9Tales Told in the Dark 22

This had nine stories of horror, featuring the usual things you'd expect, vampires, zombies, and other dark things. I'll cover my three favorites. The rest were okay, but a few were either too short, or I felt didn't really go anywhere. Gentle Comes the Thaw also has lots of exclamation points! So even in the narrative or talking, it reads like this! Kind of annoying!


This Is Horror starts with a lot of death and continues with a man investigating the real reason. The cops believe it's the dog .. he believes it's some sort of prime evil that mankind has defeated that now lives in the background. The dialogue is really good in this one. It's a slow one with good back and forth is it real mind games and I really liked it.

Little Men is about bioengineered bacteria made to eat the world's pollution but, of course, it starts to eat people and cities as well... You learn everything through a father trying to explain this new crazy world to his daughter, and it's very sad. It's quite a grim tale, giving people few choices... Feed the “Little Men” by throwing more garbage everywhere or themselves...

Honey and Oil are slow-paced and atmospheric. At his son's funeral, a farmer's estranged mother puts honey and oil in his casket. After he confronts her, she tells him if he doesn't leave them there Death takes over the corpse, and of course, he doesn't believe her and smashes the jars to bits... It's well written and described, and gets quite gruesome at the end. For a short tale, the characters are good and well developed.

I liked this collection as a whole and found it worth reading. We all have our own tastes so I don't doubt others will like the not covered stories more than me. Give it a try.