The Damnation Game by Clive Barker

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• Published July 1988 (Charter Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on July 1991
• unreviewed

Dance of Death by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

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• Published January 2006 (Warner Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on May 28, 2007
• I was given this book as a freebie for attending the World Horror Con in San Francisco in 2006. Not having read any of Preston's or Child's book plus knowing that this was the second book in a trilogy had me kind of nervous about reading it. I wasn't sure that I would like it or be able to pick it up in the middle of a story. I'm happy to say though that I was very pleased! The story picked up at a natural spot and I didn't feel like I was missing too much. There were numerous references to previous adventures between the two main characters: Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast and Lieutenant Vincent D'Agosta. However it seemed like these could have been adventures across multiple books and not just the first of this trilogy. A quick check and it looks like we've seen them before in RELIC, THE CABINET OF CURIOSITIES and most recently BRIMSTONE. As for this adventure, I really liked it. There story made a lot of sense. There were numerous characters to flush it out and I was never confused as to who was who which is tricky with a large cast of characters. There was enough mystery and suspense to more than keep me interested in both what happens and in who will live. The ending, while closing up all loose connections, also left the door open on a couple new ones. I haven't bought it yet but I will more than likely pick up the third book in the trilogy to see what happens. And that is always the ultimate endorsement.

A Dangerous Man by Charlie Huston

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• Published September 2006 (Blackstone Audio audiobook edition)
• Finished reading it on August 4, 2022
• unreviewed

Danse Macabre by Stephen King

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• Published December 1983 (Berkley Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on September 30, 1986
• unreviewed

The Dark At The End by F. Paul Wilson

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• Published October 2011 (Tor Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on June 17, 2016
• unreviewed

Dark Delicacies edited by Del Howison and Jeff Gelb

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• 20 short stories by such authors as Clive Barker, Ray Bradbury, Whitley Strieber, F. Paul Wilson, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
• Published September 2007 (Ace Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on October 24, 2009
• Del has done an excellent job of collecting a great set of stories. Generally when I finish a collection of stories, the book can fit into one of three categories: not so good with only a couple of good stories, pretty good with around five stories that qualify as favorites, and really good where almost every story is good and choosing the top favorites is difficult. This book fit in between the last two categories; I was able to pick favorites but the overall feel was that all the stories were good. I've already enjoyed the follow-up second book and look forward to reading the third. And hopefully even more.

  "The Seer" by Robert Steven Rhine - A watchmaker is able to see the future in addition to his own death.

  "Part of the Game" by F. Paul Wilson - An old fashioned, hard-boiled detective story set in San Francisco's Chinatown in the 1930s.

  "Dark Delicacies of the Dead" by Rick Pickman - A fun mix of real and the unreal as a massive book signing at a horror store goes awry. By the way, Del Howison owns a store in Burbank dedicated to Horror; it's called Dark Delicacies.

  "The Diving Girl" by Richard Laymon - A man obsesses over a woman performing dives into a pool.

  "Haeckel's Tale" by Clive Barker - A man tells the story of being trapped in a cottage near a cemetery with a old man and his younger wife.

Dark Delicacies II: Fear edited by Del Howison and Jeff Gelb

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• 18 short stories by such authors as L.A. Banks, Max Brooks, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Joe R. Lansdale, Steve Niles
• Published September 2008 (Ace Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on March 18, 2011
• unreviewed

Dark Delicacies III: Haunted edited by Del Howison and Jeff Gelb

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• 21 short stories by such authors as Chuck Palahniuk, Clie Barker, Heather Graham, Kevin J. Anderson, John Connolly, David Morrell, and others
• Published April 2011 (Ace Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on December 17, 2021
• Another excellent collection of short stories. Del has compiled a nice choice of stories. While "haunted" is a generic enough theme that it could apply to many stories, it fit all these stories very nicely. Ghosts and haunted houses and memories. Things that leave an impact on a person's soul and their thoughts. The two stories that really stood out to me were the ones by Little and Braunbeck. Both for different reasons but each will haunt me. Below are my favorites from the book.

  "Mist on the Bayou" by Heather Graham - A ghost helps save a girl from being murdered at a haunted house.

  "A Nasty Way to Go" by Ardath Mayhar - A constable investigates the sightings of a ghost.

  "A Slow Haunting" by John R. Little - A viscious tale of revenge that goes on for years. It sits in my mind long after I finished the story.

  "Man with a Canvas Bag" by Gary A. Braunbeck - A sad story of ghosts and remembering and missed opportunities.

  "Fetch" by Chuck Palahniuk - The story of a haunted tennis ball.

Dark Destiny: Proprietors of Fate edited by Edward E. Kramer

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• 20 short stories by such authors as Poppy Z. Brite, Nancy A. Collins, Basil Copper, Charles L. Grant and Rex Miller
• Published 1995 (White Wolf Publishing paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on March 14, 1999
• The concept behind this collection is pretty cool. Humanity has been living with vampires, werewolves, mages and wraiths from the dawn of time. Now learn how major historical events have been shaped and formed by these creatures. So you find out that a vampire's plotting is really behind the death of Abraham Lincoln or how Archduke Ferdinand whose death sparked WWI comes back to try to gain revenge. Like I said, cool concept. Unfortunately it gets lost a bit on me because I am anything but a history buff. So when the stories started getting a little much in depth on all these historical characters, I started losing interest and getting bored. I give everyone credit for trying because phrases like "stowaways on Columbus's voyage to the Americas were vampires" spark tons of great images in my mind. But I didn't find most of the stories done well enough to my liking. All is not lost though, you will find my favorites below.

  "The Sign of the Asp" by Nancy A. Collins - Cleopatra finds her strength from a vampire.

  "Beloved Disciple" by S.P. Somtow - One of Jesus's disciples is really a vampire

  "Death of a Demi-God" by Basil Cooper - A detective dreams of vampires

  "Mussolini and the Axeman's Jazz" by Poppy Z. Brite - The real reason that jazz is rich down in New Orleans

  "The Skeptic" by Robert Weinberg - The real reason behind the Bermuda Triangle

The Dark Fantastic by Ed Gorman

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• Published January 2001 (Leisure Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on March 8, 2001
• This is an extremely powerful and moving collection of short stories by Ed Gorman. Almost every single story incredibly well written and developed. If you ever have any doubts about Gorman or his writing, then just read this collection and your doubts will be left behind. As Bentley Little points out in his introduction, there is no theme for the collection but is instead a recurring motif: "beautiful young women who offer redemption to lost souls; emotionally barren middle-aged men bereft of their families." And as you read the stories, you will find those ideas repeating often. Gorman does a great job in making you feel for each character and experience the same sorrow that they are. Whatever you do, do not miss this collection. And while I found it near impossible to just copy the table of contents for my favorite stories, I did narrow my choices to the following.

  "Yesterday's Dreams" - A retired cop helps someone in the neighborhood

  "Dark Muse" - A lounge singer comes in to some talent

  "Junior" - A son and his mother live high on the hog due to his father

  "To Fit The Crime" - Fate can not be avoided

  "Survival" - A futuristic story about doing what's best for society versus being humane

The Dark Game by Jonathan Janz

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• Published April 2019 (Flame Tree Press ebook edition)
• Finished reading it on October 11, 2019
• While THE DARK GAME turned out to be a good book, I had a couple of problems with the beginning. I'll admit that those problems were probably my fault for the way I consumed the story. I listened to the book on Audible instead of reading the words. Part of me wonders if I would have had the same problems if I had read the words instead of listening to them. It's never been a problem before but maybe this time it was. Other reviews have compared the book to LORD OF THE FLIES, the more obvious comparison in my mind is the TV show "Survivor". Ten authors are invited to a summer-long retreat at famous author Roderick Wells' hidden mansion in the woods. While he promises to tutor and assist the writers in becoming better, he also frames it as a challenge. One-by-one the authors are slowly eliminated until one is left. That one will win three million dollars plus a publishing contract for the book that was written during the summer. Unknown to the authors, the elimination is permanent and directly beneficial to Roderick. Once they accept the reality of what is happening, the fight to win the challenge morphs to a fight for their lives. As I mentioned, I had a problem getting into the book. With the ten contestants, Roderick, and a small supporting staff, I had issues keeping track of all the characters. It was more of a surface issue though; the characters were defined and relatable but it would take me a minute or two to realize who the character was. "That's right. Amanda is married to Roderick. Lucy is another writer." That type of thing. Of course, once authors started being eliminated, it was easier to remember everyone. Some of the initial deaths were also annoying, sort of. Each contestant in the story was chosen in part because of their past, their personal demons. While at the retreat, the authors had to face those same demons. In some cases, those demons killed. It made sense and fit the reality of the story. However, it also was disappointing to see them die because they gave up rather than fighting. Defeating personal demons is always hard but maybe those early deaths could have been done differently. On the other side of the coin though, once enough characters died, I was pulled completely into the story. And in normal great book fashion, I couldn't get through the final third of the book fast enough and yet also couldn't stretch it out so that I could enjoy it longer. As an additional plus, there are Easter eggs in the story. I unfortunately haven't read enough Janz to have found them all; hell, I only found one when he mentions one of his books: THE SIREN AND THE SPECTER. While I didn't recognize most of the Easter eggs, they were written in a way that I knew there was something there that I was missing. I don't know if it would be better considered as surreal or a meta-reality, but that line between the fiction of the story and the reality of our world was smudged a little. I think I'm going to read more books by Janz and then come back and read this book again. Maybe then I'll catch a few more of those references.

