Bob Morrish

October Dreams 2 – Edited by Richard Chizmar & Robert Morrish
⭐ 3.75 / 5

This follow-up to the original October Dreams opens and closes in fine form. The early stories—especially Mr. Dark’s Carnival and Stephen Graham Jones’s Universal Horror—cut straight to what Halloween should be: mortal unease, guilt made flesh, and the suspicion that the dead have simply been standing beside us all year. The final stretch returns to that level of darkness, with strong pieces from writers like show more John Skip and James A. Moore giving the book the sharp teeth it needs.

The middle section, though, drifts too deep into reminiscence. The “Halloween Memories” essays, charming as concept, often feel more manufactured than remembered, and many of the stories around them share that sentimental glow. After a while, the nostalgia dilutes the dread; it becomes less a haunted anthology and more a scrapbook of autumn afternoons.

Still, the book’s best tales justify the journey. When it’s good, it’s really good—poignant, eerie, and aware that Halloween’s sweetness only matters because decay waits underneath. Shorter and more focused than the first volume, October Dreams 2 lands as an uneven but worthy companion: a reminder that the spirit of October is equal parts childhood wonder and adult reckoning. show less

October Dreams: A Celebration of Halloween – Review (3.5/5)

A massive, uneven love letter to Halloween. The fiction is often strong—standouts like Pay the Ghost, The Black Pumpkin, Lantern Marsh, Masks, Boo, Halloween 25, and The Whitby Experience still carry real unease and sorrow. But the book keeps stopping to deliver “Halloween memories” that read more like sentimental campfire monologues than genuine recollections. The endless nostalgia—razor-blade myths and all—starts to show more dull the edge.

For readers who want cozy autumn warmth with a hint of darkness, it’s perfect. But if you come to Halloween for fear, atmosphere, and a sense that something wicked might actually come, this anthology feels too safe, too wistful, and a little dishonest. show less

After meaning to get around to this anthology for more than a decade, I've finally done it, and while I have to say it was a faster read than expected, it was also an up-and-down one...perhaps more so than I'd hope from an anthology containing so many big names.

The highlights here, for me, weren't the short stories, but the various "Halloween Memories" included as short anecdotes and stories from the authors' own lives. Many of these shorter works did more work in carrying the spirit of show more Halloween than the short stories themselves, though there were certainly some standouts among the stories. Unfortunately, the 'down' moments in the anthology are what I believe may stay in my mind longer--in particular, an overly long essay on Halloween films that I disagreed with on nearly every point made and an anti-abortion story by F. Paul Wilson that I only wish I could strike from my mind.

All told, I'm not sure I'd go into another anthology by these particular editors, but I'm glad to have finally gotten around to this anthology, and as I said, there were certainly some stand-out stories. The memories alone, though, I'd say, were more than worth the cost of admission. show less

This book is a lovely holiday companion piece.

I am a seasonal reader. When the days become noticeably shorter, usually August here in my hometown, I start reading material of a supernatural, horrific type. This goes on until after Halloween, through the dark days of the winter solstice. After the solstice my head turns towards all those lovely floor plans, both the Victorian kind published by Downing, Sloan and Bicknell as well as all the more recent floor plans available online.

This is an show more essential volume in the library of everyone whose favorite holiday theme is black and orange. At times it is as nostalgic and sticky sweet as candy corn, at other times as bleak and atmospheric as a harvested cornfield guarded by one lone eerie scarecrow.

If only this book would emanate the aromas of candle wax, dead leaves and scorched pumpkin when the pages are opened.............it would be a perfect world. show less