Horror Books

I did not put this book down until I was so scared that I couldn't take anymore. This is an exceptional novel and will capture your attention until the final sentence. This is one of the best novels I have ever read. I finished the book three days ago and am still scared to sleep. I can't wait for another novel by O'Brien.

The book begins with the death of an old man, Stehle, by drowning. However this drowning takes place in the first floor of a house, and the reader realizes immediately that he is onto something horrifying. He is right: Everything is not as it seems in the novel. And the feeling escalates as horror upon horror is perpetuated throughout the novel.

The story deals with a packet of letters that the siblings of old man, Stehle, Alex and Pauli, buy at a flea market. These letters were purportedly written during the Civil War and should be of more interest to historians than to the supernatural-minded. However the letters are not ordinary letters but actually portals to a world of ghosts and evil spirits. It does not take the siblings long to realize this, and they set out to stop the evil coming out. To do this they decide to burn the letters; however, the packet has disappeared by that time. Realizing that similar portals are present elsewhere in the world, they set off to destroy them. But this adventure is a lot more dangerous than what they bargained for. So do they succeed in their mission?

William M. O'Brien Jr., for a first time novelist, succeeds in creating an atmosphere of foreboding and horror. With the characterization of two teenagers as protagonists, the story reminds one of horror cult classic films like "The Blair Witch Project" and "Jeepers Creepers". A must read for not only horror fiction fans, but also for those interested in thrillers.

I'm usually not a fan of horror novels, but this one was very enjoyable. After I would read a few chapters, the slightest sound would make me jump. That is how scared I was. My english teacher is an excellent writer.

Stehle's Door begins with the demise of old man Stehle--and then proceeds to tell you how and why it happened.

This novel combines authentic Civil War history with a present-day setting in Galveston, Texas, with loads of real-life landmarks, helping to give the fictional story a true-to-life feel.

The main characters are teenagers, so this book might appeal to that age group, as well as to adults. Mr. O'Brien has a very readable style of writing, which enables the reader to move at a steady pace through the novel without bogging down.

The climax has an interesting twist--not all is as it seems to be. Enjoy.

Not the typical haunted house story with lingering ghosts of past residents, the ghosts in Stehle's Door can relocate causing bad dreams, having grotesque manifestations, and worse. A chilling, compelling story of two adolescents who fight the unpredictable with risk and determination. The movement to another realm appealed to me as in The Sixth Sense and I liked the confiding between kids which was reminiscent of the book The Other.

The Dark Tower series is as long and complicated as the Bible. The Bible has a concordance. This needs one too. There are so many characters and so many meandering sub-plots that you need a road map to keep everything on track. Robin Furth did it for us. Furth is dedicated to this series and seems to know every nuance. THis book helps. And it makes a good campfire game to open the book randomly and start a topic. Well worth your time and $$$...bg

Apparently being a personal assistant to Stephen King has certain perks, especially when you're writing a concordance to his bestselling Dark Tower series, both volumes of which are contained in "The Dark Tower: The Complete Concordance." Robin Furth doesn't outline much that isn't also in the book, but she does an excellent job outlining the information about King's entire series.

Furth includes plenty of data on the seven novels of the series, starting with an essay that refreshes the reader's memory. Furth starts the actual content with a list of characters with biographical info, from "Abigail" to "Zoltan." Then it's the areas of Mid-World, from the lair of the vampire nuns to Roland's long-lost homeland; the areas of our own world, and portals between the worlds. There are some pretty decent maps as well.

Additionally, she describes the various terms and phrases used in the High Speech, Mid-World language ("graf" is apple beer), prayers and sayings ("If it's ka, it will come like the wind"). And just for reference, she includes organizations, dances, holidays, magical items, instruments, as well as outlining various maps, as well as cultural items from our present world, and maps. Not to mention references to King's own work within the series.

The Dark Tower series -- which stretches through seven long novels and one short story -- is enticingly complex and mysterious, set in different worlds and times. It's also interlinked with other novels of King's, like "Insomnia" and "Eyes of the Dragon." So it's inevitable that even the die-hard fans will forget Character X or fair-day Z -- yet Furth's book allows easy clarification and consultation.

