Rating: 
Summary: Perhaps one good story
Review: MAGIC TERROR is an anthology of previously released material compiled together into one book. Most of the stories are complex and it only creates confusion to his readers. Some of the stories are very disturbing in which we get inside the minds of madmen, such as the lead characters in ASHPUTTLE and BUNNY IS GOOD BREAD. The first story involves a kindergarten teacher who takes revenge out of something that happened in her childhood. The other story shows the evolution of a serial killer with the help of good old dad.This collection of short stories is mainly for Peter Straub loyalists who enjoy reading his work. His novels are much better than his short stories. Try THE HELLFIRE CLUB or GHOST STORY for a real fun time.
Rating: 
Summary: Straub's Finest
Review: Magic Terror is one of the best collections of suspense and horror fiction I've read in a long while. "Mr. Clubb and Mr. Cuff" alone is worth the price of this involving and often disturbing assortment of stories by one of the best writers of our time.
Rating: 
Summary: Again! another mixed up mess by Mr. Straub
Review: My first immediate reaction to this particular type of writing/story telling of Mr. Straub is "Jesus cripe get to the bloody point! Where is the story? and Let's get on with it!" As in Mr. X and Ghost Story Mr. Straub takes you on a boring meandering trip to nowhere. Example: Porkpie Hat. Mr. Straub takes 20 pgs to introduce this 'main' character Hat, as the all time greatest sax musician blah blah blah. Yet all that build up has absolutely nothing to do with the 'real story', which is a dull adventure of two kids on Halloween night into a back woods community. Only two of the stories were half decent. The Ghost Village I've read before somewhere and I believe it's a little history to The Blue Rose Murders series (Koko, Mystery, The Throat). It's a Vietnam experiance. 'Bunny is Good Bread' started out great but in what seems to be Mr.Straubs sometime fashion/tendancy, it soon became redundant therefore it stalled and slowly died. It also I believe is connected to the Blue Rose Murders too tho I'm not sure, it's been a very long time sense I read the The Blue Rose Murders series (Koko, Mystery, The Throat). I have not read all of Peter Straubs books but from what I have read I've concluded that there are two Peter Straubs. Spilt personality? The Hellfire Club, Mystery, The Throat, Shadowland and of course The Talisman are beautiful stories. I love em! Ghost Story, Mr. X, Koko, Houses Without Doors, Mrs. God and now this Magic Terror are not stories at all, in my opinion, but just ramblings. There's no core or thread to the writing in these books. And Mr. Srtraub kills any kind of feelings for or connections with the characters and their situation by endless repetive ramblings. It's like he just keeps tapping you on the shoulder over and over and OVER! till you just want to whip around and scream, ALL RIGHT ALREADY, I HEAR YA!
Rating:
Summary: Typical Straub
Review: Not having read Straub for some time, I decided to come back for another try. Sorry, I still find him tedious, boring and simply not scary. To have him compared to Stephen King is absurd ! Most of these stories are utterly uninteresting and written with at least twice the verbage needed. "Hunger, An Introduction" actually is painfull to try to complete. I found myself skimming pages just to get it over with. "Bunny Is Good Bread" is incredibly sick and perverted. More than any other story in this book, it shows how far behind Straub is from his hero Stephen King (or a score of other writers). If you must read it, get it from the library. Do NOT buy it.
Rating:
Summary: Wait Until the Paperback Comes Out
Review: Out of seven stories, three were worth the read. The Ghost Village was the first. It is about a platoon of soldiers who stumble upon a deserted village, discovering a chamber of horror beneath a hut. Then there are the ghosts, who include fellow platoon members as well as the villagers. I think I'll remember this story for a long time.The second was Bunny is Good Bread. Place yourself in the shoes of a five year-old boy, who is forced to watch his crazy father care for his dying mother while trying to keep the latter a secret from the outside world. Gruesome.Porkpie Hat was my favorite, although I think Straub could have cut out much of Part One, editing it down to a page or two. After the narrator finds legendary jazz musician Hat, the story really takes off. Hat retells his horrifying journey into the backwoods (called "The Backs") of Mississippi, where he and a friend witness a brutal murder of a white girl behind a black community. The two kids escape The Backs, but not after being seen, and not without personal repercussions.The rest of the stories just didn't do much for me in the way of suspense or horror.
Rating: 
Summary: Check it out from the Library
Review: Out of the seven stories in this book, I found three to be worthwhile reads. Ashputtle was pathetically disturbing. The woman should've been committed a long time ago. I gave up on "Isn't It Romantic?" after the second page. I found I couldn't give two hoots what happened to N. The Ghost Villiage was creepy. This involves a platoon of soldiers who stumble upon a deserted villiage and discover a hidden torture chamber beneath a hut. The ghosts of the victims follow them out. Then, the ghosts of the fallen platoon members start haunting the survivors. That story was good.Bunny Is Good Bread was very intense and very disturbing. It involves a five year-old boy who watches his mother die slowly while his father beats him continually. I read the story all the way through, but it left a bad taste inside my brain. That kid should've gotten a happy ending.Porkpie Hat was the best story in the collection. Straub could've cut out most of Part One and condensed it into a paragraph. It is about a famous musician named Hat, who witnessed a brutal murder in the backwoods of his community. There was a lot of dark magic and tragic consequences, which carried through the rest of the man's life. I liked it.Hunger, an Introduction and Mr. Clubb and Mr. Cuff, I gave up on.I hate to give this such a bad review because I really like Peter Straub's stories. This is his first dud, I think. Sorry, Peter.
