I discovered this title looking for Singapore Noir. It’s a collection of short horror from several authors you’ve heard of. It was short and after Kill the Boy Band and Mother Can You Not? I needed a little something different. Here’s my review of the various tales.
David J. Schow—Blue Amber
Creepy, exciting, and very entertaining. This should be a short film somewhere. 4/5
Neil Gaiman—Click-Clack the Rattlelebag
A fantastic short piece by Gaiman that is both brief and chilling. 5/5
Cody Goodfellow—Cavity Creeps
A touch confusing at first but it definitely met with my expectation of creepy and unlikely monsters. 3.5/5
Charlaine Harris—The Glitter of the Crowns
Very interesting and very unexpected. This definitely needs to be a movie somewhere. 4/5
Tim Bryant—Doll’s Eyes
Weird, dark, disturbing but a little vague. The abstractness of it didn’t grab as it has in other tales. 3/5
Neal Barrett, Jr.—Bloaters
It kept bouncing around between different characters and did an inadequate job of telling me what monsters we were dealing with. 2/5
Chet Williamson—Detritus
I get that it was going for a slow building but I was bored until the last couple of pages. The ending didn’t jibe well with the rest of the story. There needed to be a stronger connection for the shock value to pay off. 1.5/5
Anne Perry—Monster
This is how you do a slow building. You give me enough to keep it interesting while I was trying to figure out the mystery. 4/5
Al Sarrantonio—Orange Lake
I feel like there was more backstory than I was getting but a solid creep story. 3.5/5
Selina Rosen—Nathan
Twisted, creepy, depressing, easy to explain. Leaves you a bit of eeriness at the end. 4/5
Bradley Denton—Blood Moccasins
Slow building, good job establishing characters and creatures, and justice plus creepiness at the end. 5/5
Joe R. Lansdale—The Case of the Angry Traveler (A Dana Roberts Novella)
This one is a bit longer so it had time to build a small world and set a dramatic scene.
I gave this 4/5 but for fun, I calculated the average based on my story rating. It was still 4 stars. If you like monsters or creepy stories, this is definitely work a read.
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