Rating: 
Summary: Chills during summer!
Review: 'You felt as if you were bleeding to death, only inside your head...' This excellent description of feeling uncomfortable comes early on in the new Stephen King story to be found in this horror anthology. In the story, the narrator is viewing a particularly horrible painting, which is going to have a particularly horrible effect on his life. But it's also an appropriate description of how a good horror story should make a reader feel: threatened, in danger, in a quiet way. Reading horror is different to watching it at the movies - it's easy to feel scared in a dark cinema. A bit harder, though, to do it through a book. 999, a collection of previously-unpublished work in the horror genre, does it - and does it many times. The anthology contains a short novel from William Peter Blatty, author of the famed scary novel The Exorcist; novellas by David Morrell (creator of the Rambo books and also a fine horror writer) and Joyce Carol Oates; and more than two dozen shorter pieces - including an effort from Stephen King, The Road Virus Heads North. Many readers will turn to the King story first, and they won't be disappointed. It's short, sharp and shocking, and will frighten even the most sceptical realist. In the story, bestselling horror novelist Richard Kinnell buys a painting at a yard sale. It shows a deathly figure driving a car, and it's theme of horror and death appeals to Kinnell. From the moment he buys the picture, Kinnell is doomed. The reader knows this, but it's a tribute to King's skill at the macabre that over twenty pages of steadily-mounting paranoia and suspense pass before the bloody conclusion is reached. Once done with King readers will turn to the less well-known authors here, hoping that standards aren't too bad. For example, the first story in 999 is by Kim Newman, an writer of moderately prominent vampire tales. Newman's story, Amerikanski Dead at the Moscow Morgue, is almost as good as King's. It is set in a gruesome Moscow of the near-future and has American citizens from all walks of life wandering around the Russian capital as zombies, with an appetite for fresh human flesh. The atmosphere of freezing fear in a chaotic Moscow is brilliantly conveyed in the story, and the horror of how the zombies have to be dealt with chills the bones. Most of the other stories in 999 are of a similarly high standard - they will provide chills of fear and horror in a hot Perth summer. The apocalyptic theme to many of the stories is summed up in the book's title. 999 is a contraction of the year of its publication, but it is also 666 - the Number of the Beast and the figure that heralds the End of Days.
Rating: 
Summary: Horror Fans Take Heed
Review: A must read for all avid horror fans. Like an array of desserts that keep on coming, except with these you never get full. Even if your just a fan of mainstream horror authors, this book has those, and it may introduce some other authors that deserve more notice. Notables left out would be Clive Barker. Poppy Z. Brite, and Dan Simmons, but hey no anthologies perfect. Buy this, and have a good time!
Rating:
Summary: Better than Most Modern Horror Anthologies
Review: As an avid reader of horror anthologies, I enjoyed 999 more than most because of the quality of work and authors selected. I would rate this work favorably with such horror anthologies as Dark Forces, Stalkers, Metahorror and my favorite, Silver Scream. Not all of the stories are outstanding of course, but I particularly enjoyed the stories by Ligotti, Oates, Campbell and Lansdale. Ligotti and Lansdale fans should pick this one up just for their stories alone.
Rating:
Summary: Better than Most Modern Horror Anthologies
Review: As an avid reader of horror anthologies, I enjoyed 999 more than most because of the quality of work and authors selected. I would rate this work favorably with such horror anthologies as Dark Forces, Stalkers, Metahorror and my favorite, Silver Scream. Not all of the stories are outstanding of course, but I particularly enjoyed the stories by Ligotti, Oates, Campbell and Lansdale. Ligotti and Lansdale fans should pick this one up just for their stories alone.
Rating: 
Summary: 999
Review: At its best, Yawn...Don't bother
Rating:
Summary: Poor
Review: Bad writing contributes to the bulk of this volume. Some very bad, Bentley Little's attack of the killer pumpkins is typical.
Rating:
Summary: 999: new stories of horror and suspense
Review: Great writers. Mediocre stories for the most part. Yes, the Stephen King story is good and so is the F. Paul Wilson story. But some of the other stories must have been written on a break between their major works. The one exception is the Joe Lansdale novellas (Mad Dog Summer). This is a truly great story.
Rating: 
Summary: some good, but...
Review: I don't see how everybody can say the Lansdale story was so great. I mean, it was even predictable! A PREDICTABLE LANSDALE STORY?!?!? The King offering wasn't anything that wonderful, Oates and Gaiman were just plain boring, and I was extremely disappointed in the Nancy Collins story as well. The few standouts were Ed Lee (yuck!), Partridge, and Wilson, with a few other decent offerings. I tried really hard to enjoy this, but it was more of a chore than a pleasure to read. Still, not too terrible of a way to spend your time.
Rating:
Summary: Worth it, Overall
Review: I have a dog-eared copy of Kirby McCauley's "Dark Forces" - probably the best collection of horror and suspense thus far. "999" is a close second. It's always fun to read material from unfamiliar writers, but less fun to read the old stand-bys. King's short story is predictable and self-derivitive; and William Peter Blatty's novella is so filled with purple prose and almost Bulwer-Littonish bad writing that I couldn't even finish it. And Joyce Carol Oates is good -- as usual, but her point of view confused me. Who is the narrator? One of the children? Which child? There were quite a few editorial thorns in this anthology as well. In "An Exultation of Termagants" one character's name is spelled LILLY at one point, and then it inexplicably changes to LILY thereafter. Is there a reason for this? Did I miss something? In other stories fine, unimportant details are not kept track of very well. (A blue Jeep Cherokee is later described as a green Jeep etc.) Minor, nit-picky points, but I still get annoyed by things like that. Overall, though, this is a fun collection to have and I'm keeping an eye on some of the lesser-known writers. Go ahead: buy this one!
Rating:
Summary: Worth it, Overall
Review: I have a dog-eared copy of Kirby McCauley's "Dark Forces" - probably the best collection of horror and suspense thus far. "999" is a close second. It's always fun to read material from unfamiliar writers, but less fun to read the old stand-bys. King's short story is predictable and self-derivitive; and William Peter Blatty's novella is so filled with purple prose and almost Bulwer-Littonish bad writing that I couldn't even finish it. And Joyce Carol Oates is good -- as usual, but her point of view confused me. Who is the narrator? One of the children? Which child? There were quite a few editorial thorns in this anthology as well. In "An Exultation of Termagants" one character's name is spelled LILLY at one point, and then it inexplicably changes to LILY thereafter. Is there a reason for this? Did I miss something? In other stories fine, unimportant details are not kept track of very well. (A blue Jeep Cherokee is later described as a green Jeep etc.) Minor, nit-picky points, but I still get annoyed by things like that. Overall, though, this is a fun collection to have and I'm keeping an eye on some of the lesser-known writers. Go ahead: buy this one!
|
