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A Glow of Candles and Other Stories
So, you think you like to be scared.... Nominated for the World Fantasy Award, the Hugo Award, and the coveted Nebula, the unforgettable tales in this magnificent collection are the work of one of today's most respected masters of horror. Here are stories designed to carry the listener across fear's threshold, to terror... and beyond.
Contents:
A Crowd of Shadows (1976).
Hear Me Now, My Sweet Abbey Rose (1978).
Temperature Days on Hawthorne Street (1974).
Come Dance with Me on My Pony's Grave (1973).
The Three of Tens (1975).
The Dark of Legends, the Light of Lies (1977).
Caesar, Now Be Still (1978).
White Wolf Calling (1975).
The Rest Is Silence (1974).
When All the Children Call My Name (1977).
Secrets of the Heart (1980).
A Glow of Candles, a Unicorn's Eye (1977), winner of the 1978 Nebula Award for Best Novelette.
Contents:
A Crowd of Shadows (1976).
Hear Me Now, My Sweet Abbey Rose (1978).
Temperature Days on Hawthorne Street (1974).
Come Dance with Me on My Pony's Grave (1973).
The Three of Tens (1975).
The Dark of Legends, the Light of Lies (1977).
Caesar, Now Be Still (1978).
White Wolf Calling (1975).
The Rest Is Silence (1974).
When All the Children Call My Name (1977).
Secrets of the Heart (1980).
A Glow of Candles, a Unicorn's Eye (1977), winner of the 1978 Nebula Award for Best Novelette.
211 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
7 people are currently reading
243 people want to read
About the author
Charles L. Grant
309 books263 followersCharles Lewis Grant was a novelist and short story writer specializing in what he called "dark fantasy" and "quiet horror." He also wrote under the pseudonyms of Geoffrey Marsh, Lionel Fenn, Simon Lake, Felicia Andrews, and Deborah Lewis.
Grant won a World Fantasy Award for his novella collection Nightmare Seasons, a Nebula Award in 1976 for his short story "A Crowd of Shadows", and another Nebula Award in 1978 for his novella "A Glow of Candles, a Unicorn's Eye," the latter telling of an actor's dilemma in a post-literate future. Grant also edited the award winning Shadows anthology, running eleven volumes from 1978-1991. Contributors include Stephen King, Ramsey Campbell, R.A. Lafferty, Avram Davidson, and Steve Rasnic and Melanie Tem. Grant was a former Executive Secretary and Eastern Regional Director of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and president of the Horror Writers Association.
Grant won a World Fantasy Award for his novella collection Nightmare Seasons, a Nebula Award in 1976 for his short story "A Crowd of Shadows", and another Nebula Award in 1978 for his novella "A Glow of Candles, a Unicorn's Eye," the latter telling of an actor's dilemma in a post-literate future. Grant also edited the award winning Shadows anthology, running eleven volumes from 1978-1991. Contributors include Stephen King, Ramsey Campbell, R.A. Lafferty, Avram Davidson, and Steve Rasnic and Melanie Tem. Grant was a former Executive Secretary and Eastern Regional Director of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and president of the Horror Writers Association.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
September 18, 2024
I'm of two minds when it comes to the quiet horror (or "dark fantasy," as he liked to call it) of Charles L. Grant. His short stories and novellas can be extremely atmospheric and creepy, and are almost always worth reading, especially his 70s and early 80s work. His novels, however, have problems maintaining that slow-building terror that the stories so effortlessly conjure up, imo.
This collection, which gathers the best of his mid to late 70s work (most of which were originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction), is almost uniformly excellent. All the patented Grant-isms are used to maximum effect: foggy nights; faint rustling in the grass and trees; eerie moonlight; hooting owls; creeping shadows; etc, and feature protagonists that, while not loners, are usually lonely.
