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

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!