The Dark Half by Stephen King

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• Published October 1989 (Signet paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on July 31, 1992
• unreviewed

Dark Harvest by Norman Partridge

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• Published September 2007 (Tor Book paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on February 4, 2009
• unreviewed

Dark Hollow by Brian Keene

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• Published January 2008 (Leisure Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on May 2, 2010
• It is no wonder to me that Keene continues to be one of my favorite authors. His books always prove to be entertaining and thrilling. DARK HOLLOW is yet another solid book by him that proves enjoyable. Adam Senft is an author living in a small Pennsylvania town with his wife Tara and dog Big Steve. One morning while on a walk with Big Steve, Adam sees his sexy neighbor having sex with a statue, a statue that comes to life and sees them. Adam wants to write it off as a wild imagination on his part but as the women in town start disappearing, he puts the pieces together and realizes it was true. The satyr is now alive and trying to mate with all the women in town. Adam gathers his neighbors and goes to stop the evil. While the story is pretty straight forward with no plot twists, it does not read as boring at all. Instead it is a straight forward story that keeps you interested from page one. It is also populated with characters that are extremely real. It is easy to imagine each person and see how they are. Plus Keene pulls in legends and superstitions from his character growing up in the area. And then he beautifully twists and modernizes it to make the magic real and current. It becomes something that is at first outside the character's ability to deal and becomes something where the rules are changed and new. You won't be disappointed when you read this book.

Dark Love edited by Nancy A. Collins, Edward E. Kramer, and Martin H. Greenberg

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• 22 short stories by such authors as Stephen King, Ramsey Campbell, Stuart Kaminsky
• Published August 1996 (Roc paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on June 15, 1998
• I thought that this was going to be a collection similar to the HOT BLOOD series, something erotic and scary. In fact, this reaches much further than that and steps completely in to the scary side. Some are outright horror while others just insinuate themselves into your system and are that much scarier. Definitely a collection I would highly recommend. Some favorites are below.

  "Lunch at the Gotham Cafe" by Stephen King - A marriage becomes extremely bitter. (Side note: this could have been written about my ex-girlfriend.)

  "The Psycho" by Michael O'Donoghue - A black, modern love story

  "Refrigerator Heaven" by David J. Schow - Mistaken identity leads to the discovery of God

  "The Maiden" by Richard Laymon - A monster turns into a victim

  "Waco" by George C. Chesbro - Another view of God and the problems at Waco, Texas

  "The End Of It All" by Ed Gorman - A man in love with another woman falls for her daughter

A Dark Matter by Peter Straub

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• Published February 2011 (Anchor Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on April 25, 2025
• unreviewed

The Dark: New Ghost Stories edited by Ellen Datlow

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• Published 2003 (Tor Book paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on January 11, 2009
• unreviewed

Dark of Night by Jonathan Maberry

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• Published April 2016 (Blackstone Audio audiobook edition)
• Finished reading it on April 11, 2021
• unreviewed

Dark Rivers of The Heart by Dean R. Koontz

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• Published November 1995 (paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on March 11, 1998
• That's it! No more Koontz! I am not buying another of his books at all! I have had enough of his preaching over the course of his novels. He has become as bad as John Grisham! OK, so he's not really as bad as Grisham; Koontz actually has an interesting story that is very preachy while Grisham has some preachings that are co-mingled with what appears to be a story. Ignoring for the moment how every 15-20 pages we the readers are subjected to another diatribe on how society has become worse and worse and all the evil that mankind is now doing to each other, ignoring that, the story is kind of interesting although another formula. A guy tries to track down a woman "who gives him hope" while being pursued and stalked by a federal agent who is not really a federal agent and who is insane. There is enough computer "trickery" to make those of us who work with computers for a living laugh. Untrained novices who in a little more than a year learn how to connect into and control satellites while out in the middle of the desert. If nothing else the story is imaginative, somewhat. Well, I still have one or maybe two more books by Koontz that I have bought but unread and then that will be it!

Dark Screams: Volume One edited by Richard Chizmar and Brian James Freeman

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• Published December 2014 (Hydra eBook edition, Advanced Reading Copy)
• Finished reading it on November 18, 2014
• This book is a collection of short stories from five big names in the horror field. While Armstrong and Pronzini are not on my must read list, they are immediately recognized by me for putting out good quality stories. Campbell and King have both been on my favorite authors list for ages. Clark is one of the newer additions to that favorite authors list but he's still solid in his placement there. There is no theme to this collection other than good stories. Unfortunately not all the stories are good ones. Since there are only five stories, I'll vary my usual approach of listing my favorites and give some comments on each one. In order of my least favorite to the best of the bunch.

  "Weeds" by Stephen King - While the story might be consider long lost due to not being published in years, it should also be a familiar story to most Stephen King fans. It is essentially "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill" from Creepshow where Jordy is played by Stephen King himself. Probably since the story was written in 1976, it is dated as you read it. And I don't just mean technology or anything like that; the story itself reads as being dated. It probably would have been fine within a collection of older stories but to me, it sticks out like a sore thumb as the worst of the bunch.

  "Magic Eyes" by Bill Pronzini - What disappointed me the most about this story was the lost potential. A man is locked in an asylum and considered insane for the actions he took against his wife. We get a nice dive into his mental well-being, or not-so-well-being as the case may be. And then we get some nice lead ups to good horror. And then it just closed quickly. The ending was good with regards to it being a short-story and left a little bit of a chill but I felt that the little chill we got as a reward was not equal to the buildup we got.

  "The Watched" by Ramsey Campbell - This story was a traditional ghost story with a modern remix to it. Not overly spooky but all the right ingredients were there. I think the only thing missing was a bit more of a connection to one of the characters. I just wasn't pulled in to it.

  "The Price You Pay" by Kelley Armstrong - Another traditional story but this time a thriller with a modern twist instead of a ghost story. In addition to being able to connect to the main characters, this story pulled me in faster. I was quickly involved and part of the action. There were a few points that pulled me back out but nothing significant. And while I should have, I didn't see the twist at the end coming.

  "Murder in Chains" by Simon Clark - Easily the best of the bunch. I was pulled in from the start and not let go the whole time. I was constantly part of the action. And I desperately wanted to know what was going to happen next. While I wanted the protagonist to make different choices, I found that I was making the same choices as he was. A frustration that kept me further involved. From this story it is easy to see why Simon Clark is on my must read list!

Dark Screams: Volume Two edited by Richard Chizmar and Brian James Freeman

• Purchase it here
• Published March 2015 (Hydra eBook edition, Advanced Reading Copy)
• Finished reading it on March 8, 2015
• This book is another collection of five stories from big names in the horror field. All are authors that I like except for Shawntelle Madison; wait a second, it's not that I don't like her but instead I've never read her before. A quick search on Amazon shows many paranormal romance books to her name which explains it; that is a genre of horror that I don't normally read. The stories this time were of a better quality than from volume one. The only author that disappointed me in this volume was Richard Christian Matheson. Maybe it was the method of his story telling but I wasn't pulled in and engaged with the story. It was also the only one that wasn't a more traditional type of story. One quick comment about the book before I get into the specific stories. I like the size of the collection. At five stories, it is not very long but at the same time each story is a decent enough length to make the book a good size. Not too short where I feel ripped off and not too long where I feel like I've been reading it all month. Now for the stories. Same as last time, here are some comments on each, going from my least to my most favorite.

  "Whatever" by Richard Christian Matheson - As I noted above, this story wasn't told in the same style as the rest of the stories in the collection. Instead it is a series of clippings, notes, reviews and articles about the band Whatever which became popular in the 70s. The snippets are also not in chronological order. This made it a tad difficult to follow: a review of their latest album would cut to notes about the band while they were writing the album which then jumped to a band member getting married years later. Maybe if they were in order, I might have cared for the characters but instead they were just there.

  "If These Walls Could Talk" by Shawntelle Madison - This story disappointed me because of the ending. It was really good and pulled me in but then once the ending was in sight, I started losing interest. Eleanor's job is to prep houses for the TV show America's Mysterious Hotspots. She sinks into her work with a Gothic house that has a history involving the owner's wife mysteriously disappearing. I was satisfied with the story but it left me thinking it was going to be a bit more.

  "The Deep End" by Robert McCammon - This was an excellent start to the book. And similar to DARK SCREAMS: VOLUME ONE which also started with a reprint from a big name author, this story was originally copyrighted in 1987. This story though didn't have an outdated feel to it. It felt like it could be happening right now. It is prime horror that should be enjoyed. While most people accept that Neil Calder accidentally drowned in the neighborhood pool, his father knows better and is out to prove it.

  "Interval" by Norman Prentiss - The creature in this story was almost secondary to the horror of the rest of the story. While important to the entire story, it was the first half that spooked me out. Flight 1137 from St. Louis has gone missing; family and friends will soon find out what happened. As a frequent flier for work, this story resonated with me on several fronts. And with the way corporations are nowadays, it struck me as very realistic. Once the creature appeared, it finally pulled me out of the building dread that kept getting worse and worse.

  "The Night Hider" by Graham Masterton - Masterton barely edged past Prentiss to take my favorite story spot. It was probably because I love seeing dots connected between stories, when continuity of one book is pulled into the continuity of another book. In this case, Masterton connects his story to THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA by C.S. Lewis. While the story itself is traditional horror, the connection to Lewis's world provided me with an extra layer of enjoyment.

