Haunted Houses: The Greatest Stories

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining, but uneven
Review: A very uneven collection of stories where some truly horrific classics are nearly overshadowed by the unfortunate inclusion of more contemporary 'literary' shorts. Definitely not a book to be read cover-to-cover, but the classics are well-worth the price.

Rating:
Summary: Good balance between 'mouldy oldies' and newer hauntings
Review: In "Haunted Houses: The Greatest Stories", Martin H. Greenberg has collected a few old favorites, e.g. "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and "The Rats in the Walls" by H.P. Lovecraft. I'm not an avid Lovecraftian, but I like this story for its sheer awfulness. Just when the reader feels that the unlucky inheritor of Lovecraft's mansion has suffered enough, something worse happens to him. "The Judge's House" by Bram Stoker (rats figure prominently in this story, too) is another mouldy oldie but goodie. It has always reminded me of J. Sheridan Le Fanu's "An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street", although I think Le Fanu's story is the scarier of the two.

There are also some good not-so-collected stories by Ruth Rendell and Joyce Carol Oates, among others. My favorite is "The Tearing of Greymare House" by Michael Reeves. It piles on so much horror that I had to put the story down for awhile before I could read to the end. I think Reeves 'out-Kings' Stephen King in this last selection of the book. Kudos to Martin H. Greenberg for searching out good haunted house stories that haven't yet been over-collected.

Rating:
Summary: Good balance between 'mouldy oldies' and newer hauntings
Review: In "Haunted Houses: The Greatest Stories", Martin H. Greenberg has collected a few old favorites, e.g. "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and "The Rats in the Walls" by H.P. Lovecraft. I'm not an avid Lovecraftian, but I like this story for its sheer awfulness. Just when the reader feels that the unlucky inheritor of Lovecraft's mansion has suffered enough, something worse happens to him. "The Judge's House" by Bram Stoker (rats figure prominently in this story, too) is another mouldy oldie but goodie. It has always reminded me of J. Sheridan Le Fanu's "An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street", although I think Le Fanu's story is the scarier of the two.

There are also some good not-so-collected stories by Ruth Rendell and Joyce Carol Oates, among others. My favorite is "The Tearing of Greymare House" by Michael Reeves. It piles on so much horror that I had to put the story down for awhile before I could read to the end. I think Reeves 'out-Kings' Stephen King in this last selection of the book. Kudos to Martin H. Greenberg for searching out good haunted house stories that haven't yet been over-collected.