A compilation of work published in The Horror Zine (www.thehorrorzine.com) including short stories, artwork and poetry by a variety of authors.  Edited by Jeani Rector.

Published by BearManor Media, 2010.

Anthologies tend to be short these days, but this one is a weighty tome by modern standards.  Twenty-two short stories, including two by the editor, the work of twelve poets and a selection of the work of nine artists.  It’s nice to see a good biography of each contributor included too.  When getting involved in horror, it’s best to be sure of who you’re dealing with. There are some strange people in this genre.

I’ll gloss over the poems because, while I enjoyed many of them, I really don’t understand poetry and can’t do it myself.  I am in no way qualified to critique poetry.  Nevertheless, many held my interest and many told a good story with a pleasant rhythm.  I was left thinking ‘I wish I could do that’ more than once.

The artwork is monochrome throughout, but that will be due to printing restraints.  Colour plates push up the cost of a book enormously.  Some of the art reminded me of the intricate work of H. R. Giger and while the artwork is not linked to the stories, it does provide a break from text and makes the overall presentation of the book easy on the eye.  It would be nice to have artwork that was linked to the stories but again, publishing constraints mean that a story’s publication would be delayed considerably while waiting for an artist to read it, get inspired and then produce the work.  The artwork is impressive nonetheless and many are worth spending the time to pick out the small details.

The Horror Zine is currently a non-paying publication, offering exposure only.  However, don’t think you can get any old dross accepted there.  The standards are high and the stories are very good indeed.  In the early stages of a writer’s career, exposure in a high-standard publication can be worth far more than the ten or twenty dollars typically on offer.  Even if, perhaps especially if, you have a novel or two published, publicity is always good and this publication will allow you to advertise your own previous publications in the printed biographies.

Just over half the book is occupied by stories.  The authors range from published novelists to part-time writers but are united in one respect: they are all excellent writers.  There are no duds in this book, I never found myself having to force myself to read.  Every story is well crafted and enjoyable.

I have an eye for typos and bad grammar due to a severe and malicious English teacher in my youth.  I keep it in a jar at my writing desk.  It’s all right, she’s dead now so she won’t miss it, but it spots every mistake in anything I read and responds by rattling its jar.  The eye was silent throughout this book.  Not so much as an ‘its/it’s’ error.  Proofread to perfection.  That makes a big difference to me because grammatical and spelling errors can drop me out of the story’s world in an instant.  It didn’t happen.  Not once.

I’m not going to tell you about the stories in detail because that’s impossible without ruining the endings.  Suffice to say the ‘lived happily ever after’ theme does not figure highly in this collection.  Which, to me, is how it should be.

Horror is meant to be this scary.