Dark Screams: Volume Three edited by Richard Chizmar and Brian James Freeman

• Purchase it here
• Published May 2015 (Hydra eBook edition, Advanced Reading Copy)
• Finished reading it on April 27, 2015
• Editors Brian James Freeman and Richard Chizmar continue doing an excellent job with the Dark Screams anthologies. Volume 3 pulls together stories from another five big-name authors. Or at least I think they are big names; Darynda Jones and Jacquelyn Frank are the two authors from this collection that I hadn't read previously. Similar to Shawntelle Madison from DARK SCREAMS: VOLUME TWO, both Jones and Frank are associated with paranormal romance books, a category which I don't normally read. Unfortunately I found this volume to be the weakest of the three Dark Screams collections. Part of that was probably due to my expectations. I had high hopes for Straub, Ketchum and Hodge since each of them have written novels that I absolutely loved! Their contributions here didn't match to the levels I desired from them. As with the previous volumes, here are my comments on each story, going from least to most favorite.

  "The Collected Short Stories of Freddie Prothero" by Peter Straub - I think that my problem with this story was with the method that it was told. The story involves experts writing about the stories of Freddie Prothero, a young child who writes about his life and a scary encounter. Since the story unfolds from the point of view of objective reviewers, I was never pulled into the story. Maybe I would have been if the events occurred linearly. I also couldn't tell if the buildup of Freddie's ability as an author was satire or serious. After the reviews, the story continues with Freddie's stories. Unfortunately since Freddie was still a child when he disappeared, the stories are written in a juvenile way: another barrier to becoming emotionally vested in the story. And then the stories themselves did nothing for me.

  "I Love You, Charlie Pearson" by Jacquelyn Frank - While a good story that definitely engaged me, the ending undid the previous efforts. I was able to get into Charlie's mind and see how it was unhinged. And I enjoyed the path through the story and what was happening. But the ending became too cliché. It was kind of a Twilight Zone ending but it was also too much from left field to keep the mood going. Think Twilight Zone but with a Tales From the Darkside ending.

  "Group of Thirty" by Jack Ketchum - When reading a story that focuses on an author, there is a natural inclination to wonder how much the story mirrors the real author's life. Fortunately other than the initial setup for the character, there is little commonality between Jack Ketchum and his character Jonathan Daniels, at least little commonality that I am aware of. Anyway, Daniels gets pulled into meeting the Essex County Science Fiction Group and ends up with a confrontation that had to be as much fun to write as it was to read. It was very easy to imagine and real to picture.

  "Nancy" by Darynda Jones - This story was able to beat out the others not just because it was easy to picture and the real characters but there was also a degree of fun to the story. Not the same type of fun from a Jeff Strand book but instead the fun of watching different clichés get spun on their heads. Stereotypes are used to help set up the story and then they are spun around, making the story even more fun. And it's not until you finish that you realize that another stereotype was being set up just to be spun around 180 degrees also. This could have easily ended up being boring but instead was a joy to read.

  "The Lone and Level Sands Stretch Far Away" by Brian Hodge - As the longest story in this collection, it benefited by having characters become three dimensional. More was happening to them than just the events in the story. We can feel the tedium build in the main characters' marriage. Then Aidan gets to learn something new and enjoy a new spark in his life. The problem? His wife Tara is not there with him. Not a problem by itself but it is enough to create a wedge in their marriage. The supernatural element in the story is kept to a minimum but considering the drama unfolding amongst the characters, it was the perfect amount.

Dark Screams: Volume Four edited by Richard Chizmar and Brian James Freeman

• Purchase it here
• Published August 2015 (Hydra eBook edition, Advanced Reading Copy)
• Finished reading it on May 5, 2015
• Wow! What a difference a volume makes. This volume of Dark Screams is the best so far. Significantly better than last volume. The stories were all solid and engaging. None of them left me feeling disappointed or wanting for more. Maybe my expectations had been lowered enough to make the stories better. I doubt it but even if that was the case, all the stories were still good. In all the previous volumes there has been at least one story that disappointed. But not here. In order of least favorite to my most, here they are.

  "The New War" by Lisa Morton - Mike Carson is in a hospital, recovering from a surgery. While he thinks that is has only been a little time, his daughter is telling him it has been months. Plus he keeps seeing men he served but whom also died during the war. He knows though that his nurse has brought a black thing that is killing him and others. Or has she? This was a good story that touched on several topics: growing old, memories, and dementia. The choices made by the characters were well done and left me feeling good. The story wasn't ground-breaking but it was solidly entertaining.

  "Creature Feature" by Heather Graham - Rather than centered around the creature features horror movies that were on Friday and Saturday nights during the 60s, 70s and 80s, (my first thought upon reading the title) this story actually focuses on a convention. Sort of a special effects and make up convention for movie and TV studios. The story is around a killer who dons a costume and hides in plain sight in one of the booth displays. As it turns out, that is a fear that my wife has: a real killer hiding in plain sight in a haunted house. Anyway, the story is fun and enjoyable. My only clueless moment came with the big reveal of the killer and I went "Who?" But that was my own fault and not Graham's.

  "Sammy Comes Home" by Ray Garton - Very quickly into this story, you know that things are going to go bad. A family's dog is missing in addition to a bunch of other neighbors who are also missing their pets. Sad but are they dead from a serial killer? Someone running them over? A demented teenager experimenting on them? But then the pets return with bloated and extended tumors. Probably because it is a horror story but my first thought was kill it. Shoot it in the head. Of course they don't and of course things turn quickly into a disaster. I was anxious and worried the whole way through.

  "The Departed" by Clive Barker - I thought that this was a very sweet and adoring ghost story. A dead mother desperately wants to connect with her son one last time. I won't say anything to ruin the impact of the story but it left me wistful yet happy.

  "The Brasher Girl" by Ed Gorman - Not as poignant as Barker's story, Gorman still tops him with this tale about a young man who gets into trouble when his girlfriend introduces him to a voice in a well. I just thought that it was very nicely told and had characters with depth to them. Gorman took his time with the story and built things up nicely. His characters went through a growth process even though it was a process that didn't help them at all. It was another story where you knew the ending wasn't going to be good but how and who were the questions.

Dark Screams: Volume Six edited by Brian James Freeman and Richard Chizmar

• Purchase it here
• Published April 25, 2017 (Hydra eBook edition, Advanced Reading Copy)
• Finished reading it on May 20, 2017
• DARK SCREAMS: VOLUME SIX won't take away the "Best of the Series" award from Volume Four but it is still a solid player. I would say that two of the stories were slightly disappointing but then the volume also included six stories instead of the usual five. Plus since one of the disappointing stories was an early unsold story by Stephen King, which kind of negates the negative aspect. Once again I like the smaller size of the volume; it allows me to finish it relatively fast though real life interruptions still made it too long. I've been reading some longer collections that are taking me forever to finish; I'm looking at you Stephen Jones and your MAMMOTH BOOK OF BEST NEW HORROR. Longer novels build that excitement and tension which helps to accelerate the reading during the second half of the book. Short stories, by definition, aren't going to get the length to build that acceleration. By the same token though, I can sample more flavors of authors with short stories than I can with a book by a single author. Anyway, I've digressed. Here are the stories of this volume in order of least favorite to most.

  "The Manicure" by Nell Quinn-Gibney - While the story is pretty straight forward (woman with finger issues goes in for a manicure), there are many cringe-worthy moments during the telling. Times where you have been in a similar situation and either the pain happened for real or you feared that it would happen. Unfortunately it felt more like a collection of memories and not an engaging story.

  "The Old Dude's Ticker" by Stephen King - The story itself didn't really pull me in. Maybe it was the seventies slang. Maybe it was not being able to identify with the main character. I don't know. However, what I did like was that Chizmar and Freeman allowed Stephen King to provide a Forward to the story. He talked briefly about what led to him writing the story which was pretty cool. I've always liked when authors tell a little about the inspiration behind the story.

  "The Rich Are Different" by Lisa Morton - This was a good story but not a standout one. The mood and style were good but the story was a little too convenient at points. The different events happened a little too easily.

  "The Situations" by Joyce Carol Oates - This was one of those stories where the topic is dark and the character reprehensible but at the same time you can't look away. Like the daughters in the story, you hope for something happier and better to happen. Unfortunately this is what the father in the story wants too.

  "The Comforting Voice" by Norman Prentiss - This was another dark story. This time though it was disguised as something much happier. As I was reading it, I was wondering where the story was going and where the horror was going to come in. Then after I was fully engaged in the character's life, I got to a part where I thought "Oh no, that's not a smart decision." Then almost immediately afterwards I went "Oh crap!" And then the other shoe dropped and the story ended. At first, I was left wanting a bit more. But then five minutes later, the story and the horror still hung with me. And then a few days later, it still hung with me. Prentiss ended it exactly right.

  "The Corpse King" by Tim Curran - Curran benefited by having his story be novella length instead of just a short story. This let him really build out the world in his story and it shows. The amount of details he included in the story shows the research that he must have done. The world is disgusting and gross but realistic for grave-robbers in that time period.

