Poe's Children: The New Horror: An Anthology

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Poe's Children: The New Horror: An Anthology

by Peter Straub (Goodreads Author)

3.30 · rating details · 366 ratings · 93 reviews

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 A...more

Hardcover, 592 pages

Published October 14th 2008 by Doubleday

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Community Reviews

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Jan 10, 2009

Lisa Cindrich rated it

Shelves: horror

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 f...more

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Dec 29, 2009

Jess rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, library, short-stories, wishlist, science-fiction, horror

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 ...moreIn 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" stories--in fact, many of the stories weren't scary at all, but that wasn't the point. I found that Straub did a phenomenal job at "making his point" with the stories that he selected. Granted, I didn't like all of the stories, but not because they were "bad" stories, but they just weren't my cup of tea. I probably would have given this collection three stars, if it weren't for the stories that I ended up loving if only because this collection is pretty long and seemed to drag in between the stories that I loved. I'm not going to do a review of each story, but my favorites were:

--"The Bees" by Dan Chaon: This was the first story, and I don't know if it was just because I was reading this at night, but it freaked me out. I had a hard time falling asleep because it was so creepy.
--"Louise's Ghost" by Kelly Link: I liked the idea of these two best friends and the story they share, and I think more than anything, I really enjoyed the author's voice.
--"The Sadness of Detail" by Jonathan Carroll: I thought it was a beautiful idea for a story, and it was beautifully written, with superb attention to (SURPRISE!) detail. It reminded me of Stephen King's Insomnia, for whatever reason.
--"Leda" by M. Rickert: I wasn't sure about this one to begin with, but I really liked the ending.
--"Unearthed" by Benjamin Percy: I just thought this was was creepy with the dead Indian. I was so creeped out.
--"Little Red's Tango" by Peter Straub: This was my first reading of anything of Straub's and I just really enjoyed it's flow and the implications behind the character of Little Red.
--"The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet" by Stephen King: I've read this one before in Skeleton Crew, but it had been a while. I still loved it as much as before, which is a given, I guess, seeing as how much I adore SK. "Fornit Some Fornus!"
--"20th Century Ghost" by Joe Hill: Well, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, let me say that. I loved this story, mainly for Hill's voice. He's got a talent for pulling his readers in with an easy style.
--"The Kiss" by Tia V. Travis: I LOVE LOVE LOVED this story. This was probably my favorite out of the whole thing. Travis wrote with such a lush, delicious style that I literally could not tear my eyes away from the pages. I want to go back and re-read this right now. I loved the twist, and I basically just loved the story. I still can't quit gushing about it. "That's why the lady is a tramp..."
--"Black Dust" by Graham Joyce: As a coal miner's granddaughter/great-granddaughter, I appreciated this story. Just a good story overall.
--"October in the Chair" by Neil Gaimain: This was also my first read of Gaiman's, and I have to say I'm intrigued. I liked his idea of all of the months sitting around a fire telling stories, and I like how each month's personality and appearance reflected what we generally think about each of the months. The story that October told was good, and I was left wondering what happened to the Runt/Donald.

Overall, if you enjoy horror for more than monsters and "things that go bump in the night," I'd highly recommend this collection. In it are a wide variety of all kinds of horror, from the horror brought on by panic in "The Great God Pan" to the horror of the uncertainty of fate in "The Sadness of Detail" to the horror of losing your other half in "Gardener of Heart." This is a great collection well worth anyone's time. (less)

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May 13, 2009

Jan rated it

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...more

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Nov 04, 2010

Dan rated it

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 w...more

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Feb 08, 2011

Brandy rated it

Shelves: horror

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 i...more

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Jun 12, 2011

Theresa Glover rated it

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

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Apr 21, 2009

Donald rated it

Shelves: 2009, shorts

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...moreBecause 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 there and they are slowly backing away.

Dan Chaon's story: The Bees, was the perfect first story for this collection. It set the bar at a certain height. Unfortunately that height doesn't get reached again for some time.