Furth does an excellent job organizing and annotating the book, including the books in which the items appear, and which pages are significant. She also maintains a calmly distant attitude in the book, without getting too gushy about King's work. But she does slip up occasionally; it's jarring to hear about "screwing" someone with a gun in a scholarly work.

Robin Furth's "Dark Tower: The Complete Concordance" is a good accompaniment to the Dark Tower series, and even those who have read the series many times will want to keep it at hand. Very useful.

I don't really want to get into this that much because what is there to say besides that if you have a Dark Tower question--you're going to find the answer in here.

This has everything...maps, family lineage charts, every character even hinted at, and every possible setting and/or situation in the seven books.

If you love the dark tower then this is the icing on the cake.
It answers a lot of questions from the series and connects things together

A concordance, by definition, is an alphabetical index of the principal words of a book, as of the Bible, with a reference to the passage in which each occurs. This does a most excellent job of doing so. Well studied! I almost wish I'd waited for it to come out before reading the series. A must have for all Tower geeks.

My Swamp Thing fandom began with seeing the movies and TV series as a teenager. I recently decided to start collecting the trade paperbacks, starting with this one. The original short story is quite reminiscent of Edgar Allen Poe's works. Gothic and somber, it's easy to see why the book it appeared in sold so well.

The remainder of the book's stories, taken from the regular Swamp Thing series, maintain the dark tone but add a ton of creativity and fun. Swamp Thing is relentlessly pursued by Cable (who here is not nearly as pretty as Adrienne Barbeau), and encounters all manner of strange situations and foes. The dialog is phenomenal, especially for the time period, and the art is rather sharp too.

Allen Moore's take on Swamp Thing may be the best-remembered, but Len Wein's run is simpler, more action-packed, and just plain fun.

I admit I was only familiar with Swamp Thing because of the Wes Craven film, then years later I got into the Alan Moore run on the title. I was interested more recently in where the character got its start, so I picked this up.

I wasn't expecting great literature compared to Moore, but I was pleasantly surprised as these stories are almost as good as Moore has gotten at times.

The beginning has the very first Swamp Thing story written by Len Wein. Its basically Tales from the Crypt-lite, but its interesting to see that DC was starting to show more of a series side, which culminated years later in their "Vertigo" imprint.
It was just a short story when DC gave the call for a long term title.
Then it retcons the origin story to the 1970's, wherein the Swamp Thing is a former scientist who was killed in a lab explosion because of a mysterious organization. The story continues and explores many things including the occult, racism, and also continues its "horror" tradition with stories of werewolves and witches. I believe at the time DC wanted to do a "Tales" style revival of horror stories, had to abide by the ridiculous comics code (actually per other reviews they didn't but still I think couldn't push it too far), but did the best they could with these stories. People are killed, and there are some mature themes that weren't neccesarily the norm at the time (since the establishment of the comics code), so I feel that this is a groundbreaking comic in that along with a few others, it was pretty mature for the time.

All in all, as much as an Alan Moore fan I am, I don't feel he "defined" Swamp Thing anymore than Len Wein, and the evidence to that fact is all contained in this book.

"Swamp Thing: Dark Genesis" reprints not only the first ten issues of the DC comic but also the short story from 1971's "House of Secrets" #92 that introduced the character. The key thing here is that you have in one trade paperback volume the complete run of artist Berni Wrightson, who created the Swamp Thing along with writer Len Wein. There are actually not one genesis but two in the first two stories (just like the original in fact), not to be confused with the famous revision worked by Alan Moore down the road. The first, shorter version, was about a man who was murdered and dumped into a swamp, where his body metamorphosed into a muck monster that rose up and extracted horrible vengeance upon his killer. The story was a bit reminiscent of a character called the Heap, who showed up in the back of "Airboy and Air Fighters Comics" from 1942-1953, but I do not know if that was really in anybody's mind at the end of 1972 when "Swamp Thing" #1 was produced, however, a more likely antecedent would be "Morto do Pântano", created by the Brazilian artist Eugenio Colonesse only two years before the Swamp Thing's advent.

