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Summary: The Spirit of Halloween Oozes from These Pages
Review: A demon who will grant your heart's desire in return for a taste of your blood. A legendary trick-or-treater who returns from the grave to help a youngster collect candy. A god of the urban highway who demands human sacrifices. All this and other haunting stories await you in HARVEST TALES AND MIDNIGHT REVELS: STORIES FOR THE WANING OF THE YEAR. These delightfully spine-tingling tales run the gamut of horror and Halloween themes. Some are outrageously humorous, some melancholy, and some frightening, but all of them are designed to bring back the spirit of All Hallows Eve for adults who long to celebrate the holiday as they did in their youth.This book came about as the result of yearly Halloween parties hosted by the editor and his best friend, parties for which invited guests were requested to bring a holiday-related story they'd written and read it aloud. Many of the guests were (or are still) in some way professionally connected with the literary world, the fine arts, filmmaking, or television, and their talents shine through in these wonderfully crafted tales. HARVEST TALES AND MIDNIGHT REVELS is one of the best anthologies of Halloween stories to come along in years. Even celebrated sci-fi and fantasy author Piers Anthony calls it "an impressive and original book, with an intriguing history of its own." And famed genre author and scriptwriter Larry Niven says "[these] stories are really good!" Any lover of Halloween or horror literature who enjoys getting a good set of goose bumps will want to add this book to their library. With HARVEST TALES AND MIDNIGHT REVELS handy, any day of the year can feel like Halloween!
Rating:
Summary: The Spirit of Halloween Oozes from These Pages
Review: A demon who will grant your heart's desire in return for a taste of your blood. A legendary trick-or-treater who returns from the grave to help a youngster collect candy. A god of the urban highway who demands human sacrifices. All this and other haunting stories await you in HARVEST TALES AND MIDNIGHT REVELS: STORIES FOR THE WANING OF THE YEAR. These delightfully spine-tingling tales run the gamut of horror and Halloween themes. Some are outrageously humorous, some melancholy, and some frightening, but all of them are designed to bring back the spirit of All Hallows Eve for adults who long to celebrate the holiday as they did in their youth. This book came about as the result of yearly Halloween parties hosted by the editor and his best friend, parties for which invited guests were requested to bring a holiday-related story they'd written and read it aloud. Many of the guests were (or are still) in some way professionally connected with the literary world, the fine arts, filmmaking, or television, and their talents shine through in these wonderfully crafted tales. HARVEST TALES AND MIDNIGHT REVELS is one of the best anthologies of Halloween stories to come along in years. Even celebrated sci-fi and fantasy author Piers Anthony calls it "an impressive and original book, with an intriguing history of its own." And famed genre author and scriptwriter Larry Niven says "[these] stories are really good!" Any lover of Halloween or horror literature who enjoys getting a good set of goose bumps will want to add this book to their library. With HARVEST TALES AND MIDNIGHT REVELS handy, any day of the year can feel like Halloween!
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic Collection
Review: A wonderful collection of short stories from an eclectic group of authors. Every story is different and new, ranging from funny to frightening. It makes the reader wish he had been invited to the story parties!
Rating: 
Summary: Harvest Tales wins TWO Benjamin Franklin Awards!
Review: Bald Mountain Books is pleased to announce that Harvest Tales & Midnight Revels won TWO 1999 Benjamin Franklin Awards, at a ceremony preceeding the BookExpo in Los Angeles at the end of April. Harvest Tales won Best Fiction/Drama and Best Cover Design (1-2 colors). It was also a finalist for the Best First Book award. The Benjamin Franklin Awards are sponsored by the Publishers Marketing Assocation and honor editorial and design excellence in publishing for books published each year.
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Summary: False Advertising
Review: I detested this book. There is nothing of Harvest Tales nor Midnight Revels in it, only one nihilistic depressing story after another. There are four poems that were ok and two stories that were ok, the rest was just road kill. The stories are utterly disconnected from the title of the book. I really really do not ever want to go to a party where such tales are read. Bletch.
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Summary: A Treasure for Halloween!!
Review: I loved this book! Thank you, Michael Mayhew. This anthology of creative storytelling at it's finest is a journey of laughs and screams through the Halloween season. I loved the idea of an adult storytelling party, and I am not offended in the least by Mayhew's last chapter that gives detailed instructions on how he does it. Yes, each will add their own touches to make the party their own, but a pattern that works is always a nice feature. Thank you. I hope there will be future editions.
Rating: 
Summary: Stick to your day jobs...Not what expected
Review: I was really excited when I ordered this book from Amazon.com. I try to read a Halloween themed book every October to put me in the Halloween spirit; this book fell short of my expectations though. There are a handful of good stories, about 5 of them, that made me feel my money wasn't totally wasted. But the rest are sub par stories written by non-professional writers. There was really something lacking. It was a stretch at best for some of these stories to even be in the book, because they didn't deal with Halloween, only loosely hinting at it. The idea behind the book was pretty cool; a compilation of stories originally read aloud on Halloween Night at a series of Halloween parties over a ten-year period. All I can say is that if these were the best stories from the parties, I am glad I wasn't invited! .
Rating:
Summary: Stick to your day jobs...Not what expected
Review: I was really excited when I ordered this book from Amazon.com. I try to read a Halloween themed book every October to put me in the Halloween spirit; this book fell short of my expectations though. There are a handful of good stories, about 5 of them, that made me feel my money wasn't totally wasted. But the rest are sub par stories written by non-professional writers. There was really something lacking. It was a stretch at best for some of these stories to even be in the book, because they didn't deal with Halloween, only loosely hinting at it. The idea behind the book was pretty cool; a compilation of stories originally read aloud on Halloween Night at a series of Halloween parties over a ten-year period. All I can say is that if these were the best stories from the parties, I am glad I wasn't invited! .
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Summary: This is the best Halloween book around!
Review: I've read lots of scary books and I have many favorites including the original Dracula by Bram Stoker.Many of Harvest Tales short stories come close to being a classic horror that could hold up over decades the way Mary Shelley and Edgar Allen Poe hold up.....these Harvest Tales especially: A Cross at the End of a Circle and Scooter Tillis and the Bag of Nutritious Snacks, The India Rubber Factory also deserves mentioning as does the poem by Ben Gorman -Promises. There is something for everyone here from yuk, ugh, gore, to mischevious evil pranks. I don't recommend reading -My Dinner with Buck to dinner guests. I heard these guys read about Buck on the radio in San Francisco and I happened to be eating breakfast - read it after eating - way after....it's a great story. That Buck - he always gets his way.....I want that Demon in - A Demon's Wish - just to have in my pocket for awhile.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Short Stories
Review: Some authors churn out great novels. Others turn out mediocre novels that would have been great short stories. One of the best things I can say about this anthology is that the writing is so concise and to the point. The authors have IDEAS to talk about and talk about well. If I had to name my three favorite stories from the book: The Demon's Wish: I want this to become a Twilight Zone episode. Brilliant in its character and simplicity. Dark Vegas: Creepy the way creepy was meant to be. The Indian Rubber Foot Factory: Surreal. Fascinating. Funny. If you've never tried a "whitman sampler" style book, where lots of different authors congregate loosely around a theme, Harvest Tales is a great introduction. At its best, its Ray Bradbury's October Country. At its worst...it's still Ray Bradbury's October Country. If I had one complaint it would be the guide on how to host your own story-reading party at the end of the book. It's rather patronizing. I strongly urge everyone to attempt their own story-reading gatherings, but I suggest you skip the editor's suggestions and figure out what works best for you and your friends.
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