These stories are the very definition of "quiet." You'll get no axe wielding maniacs or flesh-eating zombies here. Grant is all about suggesting -- in his uniquely poetic way -- what might be out there, making those shuffling noises; what might be causing those distorted shadows just outside the window.
He's very old-school. Sometimes his stories can suggest just a bit too much, but I believe that A Glow of Candles gets it just right most of the time, and out of the many books of his I've read over the years, this is probably the best and most unnerving as a whole, as well as the most diverse (some of the stories here have a slight science-fiction bent). There were only a couple stories where I kept waiting for something to happen. And I'm still waiting.
Still, there aren't many horror writers that I can think of, living or deceased, that are better at letting the reader's imagination run wild than Charles L. Grant.
And he most certainly is missed.
4.0 Stars
November 5, 2012
Charles Grant is not your typical horror author. He relies more on atmosphere than gore, dizzying descriptions instead of fast action. He loves the long, slow build of giallo. But when something bad happens, instead of displaying the results for the world to see, he leaves you relating to the lead characters' "What the hell was that??" He describes enough for you to get a mental image, but it's an image that leaves you disoriented, feeling like you've missed something as seemingly humdrum scenes suddenly become twisted parodies of reality. Even when you know what's happening, you're still not sure what to expect at all. The whole thing feels like a nightmare, and for me everyone else gets measured against his brilliance when it comes to capturing that dreamy feeling. Ignore reviews that say he's a Stephen King wannabe. Grant is the Argento to King's Carpenter.
Sadly, this short story collection was not his best work. Definitely some great stories in there, but also some that make it obvious this is early in his career. However, I was pleasantly surprised. It's good to know that I shouldn't just dismiss all his early books. The only other thing I've read so far from this early in his career was Night of the Oxrun Dead, which I found terribly disappointing after such masterpieces as Black Carousel and The Orchard. These are just incredible. They're both collections though, so if you're looking for a good Grant novel I'd recommend Night Songs. But back to A Glow of Candles, there were 7-8 strong stories out of 12, plus a couple more that had some great moments but didn't quite reach their potential. I'll be trying out one of his more recent novels next, and I can't wait.
Sadly, this short story collection was not his best work. Definitely some great stories in there, but also some that make it obvious this is early in his career. However, I was pleasantly surprised. It's good to know that I shouldn't just dismiss all his early books. The only other thing I've read so far from this early in his career was Night of the Oxrun Dead, which I found terribly disappointing after such masterpieces as Black Carousel and The Orchard. These are just incredible. They're both collections though, so if you're looking for a good Grant novel I'd recommend Night Songs. But back to A Glow of Candles, there were 7-8 strong stories out of 12, plus a couple more that had some great moments but didn't quite reach their potential. I'll be trying out one of his more recent novels next, and I can't wait.
February 6, 2017
Amazing, of course. Having read Grant's other collections I of course have encountered some of these stories before, but there were some new ones here I hadn't read before - "Come Dance With Me On My Pony's Grave" "The Dark of Legends the Light of Lies" "Caesar, Be Still" and "The Rest is Silence" - and anyway, re-reading short stories by Charles Grant is like listening over and over to classical music - you always find new notes with every read.
February 4, 2021
I obviously don’t understand what horror is if these stories are considered horror. I mean, I thought something scary but with that something extra. I didn’t find any of these stories scary, much less in the horror category.
I liked the narrator’s voice but I’m not sure it’s right for narrating. It’s just too low, especially when I personally think a requirement for narrating (if you want to make a living doing this and be known as a great narrator) is to be able to do a variety of voices. In this case, he can do low and really low. So there were characters (adult females and kids) in which I had to keep reminding myself that it wasn’t a man speaking. There were times when the last word of a sentence was cut off/cut in half. I’m guessing he prefers to read a line or two, then pause it, just in case there’s a mess-up and he isn’t left having to re-narrate a long passage. Some of the pauses between chapters were too long, in my opinion, or oftentimes way too short to where I didn’t even realize the next story/next chapter had started.
