5.0 out of 5 stars
A horror book not to be missed, April 5 2007
This review is from: Read By Dawn: Volume One (Paperback)
Read By Dawn: Volume 1
edited by Adele Hartley
hosted by Ramsey Campbell
With twenty-eight stories filling its pages, it would not have been surprising if a few of the stories in Read By Dawn: Volume 1 had missed the mark, fell flat or just plain old stunk. That's why I approached it with a deep sense of caution, ready to be disappointed by a few of the stories but hoping to find a few gems. The gems I found in spades; the disappointments I did not.
This book is that rare beast: a collection of horror stories so diverse from a group of international authors that come together and form a tenacious unit. It's the Frankenstein's monster of anthologies, the stories - the parts - all the more terrifying due to their effortless cohesion. True, a few of the stories show their stitches (an odd word choice here, a typo there), but these are few and far between. Credit for this must go not only to the authors but to the editor as well.
With so much variety in the selected stories, everyone will doubtlessly have their own unique favourites. Mine, in order of appearance:
"The Color in the Jar" by David McGillveray: As the first entry in the anthology, this story has the formidable task of getting the train rolling, of making the reader want to carry on with the rest of the stories. It's with an equal mix of fantasy and familiarity that it succeeds, and the book is on the right track. It's the Pulp Fiction style of intrigue and the quest of the strong, silent Smiling Man that sets this story apart.
"The Seventh Green at Lost Lakes" by Scott Brendel: My personal favourite. It's easily one of the most readable entries, it's laced throughout with a sardonic wit and it's about a mysterious golf course. Brendel is a skilled writer of horror/comedy, right up there with Jeff Strand and Christopher Moore. If you're going to read only one of the stories, this is the one.
"The Bridge Chamber" by Rayne Hall: A story so familiar in its nostalgic knowledge of childhood's myriad challenges, anyone who was once a child themselves will be simultaneously chilled and panicked while reading. A very claustrophobic story.
"Popee" by Justin Madison: The second most humourous of the offerings, but first in its sublime sense of gruesome laughs. It's the zombie version of Little Miss Sunshine, with the grandfather rising from the dead, and the dysfunctional family struggling to find their way in an undead world.
"The Little Girl Who Lives in the Woods" by Ralph Robert Moore: Clearly the most disturbing story in the book, and the hardest to swallow, but it's vivid prose and raw imagery make it a powerful read, and one that's impossible to forget. The title alone sends shivers down my spine.
"The Place of Revelation" by Ramsey Campbell: Mature and literary; it's on the outset very grownup, which renders the reader in awe as it unfolds. It is a children's fairytale of sorts, akin to a 21st century telling of a Grimm tale, although much more dark and engrossing.
"What Betty Saw" by Joel Jacobs: The final story, and one of the briefest, which is exactly its greatest strength. What Betty sees will undoubtedly leave you speechless and shaking, unwilling to let the book go, and will remind you that in the creation of powerful, memorable fiction, size doesn't matter.
That's only seven of the stories that worked best for me, with twenty-one remaining for you to discover on your own. It's time to sew the gory parts together, hook the monster up to the power generator and flip the switch. The monster is alive, it's alive, and it's waiting for you...
Read By Dawn: Volume 2 will be released in April 2007 by Bloody Books.
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