Barry Moser

I forgot to review this back months ago. Here it is, better late than never.

This little book contains a collection of horror centric stories- some decent, others mediocre and some laughable. The diversity of authors is fairly wide, featuring such names like Bram Stoker, Stephen King, Ambrose Bierce, H.G. Wells, Ray Bradbury and more. The artwork in this book gives more high marks, as the BW engravings add another touch of macabre that really fit the atmosphere and style the book presents.

I wouldn't say this is an absolute must for your shelves, as several of the stories are lackluster in quality/content. That's the thing with anthologies though, you get many different slices and there's something for everyone. Anthologies are more subjective than the rest. I'd say pick up a copy if you are just fresh out of reading material or if any of the stories I list below catch your fancy.

I won't lie- what drew me into purchasing this book was opening it randomly to a page that had a tiger on it. (Spoiler- This one was 'Here there be Tygers', and while I truly wanted to like it more, this is one of the more laughable ones as it has no deeper meaning and serves to be just a surreal piece of literature.)

My favorite stories in this book (may contain spoilers)

Thanksgiving: A rural girl and her father have to go into town to fetch groceries due to the mother being unable (It's suggested she's either deathly ill or suffered a bad breakdown). What they find is something that they likely never wanted to experience in the first place- whether they stumbled into an alternate reality, an unsettling weird dimension or something else, it sure is disturbing. The story is also striking in imagery and prose. It aims for your stomach and heart simultaneously and does a fine job of it too. Something that is quite interesting about this piece is, while it is definitely horror- nothing that happens in the story is quite fitting of 'terrifying', it's just the scenery and interactions with the people that make you uncomfortable reading it. This one is likely my most favorite in the entire book, and has made me want to seek out more of the author's work (Joyce Oates) if she writes anything else like this short tale.

The Man upstairs: A boy lives with his grandparents who own a boarding house. The boy later finds out, that it isn't just humans who can rent rooms there. Whether the 'creature' in the story is a vampire, alien or something else- this was a nice little original story. A good dosage of weird as Ray Bradbury tends to write many stories that catch my attention anyway, so don't miss this one.

Some honorable mentions are:

The Boarded window: This one isn't as 'scary' on a personal level as it is more of a callback to a point in history where people were buried alive. I thought it was a more unique way of including it. I believe the scary is more so imagining to be in that position more than anything. Kind of surprised me Ambrose Bierce wrote this one.… (more)