Questions/Comments:
A Crowd of Shadows 2/5
I didn't understand why the MC wanted to kill the kid when he found out the parents had been the robots or whatever and not him. And I swear whenever "the kid" was mentioned, it was vague. So when it was revealed, "the kid" was actually eighteen years old, yeah... my whole image of him changed because he was actually an adult.
Hear Me Now, My Sweet Abby Rose 2/5
I didn’t understand what was going on in this story besides when the drunk guys show up and are looking for Grace, and Nell tells them basically to go away. Then Grace ends up killed. What was the beginning of the story about? What did the magical aspect have to do with this story?
Temperature Days on Hawthorne Street
?
Come Dance with Me On My Pony’s Grave
5/5
The Three of Tens 3/5
This was an interesting story. I didn’t get the little riddle thing at the end though.
The Dark of Legends 1/5
The story was boring. For a majority of publishers to go out of business at the same time, I guess
I wasn’t really understanding how the world worked. I wasn’t a fan of the one-sided interview at the end either.
Caesar, Now Be Still 1/5
This story was boring.
White Wolf Calling 1/5
I thought this was a bland werewolf story. It might as well have just been a regular wolf/no transformation story. It didn’t have that magical quality werewolves have.
The Rest is Silence 3/5
This was an interesting story but I felt a little lost with the ending.
When All the Children Call My Name 1/5
This story annoyed me because kids are dying at the playground but there was never any talk of the police doing anything about it. Or when the MC found out parents thought he was the one killing them, even though one died before he even got back, and he had no motive to do it. It didn’t make sense. It was obvious when the little kids were first introduced that they were the killers of the older boys, yet how did the MC figure that out? It was like he went from talking to the one teenage boy who told him the little kids were the culprit and the MC kept telling him to go away because he was making stuff up, then suddenly the MC was acting as though he’d known it was the little kids the whole time.
Secrets of the Heart 1/5
“My parents told me never to let anyone in the house,” but they never told her to open the door in the first place? The adults didn’t find that strange? I found it interesting that the author said something about how he had the idea for this story but it took him a long while to get the story together. I was expecting something that hadn’t already been written. I automatically thought of the one Alfred Hitchcock episode with the little boy who could make anything happen and his parents and neighbors were terrified of him. There was nothing original here.
A Glow of Candles, a Unicorn’s Eye 1/5
Again, I found this one boring.
I liked the narrator’s voice but I’m not sure it’s right for narrating. It’s just too low, especially when I personally think a requirement for narrating (if you want to make a living doing this and be known as a great narrator) is to be able to do a variety of voices. In this case, he can do low and really low. So there were characters (adult females and kids) in which I had to keep reminding myself that it wasn’t a man speaking. There were times when the last word of a sentence was cut off/cut in half. I’m guessing he prefers to read a line or two, then pause it, just in case there’s a mess-up and he isn’t left having to re-narrate a long passage. Some of the pauses between chapters were too long, in my opinion, or oftentimes way too short to where I didn’t even realize the next story/next chapter had started.
Questions/Comments:
A Crowd of Shadows 2/5
I didn't understand why the MC wanted to kill the kid when he found out the parents had been the robots or whatever and not him. And I swear whenever "the kid" was mentioned, it was vague. So when it was revealed, "the kid" was actually eighteen years old, yeah... my whole image of him changed because he was actually an adult.
Hear Me Now, My Sweet Abby Rose 2/5
I didn’t understand what was going on in this story besides when the drunk guys show up and are looking for Grace, and Nell tells them basically to go away. Then Grace ends up killed. What was the beginning of the story about? What did the magical aspect have to do with this story?
Temperature Days on Hawthorne Street
?
Come Dance with Me On My Pony’s Grave
5/5
The Three of Tens 3/5
This was an interesting story. I didn’t get the little riddle thing at the end though.