The subtitle of this anthology is The New Horror. But some of these stories go back two decades or more. That is some kinda sad bit of false advertising. I read Joe Hill's 20th Century Ghost quite a while ago in his collection of the same name and I still like the story. I also think it wasn't well told. All the damned italics just bummed me out. Came off as a sort of concept fiction that didn't need to be that way. I got the same feel from Stevenson's Insect Dreams. She puts double spaces between all her paragraphs. With all the white space dutifully removed by any decent editor, the story's page count would have been halved.

The one truely shining example of great story telling is in Stephen King's The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet. No trick high concept bull going on here; just good stuff. I had not read that one before even though it was twenty-five years old.

Some of the stories were just sad. Glen Hirshberg's The Two Sams fell into that category. And others just seemed unfinished, or perhaps hurriedly finished for some deadline.

Neil Gaiman's October in the Chair, about the months of the year sitting around a fire roasting sausages and telling campfire stories still is a good story. I liked Graham Joyce's Black Dust for its ending. Found Kelly Link's Louise's Ghost unnecessarily confusing for its two Louises. And Ramsey Campbell's The Voice of the Beach was just so out there. Truely, to be honest, I like something about each of these. There is some quality in each of these to like them all. (less)

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Mar 22, 2010

Junior Cain rated it

· review of another edition

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...morePeter 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 writers, tales that will leave the weak at heart running from the night, screams howling from their lips.

The horror stories anthologized in Poe‘s Children range in nightmarish quality and length, but are all consistent in terms of creativity, quality writing, and addictive diversity. Some are of a more sci-fi quality and could fall easily into the scary but obviously make-believe category. Others are a little more honed in their realism, still possessed supernatural elements but falling into the ghost story/local legend-type category. Ultimately, the collection of short stories is frightful enough to keep away from children but decadent enough for those adults who enjoy reading a good horror novel on a dark and lonely night.

Because of the book's anthology nature, I will only briefly detail one of my favorite stories from the collection as a preview. Jane is an unusually beautiful young woman whose love of butterflies and disinterest in the larger world are strangely unique characteristics. She hides behind large glasses, attends an all-girl college and, until one fateful night, is unwaveringly focused on the science of butterflies. Taking up residence in England temporarily to house-sit for a family friend, Jane finds herself a volunteer position in the Insect House at the local zoo. Her knowledge is valuable and her skill unquestionable, but there is something different about Jane. Within a few days of Jane’s arrival in England, an large number of young men start going missing. Their belongings are found carelessly flung aside, but their bodies are not recovered. The police don’t know who to look for, but this killer is obviously living around Jane’s area. As the days pass, Jane’s rare butterfly collection continues to grow. Species that are rarely ever found are finding their way into her specimen kits. How can this be? Jane, herself, is as beautiful as the rarest of butterflies and one wonders what her value would be.

Straub as editor and the actual authors of the stories in this collection deserve nothing but praise (Straub contributes one story to the collection himself). Mature plots only highlight the quality of prose here, from seasoned authors including Elizabeth Hand, Brian Evenson, M. Rickert, Stephen King, Graham Joyce, and John Crowley.

Reviewed by Junior Cain- cainbookreviews.blogspot.com (less)

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Jun 23, 2009

Joyce rated it

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 overus...more

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Nov 08, 2010

Anne Earney rated it

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

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Jan 09, 2010

Audrey rated it

There were two exceptional stories in this book, hence the three stars. Cleopatra's Brimstone by Elizabeth Hand and Peter Straub's Little Red's Tango, were exceptional, and The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet by Stephen King was very good. Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story by Thomas Ligotti was interesting. Insect Dreams was lovely, but not horror really, but worth the read.

Others were okay, but some were just annoying and long and self indulgent in a way that made me skip ...more

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Mar 01, 2009

John Wiswell rated it

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...moreThis 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, childhood, sexuality and other themes that often result in things closer resembling collages of events than short stories. With Stephen King, Neil Gaiman and Peter Straub contributing, the Horror fan knows he’ll be in good hands at least some of the time.

The book takes off well with Peter Straub’s introduction questioning critics that pigeonhole Horror and Fantasy as garbage, and further questioning the nature of Horror and Fantasy stories. The first story, Dan Chaon’s “The Bees,” sets the tone as it meanders through the shattered life of a father whose son was sticken by inexplicable night terrors. Chaon nails tone and gives you just enough hints of intrigue in the early narrative to pull together a great story. As someone who picked this up to brush up on short fiction, I was struck with the feeling that I’m not nearly this good.

