charshorrorcorner's review
3.0
This was a collection of "10 Dark Tales of the Strange and Deranged".
When I saw this was up for review at Horror After Dark, I claimed it and looked forward to reading this collection.
I preface this review with the fact that I love horror short stories. I've been reading them since I was a young teen, starting with Poe, and Lovecraft, and then I moved on to King, Etchison, Ellison, Laird Barron, Steve Rasnic Tem etc. I've read all kinds-dark, weird, flash, bizarro, etc. There isn't very much in the world of short fiction that I haven't read before. It takes something extra special to come through for me these days, and I'm sad to say this wasn't it. That said, this collection may be scary, weird or disturbing to novices exploring this genre. It will not be any of those things to anyone familiar with the short works of King, Barker or Lee.
The standouts for me were: "Sylvan Rain", which I thought was the most unique tale in this collection; the title story "Through A Broken Window" which was an exceptionally well done piece which didn't try too hard to explain things, and "When the Horseman Comes to Town" because I loved Mad Mike MacDougal.
There were a few sections that I thought could have been better edited. For example this sentence from the last story: "Sometime in the night, the Spirit Wind came up and took those few it wanted, then blew sand in from the desert around so fierce it buried the rest of the tribe..." It's an awkward sentence and it tripped me up while reading. Another example, also from the last story, "Yet she couldn't deny that to not to get on the rescue chopper seemed just as ludicrous."
To sum up, this was a decent collection of weird fiction containing a couple of exceptional stories, some moderately good tales and a few total strike outs. A novice to dark, strange, weird, short fiction might enjoy this collection a little more than I did, but I would try this author again in the future.
I received a free e-copy of this book to honestly review for Horror After Dark. Find this review and others like it at www.Horrorafterdark.com.
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