Monday, September 10, 2012

[Book Review] MY FAVORITE HORROR STORY edited by Mike Baker and Martin Greenberg

Fiction/Horror

Jason reviews MY FAVORITE HORROR STORY edited by Mike Baker and Martin H. Greenberg (MJF Books, 2000)


I was drawn to this book by Edogawa Rampo’s most famous short story “The Human Chair.” It is a horror story about a lonely man who builds a large and magnificent chair for some of his rich customers and decides to live inside it. He builds a compartment for himself inside the chair and falls in love with the various women that use his chair, cradling them as they sit or sleep a few inches away from him. It’s creepy because it’s somewhat plausible, but I think it’s worse that this guy is some murdering psychopath. Because he never gives himself away, YOU WOULD NEVER KNOW HE’S THERE. The idea that while you curl up and read your favorite book, some stalker could be inches away from you and having grandiose fantasies about your lives together creeps me out to no end.

While this one obviously stuck to me, there are several other stories in this anthology that more than warrant a read. “The Distributor” is a thinking man’s tale about a salesman of sorts who sets innocuous events into motion for nefarious purposes. It seems harmless at first, but I love stories when all sorts of seemingly randomly events tie together at the end for some greater purpose. There a few slower stories in the bunch (I just can’t get into Lovecraft), the vast majority are great and well recommended.

Jason Sharp, Whitehaven Library

Labels: , ,


Comments:
Jason,
Maybe you could talk about this book again when I ask the Memphis Reads question for October? It sounds eerily delightful!
-Andrea
 
Post a Comment

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?