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240th out of 1,169 books
—
879 voters
Poe's Children: The New Horror: An Anthology
by
Peter Straub (Goodreads Author) ,
M. John Harrison, Neil Gaiman (Goodreads Author), John Crowley, Ramsey Campbell, Rosalind Palermo Stevenson, Brian Evenson, Kelly Link
,
more…
From the incomparable master of horror and suspense comes an electrifying collection of contemporary literary horror, with stories from twenty-five writers representing today’s most talented voices in the genre.
Horror writing is usually associated with formulaic gore, but New Wave horror writers have more in common with the wildly inventive, evocative spookiness of Edgar...more
Horror writing is usually associated with formulaic gore, but New Wave horror writers have more in common with the wildly inventive, evocative spookiness of Edgar...more
Hardcover, 592 pages
Published
October 14th 2008
by Doubleday
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Okay, the reality is that I only read a few stories from this collection. But what I read was quite decent and always interesting:
The Bees by Dan Chaon--ooh, creepy. And just the kind of psychologically weirded-out, is-it-all-in-the-character's-head-or-is-something-supernatural-really-happening horror I most enjoy. But the part of this story that really drives the knife home is the NON-horror bit about the carnival ride. Taps into the guilt that probably even the most stellar parents feel.
Cleopa...more
The Bees by Dan Chaon--ooh, creepy. And just the kind of psychologically weirded-out, is-it-all-in-the-character's-head-or-is-something-supernatural-really-happening horror I most enjoy. But the part of this story that really drives the knife home is the NON-horror bit about the carnival ride. Taps into the guilt that probably even the most stellar parents feel.
Cleopa...more
In the introduction to this anthology, Peter Straub describes his goal in putting together these 24 contemporary horror stories. Basically, he wanted to prove that the horror genre is more than the scary monsters, blood, gore, and cheesy book covers that most people associate with it. He wanted to show that the horror genre is a legitimate literary genre and can be considered more "literary" than people have considered it before. This collection had nothing to do with putting together "scary" st...more
The horror genre doesn't often get a lot of respect or recognition, and probably for good reason. There are, admittedly, a lot of piss-poor writers working in the genre, and the genre does tend to follow very demographically-biased trends. (Right now, the "in" thing in the horror genre is zombies. I love zombies, but there is such a thing as saturating the market...) There are, however, a lot of really great writers working in the genre, many of which continually cross over and overlap into "lit...more
Jun 13, 2012
Jeremy
marked it as to-read
A Washington Post Best Book of the Year
Peter Straub—bestselling author and 8-time Bram Stoker Award winner—has gathered here 24 bone-chilling, nail-biting, frightfully imaginative stories that represent the best of contemporary horror writing.
Dan Chaon “The Bees”
Elizabeth Hand “Cleopatra Brimstone”
Steve Rasnic Tem and Melanie Tem “The Man on the Ceiling”
M. John Harrison “The Great God Plan”
Ramsey Campbell “The Voice of the Beach”
Brian Evenson “Body”
Kelly Link “Louise’s Ghost”
Jonatha
Okay, I'll fess up -- I didn't actually read this entire collection, which my husband described as "okay." Instead, I read only the pieces he marked as worth reading. Of these, the stories "Louise's Ghost" by Kelly Link and "October in the Chair" by Neil Gaiman were probably worth checking the whole book out of the library, if not buying it.
"Louise's Ghost" was magical realism with a very strong, humorous voice. It made me want to go right out and read Link's debut book, and as soon as I finish...more
"Louise's Ghost" was magical realism with a very strong, humorous voice. It made me want to go right out and read Link's debut book, and as soon as I finish...more
The premise of this Peter Straub edited anthology is that, despite all appearances to the contrary, there are authors in the horror genre who are worthy successors to the literary, artful fiction of Edgar Allen Poe. Straub seems to be setting out to prove that there are great writers in this genre and that horror fiction can and occasionally does rise to the lofty title of literature.
Like any genre, horror is littered with derivative, formulaic, gratuitous crap, but there are writers who have ri...more
Like any genre, horror is littered with derivative, formulaic, gratuitous crap, but there are writers who have ri...more
Really, really good. Obviously this is a short story anthology collecting works from different authors so you're going to love some, hate some, and be really confused by some; but, overall, I'd say that this was a very decent read and the stories I loved made up for those I didn't and for those that made me wonder what the heck the author was thinking when they wrote it. Before I go into which stories I like the best, I will have to say that I was really surprised many of them were collected in...more
Overall I enjoyed this anthology. As with any short story collection everyone will have different stories they love and hate. I am not going to recap all the stories here. I figure if you want to read them, do so. I did not think any were bad enough to make me warn a potential reader about a particular story.
