Reviews

Touch Wood, by William Relling Jr., Spider Robinson, Christopher Evans, D.F. Lewis, Adam Corbin Fusco, Bill Pronzini, T. Winter-Damon, John Brunner, Colin Greenland, Ramsey Campbell, Charles de Lint, Bentley Little, Stella Hargreaves, Stan Nicholls, Simon Ings, Garry Kilworth, Yvonne Navarro, Peter Crowther, Steve Lockley, Stanley Wiater, Karl Edward Wagner, Neil Gaiman, Michael Marshall Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Charles L. Grant, Thomas F. Monteleone

camerontrost's review

2.0

It wasn't easy deciding whether to give this anthology two or three stars, but I've gone with just two. Why? Well, it's generally hard to rate an anthology, because you inevitably like some contributions more than others. The main problem is that this book contains twenty-five works over three hundred and seventy-two pages, but only four of them impressed me. That's not to say that I thought all the others were bad. The writing in itself was generally fine, but most lacked originality, effect, or a point of any kind. The four that pulled me in are "The Ten O'Clock Horses" by Paul Lewis and "Funny Weather" by Steve Lockley (these writers both live in Wales and are friends who presumably work on their writing together), "Little Lessons in Gardening" by Karl Edward Gardner (beautifully written, creepy, informative - with regards to botany, and unusual), and "The Wager" by Thomas F. Monteleone, a gripping tale in the tradition of Poe. I would certainly be interested in reading more of these authors' stories.