Dark Screams: Volume Eight edited by Brian James Freeman and Richard Chizmar

• Purchase it here
• Published October 31, 2017 (Hydra eBook edition, Advanced Reading Copy)
• Finished reading it on October 4, 2017
• DARK SCREAMS: VOLUME EIGHT would probably fall into the upper-middle ranking of the Dark Screams series. A good book with enjoyable stories but also a couple that fell short. On the plus side though, two of the stories worked away on my subconscious afterwards. I found myself thinking about them and pondering the events and characters and what happened. I've listed the stories below in my order of least favorite to most.

  "Twisted and Gnarled" by Billie Sue Mosiman - Unfortunately this story did nothing for me. I didn't feel for any of the characters. The mystery / chase that made up the plot seemed forced. Much of the story is told by a serial killer who by definition could have been an unreliable narrator but his story was too straight-laced to be unreliable.

  "Tumor" by Benjamin Percy - This story ended way too fast and was a quick tonal shift. Percy was describing most of the story in loving detail. The miscellaneous blood and guts. The events happening to the main character. And then suddenly on the last page of the story, the descriptions became vague. The gore was hidden. Plus the ending didn't seem to flow with the characters as we had seen them. I was basically thrown off and very disrupted by the ending. And not in a good scary type of way.

  "The Palaver" by Kealan Patrick Burke - Burke weaves a tale within a tale with a moral in both stories that goes missed by the main characters. It was a very nice tale of how the monsters aren't always the true monsters of the story. I didn't find the scary parts with hair growth that scary but my wife would have freaked out, so I can definitely appreciate it from that angle.

  "The Boy" by Bentley Little - Little is great at making parts of our every day life scary. He finds things in suburbia that are frightening. The normal rules of society that when streched can leave us powerless and afraid. I'm thinking here specifically of his novels THE ASSOCIATION and THE STORE and THE RESORT. This short story isn't as strong as those novels but I found it eating away at me a few days later. A sign to me of a good or great story.

  "Walpuski's Typewriter" by Frank Darabont - When I started this story, I could have sworn I read it before. The title seemed so familiar. I quickly realized that I had not because I didn't remember anything about the story. And it's definitely a story that I would remember. It's fun, scary, and pretty creepy. The story has a feel back to the 80s and early 90s horror. Demons, hunger escalations, animal deaths, and finally a comeuppance.

  "India Blue" by Glen Hirshberg - There is a lot squished into the final story of the book. The characters are richly developed; I heard all of their voices inside my head with their own accents and rhythm. The town and stadium are also flushed out and easily pictured. And probably best of all, I liked everyone even seeing and knowing their flaws. Who doesn't want to cheer the underdog as he tries to introduce Cricket to central California? An endeavor that we know will fail but not how badly it will fail. And just like Bentley Little's "The Boy", this story ate away at me afterwards.

Dark Sister by Graham Joyce

• Purchase it here
• Published June 2000 (Tor paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on May 7, 2003
• Maybe it's because this is one of Joyce's earlier books but I didn't find this novel by him quite as gripping as his others. But considering that SMOKING POPPY, INDIGO, and THE TOOTH FAIRY are all extremely well written and strong in their story telling, being the weakest of the four is nothing to be ashamed about. The story follows Maggie, wife of Alex and mother of Amy and Sam, as she picks up an interest aside from being a housewife. The interest is herbal lore / witchcraft and is keyed off a diary found in their chimney. Without ruining why, the story takes a sudden twist about a third of the way through and has a new layer of depth added to it. The story runs its course and finishes in a satisfactory way but doesn't share the strength of completion that his other novels do. I would still recommend it but if you are a first time Joyce reader, start with SMOKING POPPY instead. It's a much stronger story and one that will show the heights of what Joyce can reach.

The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger by Stephen King

• Purchase it here
• Published December 1982 (Donald M. Grant hardcover edition)
• Finished reading it on December 31, 1985
• unreviewed

The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King

• Purchase it here
• Published December 1987 (Donald M. Grant hardcover edition)
• Finished reading it on October 31, 1990
• unreviewed

The Dark Tower III: Waste Lands by Stephen King

• Purchase it here
• Published January 1992 (paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on May 14, 1996
• This is a completely awesome series!! I've enjoyed each book and they keep getting better all the time. If you have not read the first two books in the series, (THE GUNSLINGER and THE DRAWING OF THE THREE) then do so. You won't be sorry. This is not normal Stephen King scary-type stuff. It is more of a mystic tale of the quest for the Dark Tower. King has based the series off of Robert Browning's narrative poem "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came." This novel continues the story of Roland, Eddie and Susannah as they start/continue on their quest. And amazingly enough, King does the near impossible by bringing back the character Jake who was killed off in the first novel. It is done in a totally believable and very satisfying way that seems natural and fated. It would be wrong if it had not happened. I don't want to give much away but our quartet is now solidly on the path which leads to the Dark Tower. I am very much looking forward to the next novel in the series!

The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass by Stephen King

• Purchase it here
• Published 1997 (Donald M. Grant hardcover edition)
• Finished reading it on June 24, 1999
• When last we left our ka-tet of travelers, they were aboard Blaine (the pain) getting ready for the riddling. And what a riddling it is! The novel picks up at the same spot and continues their journey across Mid-World and right in to another novel by King. I won't spoil any surprise but it should be very obvious once it happens. At that point, it takes a big twist though because the bulk of this chapter of the Dark Tower series becomes a story of the past. A story of Roland and his first adventure as a gunslinger. And while the story does not have any immediate impact upon their journey, it definitely helps define Roland and his quest. And even taken completely alone, it is still quite a story. Then when story telling ends, the group ends up facing off against the same villain as from the other novel. There really isn't a defeat as much as a postponement. But it does make you yearn even more for the next chapter. This is an absolute must!! But don't start here, make the investment and start at book one. It's worth it ten times over!

The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King

• Purchase it here
• Published 2003 (Donald M. Grant hardcover signed and limited to 3,500 copies edition)
• Finished reading it on November 26, 2004
• Our adventure continues once again for our four gunfighters. This time though most of the story occurs in real time and not in massive flashbacks. There are still massive flashbacks though; these come from a new character to the Dark Tower series but an old character from a previous Stephen King book. He once again ties another novel into the Dark Tower series and weaves a simple yet engrossing connectivity between them. And even though part of the mystery is very obvious, it's not a story that you even think about skipping. No spoiling of surprises because it will be obvious and it's better to experience the books rather than be told about them. I will whet your whistle though by saying that King is obviously throwing in the elements that will make up the final two novels. And like the ending of WASTELANDS, you are left eagerly anticipating the next book.

The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah by Stephen King

• Purchase it here
• Published 2004 (Donald M. Grant hardcover signed and limited to 3,500 copies edition)
• Finished reading it on January 14, 2005
• Ah, finally. A Dark Tower book that goes from start to finish with no massive flashback or back story that needs filling in. Just good straight action from start to finish. And to top it off, about a third of the way through the book, I realized one of the steps that they were going to do. I won't say what so as to not spoil the surprise but it is a massive reality mix. I honestly thought that we were going to be teased through the whole book and the reality mix would be saved for the last book, sort of as the big sum up. But it wasn't! Instead of stretching it out further, King gave it to us much sooner. A very welcome surprise. Like many of you, I've been reading the Dark Tower books for years and while part of me is really looking forward to the next book and seeing how everything ties up and ends, part of me wishes it wouldn't. Part of me wishes that it would keep going and that Roland's adventure would never end. At the same time, I respect King for knowing when / that it has to end, that none of us want it to become the never ending sequel. That is where "Escape From LA", "Halloween 6" and other atrocious sequels lie.

The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower by Stephen King

• Purchase it here
• Published 2004 (Donald M. Grant hardcover signed and limited to 5,000 copies edition)
• Finished reading it on October 13, 2005
• After all these years of waiting and often thinking that it would never come, the final book in the Dark Tower series is here. And it was a good one. It was actually pretty great. King breaks the fourth wall by involving himself in the story and doing so in a greater manner than last book. In SONG OF SUSANNAH, King uses the character to essentially goose him along and help motivate him to complete the series. In THE DARK TOWER, they serve a bigger purpose of saving his life. The whole idea of his characters crossing boundaries makes you think that every story is its own universe and that these universes can cross. Subconsciously it is the same thing we always think; I for one always get geeked out whenever I realize that the novel I'm reading actually ties into the universe from another novel. It's more dots in a connect-the-dots picture. Something we hope will help to give us the bigger picture. THE DARK TOWER takes that idea to its limits, or at least a limit. As for the rest of the story, i.e. does Roland find the dark tower and what's inside? I did not see it coming but once it arrived, I was totally satisfied with the ending. It left me a little sad but in hindsight, it also completely fit with the story and a happy ending would have felt cheap. I'm probably not going to do so in the near future, but at some point I want to read the entire series back to back and relive another universe that is so close to ours.

Darkened by Bryan Smith

• Purchase it here
• Published February 2011 (Bitter Ale Press ebook edition)
• Finished reading it on December 28, 2021
• unreviewed

The Darker Side edited by John Pelan

• Purchase it here
• 27 short stories by such authors as Poppy Z. Brite, Tim Lebbon, Simon Clark and Tom Piccirilli
• Published May 2002 (Roc paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on March 28, 2004
• I was pretty disappointed with this collection. It started off OK but then the stories seemed to get worse in the second half. A lot of them were kind of vague in exactly what was happening. Is it now and happening or is it a dream or is it a flashback? When the story seems to be purposely unclear on what is real or not, I kind of get frustrated with the story. Other stories started well but were too predictable and left me unsatisfied with their endings. There were a couple of good stories but not enough to really warrant a recommendation for the collection.

