Fear the Reaper edited by Joe Mynhardt

Like many anthologies that I read, Fear the Reaper, had some strong stories that I enjoyed, and some forgettable ones that I skipped through because they couldn’t hold my interest. This anthology had an interesting theme—one that focused on death. There were tales of the Grim Reaper, life after death, vampires, ghosts, spirits and a smorgasborg of ghastly delights.



It seems as if most of the better stories were in the first half of the anthology. The ones that stood out to me in particular were The Life of Death by Marc Sheldon, which opened the anthology. It was followed up by a darkly humorous tale by Jeff Strand—and you can never go wrong with anything by Jeff Strand. I also enjoyed Rena Mason’s story. The Death Catcher by Robert S. Wilson stood out. Cedo Looked Like People was an odd but captivating tale. Then there were some that missed the mark, which I won’t go over in this review, but clearly the good outweighed the bad, and overall I give this anthology a thumbs up. There’s a lot to like in here if you like to dip into the macabre.