A Little Green Book of Monster Stories

Little Book Series I

by Joe R. Lansdale

"Artificial man"
"Bar Talk"
"Bob the Dinosaur Goes to Disneyland"
"Chompers"
"Huitzilopochtli"
"Night They Missed the Horror Show"
"Personality Problem"
"The Dump"
"White Road"

Genres: Horror

106 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Champion Mojo Storyteller Joe R. Lansdale is the author of over forty novels and numerous short stories. His work has appeared in national anthologies, magazines, and collections, as well as numerous foreign publications. He has written for comics, television, film, newspapers, and Internet sites. His work has been collected in more than two dozen short-story collections, and he has edited or co-edited over a dozen anthologies. He has received the Edgar Award, eight Bram Stoker Awards, the Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Grinzani Cavour Prize for Literature, the Herodotus Historical Fiction Award, the Inkpot Award for Contributions to Science Fiction and Fantasy, and many others. His novella Bubba Ho-Tep was adapted to film by Don Coscarelli, starring Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis. His story "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road" was adapted to film for Showtime's "Masters of Horror," and he adapted his short story "Christmas with the Dead" to film hisownself. The film adaptation of his novel Cold in July was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, and the Sundance Channel has adapted his Hap & Leonard novels for television.

He is currently co-producing several films, among them The Bottoms, based on his Edgar Award-winning novel, with Bill Paxton and Brad Wyman, and The Drive-In, with Greg Nicotero. He is Writer In Residence at Stephen F. Austin State University, and is the founder of the martial arts system Shen Chuan: Martial Science and its affiliate, Shen Chuan Family System. He is a member of both the United States and International Martial Arts Halls of Fame. He lives in Nacogdoches, Texas with his wife, dog, and two cats.

Reviews

[Zain · Rating 5 out of 5]

This Monster Book is Full of Treasure.

The stories in this book are very interesting and very well written. They have been a very great source of happiness for me and reading them makes me feel so much like a person who has been through a lot of horrible times.

I am very elated that I have read this book because reading horror stories makes me ecstatic, enraptured and exultant. I feel as though I am on cloud nine and I’m tickled pink.

This book has some wonderful stories that have me feeling blessed and blissful and content and convivial. I am so in love with this book that I’ll be reading another book like it, soon.

If you are a big fan of horror, you should find this book enticing and engaging and enjoyable. You will want to try this book and give it five stars.

Five stars. 💫💫💫💫💫

[Craig Childs · Rating 3 out of 5]

For seventeen years, this short story collection was one of Lansdale's rarest books. It was initially published in 2003 as a limited edition hardcover with only 500 signed and numbered copies. It was sold as part of a box set of "Little Books" alongside A Little Black Book of Noir Stories, A Little Red Book of Vampire Stories, A Little Orange Book of Odd Stories, and A Little Purple Book of Peculiar Stories.

The lead story "Artificial Man" does not appear in any other Joe R. Lansdale collection. Here are my individual story reviews:

"Artificial Man" -- A menacing robot wreaks havoc on the people and animals around him in this single-page short.

"Bar Talk" -- Two strangers strike up a conversation in a bar, but it takes a bizarre turn when one of them claims to be a spy from Mars. Adapted into an 8-minute short film in 2013 (available online).

"Bob the Dinosaur Goes to Disneyland" -- A toy dinosaur begs and pleads to go to Disneyland until his parents finally relent, but the trip does not live up to expectations. I have read this story before, but I never really understood it until now. I guess I had to live through my daughter's incredibly brief transition from childhood to teenager to really "get" the ending.

"Chompers" - A homeless woman finds a pair of dentures sitting in a pool of blood in a dark alley. She tries them on, reasoning it is better to chew her food, even if the teeth once belonged to someone else. Hilarity and bloodshed ensue.

"Huitzilopochtli" -- Dag and Kevin hike to an old cabin on a wintry night, where she tells him the family legend about an Aztec idol and her grandfather's quest for eternal youth. This is a fun if predictable ghost story.

"The Night They Missed the Horror Show" -- Two redneck football players cruise around their small Texas town looking for entertainment on a Saturday night. The horror in this tale derives not from the supernatural but from the realistic twin demons of racism and perversion. I’ve read this story four times. Every time I encounter it, the frank real-world brutality shocks me. I also always laugh out loud at the gallows humor and then feel guilty about doing so. Won a Bram Stoker Award in 1988.

"Personality Problem" -- A humorous take on the Frankenstein legend told from the monster's point of view. He simply does not understand why everyone hates him so much.

"The Dump" -- A Texas-style tall tale set in an eerie trash dump. Otto is the perfect pet to read about a few nights before Halloween. Adapted as episode #9 of Love, Death & Robots (Season 1) on Netflix in 2019.

"The White Rabbit" -- An academic encounters the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland while exploring Cairo at night. He assumes he must be having a benign dream. Only belatedly does he realize Osiris the God of the Dead also appeared in rabbit form, and tonight's ritual might be more dangerous than anything Lewis Carroll ever dreamed of.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

these were short, sweet and to the point mostly horror stories. I especially like "Chompers" and "Night they Missed the Horror Show" was the most disturbing.

[Geoff · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is another book in the "Little Book" series from Borderlands Press. This was a varied collection of stories, some only a couple of pages long, up to 25 pages long. Oddly enough his best story was not even about monsters. I was curious as to why it was included, but I guess he was all out of monster stories, so this also got thrown in. Also all these short stories were brand new to this collection, so it's a nice collection to have. As with every other "Little Book" I have read from Borderlands this was pretty good.