  "The Mannerly Man" by Mehitobel Wilson - Good manners affect this society worse than bad manners.

  "The Origin" by David B. Silva - An origin story of a murderer.

  "Ten Bucks Says You Won't" by Richard Laymon - Laymon proves to be just as good with a short story as he does with novels in this story about a dead teacher.

  "Unspeakable" by Lucy Taylor - Words prove to be an extremely powerful factor in this woman's life.

The Darkest Part of The Woods by Ramsey Campbell

• Purchase it here
• Published October 2004 (Tor Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on November 10, 2008
• One of the ways to tell a good book is by how quickly you read it, so how much you can not put it done. Along the same lines, if you can't wait to pick it up again, then it is striking the right chords with you and is something to recommend. Unfortunately THE DARKEST PART OF THE WOODS failed both tests for me. After a week or so, I started dreading picking it up to read instead of looking forward to it. And then it took way longer than it usually does for me to finish the book; near the end I could no longer stand it and started skimming the pages just to find out what happened to the characters. I'm not sure exactly why I didn't like the book so much. While not overly interesting, the characters weren't that boring. Maybe it was a slow moving plot. I know one factor was definitely the British "polite speak" that is prevalent in many of Campbell's books. This is where the conversation goes something like this: "How are you doing?", "Are you sure you want to know?", "I wouldn't have spoken if I wasn't.", "Well, then I'm pleased.", "Should I know at what?", "That you are sure." Argh! Enough double speak and vagueness! It gets annoying. Granted I live in America and not the UK but on the several trips I've taken there and amongst my friends from the UK, no one ever speaks like that. Combined it was more than enough to keep me from being interested except for the surface level as to what was happening. The only really good part was when I finished and could move on to the next book in my list to read.

Darkness on the Edge of Town by Brian Keene

• Purchase it here
• Published February 2010 (Leisure Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on January 6, 2013
• unreviewed

Darkness, Tell Us by Richard Laymon

• Purchase it here
• Published March 2003 (Leisure Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on May 03, 2004
• And as should be expected, you can't go wrong with a Laymon novel. You are guaranteed some good scares, some great suspense, lots of richly developed characters, thrills, sex and inevitably some weird and freaky events. In DARKNESS, TELL US we follow a group of six college kids who get promises of a fortune. The catch? The promise comes from a spirit via a Ouija board. This doesn't stop the kids though as they proceed into the mountains to find their treasure and in the process exorcise some spirits. There really isn't a need to say anything more other than to not miss this book. Laymon has quickly become one of my favorite authors as I build up his section in my library.

Darkwalker by John Urbancik

• Purchase it here
• Published May 2012 (Evileye Books ebook edition)
• Finished reading it on July 2, 2013
• When I started reading DARKWALKER, I wasn't too sure what to expect. Normally I know something about the author: read a novel by him before, had him recommended, read a short story, seen some reviews, something. In this case, I had nothing on Urbancik, at least not that I remember. Then why, I hear you asking, did I have this book by him? Good question. I've received a fair number of books by unknown authors lately due to a couple subscription packages. Anyway, I had a little unknown as I started the novel. It turns out to have been for naught as I really liked the story. Jack Harlow spends his nights wandering the city and recording the supernatural events that he sees. He acts like Marvel Comics' Watcher who watches events and records them but does not interfere. He sees vampires drain victims, talks with ghosts, spies with demons, pretty much every supernatural element. Until one night when he interferes. At that point, his polarity is reversed and the supernatural is now attracted to him. Jack can no longer hide. Urbancik does a great job of controlling what he does and does not put into the story while simultaneously leaving the doors open for everything. It's not just vampires or zombies or werewolves that are attracted to Jack; it's every supernatural being. The story does not become a "vampire story" or a "zombie story." The novel didn't suffer from introducing too many types either. It felt natural to have different types of beings. Urbancik also has an extensive background built up for the characters and events. Or at least it felt like that; in storytelling, that equates to the same thing. The readers don't see all of the history but you can feel there are more stories here that can be told. And if Urbancik explores the world further, I plan on being there with him.

The Day Before Midnight by Stephen Hunter

• Purchase it here
• Published December 1993 (paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on January 04, 2000
• And yet one more thrilling novel by Stephen Hunter. Unlike some of his others, this one does not tie in with any other ones. At least not yet, but I doubt that it will. Why, you ask. Because Hunter does one of the things that I love the most: he will unpredictably kill off main characters. I won't tell you who or when but they are in there. Or rather the characters were in there. OK, no more cheap jokes. The novel is about a radical military group who takes over a missile silo with the purpose of ending the cold war. As the strategy unfolds, it is easy to see how it all makes sense. Of course they still need to be stopped despite their stronger military position. And that is where the action unfolds, in the assault to take back the mountain. While not what I consider a "must read", don't skip it if you have the opportunity. Hunter's character development in this novel is not something to be skipped; they come alive very quickly.

Dead and Gone by Andrew Vachss

• Purchase it here
• Published September 2001 (Vintage Crime / Black Lizard paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on November 26, 2002
• Book 12 of the Burke novels
  For those of us who are regular readers of the books, there is some definite heart ache as Burke's family permanently loses a member. At the same time, Burke is nearly killed and left for dead. As he slowly recovers, his focus is to not reveal any information about himself and to be true to memory of the lost member. The investigation removes Burke from his familiar New York City element and puts him in Chicago briefly and then the West Coast. The story proceeds at Vachss' normal fast pace along with his wonderful ability to reveal so much about his characters while they simultaneously reveal so little. Like usual, we get a series of new characters introduced along with the usual suspects. This time though the plot ends up being weaved from threads laid down in other books. If you haven't read any other Burke novels, don't worry about the woven plot; it's explained well enough that you don't need to, though reading them will provide more depth to the story. It will also provide more depth to the death we experience. My only regret with the book is that it focuses on Burke to the exclusion of the rest of the family. Sure, the book, and the series, is about him but it's nice to read about the Prof and Mole and Mama and the rest. This time there is very little family and a whole bunch of Burke. The book is definitely still high on the recommend list though.

Dead In The Water by Nancy Holder

• Purchase it here
• Published June 1994 (paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on November 9, 1996
• Overall this was a good book. There were a lot of spooky moments and things to get scared about. However I didn't really like the amount of "unreality" sections. By that I mean the sections where you can't really tell what is going on. There are a couple of sections where people die but you do not know that they died until some pages later. The way that it is worded I could not quite tell if it was a dream or if it was happening. Unfortunately that kept throwing me out of becoming involved in the story. I look back and I enjoyed it but I think that I could have enjoyed the book even more.

Dead In The West by Joe R. Lansdale

• Purchase it here
• Published May 1986 (Space And Time paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on August 18, 2002
• One of the big differences between older Lansdale novels and ones written now is their length. At 119 pages, DEAD IN THE WEST barely gets out of the short story realm. Regardless of the length the story still packs a hell of a punch. Reverend Jebidiah Mercer is unlike most other preachers during the wild west; he drinks, carries a gun and actively wander the country enforcing God's will. This time he finds himself in the town of Mud Creek and just in time to help face down the living dead thanks to a curse from a local Indian. While the overall story might lack some of the character depth and introspective social commentaries mixed in with the dialogue that are found in most of Lansdale's later works, the story still puts enough emotion into the events that unfold to make you care about what happens. The caring is more about how everyone gets killed since it is pretty obvious that most of the characters are fodder for the zombies. But then this is acknowledged within the dedication and helps contribute to the charm of the book. If you like movies like Evil Dead, A Nightmare on Elm Street and other Grade B films, then you owe it to yourself to pick this up and read it.

The Dead Letters by Tom Piccirilli

• Purchase it here
• Published October 2006 (Bantam Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on April 26, 2011
• While I don't remember what first turned me on to reading Piccirilli, it's super easy to figure out why I keep reading him. His writing is strong, his characters well-defined and his stories engaging. Every book by him I finish cements his position as one of my favorite authors. THE DEAD LETTERS follows Eddie Whitt as he refuses to let go of his daughter's death at the hands of a serial killer named Killjoy. Even when Killjoy changes his m.o. and starts delivering kidnapped babies from abusive homes to the parents of his murdered victims, Whitt won't let go. His life for the five years since his daughter was killed has been a pattern focused on finding and killing Killjoy. Something that makes him irrational enough to hurt himself in the process; his frustrations cause him to do things to calm down that had me cringe. As readers, we experience that same frustration and desperation. We become involved with the weird cult family that has clues necessary for finding Killjoy. We hurt as Whitt's grief and pain bleeds off the pages. The book is something you will not want to put down. I'm not sure what else to say except go read it. Piccirilli is not someone to miss and this is novel is pure Piccirilli.

