Rating: 
Summary: A great book
Review: This book was enjoyable for me, especially since I'm just polishing up my own book of short horror stories. Every tale was unique in some way or another, but Christopher Pike really took the cake with his two-part story--highly original. I think this is one of the best collection of horror stories for young adult readers. Even though some stories may be just plain "eerie", that's what I like about them. They're entertaining.
Rating:
Summary: A great book
Review: This book was enjoyable for me, especially since I'm just polishing up my own book of short horror stories. Every tale was unique in some way or another, but Christopher Pike really took the cake with his two-part story--highly original. I think this is one of the best collection of horror stories for young adult readers. Even though some stories may be just plain "eerie", that's what I like about them. They're entertaining.
Rating: 
Summary: Mostly great stories.
Review: This is a collection of mostly very good stories. I like The Hacker and the Collect Call chapters the best. I gave it four out of five because there is one or two stories that bore me and I couldn't finish it. One was something like the Gutilici or something. Lucianda was a little interesting but also nothing special.Pick it up if you like horror books but aren't sure you're ready for Stephen King/John Saul horror!
Rating:
Summary: Mostly great stories.
Review: This is a collection of mostly very good stories. I like The Hacker and the Collect Call chapters the best. I gave it four out of five because there is one or two stories that bore me and I couldn't finish it. One was something like the Gutilici or something. Lucianda was a little interesting but also nothing special. Pick it up if you like horror books but aren't sure you're ready for Stephen King/John Saul horror!
Rating: 
Summary: An anthology with mediocre and decent horror stories
Review: This pocket book is fine for carrying on the bus--the stories are short and easy to read. However, the reader isn't always rewarded for the trouble. The intriguing cover promises 13 thrilling stories from 13 different authors of young fiction and this is an overstatement,at best. Granted, some of the stories are juicy, such as "Blood Kiss" and "The Doll"; some of the images are eery, such as the deer. But as a whole, this is a disappointing book and some of the stories are not even as scary or interesting as eating Sunday breakfast. Instead of spending an hour on this book, spend the evening watching an episode of "Unsolved Mysteries"
Rating: 
Summary: hu?
Review: this was the funniest book ever! i am such a freak ha ha ha ha. might as well not read this one eh? i was laughing so much durring ths story i think i made skidds on the lone hiway ( if ya know what i mean eh? ) this is one sad storry. hey i think i have homework.
Rating:
Summary: "13 Tales of Horror by 13 Masters of Horror"
Review: Well, technically, there are 14 short stories, since Christopher Pike's contains two parts, set at the beginning and end of "Thirteen." The first part ("Collect Call I") is about two girls who drive home after a party, except they get into an accident and one of them dies. Then the remaining girl starts receiving messages on her answering machine from the dead girl. The second part ("Collect Call II: The Black Walker") begins some time after the fatal accident, when the remaining girl starts dating the mysterious Bobby Walker--only to be reunited with the other dead girl. Now, I'm a big Christopher Pike fan, but I didn't think this two-part short story was his best work; in fact, these two stories are somewhat weaker compared to some of the other 12 stories shown below (if you'd rather not know what they're about, just skip the following three paragraphs and read the last paragraph--don't worry; I didn't give away the endings): "Lucinda" by Lael Littke -- A 16-year-old girl and her older brother return to their hometown to investigate the six-year-old death of his girlfriend. As explained in Littke's bio at the end of this book, the location for this story was based on real events--of "a real town that was moved when the nearby river was damned and the valley flooded." I really liked the original setting; it gives the whole story a remote, ghost town quality--and even an Atlantis feel when the town had been under water. >> "The Guiccioli Miniature" by Jay Bennett -- Set in Venice, Italy, a young college student is approached by a poor painter to buy one of his copies of the Guiccioli miniature. This 8-paged story is not your typical horror fare; it kind of sticks out because of its more "intelligent" horror and open ending. >> "Blood Kiss" by D.E. Athkins -- Elizabeth and her two girl friends fall for the new boy who everybody thinks is a vampire. This story has a lighter, more humorous mood than the rest. >> "A Little Taste of Death" by Patricia Windsor -- A 15-year-old girl reads an eerie ad in the newspaper that requests she contact someone about a 10-year-old event. This one was okay, but leaves a few questions unanswered. Restates the obvious: Never take candy from a stranger. "The Doll" by Carol Ellis -- After moving in to her family's new home, 16-year-old Abby finds a doll in the attic that tries to harm Abby's friends and family. >> "House of Horrors" by J.B. Stamper -- While working as a guide at the House of Horrors, Mark is invited to an after-hours party in the wax museum. This was another good one; it vaguely reminded me of the movie "Waxworks," though it was based on Stamper's experience at a famous wax museum in London. Readers will certainly be able to relate to Mark's claustrophobia. >> "Where the Deer Are" by Caroline B. Cooney -- Walking to school one day with her four friends, Tiffany has a premonition that Nature (which consists of the nearby deer, woods, and cliff known as Dead Kid Curve) has decided to claim one of them after 25 years. But who will it be? This one has a Nature vs. Human theme, and reminded me a little of Cooney's Losing Christina trilogy, with the paranoia, isolation, and her darker, more spare writing. Definitely one of the weirder ones. >> "The Spell" by R.L. Stine -- A young girl's boyfriend gets interested in hypnotism and uses his new talent to get even with his friends who had teased him about it. I'm not a big Stine fan, but this one was good. The ending--though left open--was effectively scary. "Dedicated to the One I Love" by Diane Hoh -- One by one, three friends hear a radio dedication to them, made by their two-timing (or, in this case, three-timeing) ex-boyfriend Richie--and one by one, each girl has a tragic accident. This one gets better as you read; there's a twist halfway through it. >> "Hacker" by Sinclair Smith -- A young student becomes a serial killer's next victim when she starts receiving messages from him on her class computer. This one was rather disappointing because of how easy it is to guess the killer; there aren't very many characters in it. >> "Deathflash" by A. Bates -- As mentioned in Bates' bio, this one is about good vs. evil--about a young girl who fears a soul-consuming creature is after her. >> "The Boy Next Door" by Ellen Emerson White -- A young girl working in an ice cream parlor (during winter, of all times) is robbed and threatened by one of her childhood friends. This is another favorite of mine; it's very suspenseful and has a great ending. As shown above, the majority of stories in "Thirteen" involve ghosts, the supernatural, curses and superstitions, vampires, murderous dolls, scary wax museums, hypnotism, and--what horror anthology wouldn't be complete without--serial killers. Some of these stories are bloody, but even notorious gore writers like R.L. Stine are able to tame it a bit. Whether or not that's a good thing depends on your taste of horror, I guess. But no matter what your level of horror is, "Thirteen" is definitely worth owning, especially if you're a fan of one or more of the authors in this book.
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