But Elizabeth Hand’s “Cleopatra Brimstone” comes next and brings the collection down from Chaon’s high. This story has no sense of direction, letting its voice and stabs at meaningful literary moments take over for dozens of pages. It is not even tense; even its handling of a rape it clipped and emotionally detached. This devolves into watching her development with the typical fascination on sex, with the desire to swap domination and submission roles being a thimble-full of motive in a bathtub of words. I don’t think I’ve ever read a good story that contained the phrase “his cock already hard.” This story is an example of Literary fiction that sacrifices plot for indulgence – exactly where all of the “Genre” genres ought not to go.

Horror readers curious about Literary reading ought to try Benjamin Percy’s “Unearthed.” It opens with a family finding a corpse on an illegal archeology dig. Typical Horror suggests we’ve got a ghost, zombie or some kind of haunting coming out after this, but the actual story is more preoccupied with the son’s desire for his dead mother and the father’s desire to get out of the stuffy house. There are a few urgent moments, but it’s mostly reflective fiction about their lives and hardships. Sound familiar? Well it should. Not to be too blunt, but life sucking and us doing nothing about it was the biggest cliché of Literature in the 20th century, and it was inevitable that Horror would shamble up and imitate it eventually. “Unearthed” ultimately fails to deliver a plot in favor of indulging characters that are worth examining, and examines them for a little while without delivering much from the exhumed body. It’s a good piece about this boy and worth reading. But can you stand an entire collection of fiction that is mostly preoccupied with something other than delivering actual narrative or being particularly creative with its unrealistic conceits?

The collection bounces between trash writing that is too overwrought and pretentious, and solid storytelling grappling with meaning. One reviewer on Amazon said he thought many readers would have trouble with the changes in tone from story to story, but I actually had the opposite problem. Many sound too alike or are preoccupied with things that are too similar and are not essential to a good Horror story, leaving multiple points when you’ll read two stories, pause in the second and wonder if you hadn’t just read this sort of thing. This isn’t an album where two similar songs compliment each other; three straight stories about weird stuff involving kids just reminds you of the cliché. These basic similarities aggravate the Literary issues of the collection, as too many stories have too many paragraphs devoted to tangential observations, sad or melancholy tones, characters overcome by their situations in passivity instead of struggle, and other associated bullplop that runs rampant in regular Literary writing. You’ll be much better-served by reading whatever pieces you feel like at will rather than following the anthology as it was laid out, trying to find the pieces that balance the urges to entertain and perform art. And there are good ones in here.

Kelly Link’s “Louise’s Ghost” is about two women named Louise. One of them is haunted, but the ghost is pathetic and more of a curious attraction for her than a cause for fear. We follow her trying to handle this paranormal event as the narrative questions her identity (so many sentences begin with “Louise” that we are left uncertain which woman is acting), and watch her talk to her senile mother and the other Louise’s fantasy-obsessed daughter. One is all imagination and the other is losing her mind, but in these conversations we see how our reality isn’t much more or less absurd than theirs. And beyond exploring the ghost’s origins and role and all the harsh relationships, it manages to be innocent and downright hilarious in bits. It’s quirky beyond reckoning. I have no idea what Genre you’d pigeonhole this in.

The very short “The Sadness of Detail” by Jonathan Caroll is downright hopeful, almost in spite of other stories about characters overcome by everything, and grabs at a secondary nature of art found through quixotic paintings. Neil Gaiman nails voice with a quirky tribute to ghost stories and G.K. Chesterton in “October in the Chair,” about a collection of storytellers named for months. While Straub may have chosen some bad eggs, his own “Little Red” story, about man related to a dozen miracles that you might not even call miracles, bucks genre classification and gives life to a character and story that just couldn’t be told any other way.

