"Reality is a nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there." -John Barth
by William Hope Hodson The purpose here is not only to review a great deal of the career of one of our favorite, and one of our earliest, weird storytellers, but also to compare two of the definitive volumes released from Centipede Press, being the Masters of the Weird Tale and the Library of Weird... Continue Reading →
by K.J. Parker “Thanks to my lifetime of exhaustive study, I’m the least qualified man in the world to offer an opinion.” The storytelling here is rich but not indulgent, detailed but not fussy. It moves fast, but these tales can stretch the word ‘short’ in short stories. Even the shortest have plenty of meat... Continue Reading →
by Oscar Wilde “Who art thou to bring pain into God’s world?” Mr. Wilde’s career in short stories was collected in three books published in the late 1800’s as follows: The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888) Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime and Other Stories (1891) A House of Pomegranates (1891) The Happy Prince and Other... Continue Reading →
by Mark Allan Gunnells “There was always the Bible in the nightstand drawer, but whoever had dubbed that the Greatest Story Ever Told had apparently never read The Stand.” The collection starts very strong with “God Doesn’t Follow You into the Bathroom,” about a young girl confiding in her reverend the relationship with her boyfriend... Continue Reading →
by Alan Moore “Beware, ye that are loath to make commotion! Shudder, ye who would not bring attention on thyself, and see what shyness brought me, with even my gizzard now become a public spectacle. Behold, ye meek: this prong of iron is all the Earth ye shall inherit.” The following stories take place on... Continue Reading →
by M.R. James "I expect you're right: he has got in. And if I don't mistake, there'll be the devil to pay in one of the rooms upstairs." 8 stories make up this 1904 collection, and they hold up well. The language of the time isn’t much of a barrier here, and though it may... Continue Reading →
by Robert McCammon “Something tore,” Spence said tonelessly. “Ripped open. Something won the fight, and I don’t think it was who the preachers said was gonna win.” Many of us perform a bit of research into any book before picking one up, mostly because they all take hours and we'd rather not waste our time.... Continue Reading →
by Various Authors “I chuckle to myself to keep from sobbing. It's been over a year since I've seen my children.” (from "Visitation Rights") A chapbook from Cemetery Dance containing 4 Christmas-themed short stories, Holiday Horrors is super-fast and is a great read at this time of year. In no particular order: "Stocking Stuffers" by... Continue Reading →
by Richard Chizmar “I… I thought I was the only one. But… but you’re like me, aren’t you?” she asked. “Like you and then some.” Richard Chizmar’s outstanding collection of short stories, Midnight Promises, is another title suggested from John R. Little’s favorite 10 collections list. An unmistakable pattern is his choices has emerged. The... Continue Reading →
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