Michele Slung

Three stars, this book was pretty much what you would expect. Most of the stories in the collection fit the theme accurately. I thought that some were better than others. 'A Quarter Past You' and 'The Master Builder' were psychological creepers. 'Ladies In Waiting' and 'Master' were both excellent with more elements of the paranormal. 'The Basilisk' was my favorite, a retelling of the Russian legend of Marina written in a style that is the literary equivalent of Pre-Raphaelite art; romantic, show more lush, descriptive and beautifully detailed. Unlike many reviewers of this collection, I do not have praise for the stories of the two "big name" authors, Barker and King; to be honest I was not impressed with the contributions of either. show less

Completely entertaining. Some stories are fun, some intensely serious. I didn't necessarily enjoy every story--I don't have an affinity for some of these authors (e.g., Cheever, Trollope, Faulkner)--but all of the stories were well chosen for this anthology. My favorites were:

1. The Fat Man by Isak Dinesen (the most affecting)
2. The Macbeth Murder Mystery by James Thurber (the funniest, of course)
3. The Widow and the Parrot: A True Story by Virginia Woolf (the happiest, most satisfying show more ending, and a surprise, since Woolf normally makes my eye twitch)
4. In Vino Veritas by A. A. Milne (excellent surprise ending)

#ReadICT category 8: Essay or short story collection show less

I picked this up primarily to read "The Revelations of 'Becka Paulson", which was a very good, creepy, short story! What 'Becka did with her eyebrow pencil nearly made me squirm right outta my skin! Ewww.... And it was cool to read this "original" version of the story, before it's appearance in "The Tommyknockers"! Oh, by the way, I work at the post office, and never in my 15 years has a gal like Nancy Voss transferred to my office. I wish! Just sayin'...

The rest of the collection? Meh.

...or to be more exact, maybe 2.75. I don't usually read horror OR sex books, so I don't know if I'm the best person to judge this, but I will say I found there to be, overall, not much of either. The book was hit-or-miss, as anthologies are wont to be, and more than a few times I found myself wondering if I'd ever get this G-d'd book finished! There were a few stories that saved it for me, however, especially : Eric McCormick's "Festival", which was haunting and poetic, Angela Carter's show more "Master" beautifully written, and, surprisingly for me, Clive Barker's "Jacqueline Ess...", which did fully combine sex and horror while allegorically touching on some deep, powerful truths about love, desire, & women. I picked it up for $1.50 @ the thrift store because the cover art is gorgeous & I thought the title was sexily poetic...so I got my $'s worth! show less