Unsurprisingly, the strongest piece of Literary Horror in the collection is by the guy with the most experience: Stephen King. It’s almost unfair, as he’s written more than ten times the prose of just about anyone else in here, giving him the odds-on edge of writing something good, and giving him the most stuff to choose from. The collection chooses probably the best for itself, though, in his “The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet,” one of the finest novellas I’ve ever read. It follows the correspondence between a bright new author and a struggling alcoholic editor as their careers cross. One descends into an all-too-authentic sort of madness, and the other descends into the bottle. It manages to tell a long story, has a distinct voices and effortlessly switches between observation on aspects of life and observation on story progression. It’s not the only metafiction in the anthology (it directly questions the origin of creativity and the business of marketing art, managing to trump even Thomas Ligotti’s very explicit metafiction “Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story”), but with King’s sense of voice, tricks of switching between the narrator telling it alone and discussing it with his audience, and a terribly detailed vision of the author’s worldview, nothing in the collection achieves as much.

There is a lot to think about in here for people looking at Horror and its related genres for more than thrills. Maybe some of it will make you think you could do better. Hopefully some of it will make some young writers think they can do more than they’re already doing. But especially since a collection like this was shepherded by someone as important to the field as Straub, it leaves you knowing many more experiments can fit in even vaguely supernatural fiction than you thought.(less)

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Jul 22, 2011

Drucilla rated it

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

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Nov 18, 2009

Issy rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: couldntfinish

This was not scary. Not even remotely. Poe's great-great-step-god-children.

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Feb 06, 2009

Book Cellar rated it

Shelves: stephen-s-picks

Short story anthologies are almost always sure-fire hits, as every story is a new chance to enjoy.

Some of these tales missed with me, but they may hit you square in the chest.

A few that knocked me out include a tale of insect serial killers, an evil statuary, and an acoholic.

The first tale, by Don Chaon, is NOT to be read before you go to sleep!

~Stephen, The Book Cellar bookseller

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Jul 09, 2011

Joanne rated it

Shelves: 2011-books-read

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

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Jan 05, 2009

Michelle rated it

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 toget...more

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Mar 29, 2010

Kruppshin rated it

"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.

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Nov 23, 2008

Kalliope rated it

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 Lovecraf...more

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Jan 22, 2012

Ellen Mandly rated it

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.

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Jan 10, 2009

Kirsten rated it

Shelves: fiction, from-library, horror-and-horror-ish, spec-fic

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 the...more

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Nov 15, 2011

Heather Wingfield rated it

This was a good anthology of recent horror stories (recent being a relative term, as some of these date back to the eighties). Like most anthologies, some stories were really good, and some faded from memory as soon as I turned the page.
Stories I really liked- Cleopatra Brimestone by Elizabeth Hand, Man on the ceiling by the Tems and 20th century ghost by Joe Hill. If nothing else it gives me some new authors to look for.

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Mar 10, 2011

Jessica rated it

Sadly, I was disappointed in this book. I'd heard rave reviews from many people, and I'm a huge lover of short horror stories, but most of them I was counting down til they were over. It wasn't completely TERRIBLE, & it's true that I read it with very high expectations, but still definitely wasn't a favorite.

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Jul 17, 2011

That70sheidi rated it

Shelves: 2011, mystery, sci-fi, fantasy, uncategorized

Pretty limp, with a lot of self-satisfied authors stringing together a bunch of crap and hoping it felt suspenseful. The failed, and honestly I'm already having a hard time remembering anything in particular that stood out and I just finished it a few hours ago. Completely forgettable.

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Aug 07, 2011

Andrea rated it

Shelves: horror

After reading mixed reviews on this anthology, I finally decided to pick it up and give it a whirl.

I found that several (OK, most) of these stories were pretty un-readable. I really enjoyed "The Bees" as well as the King story... I honestly skimmed over 75% of the book. :/

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Nov 23, 2009

Victoria rated it

I wasn't actually horrified, per se, by any of the stories in this book. Some of the stories were really well written, especially the story by Stephen King. And I really liked the writing of "Insect Dreams" and "Cleopatra Brimstone." The latter was really good but I didn't like the ending. What's the deal with women and insects? But, all in all, I just found the book, fine but not oustanding.

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Jul 03, 2011

Dan rated it

This was incredibly disappointing. The stories were boring and not frightening at all. Calling this Horror is a misnomer for sure. A few stories were just okay, but for the most part, this is a bore.