Now the man in the monster was Dr. Alec Holland, who was working on a top secret bio-restorative formula in the Louisiana bayou. The bad guys want it and when their bomb explodes in Holland's face and drives "countless unclassified chemicals" deep into his burning flesh, he dives into the bog and disappears. In the first issue Holland fails to rescue his wife in time and has to take revenge for both of them, at which point we immediately start a multi-issue story arc with Arcane, a crazy rich guy who wants to live forever. This is the plot line that eventually became the less than stellar movie version of the "Swamp Thing," so it will seem somewhat familiar to the uninitiated. The Swamp Thing even left his swamp long enough to battle Batman in issue #7 in what would be one of the few encounters with a traditional DC superhero for the supernatural star of the comic.

Wein and Wrightson's "Swamp Thing" became a cult classic among comic fans because of its dark, moody Gothic style, but mainly on the strength of the artwork by Wrightson, whose style was perfectly suited for this comic. Historically "Swamp Thing" is an important comic book because it was the first horror comic to be geared towards a more adult oriented readership since the glory days of EC Comics with "Tales of the Crypt" in the 1950s. Eventually "Swamp Thing," during the Moore period, would give birth to DC's Vertigo comic book line, which was always PG-13 if not NC-17. "Saga of the Swamp Thing" would be the first mainstream comic to abandon the Comics Code Authority. These first ten stories rest primarily on Wrightson's distinctive art, but Wein does set the foundation for the character to be able to survive once Wrightson departed.

If you begin with "Dark Genesis" and proceed directly to the Moore years in the 1980s (which is basically what these reprints do), you are not going to be disappointed, because relatively speaking, nothing happened in the years in between. I am just happy to be able to read these comics again without having to take my originals out of their plastic bags.

It's about time! I missed out on this collection the first time around, but never again will I be without the early issues of the original Swamp Thing by Len Wein & Berni Wrightson. This trade paperback collects the very first story from House of Secrets #92 and the first ten issues of the series it inspired in the early '70s. This is by no means the elemental-fantasy Swamp Thing of Moore/Totleben; this is the horror-oriented version that is more at home in an EC comic or Warren magazine. The classic stories by Wein have some laughably expressive narration and melodramatic dialogue, but they don't detract from the superb plots, including the first appearance of Arcane and his Un-Men, the Patchwork Man, and a great "team-up" with Batman (In fact, I feel that the first 3 issues of the series make up one of the best comic stories ever written). Wrightson's textural and creepy artwork will make you feel the moss and dirt crumbling off of Swampy with every step he takes. Don't get me wrong: I love both incarnations of this character, and Moore & Totleben are no slouches, but Wein & Wrightson will always come first for me.

I remember reading some of these comics way back in the mid 70's. It was nice to re-visit some of my memories from 30 years ago. The art by Wrightson was fantastic! I give it my highest recommendation. The stories by Wein were why this graphic novel got four stars instead of five. The stories were competent but still had plot inconsistencies and pacing problems. I found the stories to be a little to hokey and fake at times - even for a comic book. All in all it was worth the money, four stars out of five usually is.

This is an outstanding thriller about a young, out-of-work executive who loses his wife to cancer. He goes to Oregon to live and work with his inlaws, only to find out that a serial killer has victimized the town for 18 years. In this complex and weirdly scary story, our hero must uncover the killer in order to clear himself of a recent murder. This is a great story, full of texture and local color

After promising his late wife's charge not to involve their two children with her pernicious family in Oregon, irrevocable events herd Peter Cochran and his family in New York right smack into the web of his in-law's aesthetically deceptive lair! One would yell, phone, or E-mail "DON'T GO!", but contemplating intervention only affirms Andrew Billings literary excellence!

I liked this one a lot. The hero must not only find a serial killer, but also keep the parents of his dead wife from wooing his two kids away from him. The scary thing is that something like this could really happen

This is a excellent psychothriller. When Pete Cochran decides to move his family to the small mining town of Buckthorn,Oregon. Cochran will soon regret it. The town has been terrorized for almost two decades by a sadistic serial killer who has been targeting the young men in town.This novel has great plot twists,terror, and a truly chilling surprise ending.If you like psychological thrillers with some nasty twists, violent shocking conclusion you will enjoy this shocker.