My biggest complaint is that some of the stories really have no horror or even fantastical element in them at all. This does not make them bad stories just a bit puzzled at their inclusion i...more
My biggest complaint is that some of the stories really have no horror or even fantastical element in them at all. This does not make them bad stories just a bit puzzled at their inclusion i...more
This is a collection of “New Horror,” and the classification was enough to intrigue and interest me. Much To my chagrin, the label was the cause of much of the consternation I felt reading the book. While there were shining gems (“Bees” by Dan Chaon, “Cleopatra Brimstone,” by Elizabeth Hand, “The Sadness of Detail,” by Jonathan Carroll, “Leda,” by M. Rickert, “In Praise of Folly,” by Thomas Tessier, “Plot Twist,” David J. Schow, “The Two Sams,” by Glen Hirshberg, “The Ballad of the Flexible Bull...more
Because this is an anthology, not only of stories but of authors, I knew going in I would not like everything that was included. I had not heard of half the authors in this collection, though I have looked up a couple of them because of it. The title of this seems a bit of a misnomer. I would have classified most of the inclusions as literary spec fiction. Or maybe spec fantasy. Perhaps that is a sign of the times; that those we look to for great horror have been horrified by what else is out th...more
Several stories I'd already read in the authors' collections. The Kelly Link and Shelley Jackson stories were two of these, but rereading them in this other context was AWESOME. "The Man on the Ceiling," written by a married couple ( . . . ) was the basis of a novel of the same name that got a lot of praise. I tried to read a few years ago, specifically looking to see what was up with currently acclaimed and cutting edge horror, and I just could not finish it and the story made me mad about it a...more
Peter Straub is one of the greatest horror novelists today, one who prides himself on openness about what literature is and what makes it great. A great many authors attempt to write horror novels, but their works lack distinguishing qualities and the skills that would elevate them from simplistic gore to the level of true literary intrigue and Poe-like personae. In this collection of horror and dark fantasy, Straub unmasks the phenomenal creativity and nightmarish plotting of several literary w...more
Solid B+ collection of stories. Particular standouts, with my favorites at the top:
"Body," Brian Evenson: brutal/intellectual, melding the conceptual with the raw just the way I like it (body-conscious like a Herve Leger i mean, look at the title) the vamp the tongue the resurrection the resurrection it reads like madness
"Cleopatra Brimstone," Elizabeth Hand: have major issue with obnoxiously beautiful protagonist-who-was-kind-of-a-drip and the overuse of colouring BUT oh the gender politics th...more
"Body," Brian Evenson: brutal/intellectual, melding the conceptual with the raw just the way I like it (body-conscious like a Herve Leger i mean, look at the title) the vamp the tongue the resurrection the resurrection it reads like madness
"Cleopatra Brimstone," Elizabeth Hand: have major issue with obnoxiously beautiful protagonist-who-was-kind-of-a-drip and the overuse of colouring BUT oh the gender politics th...more
There are some great stories in this collection of modern horror edited by Peter Straub, most of them from the big names you'd expect: Straub, King, Joe Hill, Neil Gaiman. I'm a big fan of Brian Evenson's work, but didn't care for his story here. Many of the stories, especially those in the first half of the collection, felt incomplete, as if they were excerpted from novels or truncated. There is some metafiction (fiction that calls attention to the fact that it is fiction), which surprised me....more
This is advertised as a Horror anthology, but it is not. It is not even a Literary Horror anthology. It is an anthology for the kinds of short fiction that don’t fit in traditional Horror, Gothic, Fantasy or Science Fiction, with an emphasis on literary expression over storytelling. Only the most impressionable readers will be scared of any of the shorts contained within. Instead, corpses, ghosts and madmen are refurbished to fiction that speculates on the nature of life, creativity, angst, chil...more
I'm not going to mince words so let me start of by telling you there are some pretty F'ed up stories in this book and they cover everything from murder to rape to suicide. Definitely for a high school and above audience. There were some stories I liked and they all seemed to be towards the end of the book. It was depressing to make my way through the first part of the book and I don't recommend doing it in one sitting unless you like this sort of thing. Many well-known writers contributed includ...more
This was not scary. Not even remotely. Poe's great-great-step-god-children.
A pretty strong collection of horror stories. Sone are genuinely frightening. For me, the stand out stories are The Great God Pan by M John Harris, The Sadness of Detail by Jonathan Carroll, Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story by Thomas Ligotti, The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet by Stephen King, 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill and October in the Chair by Neil Gaiman. I found the inclusion of Ellen Klages story The Green Glass Sea kind of fascinating as it has no supernatural elements, is mor...more
In which Peter Straub sets out to broaden the umbrella of “horror” beyond the stereotypical blood-and-guts sensationalism typically associated with it. He succeeds at this so well that I had a hard time figuring out exactly what made some of these stories fit into the genre at all.
Dan Chaon - “The Bees” - A husband and father is haunted (literally or metaphorically?) by the first wife and child he abandoned during his drinking days. Impressively dark and downtrodden, although one wishes the two...more
Dan Chaon - “The Bees” - A husband and father is haunted (literally or metaphorically?) by the first wife and child he abandoned during his drinking days. Impressively dark and downtrodden, although one wishes the two...more
Any anthology is bound to be mixed in quality. If nothing else, the range in writing styles means some authors will appeal more to each reader than others.
That said, Poe's Children is really, really mixed in quality. A couple of the stories are brilliant and terrifying--Campbell's Voice of the Beach had me hiding under my blanket--a handful of others interesting and worth the read.
