What do you think?
Rate this book
Third Annual Best Horror Stories of the Year/Audio Cassettes/Complete & Uncut
Collection III includes such classics as The Back of His Hand by Stephen Gallagher; Incident On and Off A Mountain Road by Joe R. Lansdale; Will by Graham Masterson; Ugly by Gary Brandner.
Hardcover
Published August 1, 1993
47 people want to read
About the author
Orson Scott Card
883 books20.8k followersOrson Scott Card is an American writer known best for his science fiction works. He is (as of 2023) the only person to have won a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award in consecutive years, winning both awards for his novel Ender's Game (1985) and its sequel Speaker for the Dead (1986). A feature film adaptation of Ender's Game, which Card co-produced, was released in 2013. Card also wrote the Locus Fantasy Award-winning series The Tales of Alvin Maker (1987–2003).
Card's fiction often features characters with exceptional gifts who make difficult choices with high stakes. Card has also written political, religious, and social commentary in his columns and other writing; his opposition to homosexuality has provoked public criticism.
Card, who is a great-great-grandson of Brigham Young, was born in Richland, Washington, and grew up in Utah and California. While he was a student at Brigham Young University (BYU), his plays were performed on stage. He served in Brazil as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and headed a community theater for two summers. Card had 27 short stories published between 1978 and 1979, and he won the John W. Campbell Award for best new writer in 1978. He earned a master's degree in English from the University of Utah in 1981 and wrote novels in science fiction, fantasy, non-fiction, and historical fiction genres starting in 1979. Card continued to write prolifically, and he has published over 50 novels and 45 short stories.
Card teaches English at Southern Virginia University; he has written two books on creative writing and serves as a judge in the Writers of the Future contest. He has taught many successful writers at his "literary boot camps". He remains a practicing member of the LDS Church and Mormon fiction writers Stephenie Meyer, Brandon Sanderson, and Dave Wolverton have cited his works as a major influence.
Card's fiction often features characters with exceptional gifts who make difficult choices with high stakes. Card has also written political, religious, and social commentary in his columns and other writing; his opposition to homosexuality has provoked public criticism.
Card, who is a great-great-grandson of Brigham Young, was born in Richland, Washington, and grew up in Utah and California. While he was a student at Brigham Young University (BYU), his plays were performed on stage. He served in Brazil as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and headed a community theater for two summers. Card had 27 short stories published between 1978 and 1979, and he won the John W. Campbell Award for best new writer in 1978. He earned a master's degree in English from the University of Utah in 1981 and wrote novels in science fiction, fantasy, non-fiction, and historical fiction genres starting in 1979. Card continued to write prolifically, and he has published over 50 novels and 45 short stories.
Card teaches English at Southern Virginia University; he has written two books on creative writing and serves as a judge in the Writers of the Future contest. He has taught many successful writers at his "literary boot camps". He remains a practicing member of the LDS Church and Mormon fiction writers Stephenie Meyer, Brandon Sanderson, and Dave Wolverton have cited his works as a major influence.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
October 4, 2025
An uneven collection of 10 horror shorts by 8 different writers.
Overall rating: 3.4/5, rounded down to 3/5
Individual rating below...
The Back of His Hand by Stephen Gallagher - 3.5/5
A man with a distinct hand tattoo desperately seeks to get it removed to avoid being identified for a crime. But he gets more than he bargained for.
An okay opener.
Incident On and Off a Mountain Road by Joe R. Lansdale - 4/5
A woman accidentally hits another car. Seeing blood in the back of the other car, she soon sees the driver and is worried she has injured him...but she soon realizes that the blood is not his. Now, she must falls back on the survivalist training taught to her by her boyfriend to live.
Decent story with a bit of a twist.
Will by Graham Masterson - 3/5
A crew working on a site where an old theater was located find a body, a long dead who appears to have been torn apart. They soon realize that there is something terrible living under the ground.
A weak story mixing the history of Shakespeare with the Cthulu Mythos.
Ugly by Gary Brandner - 2/5
A man with a scarred face purchases a lizard that's been encases in plastic from hunchback as a swap meet, feeling an affinity for both the hunchback and the ugly lizard due to his own physical impairment. The man comes to realize that his wife is cheating on him with a co-worker. About this time, the man comes to suspect that the lizard, improbably, may be alive.
A weak story.
Lord of the Land by Gene Wolfe - 3/5
A man researching ancient gods interviews an old man who tells a story about a creature called a "soul sucker". The man is offered a bed for the night in that house shared by the old man, his son, and his granddaughter. But the family may be hiding a secret.
Not so good.
