repeating Echo" by J. Timothy Hunt is a time loop story on the scale of three years. I like these kind of things, even if they seem a tad... pointless. 7/10.
-"The Shadowy Street" by Jean Ray, translated from French, is where I started to check out. It's two different ghost stories about disappearances at once, but... just couldn't bring myself to care. Might be my fault again this time? I'm not sure. Whichever way you slice it, though, 5.5/10.
-"The Bear Garden" by Aline Myette-Volsky is about animal cruelty and bear/dog fighting rings. What the hell does this have to do with not opening that book? Don't ask me anymore... 6/10.
-At last, the end; "The Testament of Magdalen Blair" by Aleister Crowley, in which she slowly grows more and more telepathic. Doesn't end great, believe it or not. A partially memorable 6/10.

Frankly, I'm glad that's over. It's been almost an hour since I started, so excuse me if I don't edit this like most of my reviews; I've got other ones to write, you know... Anyways, back to this book, which was actually my first read of 2023. Gonna be a weird year if this is any indication, and as of the 9th of January, it's proven correctly. I actually quite like the first chunk of this book and was going to rate it higher, but the second half took me out of it a bit. I feel like the stories that played with "Don't Open That Book" cleverly were the best, but there were just too many stories in here. At 15 it could've been a pretty good collection, instead of the 39 tales we ended up with. It's still good, and I imagine I'll reference it from time to time, so it gets a 6.5. I was actually supposed to read this in December of last year, but due to reading goal shenanigans, that wasn't possible. I can now officially start my 2023 piles, and I can already feel that it'll be a lot of fun. Hope you all have good luck with this collection, and remember: be careful what books you open...

[Vincent Darlage · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's hard to rate a short story collection. Some of the stories were great. A few were horrible. Most were just okay (you can look at my updates to see which stories I thought were which). The final story, by Aleister Crowley was fantastic.

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of horror stories by both old and new writers, many of them known more for science fiction writing than for horror.

[Steph · Rating 3 out of 5]

This would've been 4 stars if not for the Bear Garden story. There should definitely have been a warning at the beginning about the very graphic animal mistreatment, abuse, and traumatic death. These are very common triggers for even horror readers. I'm still shook two days after finishing the book, and I did not even finish that story. Having it at the end of the book left a terrible final opinion of the book as a whole. BESIDES that, as is common with most anthologies, there are some amazing, some boring, and some that left me scratching my head at the end. I do recommend- you might want to skip over the Bear Garden, though.

[Estott]

Rather long collection, lots of stories, some approaching novella length. Enough good storied in here to make it satisfying, and nothing is really bad- except "One Shot Beamish..." which belongs in the back pages of some musty men's magazine, alongside the underwear ads.

[Tinquerbelle]

1) The Problem of the Country Mailbox; Hoch, Edward D.
2) The Bargain; Burrage, A.M.
3) The Sins of the Father; Bugge, Carole
4) The Moving Finger Types; Slesar, Henry
5) The Story of Obbok; Schweitzer, Darrell
6) Revised Expectations; Szaj, Kathleen C.
7) The Pandora Heart; Lee, Tanith
8) Don't Open That Book!; Mullen, Patricia
9) Genesis for Dummies; Lobrutto, Patrick
10) Turn the Page; Henderson, Zenna
11) Become So Shining That We Cease to Be; Yarbo, Chelsea Quinn
12) The Resurrection; Jacobsen, Christine
13) The Confession of Brother Blaise; Yolen, Jane
14) Never Again the Same; Lamplighter, L. Jagi
15) The Temple; Lovecraft, H.P.
16) The Green Thumb; Betancourt, John Gregory
17) Famous First Words; Harrison, Harry
18) The Super Alkaloid; Snow, Jack
19) "I am a Fine Musician..."; Rogow, Roberta
20) Obituary; Asimov, Isaac
21) One-Shot Beamish and His Wonderful Feminals; Sheckley, Jay
22) Patent Pending; Clarke, Arthur C.
23) The Monster-Maker; Morrow, William C.
24) The Maladjusted Classroom; Nearing, H. Jr.
25) Black Bargain; Bloch, Robert
26) The Devile in Manuscript; Hawthorne, Nathaniel
27) Feeling Lucky; Catanzariti, Laura J.
28) Mendoza; Warren, Andrew
29) Satan's Home Page; Houlart, Ron
30) Professor Lubermayer's Final Lecture; Kaye, Marvin
31) Cinnabar; Paiva, Jean
32) Message from Hell; Sheckley, Robert
33) A Child of Earth and Hell; Salmonson, Jessica Amanda
34) The Master's Thesis; Madden, David
35) DP!; Vance, Jack
36) Repeating Echo; Hunt, J. Timothy
37) The Shadowy Street; Ray, Jean
38) The Bear Garden; Myette-Volsky, Aline
39) The Testament of Magdalen Blair; Crowley, Aleister

[ayanami]

Read:
Edward D. Hoch, The Problem of the Country Mailbox - 1/5 (Boring mystery)
A. M. Burrage, The Bargain - 2/5 (Suspenseful but ends abruptly with no real resolution)
Patrick Lobrutto, Genesis for Dummies - 3/5
Tanith Lee, The Pandora Heart - 4/5

[[on hiatus, probably forever] The rockabilly werewolf from Mars · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is all over the place. If the introductory sections were omitted, I wouldn't even realize that it was meant to have a theme. Good stories by Bloch, Burrage, Yolen, Ray, and others, but a lot of mediocre material. If you go into it expecting a horror anthology (like I did), you probably will be disappointed, as there is also lots of science fiction, fantasy, and humourous fiction in here as well (not that there's anything inherently wrong with those genres, but they aren't what I was looking for here).

[Brooklyn Shaffer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is funny. The illustrations are awesome because they are full paged and very detailed.