Short Stories

Review: Flings by Justin Taylor

Flings: Stories by Justin Taylor, a book of short stories, is interesting, but ultimately unsatisfying. The blurb on the back names Taylor “A master of the modern snapshot” and they might well be right. The book is like a stack of Polaroids, taken by strangers and with no context to explain them. (Think Awkward Family Photos.) They are fascinating, funny,… Read more

Review: Rage Against the Night, short stories by Stephen King, Ramsey Campbell, Peter Straub and more

Folks, it pays to troll the Daily Deals and links on Amazon’s Kindle pages. That’s where I picked up Rage Against the Night, edited by Shane Jiraiya Cummings, with stories by all your favorites — Stephen King, Ramsey Cambell, Peter Straub, and more. The book is a fund-raiser for Rocky Wood, author, president of the Horror Writers Association and an expert on… Read more

Review: Four Summoner’s Tales by Kelley Armstrong, Christopher Golden, David Liss, Jonathan Maberry

Four Summoner’s Tales starts with an interesting premise. If you could truly raise people from the dead, of course, there would be people willing to pay you to do it, to bring their loved ones back. But wouldn’t there also be people willing to pay you not to do it? Could you blackmail that trophy wife, whose 90-year-old husband just left… Read more

Review: Blood and Other Cravings, edited by Ellen Datlow

I was very excited to receive this collection of stories. This is the third Ellen Datlow collection I’ve read, the second that I’ve reviewed, and I think she does a great job of choosing really interesting stories that all play to a theme. Blood and Other Cravings isn’t your typical book about vampires. These aren’t necessarily creatures that suck your… Read more