A Touch of Lilith by Nina Kiriki Hoffman - 2.5/5
Clea comes from a line of women who, her grandma claims, have a certain effect on the men in their lives. Many of the family women have avoided men as a result, but as a young woman, Clea falls in love with a photographer.
Didn't care much for this one. Seems to be a metaphor for relationships and what people give up for the sake of them.
Ladies and Gentlemen by Joyce Carol Oates - 3.75/5
A ship captain addresses the elderly passengers of a strange cruise. All of the people aboard have something in common -- their adult children have funded this trip, which may be their last.
Decent, but nothing special.
Freaktent by Nancy Collins - 4/5
A man who photographs circus freaks meets a man who has tried selling child "freaks" to a particular circus. Curious, he follows the man, intending to found out the source of the man's young freaks.
A pretty good one.
The Phone Woman by Joe R. Landsdale - 3.75/5
One day, a man answers the door to a woman who asks to use his telephone. While on a phone call, the woman has a seizure. The man learns that the woman has a reputation for not taking her medication purposely to have seizures, and also of nearly hanging herself to obtain pleasure. The man starts to think how boring his life has become now that he is married with a child. Seeking some kind of excitement, he follows her one day.
Decent story, though not great.
Coming Home by Nina Kiriki Hoffman - 4.5/5
A woman returns to her childhood home with her husband and their brood of adopted children. She has bad memories about a certain closet in the house and the thing that happened to her brother when they were children.
A really good story. The only thing that kept it from being a 5/5 was that I didn't quite get why one of the protagonist’s adopted daughters witnesses
Overall rating: 3.4/5, rounded down to 3/5
Individual rating below...
The Back of His Hand by Stephen Gallagher - 3.5/5
A man with a distinct hand tattoo desperately seeks to get it removed to avoid being identified for a crime. But he gets more than he bargained for.
An okay opener.
Incident On and Off a Mountain Road by Joe R. Lansdale - 4/5
A woman accidentally hits another car. Seeing blood in the back of the other car, she soon sees the driver and is worried she has injured him...but she soon realizes that the blood is not his. Now, she must falls back on the survivalist training taught to her by her boyfriend to live.
Decent story with a bit of a twist.
Will by Graham Masterson - 3/5
A crew working on a site where an old theater was located find a body, a long dead who appears to have been torn apart. They soon realize that there is something terrible living under the ground.
A weak story mixing the history of Shakespeare with the Cthulu Mythos.
Ugly by Gary Brandner - 2/5
A man with a scarred face purchases a lizard that's been encases in plastic from hunchback as a swap meet, feeling an affinity for both the hunchback and the ugly lizard due to his own physical impairment. The man comes to realize that his wife is cheating on him with a co-worker. About this time, the man comes to suspect that the lizard, improbably, may be alive.
A weak story.
Lord of the Land by Gene Wolfe - 3/5
A man researching ancient gods interviews an old man who tells a story about a creature called a "soul sucker". The man is offered a bed for the night in that house shared by the old man, his son, and his granddaughter. But the family may be hiding a secret.
Not so good.
A Touch of Lilith by Nina Kiriki Hoffman - 2.5/5
Clea comes from a line of women who, her grandma claims, have a certain effect on the men in their lives. Many of the family women have avoided men as a result, but as a young woman, Clea falls in love with a photographer.
Didn't care much for this one. Seems to be a metaphor for relationships and what people give up for the sake of them.
Ladies and Gentlemen by Joyce Carol Oates - 3.75/5
A ship captain addresses the elderly passengers of a strange cruise. All of the people aboard have something in common -- their adult children have funded this trip, which may be their last.
Decent, but nothing special.
Freaktent by Nancy Collins - 4/5
A man who photographs circus freaks meets a man who has tried selling child "freaks" to a particular circus. Curious, he follows the man, intending to found out the source of the man's young freaks.
A pretty good one.
The Phone Woman by Joe R. Landsdale - 3.75/5
One day, a man answers the door to a woman who asks to use his telephone. While on a phone call, the woman has a seizure. The man learns that the woman has a reputation for not taking her medication purposely to have seizures, and also of nearly hanging herself to obtain pleasure. The man starts to think how boring his life has become now that he is married with a child. Seeking some kind of excitement, he follows her one day.
Decent story, though not great.
Coming Home by Nina Kiriki Hoffman - 4.5/5
A woman returns to her childhood home with her husband and their brood of adopted children. She has bad memories about a certain closet in the house and the thing that happened to her brother when they were children.
A really good story. The only thing that kept it from being a 5/5 was that I didn't quite get why one of the protagonist’s adopted daughters witnesses
Displaying 1 of 1 review