Fred Klein’s Reviews > The Best of Cemetery Dance. Volume 1 & 2 Omnibus > Status Update

This part of the book has a lot of serial killer stories.

As usual, some of the stories are good, some not.

It's Halloween time, so I'm back to this book. Maybe I'll finish it this year.

I'm taking a break from this. Too many bad stories. I may not finish it this year, and return to it next Halloween.

I don't understand how some of these crappy stories have gotten published.

This book is getting on my nerves. Too many bad stories. I'm taking a break.

I have had to skip stories that were just too unbearable. Most recently, I skipped Joe R. Lansdale's "Drive-In Date", which was written in the form of a play. I don't object to foul language when it's used in a creative way, but this was just crude and boring. Two guys talking about sex mixed in with racial epithets. I didn't like where it was going, so "no, thank you."

I just got through a few bad stories, one of which I found so unreadable that I didn't finish it (Adam Corbin Fusco's "Shell"). I'm up to a dystopian story (Matthew Costello's "Vacation"), and it seems more promising.

Upon my return to this book after almost a year away, I am finding the same as when I left it. Every once in a while there is a gem of a story, but you have to wade through many lame stories to find them. Since picking this book back up yesterday and reading several stories, the only one that I have found to be excellent was Lucy Taylor's "Wall of Words" -- very creative with a great ending!