Tainted Blood has all the elements of a first-rate thiller and then some. When Pete Cochran's wife dies, he and his two children move to Buckthorn, Oregon to live with his in-laws. Something his wife made him promise not to do. What Pete does not know is that for the past eighteen years, Buckthorn has been troubled by the brutal slaying of young men. With his over zealous in-laws, a nephew who is diagnosed as the "stuff made of monsters," and a lover that looks remarkably like his wife, Pete has to leave town before becoming the killer's next victim. Tainted Blood is one heart pounding, in-your-face of a thriller. Just when you think you've figured out what happens next, the unexpected happens.

When Rachel is locked in the museum, the mummies come to life and are planning Rachel and her friends to be mummies like them!

Rachel and her friends are locked in a museum where exhibits are said to come to life!

Trouble starts when Rachel and her friends are locked inside the museum and they see are full of mummies that lives during night.

I like this story a lot. It is spooky. Whenever I read it I can visualise what is happening. This story has some great events and is one of the best Are You Afraid Of The Dark series books out! You should read it sometime.

I love all Egyptian books like THE TALE OF THE EGYPTIAN MUMMIES. I will also order other books like Bailey School kids, Goosebumps, Baby Sitters Club...

This is the fifth book in Yarbro's long-running St-Germain series, and it's one of the best. All of Yarbro's standard touches are here: the well-researched historical background (pre-WWII Germany), the narrow-minded brutality of most of the human characters, the horrors they inflict, St-Germain's involvement with a lonely woman, the danger that forces him to flee, the emotional losses he experiences, etc. etc. But there's another twist to this book: the immortal vampire becomes a father when he saves--and raises--an orphaned girl.
This presents us with a somewhat different view of St Germain than we get in the other novels in the series. Normally, the Count lives among humans and even loves a select few, but always knows that he will eventually be forced to move on. In this book, he loves in a way that he hasn't allowed himself to before. That, in combination with the more recent time period of the novel, makes the inevitable tragedy that much more poignant.

This story, which takes place from the end of World War I thru the rise of the Nazi's in the 1930's, is set a few years after the end of "Writ in Blood" and continues a few of the peripheral characters first mentioned in that book. St. Germain, fleeing imprisonment in post-Revolution Russia, finds an abandoned 7 year old girl and takes her with him to his castle in Bavaria. He becomes Aleisha's guardian, and has the first time ever experience of raising a child. We watch, with him, as she grows from a frightened child to a confident, loving and outspoken young lady. For someone who hasn't changed in 4000 years, the opportunity to see his beloved child grow out of clothes, learn to play the piano, and gain a growing knowledge of the world (including an acceptance of his true nature) is an unique experience. But Germany and the world around them is changing as well, and eventually tragedy strikes.

Le Comte de St. Germain is a much more real, more interesting vampire than any written by Anne Rice. This is vampire literature for the intelligent reader -- be sure to read Hotel Transylvania by the same author.

This book, the fifth in the series about the vampire Franz Ragozy de Saint Germain, was originally intended to be the last of the series. (It says so, in the "about the author" section in the back.) Of course, there are roughly a dozen more out now; Yarbro keeps getting new ideas for the character, beyond what she'd originally planned. This is unquestionably the best written of the first five books in the series, but be warned: do not read it unless you are in the mood for tragedy. It is powerfully written, and captures all too fully the trauma that struck all too frequently in that time and place; "The Sound Of Music" this most assuredly is NOT. ("Hotel Transylvania" was set in prerevolutionary France, "The Palace" in renaissance Italy in the time of Botticelli, "Blood Games" in imperial Rome at the time of Nero, and "Path of the Eclipse" during the Mongol invasion of China; this is set primarily in Germany during the period between the world wars.)

There is little of the feel, all too evident in the first three books of the series, of the cheap Gothic Romance; the characters are very real, and so are the events (in at least two cases, a little TOO real for my taste, but I can't reasonably fault the author for that; the setting and period would not have been done justice had everything turned out well.)

