Voices in the Darkness

by David Niall Wilson (Editor), Kathe Koja, Nadia Bulkin

Sometimes the world is a very dark place. You know the magic is still out there, but it feels distant, or displaced. Voices in the Darkness is an attempt to create a link, to bring some of those voices together in a single work of art. Six award-winning authors lent their talent to this work. The stories are unique, and dark, filled with wonder and emotion.

Genres: Horror

231 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 13, 2021

About the author

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David Niall Wilson has been writing and publishing horror, dark fantasy, and science fiction since the mid-eighties. An ordained minister, once President of the Horror Writer 's Association and multiple recipient of the Bram Stoker Award. He lives outside Hertford, NC with the love of his life, Patricia Lee Macomber, His children Zane and Katie, occasionally their older siblings, Stephanie, who is in college, and Bill and Zach who are in the Navy, and an ever-changing assortment of pets.

David is CEO and founder of Crossroad Press, a cutting edge digital publishing company specializing in electronic novels, collections, and nonfiction, as well as unabridged audiobooks and print titles.

Reviews

[Bandit]

This was an interesting collection. I’ve no experience with the author as an editor, but once I read and hated the book by him, so there was that. But then again, I do like a good scary story and this was short enough and featured enough recognizable names to give it a try. This is literary just that, a collection of scary stories. Wilson might have tried to unite them thematically under the whatever the sh*tiness of 2020 might have inspired, but that’s way too wide of an umbrella, so there really isn’t a theme. Nor are the stories in this book anywhere near as horrific as 2020 turned out to be. Instead you just get a general selection of pleasantly literary frights. Seems like Wilson just cherry picked his favorite authors and prompted them to write and write they did, which is as legit of an approach as any.
Not that many different authors either, since over 50% of the book is all one story, an absolutely excellent novella titled La Belle Epoque by a complete unknown to me. The rest of the stories are fine, I always like whatever Massie writes and Koja never fails to puzzle. Didn’t care for Khaw’s tale of spurned loves and lovers much. It’s really the novella that’s the star of the show here. Oh so cleverly weaving in historical facts and figures into a narrative of a superpowered (in a way) young woman as she navigates decades upon decades enjoying a magically acquired negative senescence, like some kind of a sexy turtle. She lives through The Belle Epoque and more, meeting great minds and great artists, all the while continuing an epic love affair with a giant, surprisingly woke and liberal minded American cowboy with a not surprising penchant for guns and wars. Together they are immortal, but at a cost. Seems like I might not be doing this story justice, but it really is very good, the writing brings the lace to life in technicolor, there’s such a potent presence of the place and time in these pages, it’s absolutely transporting. Traditionally, it is only the vampires that enjoy such unnaturally elongated lives and this is so much more interesting and original than a vampire story.
So yeah, a pretty decent collection with a shining star of story taking up the bulk of it. Recommended for fans of darker themed literary tales of (the best here were) historical fiction. Thanks Netgalley.

[Michelle {Book Hangovers}]

Lately, I’ve been reading & listening to a ton of short story collections…, and I found myself really enjoying them in audiobook form, especially , when the collection is narrated by various voice actors/narrators.

Voices in the Darkness has 6 stories, all narrated by a different person. All 6 stories are superb, but I do have a couple favorites:
• Pursuivant Island by Kathe Koja
• Baggie by Elizabeth Massie
• La Belle Époque by Brian A. Hopkins

Joshua Saxon, the narrator for Kathe Koja’s Pursuivant Island did an EXCEPTIONAL job!!! I’ve listened to several audiobooks narrated by Saxon and he has so easily become one of my top 5 favorite narrators!! He’s so damn good!!!

[Suzanne]

Just finished La Belle Époque I’ve got to say, of all Brian A. Hopkins’s stories I’ve read so far, this one was the most powerful for me. It’s rich in historical facts, some of which I had to stop and read more about. I can be rather ADD when it comes to reading stories like this. When I find something about an era Im intrigued about I have to dig in and find out more. I found myself researching the French phrases and back story about the catacombs as well as other things. The story itself was so all-consuming that I found myself thinking about it while I was doing housework. Not only that but there was a lyrical quality to it that fascinated me in the characters he created. They all lived and breathed for me as if I might meet them in real life.

[Jae]

8.4/10. This was a spectacular read. Voices in the darkness is a collection of stories from different authors; each bringing their own themes. I praise each of the authors for the beautiful writing styles that kept me intrigued in each of the stories and the editor for compiling this especially in the order it is, for that truly boosted the reading experience!