Dead Men Tell No Tales by Norman Partridge

• Purchase it here
• Published January 2005 (Subterranean Press signed and limited to 400 copies chapbook edition)
• Finished reading it on February 11, 2024
• unreviewed

Dead of Night by Jonathan Maberry

• Purchase it here
• Published October 2011 (St. Martin's Griffin ebook edition)
• Finished reading it on February 11, 2021
• This is a solidly entertaining book with more heart and emotion than I thought it would have. On the eve of a superstorm, something weird has happened at the local mortuary of a rural county in Pennsylvania. The two officers sent to investigate find bodies missing and people who should be dead but are still moving. Meanwhile a local reporter gets tipped off to separate weird happenings at the local prison. The two events end up connected as the start of and the origin of the zombie apocalypse. One of the things that made sense but was also a bit annoying was how long it took for the characters to admit the undead were zombies. In real-life, I'm sure it would take some time before zombies were seriously accepted even if they were biting you on the arm, but here it seemed to take even longer. Not even a semi-cliche "Zombies? Are you crazy? Those don't really exist." I did enjoy the investigative aspect taken by the reporter to find the origin of the zombies. While it might have been a bit cliche (I'm not going to say it so I don't spoil anything), it fit the story perfectly. The final thing I wanted to discuss was the main character, Dez Fox. I found her to fluctuate between being strong and barely holding on. She seemed to be dealing with the story events one moment and then nearly falling apart the next. I didn't feel that I was connecting to her throughout most of the story, but then the final sequences of the book happened. And I found them heart wrenching. I could feel the tears in my eyes. And this was mostly due to the raw emotion that Dez Fox was experiencing, her difficulty in accepting what was happening. I was feeling what she was feeling which meant I was more connected than I thought. I've already picked up and am reading the next book in the series: FALL OF NIGHT.

Dead Sea by Brian Keene

• Purchase it here
• Published August 2007 (Leisure Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on January 24, 2009
• In DEAD SEA, Keene paints another bleak picture of the future. And similar to THE RISING, it's zombies that help destroy the world. However, this reality is different in that these zombies don't think quite as much. They are closer to Romero's version of zombies. They chase, kill and eat, not necessarily in that order. The story follows Lamar Reed, a gay Black man from Baltimore who is trying to survive. As he ends up fleeing his home, he finds and rescues two children; together they rush to escape the burning city and undead zombies by leaving on a coast guard ship. The bleakness continues though as they discover that the zombie infection does not stop at the shore. In addition to the usual strong characters and gory horror, I really liked how the characters tried to deal with their situations. Were they heroes for rescuing some people and escaping? Or simply survivors, doing what they could and wanting some companionship? This and other topics were discussed by them. It made the book seem more real. Well, as real as a zombie book could be. Overall, a very solid and entertaining read. Maybe not quite as great as THE RISING but no way should this one be missed.

Dead Streets by Tim Waggoner

• Purchase it here
• Published August 2010 (Angry Robot paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on January 21, 2023
• unreviewed

The Dead That Walk edited by Stephen Jones

• Purchase it here
• 24 flesh-eating short stories
• Published November 2009 (Ulysses Press paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on September 15, 2013
• In the introduction, Jones pretty much admits that he is jumping on the zombie bandwagon. He compares as a publishing trend to vampires in the 1990s and Star Trek tie in books. He provides a bit of a history and then admits to the challenge of trying to reinstate zombies as proper monsters. Regardless of the reasons, I still bought and read the book so could say I'm continuing the trend. Either way this collection is kind of a weird one. It's a mix of old and new; the oldest being "Black Canaan" by Robert E. Howard. Unfortunately I would have to say that the quality was also a mix of good and bad. Some stories were fun to read (or re-read) like "Haeckel;s Tale" by Clive Barker. Others were drudge work to get through. Overall I would have to say that I prefer the Mammoth Books by Jones instead. I had some favorite stories from this collection but most of them were reprints that I read elsewhere. And that doesn't count Barker's tale.

  "Where There's a Will" by Richard Matheson and Richard Christian Matheson - A man has the will power to return. Unfortunately it loses some punch when put into a zombie collection.

  "Bobby Conroy Comes Back From The Dead" by Joe Hill - Two friends from high school reunite while being zombies. A really good story!

  "Obsequy" by David J. Schow - A man gets another chance with a past love.

  "Call First" by Ramsey Campbell - A man obsesses over a regular phone call. Another story that loses a little being in a zombie collection.

  "Granny's Grinning" by Robert Shearman - A young girl ends up helping her grandmother. It took me a while to like the ending.

The Dead Zone by Stephen King

• Purchase it here
• Published August 1980 (Signet paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on August 1983
• unreviewed

Deadman's Road by Joe R. Lansdale

• Purchase it here
• Published May 2014 (Skyboat Media audiobook edition)
• Finished reading it on July 27, 2022
• unreviewed

Dear Diary: Run Like Hell by James A. Moore

• Purchase it here
• Published January 2023 (Cemetery Dance Publications ebook edition)
• Finished reading it on May 12, 2023
• This is an all-out action novel. It starts at high speed and stays that way. Buddy Fisk is a hitman. As he says, "Mostly, I kill people. I kill a lot of people." Then afterwards, he writes about it in a diary as his own cathartic release. In this book are two diary entries: "Dear Diary" and "Run Like Hell". The first is the recovery of some magical books while being pursued by supernatural monsters. The second involves Buddy being hunted by a bulletproof gangster. In each case, the supernatural is a side element to the action. One of the great things about a story like this is that it is super easy to picture in your head. The whole book played in my head like an action movie. It makes putting the book down a difficult task. However, with an action movie, the characters often become secondary to the action; the audience doesn't care if it is Bruce Willis, Jason Statham or whoever so long as the bullets are shot and punches thrown. Carrying that through in a novel is difficult. All the characterizations and development must occur while on the run. Moore makes this seem easy. Readers find out everything we need to care about what happens and to be impacted by the results. I'm not sure if there are more stories about Buddy Fisk, but I would read them.

Dear Laura by Gemma Amor

• Purchase it here
• Published July 2019 (Independently Published ebook edition)
• Finished reading it on December 11, 2022
• unreviewed

Death edited by Stuart David Schiff

• Purchase it here
• 18 short stories by such authors as Stephen King, Fritz Leiber, Dennis Etchison, Lord Dunsany, and more
• Published August 1982 (Playboy Paperbacks paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on July 1, 1985
• unreviewed

The Death Artist by Dennis Etchison

• Purchase it here
• Published February 2002 (Leisure Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on August 30, 2004
• I didn't really have high hopes when I first started this collection of short stories. I know Etchison's work and enjoy it so I was looking forward to a good book but he's also had some misses. Overall, I expected just above average. Instead I got mostly terrible. Most of the stories just kind of rambled and seemed to have no point. They would proceed along and then end. Or they would be all symbols and no story. I even recently saw a new book which has other author's favorite short stories and Richard Matheson listed "The Dog Park", included in this collection, as one of his favorites. I went back, reread it and still didn't enjoy it. There was only one story that I did like: "Call Home". The story is about a lost little girl who needs some help and it definitely gave me a welcome chill.

Death Drives A Semi by Edo Van Belkom

• Published 2001 (Quarry Press paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on August 10, 2015
• unreviewed

Death Hunt on Ervoon by Ray Garton

• Purchase it here
• Published January 2010 (Cemetery Dance Publications signed, numbered, and limited to 537 copies hardcover edition)
• Finished reading it on March 8, 2017
• unreviewed

Death Instinct by Phillip Emmons (Bentley Little's pseudonym)

• Purchase it here
• Published December 2006 (Signet paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on March 12, 2008
• This novel does not read like a Bentley Little book. Considering that it was one of his earlier novels and was also released under his pen name of Phillip Emmons, it kind of makes sense that it reads differently. While the horror and supernatural is not there, the suspense and well developed characters are. The story involves Cathy Riley, a young woman living in Phoenix, Arizona, who lives a quiet and reclusive life with her father who is more than a little mentally abusive to her. As she deals with her life, a series of grisly murders start taking place in her neighborhood. These deaths awaken some memories for her and she finds that her life is not as secure as she thinks. When I started reading the novel, it seemed a bit choppy and disconnected. After a few chapters though, things started flowing pretty smoothly. And by the time I approached the end, I didn't want to put the book down. It could have very easily slipped into tired clichés but instead there were enough small new directions and twists to keep things different. Don't be put off by this being an early work of Little; you should still get it and read it.

Death's Dominion by Simon Clark

• Purchase it here
• Published November 2006 (Leisure Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on May 30, 2011
• A lot of the books and stories that I've read by Simon Clark I've really liked. DEATH'S DOMINION won't be one of those. It's not a bad book. The characters are solid and mostly interesting. And the idea behind the story is pretty good. But there was something about the book that didn't grab me enough to keep me completely interested. At some point in our future, scientists have discovered how to bring people back from the dead. In their remaking, the beings are made larger, stronger and more beautiful than before. They are also infused with two laws: do no harm to Humanity and allow no harm to befall Humanity due to your action or inaction. When we pick up the story, there has been a rejection of the creatures and Humanity is killing all of them for a second time. Unable to fight back, their hopes rely on a newly reborn man name Dominion; he does not have the laws embedded within and can strike back against those wishing them harm. Dominion leads a small group through a village and to a castle which they take over. It is there that they find out more about themselves and how things ended up as they are. For me, there wasn't enough action nor events to pull me into the novel. Something brief would happen and then be followed by introspection and conversations around the social ramifications; the book involved a lot of commentary on society and on human nature. Rather than being infused throughout the actions of the characters, those topics seemed more prevalent than the story itself. I feel that there were a large number of elements that could have been explored to make the book more engaging than how it turned out. While I look forward to reading another book by Clark, this one wasn't quite the top of his works.