The Dark of Legends 1/5
The story was boring. For a majority of publishers to go out of business at the same time, I guess
I wasn’t really understanding how the world worked. I wasn’t a fan of the one-sided interview at the end either.
Caesar, Now Be Still 1/5
This story was boring.
White Wolf Calling 1/5
I thought this was a bland werewolf story. It might as well have just been a regular wolf/no transformation story. It didn’t have that magical quality werewolves have.
The Rest is Silence 3/5
This was an interesting story but I felt a little lost with the ending.
When All the Children Call My Name 1/5
This story annoyed me because kids are dying at the playground but there was never any talk of the police doing anything about it. Or when the MC found out parents thought he was the one killing them, even though one died before he even got back, and he had no motive to do it. It didn’t make sense. It was obvious when the little kids were first introduced that they were the killers of the older boys, yet how did the MC figure that out? It was like he went from talking to the one teenage boy who told him the little kids were the culprit and the MC kept telling him to go away because he was making stuff up, then suddenly the MC was acting as though he’d known it was the little kids the whole time.
Secrets of the Heart 1/5
“My parents told me never to let anyone in the house,” but they never told her to open the door in the first place? The adults didn’t find that strange? I found it interesting that the author said something about how he had the idea for this story but it took him a long while to get the story together. I was expecting something that hadn’t already been written. I automatically thought of the one Alfred Hitchcock episode with the little boy who could make anything happen and his parents and neighbors were terrified of him. There was nothing original here.
A Glow of Candles, a Unicorn’s Eye 1/5
Again, I found this one boring.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 17, 2024
Some of the finest horror writing I've come across. Charles L. Grant is an expert at prose that straddles the line between beautiful and economic. Some of the stories in A Glow of Candles are among the most eerie I've read in a long while -- very atmospheric and moody. The few science fiction entries were compelling examinations of art and humanity. My favorite stories included "Temperature Days on Hawthorne Street" which was adapted into a Tales from the Darkside episode (to date the ONLY screen adaptation of Grant's work) and "The Three of Tens" which was effectively one of the scariest pieces of short fiction I've had the pleasure to read.
August 24, 2021
A GLOW OF CANDLES AND OTHER STORIES BY CHARLES GRANT is a collection of the authors award winning short stories. Narrated very well by Samuel E Hoke, the stories range from the bizarre to the scarey!
Charles Grant did a great job with A GLOW OF CANDLES. Each story has twists and turns and keeps the listener on their toes as to what will happen next. From the strange to the downright scary, A GLOW OF CANDLES is well worth the listening time!
I recieved this audiobook free in exchange for an honest review.
Charles Grant did a great job with A GLOW OF CANDLES. Each story has twists and turns and keeps the listener on their toes as to what will happen next. From the strange to the downright scary, A GLOW OF CANDLES is well worth the listening time!
I recieved this audiobook free in exchange for an honest review.
May 14, 2025
Quite clever really. I believe this is what's called "Quiet Horror". The author relies on the slow burn to create a feeling of dread or unease. A lot of the horror is psychological, here. You have to keep your wits about you while reading this, and hopefully your general knowledge (at least regarding history and literature) is up to scratch, otherwise some of it might go over your head.
Or at least, I think so. I am sure some of it went over mine.
Or at least, I think so. I am sure some of it went over mine.
September 19, 2021
This was a compilation of short stories.I liked them all.The third one was my favorite. Samuel E Hoke was a fine narrator.I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.'
December 31, 2021
This was a compilation of short stories.I liked them all.The third one was my favorite. Samuel E Hoke was a fine narrator.I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.'
September 30, 2023
Good writer who’s incapable of telling a good story. Every bad guy in these stories are as embarrassingly one note as Stephen King’s 50s greasers or the backwoods rapists in every hixploitation film.
October 1, 2024
Overwritten and astonishingly vague endings. Grant is beloved by multiple professional authors. Guess I'm not an author.
August 20, 2010
Hard to follow
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews