Borderlands 5

I picked this up because of Stephen King, and his novella "Stationary Bike" really resonated with me on many levels. The rest of this collection is a big ol' meh. Not to be a jerk, as I certainly can't write at all, but I would like to see how bad the entries that weren't chosen were! A story like "All Hands" is the type I like least - no explanation at all for what occurs in it! And "Rami Temporais" is a closely disliked second type for me - the explanation exists in the story, but it makes no damn sense! "N0072-JK1" is just plain confusing and totally not worth reading at all! Ok, I'll stop there. It was just a disappointing collection for me. The end.

I bought this book several years ago solely for the Stephen King tale, which I had already read when I came to read the entire book this year. The front cover promises tales of Madness and Terror, and personally that was left wanting.

I am an avid horror reader and have read many tales on madness (those by Kev Hammond in particular are exceptional) and I didn't find any of them in this collection that were madness or terror filled, but maybe I am a little desensitized or my taste too specific.

I did find off-kilter, surreal, altered perception stories, which were interesting and intriguing.

There were a few memorable and enjoyable stories in there, like Prisoner 392 by Jon F Merz and One of Those Weeks, by Bev Vincent. But to believe that show more because these stories are in included in a 'From the Borderlands' collection they must be exceptional, I think is a little extreme. Other than being able to list well known writers on their cover, I felt there were many story collection in this genre just as good as these. show less

The stories in this book are... well, honestly, I didn't enjoy them much. So many different authors, yet all the stories seemed to have rushed or vague endings with no real conclusions. Quite honestly, this book was a disappointment to me.