Unfortunately, more than a few stories here are exercises in mental masturbation. Straub got this collection togethe...more
That said, Poe's Children is really, really mixed in quality. A couple of the stories are brilliant and terrifying--Campbell's Voice of the Beach had me hiding under my blanket--a handful of others interesting and worth the read.
Unfortunately, more than a few stories here are exercises in mental masturbation. Straub got this collection togethe...more
As a fan of the horror genre, I cannot tell you how much I loved this book! The stories in this anthology are simply brilliant and genuinely scary (or at least insanely creepy). My favorites were "The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet", where a writer goes insane and believes there are elves inside his typewriter, and "Cleopatra Brimstone", a bizarre story about a woman who turns into a butterfly (and not in a good way). It's a great selection of authors, so if you're into horror, it's definitely a...more
My urge is to give the book 3.5 stars. For me, 3 stars is pretty low, but a 4 star rating does not feel right because I found a number of the stories a struggle to get through, though I really enjoyed some of the stories. I liked "The Kiss" enough to look up the author, Tia Travis to see what else she has written. This was also true for "Plot Twist" author, David Schow. There were other great stories by authors I am already familiar with. Overall, a worthwhile anthology.
so maybe one star is unfair but since this is a series of short stories and the first 4 stories only had one that really captivated me, I had to stop reading it out of boredom. The story about the girl who collects moths and butterflies is by far the best because of the supernatural elements and the sexual- victim-becomes-predator kind of premise. The rest that I read lacked narrative structure or just didn't have any hook to maintain my interest.
It is my personal opinion that a short story needs to grab you within the first two paragraphs. There were some in this collection of horror stories, written by a lot of authors that I was unfamiliar with, that did just that. But most of those were written by authors that I have familiarity with: Stephen King, Joe Hill, Dan Chaon, Neil Gaiman, to name some. There were some new to me authors that wrote well and I will seek their other works, but some just did not make too much horrific sense to m...more
I enjoyed the stories in this anthology, and I kept thinking to myself, well, if this is the New Horror, then sign me up. The stories mostly lean toward speculative fiction. When I read the info about each story at the end I saw that most of them were originally published in scifi or fantasty mags.
And apparently the New Horror includes stories originally published in 1984, 1988, and 1990. Hmmm....I wonder why they couldn't have stuck to this century when putting the anthology together.
And apparently the New Horror includes stories originally published in 1984, 1988, and 1990. Hmmm....I wonder why they couldn't have stuck to this century when putting the anthology together.
"The New Horror" eh? No idea if this subtitle was Straub's doing or some other editor, but if the stories collected here are an example of a new direction in horror fiction, I'll happily stay in the past. Most everything I've read so far has struck me as self-consciously literary and that apparently means bleeding horror of any shock, duress, disgust and so on.
A better than average horror anthology; it contains some of my favorite genre authors (Neil Gaiman's beautiful tribute to Ray Bradbury, "October in the Chair", Graham Joyce, Stephen King, Ramsey Campbell), as well as a few I wasn't familiar with ('The Bees' by Dan Chaon and 'The Great God Pan' by M. John Harrison are new favorites). Worth far more than the $1 I paid for it at Dollar Tree!
As I grow increasingly despairing as to the quality of modern science fiction, I have the pleasure to acknowledge that horror fiction is better than ever. Nothing is better evidence of that than this anthology. Every single story contained within is a gem, each unique and perfectly crafted. Skillfully dodging genre boundaries, avoiding cliches at every turn, producing the original and unexpected (while staying paying tribute to a few Old Greats... "The Voice of the Beach" is a Lovecraft story, p...more
uneven assortment of short stories... a few were really interesting, one I totally skipped cuz it was weird/uninteresting front he get go, and a couple I really enjoyed. Oddly, the Stephen King I was kind of disappointed in, and he's my go-to guy in this genre. This is a really old book I think, so that may be a factor. Overall, not bad.
The title of this book misled me slightly, because I was thinking of "new horror" as in "new stories," rather than "stories in a new style of horror" -- and thus was surprised at first to find that some of the stories were at least 25 years old. It speaks to Straub's editorial skills, however, that the older stories blend seamlessly with the newer ones, and for the most part if I hadn't already been familiar with a few of the older stories, I might have thought they were brand new.
Most of the st...more
Most of the st...more
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| Cleopatra Brimstone | 4 | 51 | May 12, 2011 01:32pm |
Peter Straub was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on 2 March, 1943, the first of three sons of a salesman and a nurse. The salesman wanted him to become an athlete, the nurse thought he would do well as either a doctor or a Lutheran minister, but all he wanted to do was to learn to read.
When kindergarten turned out to be a stupefyingly banal disappointment devoted to cutting animal shapes out of heavy...more
More about Peter Straub...
When kindergarten turned out to be a stupefyingly banal disappointment devoted to cutting animal shapes out of heavy...more
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“...the materials of genre - specifically the paired genres of horror and the fantastic - in no way require the constrictions of formulaic treatment, and in fact naturally extend and evolve into the methods and concerns of its wider context, general literature.”
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Dec 29, 2009 02:13pm