Deathbird Stories by Harlan Ellison

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• Published originally in 1975
• Finished reading it on March 16, 1996
• Judging from the almost month that it took me to finish this book, I wasn't too crazy about it. Some of the stories were really enjoyable and made me think. But many of the stories came across as overbearing and extremely long winded. I know that that is Ellison's style (sort of) but it wasn't necessarily good all of the time. I think some of the stories could have been made more concise and thus more enjoyable to be read. I've listed below some of the short stories that I think worked well.

  "Along The Scenic Route" - Sort of Death Race 2000, but closer to what you've always wanted to do while driving down the highway.

  "Basilisk" - A war veteran returns after suffering heavy losses in the war to find a town ready to make him suffer more.

  "The Face of Helene Bournouw" - A super-model extraordinaire is more than she seems and uses that power willingly.

  "Ernest and the Machine God" - This started strong but ended on a weak note. Still it is one of the better stories.

  "The Deathbird" - A different view of how evil the snake is.

Deathgrip by Brian Hodge

• Purchase it here
• Published March 28, 2013 (Crossroad Press ebook edition)
• Finished reading it on July 22, 2018
• I'm surprised that I haven't read more of Hodge's books; I really enjoy them and they are pleasantly surprising. And judging by the lack of reviews on Amazon, there aren't currently tons of people reading his books. On the plus side, I have a bunch of his books on my "to be read" stack so I will get to enjoy more of his works soon enough. But back to DEATHGRIP. Similar to MAD DOGS, the story didn't quite go where I expected. This time though the story was more serious with less hilarity and craziness. Paul Handler is a DJ in St. Louis and has a pretty good life. He likes his job. He's single but has a not-so-secret crush on a co-worker. He's happy getting drunk with his friends. But one day while on a remote site for a store opening, life changes drastically as someone crashes their car into the crowd, killing and seriously injuring many. Through some weird but logical steps, Paul realizes that he can heal people and he helps the victims from that day. Then he realizes there is a balance and that he can take lives as well as save them. With the new knowledge, Paul leaves his old life to try to do good at Donny Dawson Ministries, a popular televangelist. There are a few more twists and depth to the story as the source of the power is revealed to be centuries old. At the end, the story is complex and detailed. As I mentioned, the story goes in directions that I didn't predict. It very easily could have followed three totally different directions. Instead Hodge does a masterful job of blending all three potential stories into one single tale with more punch to it then expected. The emotional punches at the end were direct and subtle but most importantly powerful. The book could have ended before the last two chapters, but the redemption that they provided was the perfect ending. Very satisfying and highly recommended.

Debt of Honor by Tom Clancy

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• Published 1994 (hardcover edition)
• Finished reading it on September 24, 1998
• This is another chapter in the life of Jack Ryan and quite an entertaining one also. The story involves first an economic war against Japan and then a military war. And all of it stemming quite naturally from a few mistakes and oversights. The story is fun to read and very enjoyable. Clancy didn't seem to go into as many details as he usually does when describing military weapons and vehicles. It's nice the way that Clancy keeps using the same characters between stories so that you can get to know them better. Plus they are familiar aspects that readers keep wanting to know about. Personally I find the ending a bit unrealistic and quite a stretch but it seems like it could happen. The entire story especially the ending left the world in quite a state of turmoil, so if there is another story in the Jack Ryan universe Clancy is going to have a lot of work to keep everything realistic still.

The Deceased by Tom Piccirilli

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• Published August 2000 (Leisure Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on March 22, 2023
• I so wanted to like this novel. I love most of Piccirilli's books; I think that I've given him more five star ratings than any other author. When he hits his groove, he just blows me away! I was truly hoping for something good to great. Reality, though, was totally different. I'm going to ignore the half dozen times I started the book and then put it down for a month or two. Life might have been interfering. Once I got started though, I just could not really get into or care about any of the characters. I couldn't even rely on the story to get me through. It was too slow moving and seemed to walk in place a lot. Plus it got confusing on more than one point; I couldn't tell if the main character was remembering the past, interacting with ghosts, walking through a dimensional door or whatever. Now, it wasn't all bad. Piccirilli still invoked some beautiful imagery and shiny moments. I would become involved in the novel and get excited about something about to happen. Then the point of view would shift and I lost all interest again. Here's to hoping that the next book by him I read is better.

Deep As The Marrow by F. Paul Wilson

• Purchase it here
• Published March 1998 (Tor Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on January 11, 2000
• An extremely well thought out novel that grips you the entire length. In a nutshell, the President starts the process to legalize drugs so a drug cartel decides to have him killed by using his personal physician. The physician is "motivated" by the kidnapping of his daughter. And while it seems that the events culminate about half way through and that it should end soon, it doesn't. A lot more is included and all of it flows naturally. In fact, all of the characters also are easy to picture and totally believable. A very good read.

Deep Blue by David Niall Wilson

• Purchase it here
• Published February 2010 (Crossroad Press ebook edition)
• Finished reading it on January 18, 2020
• Let's cut to the chase. I had to mark this one as Did Not Finish (DNF). I tried but I just didn't care enough about the story and wasn't involved enough to finish the book. It started well. I liked the first chapter. Then somewhere around the start of chapter two or chapter three, I suddenly lost 90% of my interest in the story. I remember thinking "Oh, it's going to be one of *those* books." but I don't remember what I meant by "those books". I suppose I could go back and figure out why but I'm marking it DNF because I don't want to spend more time on the book. There was a large tie-in to blues music which I'm not a fan so that probably pulled me out also. The setting felt more like New Orleans but was some town in California which was a bit off-putting. The characters were rude to each other for no apparent reason and were making decisions that made no sense. And then usually I give books a break if the punctuation is bad; I figure that the author is trying to tell a story and they shouldn't be blamed for bad editing. In this case though, it was so consistent that it made the reading experience even worse. Different scenes would flow together across paragraphs with no space break to inform the reader that it was a new scene. Anyway, I'll stop here. I do have two more books by David Niall Wilson on my To Be Read list. I'm hoping for better.

Demon Night by J. Michael Straczynski

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• Published 1988 (hardcover edition)
• Finished reading it on February 18, 2001
• I had high hopes for this book considering that it was written by the same guy who did the Babylon 5 series and the comics series Rising Stars and Midnight Nation, all of which I liked. And while my high hopes weren't realized, they also weren't disappointed. Overall the book is really solid, the plot exciting and the characters enjoyable and real. The story itself is about a man named Eric Matthews who his whole life has had bad luck following him and weird things happening, things like rooms being thrown around, stuff flying through the air. And now, in attempt to figure things out, he heads back to the small town where he was raised. Keeping with the bad luck, at the same time an evil force is accidentally let loose within the town. Looking back on it the book has all the elements that I like: the supernatural, small town, weird things, demons. But for some reason I couldn't quite get in to the story and characters. I was too detached while reading the story; there wasn't the "sucked in" feeling that I love when reading a really good book. Maybe it's because this was one of Straczynski's earlier works, the first that I know of. Maybe he hadn't refined his writing enough. Whatever the reason is, I still found the book enjoyable. But if you really want to read some of Straczynski at his best, search out his comic series Rising Stars.

Demonic by Jeff Strand

• Purchase it here
• Published May 2023 (Jeff Strand ebook edition)
• Finished reading it on March 23, 2024
• unreviewed

Demons by John Shirley

• Purchase it here
• Published April 2003 (Ballantine paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on April 24, 2004
• Rather than being just one book, this is really two books in one. Both stories are connected and really can't stand without the other but it is two books. When I started reading them I had some high hopes that this was going to be a kick ass, great book(s). I mean, how can you go wrong when demons have literally taken over the world? That just screams awesome. Unfortunately I wasn't quite as impressed with the actual stories as I hoped. Book 1 started well and Book 2 ended well but everything in between kind of dragged. I ended up being bored and losing interest in what was happening. I'm not exactly sure why though. It might have been a lack of action that was occurring. Whatever it was, I just didn't find it that interesting. I really like most of Shirley's fiction; this book just didn't quite do it for me.

Depraved by Bryan Smith

• Purchase it here
• Published October 2009 (Leisure Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on August 20, 2017
• I'm a late arrival to the Bryan Smith Fan Club but I'm quickly embracing him. This book and the previous one I read by him have both been intense, graphic and very violent. At times, so casually factual with the violence that I would stop and have to re-read the last paragraph just to make sure I read what I did and to let it sink in. I've already added seven of his books to my "to read" list and I'm sure I'll be adding more. Like the two sequels to this book. The story focuses on the town of Hopkins Bend and a large cast of characters. I'm not even going to try to detail all of them. Basically multiple individuals and couples end up being abducted and held by the citizens of Hopkins Bend. Reasons for the abduction include as prisoners for the town's annual Holiday Feast, as sex slaves, as goods to be sold in order to make money, and as a vessel. While the bulk of the horrors perpetrated are based upon human debauchery and survival, there is also a supernatural element to the happenings. In all, there is a lot happening and the journey is fun. One of the things that was kind of amazing was how well Smith weaved the different plot lines together. Normally in a novel like this, the characters all start together and then separate as disasters occur. Or the reverse as different characters all come together in the final act to help defeat the Big Bad. This time though, there are at least five distinct plot lines that only have a minimal amount of overlap. Everything happens in the same twenty-four hour period and in the same town, so it's not as disconnected as it seems. The only negative for me was that I ended up reading the book in short batches. Thirty pages here. Twenty pages a week later. Another twenty a week later. I lost some of the impact by doing this, especially since I had to keep remembering who was in which plot line. "Oh yeah, Megan is Pete's girlfriend who was captured by the deputy. Michelle is the one trapped in Abby's basement." It would have been better if I could have binge read the book in one or two sessions instead. I will be grabbing a Bryan Smith novel the next time I have a ten hour International flight to take.

