It had to have been quite a job curating all of these stories. I think it would have been nice to have them in date order to really suss out the changes and trends, but with this many stories, it probably made sense to split them out differently. 'The Whimper of Whipped Dogs,' by Harlan Ellison 'There's a Long, Long Trail A-Winding,' by Russell Kirk 'The Bright Segment,' by Theodore Sturgeon

'Good Country People,' by Flannery O'Connor 'Born of Man and Woman,' by Richard Matheson

'The Yellow Wallpaper,' by Charlotte Perkins 'The Repairer of Reputations,' by Robert W. 'The Beautiful Stranger,' by Shirley Jackson 'The Beckoning Fair One,' by Oliver Onions 'A Little Something for us Tempunauts,' by Philip K. It was a strong set of stories, and they all deserved a place in the history of horror. I got to read classics I wouldn't have read elsewhere.

There was a lot more cleverness in some of the older stories compared to the harder twist ending we employ now (though the twist was strong back then, too). I may not have loved every story, but I learned a lot about the history of horror and how it's been shaped and changed through the years. The other two sections were livelier, and the closing story was a strong finish.Īs big as this book was, it would take me forever to do a full, real review of this, so what I'd like to convey, in general, is that this is a magnificent collection of stories to read if you're fond of the horror genre or work within it. I found that I enjoyed the classic ghost and haunted house stories, but others in that era left me unsatisfied. The middle slumped for me, with many of them being older, more literary horror stories. Instead of going in date order, he split the book into three parts: The Color of Evil, The Medusa in the Shield, and A Fabulous Formless Darkness. The stories went through the mid-eighties, with stories by Stephen King, Clive Barker, and Dennis Etchison, with many more in between. In this anthology, Hartwell traces the history of horror, with stories going back to the likes of William Faulkner, Walter de la Mare, and Algernon Blackwood. Although that's also partially due to the fact that many of the stories are older, with slower pacing and more elaborate language, which slowed me down, too. This sucker ran 1011 pages, with the final story going right up to the last page, so it took me awhile to get through it.

The dark descent hartwell