Rating:
Summary: Cheap Tricks in "Magic Terror."
Review: Over half of these shorts were taken from novels PS wrote earlier. So nothing new here. The remainder were as turgid and unreadable as his latest endeavors into the literary world have indicated. These stories simply went nowhere and, with the exception of the Cuff tale, were tedious.
Rating: 
Summary: Thinking Man's Horror
Review: Peter Straub is never an easy read, even in some of his mostaccessible works like Ghost Story. Direct comparisons to the likes of Stephen King are fruitless, since about the only thing they have in common is their genre and the fact that the two authors seem to have immense mutual respect for each other. (The best story in this collection, "Bunny is Good Bread," is dedicated to King.) I maintain, however, that Straub is more than worth the effort. While King's work has a consistency of style to it (I am also a huge fan of his writing), Straub's voice tends to change from story to story. The lead-off story, "Ashputtle," has the tone of a seriously twisted, very disturbing fairy tale to it--a psychotic teacher who envisions herself a disenfranchised princess. The next, "Isn't It Romantic," is a tale of an assassin, himself the hunted now, on his last job; it's easily the least of the 7 tales here, despite a good twist ending. "The Ghost Village," set in Vietnam and with some of the characters familiar from the Blue Rose trilogy, has several plot lines, all involving the theme of taking care of those close to you--a solid story. #4, "Bunny is Good Bread," is a stunner--the tale of the childhood evolution of a serial killer. The gradual detachment from reality of the lead character, accompanied by traumatic scene after scene at the hand of his father, is actually painful to read. In my opinion, one of the best things Straub has ever written. "Porkpie Hat" is a kind of jazz-tinged supernatural story (although the denouement suggests there may have been nothing supernatural about the events in the story). "Hunger, an Introduction" is a tale about the relation of ghosts to those still on this mortal plain. The last, "Mr. Clubb and Mr. Cuff," is a joy to read--a pitch-black comedy about revenge and its consequences. The (shameless) stealing from the classic Melville tale "Bartleby the Scrivener" only adds to the enjoyment. A very good collection overall, far from deserving the relatively low composite rating it's gotten here.
Rating:
Summary: The Magic Works - Sometimes
Review: Peter Straub is the bestselling author who most suffers from brevity. He requires a broad canvas and a generous amount of time, to really make a story click. He also - like Anne Rice and Stephen King - seems utterly incapable of escaping his own literary world, constantly recycling characters and elements from his preceding novels into his newer works, which is interesting in its own way, but grows tiring after a time. However, he is sufficiently versatile to pretty well guarantee at least one or two satisfying reads to any given reader, in any collection of his shorter pieces. Straub is the closest living writer we have to an Edgar Allen Poe, and these stories reflect his talents well. Three of the stories in Magic Terror expand on characters and plots already encountered in Straub's previous "Blue Rose" mystery novels, and two of them - "Bunny Is Good Bread" and "Porkpie Hat" - are quite good as stand-alones, on their own merits. His crowning story, "Mr. Clubb and Mr. Cuff," obviously owes a little something to Poe's "System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether," and is less a horror story than an absurdist black comedy written by the Marquis de Sade. My own personal favorites are a story told by a recently departed murderer about the crime that landed him on death row, and another relating a humorous series of bad turns taken between spies and hit-men - both, like "Clubb and Cuff," twisted black comedies worthy of Edward Gorey or The Addams Family. Definitely not the author's best, but still worthy of attention.
Rating:
Summary: The Magic Works - Sometimes
Review: Peter Straub is the bestselling author who most suffers from brevity. He requires a broad canvas and a generous amount of time, to really make a story click. He also - like Anne Rice and Stephen King - seems utterly incapable of escaping his own literary world, constantly recycling characters and elements from his preceding novels into his newer works, which is interesting in its own way, but grows tiring after a time. However, he is sufficiently versatile to pretty well guarantee at least one or two satisfying reads to any given reader, in any collection of his shorter pieces. Straub is the closest living writer we have to an Edgar Allen Poe, and these stories reflect his talents well. Three of the stories in Magic Terror expand on characters and plots already encountered in Straub's previous "Blue Rose" mystery novels, and two of them - "Bunny Is Good Bread" and "Porkpie Hat" - are quite good as stand-alones, on their own merits. His crowning story, "Mr. Clubb and Mr. Cuff," obviously owes a little something to Poe's "System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether," and is less a horror story than an absurdist black comedy written by the Marquis de Sade. My own personal favorites are a story told by a recently departed murderer about the crime that landed him on death row, and another relating a humorous series of bad turns taken between spies and hit-men - both, like "Clubb and Cuff," twisted black comedies worthy of Edward Gorey or The Addams Family. Definitely not the author's best, but still worthy of attention.
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