For those unfamiliar with the series, the Comte de Saint Germain is a vampire who has "lived" since approximately 1500 BC; he has many of the typical features of the stereotypical vampire; he doesn't age, is difficult to injure, and needs to drink blood to survive. But unlike the stereotype, he doesn't kill with his blood-drinking, and blood itself is not sufficient; there must be an emotional connection as well, and the less emotional connection there is, the less satisfying the blood is. He can be killed by severing the spine or destroying the brain; other wounds are painful, but ultimately superficial. He is susceptable to sunlight, but less so than many vampires; he doesn't care for it, but hardly bursts into flame on exposure. Essentially, he sunburns easily. Similarly, he cannot rest unless it is on his native soil, and cannot cross running water. All of these prohibitions, however, are alleviated by the expedient of wearing his native soil in the soles of his shoes, using it in the foundation of any home he builds, and filling his mattress with it, so he CAN, in fact, be seen in broad daylight in the Mediterranean summer on shipboard.

The character is an unmitigated hero, not the antihero of most vampire fiction; wealthy, urbane, kind, generous, most worthy of emulation. Still, he's a bad man to cross. The series as a whole is highly recommended, and this book is powerfully written, if EXTREMELY unsettling.

An extremely enjoyable book. What makes this story so good is St. Germains's poignant relationship with his ward Laisha. Against the backdrop of WWII, this non-stereotypic vampire travels through Europe protecting and helping the humans he has taken under his wing. He's a tragic figure with fine sensibilites. His ongoing but no longer requitable love for Madeline de Montalia, his tenderness toward Gudrun, and the way he cherishes Laisha all contibute our understanding of the seemingly enigmatic Count. I was very disappointed that the author chose not to develop the relationship between Laisha and her "Papa".

Richard A. Lupoff is a master of the pastiche and has a track record four decades long to prove it. I know that because I've recently collected most of his novels and short story collections and am in the middle of reading them. But I sheepishly admit that I've never read much by the authors he's pastiching. So my review is not like all the others, by long-time fans of Conan Doyle, Robert Howard, Jules Verne, H.P. Lovecraft or Robert Louis Stevenson.

How do the stories stand up as actual stories rather than pastiches? Very well. Lupoff writes clearly and unambiguously and even when he's piling on the adjectives (Lovecraft?) or the adverbs (Verne?) the pictures he paints are vivid. The twists at the end of his stories are not O.Henry-pat, but leave the reader with a sense of satisfaction tempered with a curiosity about the 'rest of the story'.

The main thing that comes through in Lupoff's pastiches -- even if you don't snap to who the pastiched author is -- is his love and respect for the original. He's probably already done it, but I look forward to his writing some pastiches of the authors that I DID read back when I probably should have been discovering Lovecraft and Howard: guys like Richard S. Prather, Fredric Brown and Philip Jose Farmer.

Richard Lupoff's shorter fiction has been collected before, but none of those prior volumes zeroed in on a single aspect of his fiction. As the liner notes for his CLAREMONT TALES states, "Richard A. Lupoff refuses to be restricted to any genre." As a result, while his work in these collections never disappoints it's often somewhat diffuse. Not so in TERRORS, where all the stories have in common an underlying element of fright. But they don't suffer from the humorless scariness of many of the writers whose work Lupoff pastiches here. Instead, they're lifted from the stygian depths of his literary influences by his light touch and unerringly appropriate humor.

The lead story, "The Crimson Wizard," is a semi-autobiographical pulp yarn (Lupoff in his young kid years), and that delicious pulpiness carries over into the two stories that follow, "The Crimson Wizard and the Jewels of Lemuria" and "The Golden Saint Meets the Scorpion Queen." Another, "The Horror South of Red Hook," is a delightful Lovecraft-style send-up of what Lupoff felt when he accepted a position with IBM in Poughkeepsie, New York, and moved there with his family. There are other stories besides the first three that are pure pulp, others besides "Red Hook" that evoke HPL, and there's even one Sherlock Holmes/HPL combo.

I'm hard-pressed to pick out a few favorites (I've just paused here for quite a while trying to do so) because they are all, each in its own unique way, great reads. Like several of the other reviewers, I stretched out the reading of the book in order to maximize the duration of my pleasure. And now I'm looking forward to VISIONS, the next up by Dick from this publisher.

Richard Lupoff has been letting his readers in on his own fears for a good many years. After a lot of practice, he finally makes it perfect in his collection of stories, "Terrors".
Besides fear, the book also displays love -- his love for the world of old pulp fiction magazines, and of comic books, and of old time radio drama. All these elements are featured, one at a time, in this pararama of stories. Is it only me who finds most of the TV shows, so homogenized with the same ethnically diverse characters that they are faceless and indistinguishable from one another? That will not be the case with these Lupoff tales. Each one is unique. You don't have to digest them all in one setting -- although that is permissible -- but you can read one whenever you can catch fifteen minutes between work or other activities. You could even buy a couple of copies to have one at home or in the office, or in the car or on the patio. Let's hope Lupoff can keep scaring the pants off us -- it is cooling -- chilling in fact -- in these summer days.

I've always enjoyed Mr Lupoff's stories, although I never thought of him as a writer of horror or terror - too much warm humanity in his stories to do a Clive Barker (for all I understand Mr Barker, as a person, as distinct from the writer of his stories, is quite warm and human himself).

So I got a copy of this book.

Immediately I was set back by the Introduction which talked about the tradition of literary pastiche and August Derleth. With talk about culling from HP Lovecraft and Edgar Rice Burroughs and Arthur Conan Doyle and Robert E Howard. And I'm thinking "Come on - are these substandard comebacks that need such an arcane introduction. Can't they stand on their own?"

Well, they do - and beautifully. And the fact that -- I will admit it here - I never read much Burroughs other than William, and - cardinal sin for a sci fi fan - I don't like HP Lovecraft, never did. So fine - string me up - hang my gibbous body from some dark leafless eldritch branches of a dead New England tree. Don't like him, never did, never felt there was enough of a discernible lack of horror in our world to want to read some writer of baroquely entangled humorless tales of doom from below. In the words of my late father - "Feh."

That said, this is a collection of truly delightful stories. And sure - I could see some tips of the hat to other writers, but it doesn't matter because the stories work one-to-one, writer-to-reader, regardless of style. Example: In "At Vega's Taqueria" I, the reader felt reality shifting out from under me the way sand disappears under your toes at the beach as the water comes in and out. Not LIKE Fredric Brown, but as mind-playing as his stories were in the 50's.

"Whisperers" has a reference to Lovecraft, but I really loved the story, so if he's doing a Lovecraft pastiche, I'd say he's a much better writer. And "The Secret of the Sahara" revives the old punchline story style, and like an O Henry OR that famous famous sci fi short "How To Serve Man," gives the reader a delightful "Ouch" enjoyment at the end. Shaggy dogs abound.

This is a collection of stories written by a master at his peak, the sort of stories that can only be written by a writer after 70 or 80 or 90 years of perfecting his craft. (I can't remember a time in my life when there weren't Lupoff stories, and I'm in my 60's - so what is he? 100? 200?) Ok, that's supposed to be funny, but there is a playfulness to these stories that less accomplished writers just can never pull off (check out any popular network sitcom for an example).

I have been having a grand old time reading these - haven't read all of them yet, just one every day or so - savoring them for quiet moments, not wanting to run through the book and run out of stories to read for the first time.

This is an antidote for the press and nastiness of our daily world -- read a story on the bus or train to work, read on at lunch. More fun than I've had reading short stories in a long long time (maybe since my Fredric Brown days). Small press, short run - grab one for yourself while they're still around..

Howard Pearlstein

This is a great collection of stories, and they fit together like parts in a jigsaw puzzle.

Terrors starts with an introduction by Fred Chappell. He examines the types of stories in Terrors and what makes them work. This was great because he explains the attraction many readers have to pulp and Lovecraftian pastishes.

Right out of the gate, The Crimson Wizard, The Crimson Wizard and the Jewels of Lemuria, and The Golden Saint Meets the Scorpion Queen take the reader into the world of pulp. On one page you're reading about a character who is listening to a 1940's radio show, and in the next story you are INSIDE the radio show!

There is also a feast of Lovecraftian tales in the mix too. The Horror South of Red Hook, Lights! Camera!! Shub-Niggurath!!! are some great reads. And there are other good Lovecraftian stories and pulp-ish adventures. There is even a Sherlock Holmes/Lovecraft combination!

Overall this is a wonderful book. The cover is beautiful and in itself it is a story. I've spent much time looking for things in the background.

The production quality of the book is superb as well. I ordered the paperback, but there appears to be a hardcover that was available at one time. I'm not sure what the differences are, so I can't talk about that.

This is a fantastic collection of Richard Lupoff's stories and a great price for 360 pages.

Bought teh book on the basis of the cover, and it turned out to be really good. STrange unusual subject matter with a good fantasy plot that pulled all the strings together at the end, but promised much more to come. I am now very interested to see how the next book inthe series turns out. The author is very good at dialog and descriptions. Highly reccommended.

Written in a very visual style with great suspense. I was holding my breath in places, turning pages like mad. The characters are interesting and three-dimensional, and easy to get attached to. But the best thing this book has going for it is the dreamtime myths that make the background for the story - this makes the story totally unique and different.

Book 1 of this series ends in a cliffhanger, with an important dangerous magical object that was lost for awhile suddenly being found again. A lot of setup has gone into this first plot, so now many questions are waiting to be answered in the rest of the series. I'm not sure if you would call this a fantasy book or horror or mystery. Its all three rolled into one, and I think people who like to read any of those categories would definitely enjoy Thin Line Between.

I picked up Thin Line Between based on the cover and took it home based on the quote on the back from the book itself: "Telling ghost stories and writing about them was one thing, even fun in a daring sot of way, but it didn't make them real..."
This book is both engaging and spooky. Set mostly in the Florida swamps, you begin a tale of a strong mother-daughter team whose lives begin to spin out of control when past legends (local and Australian) come to life.
This first of four novels will make you wonder if that monster in your closet or under your bed, when you were a kid, was just your imagination after all.

After seeing so many trashy books out there, this book should really go places. It is full of action and mystery for the reader. Starting off in swamps of Florida secrets of the past start coming to life with a Mother and her daughter. Then when an art exhibit comes to the museum where the mother works, Old legends and folklore from two different Continents bring together an exciting story for readers of all ages.

Keeps the readers attention and you do not want to put the book down. Waiting for the next 3 books to come to the shelves.
Mary Grimes

Most fantasy books fall into the European-Arthur mold or some kind of medieval style sword and sorcery world. What I enjoyed about this book was the setting of Dreamtime supernatural events, which is very different from typical fantasy setting. I thought the museum setting, for the modern parts of the book, was especially well done.

The characters are three dimensional, but the character of Margaret was the most appealing to me, bratty, smart, and a loner. But this is not a children's book, it has plenty of graphic violence and a bit of sex, plus a complicated storyline that is interstingly set up in book one, so I'm assuming book two will fill in some more of the back-story. There are some really effective suspense scenes where the main characters are stalked (and finally encounter) a horrific creature from another world.

I read it over a weekend and then loaned it to a friend who works in an art gallery. She's having a good time with it. I think anyone who likes fantasy or the supernatural and wants something a little different will enjoy reading it.

This book grabbed my attention immediately and held it throughout the entire story. The more I read, the harder it became to put the book down.(I finished it in 2 days) I would recommend this book to anyone, especially mothers. I can't wait to read his next novel.

Once I picked this book up - I found it nearly impossible to put it back down!! Any lover of John Saul or Stephen King will surely love this book as well. Eric Weule has done an amazing job, and I can't wait for his next one!

The Thoughtful Spot is an excellent read. With the turn of each page the Author pulls you in deeper and deeper, taking you on an adventure with the characters that taps deeply into your emotions. This book leaves you with the nagging questions of "what if" and "why" and you may find yourself wondering when the sequel is coming out.
A Great Book that is Well Written.

As I read this book, I kept thinking this would make a great MOVIE! I couldn't stop turning the pages to find out what happened to Micah, all the while feeling a horrible sense of spine-tingling dread. As a resident of Southern California, I also enjoyed the local flavor of the book. The book is original in combining themes of deep parental love with supernatural mystery.

When I first picked up The Thoughtful Spot I didn't have the highest expectations. Not because it sounded like a bad read, but because the genre didn't really fit my typical preference. I read it anyway beacause I had met the author and I felt that if his personality showed up in the book at all, it would be a very interesting read. I was right. I read it in only a few days and althogh the time passed very quickly, the content was beautifully profound. I really enjoyed The Thoughtful Spot and I'm sure that anyone else who reads it will enjoy it as well.

I found Through the Glass Darkly to be very well written. It held my attention from the first page to the very last! My favorite was "The Radio." I am sure if you read Mr. Riley's book you will not be disappointed. I eagerly await another.

These 14 tales are bound to give you the "willies"! Mr. Riley has done a great job of making some believably horrifying tales that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

It was a good book and I highly recommend it to anyone who loves a good horror story.

The creatures in this menagerie of dark fiction by Mr. Riley are strange beasts; there are monsters aplenty (like the venomous critters of 'Hum' or the nebulous phantasm in 'Ephialtes', not to mention the hidden demons of 'Among Us'), but the strangest, scariest, most fascinating beasts are the ones lurking in the breasts, minds and souls of his tortured, damaged humans.

These are not HAPPY stories, by any means. Bad things happen. People die - even people you KNOW aren't going to die...die. Things lurk in closets, in the dark, empty streets at three A.M., in the dim quiet of a pastoral pool, coming over the radio directly into your skull. Little girls are monstrous, loving husbands murderous, preachers perverted; Riley's world is a topsy-turvy place that no one gets out of untouched - if they get out at all (and even then they leave traces, tendrils, hints, as does one of the characters in "I.M.").

Great work. If you like your short fiction bleak, dark and wonderful, I'd steer you towards Mr. Riley. He'll take good care of you.

REAL good care of you...

THROUGH THE GLASS DARKLY by R. Thomas Riley

First off, I'm a huge fan of short story collections. I prefer a good collection over a novel any day. Collections are like those boxes of chocolates you buy a loved one for Valentine, not knowing what exactly is in the box. Those times your loved one is delighted by every single piece, chosen blindly one by one. Like that old FORREST GUMP phrase, "Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get." Turn that around a bit and make it "Books are like boxes of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get."

Well, I'm here to tell you that THROUGH THE GLASS DARKLY is a great box of chocolates! A roller coaster ride through the depths of horror ("Hum" and "Black") and up to the fog covered heights of noir ("Among Us"). You'll be thrilled, chilled, and begging for more.

My personal favorite from this superior collection is "Black." It tells the tale of a young girl, Anna, who is trapped in an abusive household, locked away in a closet by a man her mother, Monica, has been dating. The troubled times of Anna and her mother are recounted throughout the story, from sexual abuse to repeated beatings of Monica by the man she has come to depend upon.

It's a brutal tale of horror that will have your guts squirming as well as tears coming to your eyes. I view it as a sort of morality play, as to the non-redemptive factor of using violence against violence. "Black" is the best horror story I've read this year. Yes, it's THAT GOOD!

"Hum" is a straightforward tale about a writer's imagination coming alive and becoming the true horror.

"Heal Thyself" is story about the use of religion as a means of deception and the old motto of "What goes around, comes around."

"No Strings Attached" is a story that I think worthy of an episode of Rod Serling's THE TWILIGHT ZONE. It's weird and thought-provoking. I'd love to see it made into a short on film.

"Among Us" shows a terrific writer hitting on all cylinders. Yessiree, this right here shows Riley at the top of his writing ability. It's truly a must-read for all fans that enjoy a great horror/noir combination

"The Radio" Wicked good. A man who is caught in rush hour traffic gets a little antsy when a cop comes by. The cop might find what the man has in his trunk.....

There are many more wonderful stories in this collection. You'll just have to buy it and read for yourself.

You know how you listen to a really good album and think to yourself, "This guy had all the right influences?" R. Thomas Riley is a lot like that. He's a writer that has studied his Rod Serling, channels just the right amount of Edgar Allen Poe's ghost, and taps that same Southern gothic vein that Joe R. Lansdale has been so blissfully strung out on all these years. And in Through the Glass Darkly he showcases an eclectic mix of fourteen short stories that are like literary jazz. He'll play you a bar of psychological horror ("The Radio"), then bridge with some splatterpunk ("Hum," "Ephilates"), and bust out a refrain of sci-fi/fantasy ("Among Us"). So no matter what your particular genre fiction kink, there are stories in this collection you'll tune in to. It's a great value for the money, and a great introduction to a young author who's just getting started. I want R. Thomas Riley to lie to me again, and you will too.