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Jul 13, 2011

Waffles rated it

A good collection overall. In most anthologies I don't expect to like all of the stories, but I do expect the stories to adhere to the theme of the anthology - in this case "New Horror". Several stories certainly qualified as fantastic, but I wouldn't call them horror. Still, the masters are well represented, Thomas Ligotti, David Schow, Joe Hill, Ramsey Campbell, and Jonathan Carroll.

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Sep 23, 2011

Lisa Grabenstetter rated it

Shelves: owned

Very few of these stories could even remotely be classified as horror. Straub, in his weird desire to "redeem" the genre, asked mostly authors of "literary fiction" to contribute to this book. The result, though it includes a few rare and satisfying gems, is mostly long sad accounts of peoples' familial lives, with perhaps a ghost or something tacked on at the end. Or in one case, a promisingly convoluted and experimental story that ends in the death of the writer's imaginati...more

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Jun 12, 2009

Nilchance rated it

The new horror is, unfortunately, not very scary at all. The only standouts are Stephen King and Joe Hill; Peter Straub's contribution was great, but not really what I define as horror.

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About Peter Straub

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 ...morePeter 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 colored paper, he took matters into his own hands and taught himself to read by memorizing his comic books and reciting them over and over to other neighborhood children on the front steps until he could recognize the words. Therefore, when he finally got to first grade to find everyone else laboring over the imbecile adventures of Dick, Jane and Spot (“See Spot run. See, see, see,”), he ransacked the library in search of pirates, soldiers, detectives, spies, criminals, and other colorful souls, Soon he had earned a reputation as an ace storyteller, in demand around campfires and in back yards on summer evenings.

This career as the John Buchan to the first grade was interrupted by a collision between himself and an automobile which resulted in a classic near-death experience, many broken bones, surgical operations, a year out of school, a lengthy tenure in a wheelchair, and certain emotional quirks. Once back on his feet, he quickly acquired a severe stutter which plagued him into his twenties and now and then still puts in a nostalgic appearance, usually to the amusement of telephone operators and shop clerks. Because he had learned prematurely that the world was dangerous, he was jumpy, restless, hugely garrulous in spite of his stutter, physically uncomfortable and, at least until he began writing horror three decades later, prone to nightmares. Books took him out of himself, so he read even more than earlier, a youthful habit immeasurably valuable to any writer. And his storytelling, for in spite of everything he was still a sociable child with a lot of friends, took a turn toward the dark and the garish, toward the ghoulish and the violent. He found his first “effect” when he discovered that he could make this kind of thing funny.

As if scripted, the rest of life followed. He went on scholarship to Milwaukee Country Day School and was the darling of his English teachers. He discovered Thomas Wolfe and Jack Kerouac, patron saints of wounded and self-conscious adolescence, and also, blessedly, jazz music, which spoke of utterance beyond any constraint: passion and liberation in the form of speech on the far side of the verbal border. The alto saxophone player Paul Desmond, speaking in the voice of a witty and inspired angel, epitomized ideal expressiveness, Our boy still had no idea why inspired speech spoke best when it spoke in code, the simultaneous terror and ecstasy of his ancient trauma, as well as its lifelong (so far, anyhow) legacy of anger, being so deeply embedded in the self as to be imperceptible, Did he behave badly, now and then? Did he wish to shock, annoy, disturb, and provoke? Are you kidding? Did he also wish to excel, to keep panic and uncertainty at arm's length by good old main force effort? Make a guess. So here we have a pure but unsteady case of denial happily able to maintain itself through merciless effort. Booted along by invisible fears and horrors, this fellow was rewarded by wonderful grades and a vague sense of a mysterious but transcendent wholeness available through expression. He went to the University of Wisconsin and, after opening his eyes to the various joys of Henry James, William Carlos Williams, and the Texas blues-rocker Steve Miller, a great & joyous character who lived across the street, passed through essentially unchanged to emerge in 1965 with an honors degree in English, then an MA at Columbia a year later. He thought actual writing was probably beyond him even though actual writing was probably what he was best at - down crammed he many and many a book, stirred by(less)

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title link	preview: Poe's Children: The New Horror: An Anthology
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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2808929-poe-s-children?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1320428993m/2808929.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2808929-poe-s-children?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Poe's Children: The New Horror: An Anthology by Peter Straub[/url]

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