Midnight Graffiti

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The toads alone make this antho worthwhile, but I really enjoyed "Rant" by Nancy Collins (in the appropriately titled PSYCHOS section). The paperback version of the book, released after the movie, went on to sell more than two-and-a-half million copies. Rather shockingly, Neil Gaiman, who I usually couldn’t care one way or the other about, actually has one of the few worthwhile reads within, with “Murder Mysteries”, a roundabout indictment of God’s alleged Master Plan and borrowing heavily from the once-popular mythos of something referred to as 'heaven' and ‘angels’. And then… there were the other stories… which delved into insane issues, off-kilter writing styles, violent twisted viewpoints, and drugged deranged plots that made me feel uncomfortable… which, even though they were not my cup of tea, I still highly admired because I love reading and seeing things from different perspectives than my own. A collection of new horror stories includes contributions by Stephen King, Harlan Ellison, Dan Simmons, David J.

She opens the anthology with an eight-page introduction, smugly explaining to her readers every obvious, bromidic reason that people are fascinated by horror.Michael Straczynski's "Say Hello, Mister Quigley" is simultaneously disturbing and heartwarming; Joe Lansdale's "Bob the Dinosaur Goes to Disneyland" is a fun and clever satire, though not at all horror; "Blue on One End, Yellow on the Other" by K. Wait a second, that’s actually pretty crappy; if Giger committed this abortion he’d have set it aflame before it could leave his premises and tarnish his reputation. It did have a great line, jauntily poking fun at military/old man lingo: Goldilocks was SAC - Strategic Air Command - headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska; ETA was Estimated Time of Arrival. Under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, King has written the books The Running Man, The Regulators, Thinner, The Long Walk, Roadwork, Rage, and It.

After that, the remainder is really bad: very short tales “Cattletruck” by Cliff Burns and “Salvation” by Lawrence Person are both rather pointless and lame while striving to be meaningful and thought-provoking, and Joe Lansdale’s attempt at comedy with “Bob the Dinosaur Goes to Disneyland” falls flat. If you never had the chance to read it back in the day, this book collects some of the best stories to appear between its covers. Or Stephen King's "Rainy Season," first published in this collection, a tale of small-town mores and a warning to travellers that even the most picturesque of towns may turn out to be lethal traps. I think of them at least once a week on the norm and more than that if I am writing something of my own, and looking for the vibes I picked up from those stories to share now, with my readers. Further, Horsting attempts to flatter each author with an introductory bio, but just comes off overly congratulatory and all too chummy.This might be the lowest point of the book, that two authors expected to deliver the big hits are poorly represented. I hunkered down in the uncomfortable confines of the stairwell in my usual train-car to distance myself from the bustling cretins of the world and whipped the relic known as ‘Midnight Graffiti’ out. Horror is the only medium that regularly succeeds in relating the momunmental strangness of the world in an accessible, cathartic manner. Sadly, of the nineteen stories collected herein, these are the only five I’d even care to bother with again. I would prefer to be almost entirely unaware of the editor's existence, and allow their selections to speak for themselves.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. A good number of the stories rely too heavily on Reagan/Bush-era shock factor, which is horribly dated and uninteresting in 2018. I don't think that the Anthology Experiment went over too well; back to reading something slightly more worthwhile, maybe some letters to the editor from back-issues of Club, if I can manage to pry the pages apart somehow.It's a fascinating look at horror, how it's changed over the years due to society, and why we're so entranced by horror novels/movies. I highly recommend this book especially for people like myself who just got into reading and wanted to find some different authors, this is a quick way to get a snapshot of their various writing styles and genre. I briefly perused my anthologies one morning after making the decision to start re-reading these oft-ignored volumes, and immediately knew which one I would kick this endeavor off with: ‘Midnight Graffiti’, the perfect choice for a lifelong poseur and elitist prick. Like many early/mid 90’s anthologies (see ‘Shock Rock’, ‘Prime Evil’, and ‘Night Screams’ from my small sample alone), the ever-present Stephen King has a seldom-published contribution in ‘Midnight Graffiti’, and editors Jessica Horsting and James Van Hise unwisely decide to shoot their wad immediately out of the starting gate by opening it up with “Rainy Season”.

Lamont's "Sinus Fiction" was evocative of Simmons's 1990 science fiction masterpiece Hyperion - almost difficult to picture in its stark originality. Eight issues were published in total, seven between 1988-1992, with the final Winter 1994/1995 issue (''Midnight Graffiti Special'') appearing several years later. All text (except quotes) is the property of Will Errickson and should not be reproduced in whole or in part without permission from the author. Stories from Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, and an absolutely wonderful study on how Harlan Ellison process of writing from misheard words were a few of my favorites. I’m quite happy to have stumbled upon this book at a yard sale and will be keeping it in my collection.His award-winning short story "The River Styx Runs Upstream" is easily one of my favorite short stories, ever. Many of the stories in this book were very fun to read, all of them being fairly enjoyable in their own sense. Or Dan Simmons' "The River Styx Runs Upstream," a story of resurrection -- with a ghastly difference. Years of abusing inhalants couldn’t possible do the damage that this alleged story manages to do in a few ridiculous pages, even with the women cooing ‘Mmmmm’ for their cherished Domino Man. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.