Nadia Bulkin delivers a haunting tale in Vide Cor Meum and an incredible opening for this collection. I loved it for the horror, the amazing writing style and the realistic portrayal of how violence and crime affects people.

It is followed by Kathe Koja’s Pursuivant Island, a tale of climate change, on how we humans ignore it, in a writing style that caught my attention from the very start; it was simply gorgeous.

The next story Baggie was my second favorite. The character work by Elizabeth Massie on here was amazing. I felt so attached to the character and felt so emotional to his entire arc. This was a tragic tale, a story of a villain and how circumstances dictated his life to where it ended. Samuel’s trauma and hardships and the way it was written, made Samuel exist beyond the pages, it had such a strong hold on me as a reader and in the end im simply in heartache on the way how it progressed. Truly an amazing story.

“ Even if I promised I’d stitch you together with silver, I doubt you’d let me leaf through your future. “. What a tragic and wonderful tale this was. I’d rather wear Black by Cassandra Khaw was an interesting story, Khaw is the only author here i’m familiar with and as usual the writing kept me fascinated till the end but the undertone of the writing paired with the plot, truly broke me. My only nitpick is it being a short story. (I NEED MORE)

“Ba boo Dop doo Dop boo ree” by Nick Mamatas would probably be my least favorite one on here. I enjoyed the poetic irony of the ending, but i never got attached to the character and the plot itself wasn’t that entirely constant throughout the book. In the end i just didn’t care much for the story but at the same time the writing style, again, was beautiful.

Brian A. Hopkins’ La Belle Époque was the star of this book. Immortality is a trope that’s always 50/50 with me but the author really came through with this one. It showed exactly how it could be a curse and at the same time showed us the characters enjoying the little they could. I loved the entire breeze through history, meeting different figures and especially how the ending wasn’t quite an “ending”.

All in all this was a superb read and I couldn’t put it down for almost all the stories. I recommend this to any reader who just wants to enjoy a beautifully written story (multiple ones at that). SO PICK THIS UP!!!

Thank you to Crossroad Press for granting me an ARC to this book via NetGalley for an honest review!

[Ken]

Short story collections are not always my favorite thing. They seem to be either fantastic or horrible. Though I can't say that this book was fantastic, it was pretty dang good. I liked 4 out of the 6 stories. There seem to be an overriding penny dreadful theme which I absolutely love. Most of the stories take place in the late 19th century on into the early 20th century.

My rankings for the stories:

1. Brian Hopkins - La Belle Époque
2. Elizabeth Massie - Baggie
3. Nick Mamatas - Ba boo Dop doo Dop boo ree
4. Nadia Bulkin - Vide Cor Meum

5. Cassandra Khaw - I'd Rather Wear Black (not my genre, style, cup of tea)
6.Kathe Koja - Pursuivant Island (I expected better from Kathe. This story seemed like something written to be clever and to show off in front of a creative writing class)

[Wayne]

I was glad to get this book to review. Each of the initial stories were great, and I felt they were building up to something. I was right. The last story, La Belle Epoque by Brian Hopkins was fantastic. Met Brian years ago, and got and read quite a few of his books. Now I remember why I enjoyed his books so much, and hopefully there will be more in the future. Going to revisit some of the previous read book now too. Great book.

[Greg Chatham]

This collection caught my attention because both Cassandra Khaw and Nadia Bulkin were contributors, and I'm always on the lookout for new stories by either author. Unfortunately, I mostly found the selections within too experimental. There's no overt thematic connection, but there's an amorphous, metatextual, Beatnik quality to the anthology as a whole. It was difficult to tell where or when most of these stories took place, and that either is your kind of thing or isn't.

That said, I liked "La Belle Epoque," Brian A. Hopkins' expansion of a story he published in Cemetery Dance almost 20 years ago. The world-building was explicit enough that I had a grasp of its setting, so I was able to enjoy the rest of the alt-historical ride.

Hopkins' afterward was a heartwarming sentiment to end the collection on as well. It's good to be reminded you can always start writing again. Take heart, Constant Reader! (And all us Inconsistent Writers.)

[Steve N]

Fun shorts and a novella.

Not too macabre. Easy to enjoy. A good year for sangria malbec sorts of stories. Skips the EMT desiderata for story.

[Bill Barnett]

The stories by Nadia Bulkin and Nick Mamatas are the standouts here. And I got a chuckle out of Brian A. Hopkins working in a reference to "The Captain of Her Heart" by Double.