A Harvest of Horrors

by Eric Protter (Editor), Hank Blaustein (Illustrator), Ambrose Bierce (Contributor)

CONTENTS
The Whisperer by Brian Lumley
Man From The South by Roald Dahl
The Right Man For The Right Job by JC Thompson
The Bound Man by Ilse Aichinger
The Seed From The Sepulchre by Clark Ashton Smith
The White Rooster by William Goyen
The Desire To Be A Man by Villiers de l'Isle-Adam
The Tiger by AE Coppard
Oil of Dog by Ambrose Bierce
War by Milovan Djilas
The Vermilion-Headed Man by George Brandon Saul
The Butcher by Terry Southern
The Autopsy by Georg Heym
The Witnesses by William Sansom
The Cone by HG Wells
The Occupants of the Room by Algernon Blackwood
The Specialty Of The House by Stanley Ellin
"Lizzie Borden Took An Axe..." by Robert Bloch
Pickman's Model by HP Lovecraft

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Anthologies

244 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1980

Reviews

[Shawn]

PLACEHOLDER REVIEW - as I'm reading a bunch of H.G. Wells at the moment, so I cherry picked off the "to-read" shelf of anthologies.

H.G. Wells' "The Cone" is, in some sense, no surprise at all as I had first become familiar with the story through circulated tapes of the excellent dramatic reading of it by Ken Nordine on his Chicago 50's era TV show FACES IN THE WINDOW. But I'd never read it in text before and it really is a singular Wells' piece (I've seen it noted as the only conté cruel he wrote). A leader of industry (he runs a smelting/metal foundry) discovers that his wife is pursuing an infidelity with a personal friend, so he invites the man out for a walk to see the factory furnaces at night... There's a nice impressionistic (almost proto-futurist) detail focus on industry - speed, noise, heat, light, smoke - and the surface observations of same by the two men is nicely contrasted with the seething, burning anger and jealousy of one, and the growing fear and wariness of the other.

[Maximilliano Guillen]

Fair collection of spooky shorts. Some like WAR and Specialty of the House ate.

A Harvest of Horrors - Eric Protter
1. War by Milovan Djilas
2. Specialty of the House by Stanley Ellen
3. Man from the South by Roald Dahl
4. The Occupant of the Room by Algernon Blackwood
5. Oil of Dog by Ambrose Bierce

[Bryan Whitehead · Rating 3 out of 5]

Judging by the flavor, some of these horrors got a little over-ripe – if not downright rotten – before they were harvested. To be fair, there are a few plums in the bunch, classics of the short horror genre by the likes of Dahl, Bierce and Blackwood. But far too many of the entries are at best odd rather than scary, and at worst a few are really dreadful, especially a pair of tales that I can only hope were more innovative and/or interesting in their original languages. Even the layout of the collection is a little on the strange side, with the large type size and occasional illustrations almost suggesting juvenilia, though many of the stories are a little too severe for the pre-teen audience. If you don’t mind sifting through the bin, the good stuff is here someplace. But I’ve seen more than a couple of collections that were a lot easier pickings.

[David Nadolny]

I got this book from a friend at Xmas. I was soo psyched, it looks like it was going to contain all sorts of great short horror stories. The collection of short stories included authors like H G Wells and HP Lovecraft, so I thought "how can it be anythign but great!". I proclaimed it my favorite Xmas present. And then I read it. Ohh, what a collection of crap. I was so sad and kept reading, hoping that a story or two would make up for all the others, but even the two author greats I mentioned above, failed to produce. I am torn between throwing the book in the trash or taking it to half priced books. But should I subject someone else to it?