Desolation by Tim Lebbon

• Purchase it here
• Published March 2005 (Leisure Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on March 26, 2007
• While a fan of Tim Lebbon, I can't really say that I was a fan of this book. It was a bit too weird, too slow and, well, boring. Cain is starting a new life. He's been released from a hospital after intense therapy due to his father spending Cain's entire life performing grueling psychological torture and experiments. Cain is hoping for a quiet new life where he can adjust to the world. Unfortunately the apartment building he is in is occupied by some extreme weirdos who all have ties back to Cain's father. Instead, he must directly face what was done to him. Interesting premise and possible good novel. Part of the problem though was Cain, and all the other characters, weren't really likable. I couldn't connect with them. More often I wanted to yell at Cain to just get outside or make a decision. I suppose Cain's hesitation and the novel's slow pacing (another problem) are meant to illustrate the psychological problems with which Cain is having to deal. For me though, they made the novel a pain to get through and complete. Things picked up at points but most of the time they were disappointing.

Desperation by Stephen King

• Purchase it here
• Published August 1997 (paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on May 21, 1999
• Some people have said that Stephen King's best material is behind him and that most of what he puts out is schlock. To this I say, "Bunk!" DESPERATION is an excellent example of the amount of development that he gives his characters, of the amount of story packed in to a single novel and of the way he can still pull you in to his story. This time a series of travelers are apprehended near a small Vegas town called Desperation; the apprehender is one of the nastiest cops that you ever want to avoid. And things only get worse once he starts hemorrhaging blood. Like most of King's novels, the story revolves around a small band of people who are fighting to destroy evil, or at least to delay it for some more years. And also like most of his novels, you never know who is going to live and who is going to die. I think that it is this uncertainty which keeps pulling me back time and again. Well that and the pure fright that I can get when reading his stuff. Now excuse me as I run off to pick up the other half of this story in REGULATORS.

Device Free Weekend by Sean Doolittle

• Purchase it here
• Published February 2023 (Grand Central Publishing audiobook edition)
• Finished reading it on July 23, 2023
• unreviewed

The Devil Next Door by Tim Curran

• Purchase it here
• Published December 2009 (Severed Press paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on March 25, 2017
• Atavism. The quickest summary of THE DEVIL NEXT DOOR. Also a word that is repeated throughout the book and which I had to look up to find the description. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to use it in a normal conversation at some point but I'm going to try. Anyway, THE DEVIL NEXT DOOR is about humankind suddenly devolving to their base instincts: to hunt, to kill, to eat, to mate. Not the pretty "do what's necessary to survive", but instead a brutal, violent, animalistic "kill them before they kill you" approach. The story follows Louis Shears, a man who starts to notice the wrongness with the world when on the way home he see two men with baseball bats beat a young teenager. Then when Louis goes to help, the kid as best as he can with broken limbs attacks Louis. And then to compound the craziness, the responding cops literally kick and walk on the dead kid's body. The craziness, the atavism, strikes randomly across the town of Greenlawn, Indiana, enveloping people and converting their actions to bestial. Macy, a high school girl and neighbor to Louis, stabs a fellow student in the cheek with a pencil but then she comes out of it. Macy is sent home and runs into Louis who is trying to figure out what is going on. The two of them try to stay both safe and sane as everyone else become cannibalistic killers intent on acting upon base impulses. Territory is marked via pee. Dens are created. Mates are stolen. The first half of the book is extremely brutal. My short summary is from the first twenty pages, and I skipped a few scenes from those pages. The book does not flinch in the descriptions and scenes; they are savage and blunt. And at first they seem disconnected from each other. Something that Curran probably did on purpose to help make the novel seem more disconnected from reality Unfortunately it makes the plot seem lacking at the same time. However, somewhere around the middle of the book, I realized that I was now pulled into the life and survival of the main characters. That I cared about what was happening to them. It didn't stop the characters from making a few basic "horror movie" mistakes: "No, what are you doing? Don't leave the group. Something bad is going to happen. (10 pages later) Yup, see. I told you." The ending was a tad sad and bleak but it also fit the mood of the entire book. On an extra note, I read the bulk of the book on some plane rides across the country. This helped because after being pulled into a different world in the book, it kind of felt like the plane was its own little pocket of sanity and that I was about to land in a different, atavistic world.

Devil Red by Joe R. Lansdale

• Purchase it here
• Published March 2012 (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on April 9, 2024
• unreviewed

Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre by Max Brooks

• Purchase it here
• Published June 2020 (Random House Audio audiobook edition)
• Finished reading it on July 27, 2021
• Without trying to, I've caught Max Brooks on a few different talk shows and interviews where he has talked about national security subjects such as automation, weapons procurement, and cyber-warfare. I found him very well spoken, intelligent, and very entertaining to watch. Needless to say, I was very interested to read one of his books. I found the book met the same standards he set on his interviews. The story is told from the journals of Kate Holland, a resident in a small, exclusive community in the Mount Rainier area. The volcano erupts and causes a disruption with the wildlife, specifically sasquatch comes down the mountain and into the town. The story doesn't go in any weird directions or play tongue-in-cheek with the idea. It truly is what would happen if a natural disaster drove a semi-intelligent bipedal creature towards a remote small community. And what follows is pretty much what I would expect. As for the people of the town Greenloop, they are annoying. Everyone except for Mostar. Annoying in the "too woke" kind of way. The perfect example is the couple who adopt a girl from an underprivileged country and then call her Palomino as a placeholder for when she wants to choose her own name without realizing that by calling her Palomino they have already named her. People that I just want to roll my eyes and walk away from. At first, I was really annoyed by them, then I realized that Brooks did it on purpose to establish the type of community / town where they lived. Then my annoyance became praise because he did a really good job at it making them annoying. The setting was very easy to picture and something that I could see occur. If Bigfoot was real. I don't want to go down that path. Let's just say, that it is a very good book and I look forward to future books from him.

El Dia de los Muertos by Brian A. Hopkins

• Purchase it here
• Published October 2002 (Earthling Publications hardcover signed, numbered and limited to 500 copies edition)
• Finished reading it on November 10, 2007
• At a little more than 100 pages, this book is more of a novella. No matter its size though, it carries a wonderful story. Being vague in order to avoid any spoilers because a large part of this story is the discovery, Ricky Bennington is an archaeologist in Mexico who suffers a tragedy and then comes up with a unique solution to get past it. The story is dripping with the history of Mexico; I found myself fully encompassed by the world and feeling like I was there. Both the wonder of the Mexican environment and the story are slowly and lovingly revealed. That is a large part of why I don't want to give too much of the story away. Hopkins completed tons of research for the story and it shows. I did get lost a little bit with all the names and locations that were mentioned but it was also something that was easy to get past. The names and locations were absolutely needed though to provide the mood. I highly recommend this book. It will be one that you find extremely difficult to put down until you've finished.

Die, You Bastard! Die! by Jan Kozlowski

• Purchase it here
• Published April 2015 (Deadite Press paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on November 3, 2019
• While the cover and the back copy of the book broadcast that it is a revenge thriller, I still ended up being surprised on several fronts. The book was more intense and violent than I thought. And it had a few more twists in the plot than I expected. I thought I knew where it was going when I was suddenly shocked by a plot twist that left me flabbergasted and left the main character in a worse situation. Ahh, but first, the story. Claire Valentin is an expert paramedic who has been awarded a few medals for saving people's lives. One day an old friend calls her up and tells her that her father is in the hospital; the same man who abused her massively as a child, so much that Claire ran from home and never returned. Now Claire and her friend have a chance to get revenge on the man. The plan starts smooth, deviates a little quickly, and then takes a hard left into a brick wall. Suddenly Claire finds herself fighting for her life instead of getting revenge. The book is concise and tight in its wording. An effect that pulled me in faster and sped me through the story. At the same time, I felt every emotion along with Claire. Her desire for revenge, her confusion when the reality of the moment hits, and her fear when things go really bad. Kozlowski does not hold back either. The pain, suffering, and abuse throughout the novel are unfiltered and intense. Some of the torture is imaginative also. Scary but still imaginative. I don't want to give anything away so I'm going to end it here. Do yourself a favor though and read this book.

Different Seasons by Stephen King

• Purchase it here
• Published January 1983 (Signet paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on February 28, 1986
• unreviewed

Dirt by Sean Doolittle

• Purchase it here
• Published March 2005 (Uglytown paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on November 20, 2006
• While I wasn't overly impressed with the first novel by Doolittle that I read (BURN), DIRT made up for it. It has wonderful characters, a funny and quirky story and a true sense in you never know what is going to happen. While attending a friend's funeral, Quince Bishop is pulled into a mystery in which he doesn't really want to be included. Being a good guy though, he helps his ex-girlfriend (a newspaper reporter with hopes of bigger stories) get in on the events as they unfold. And watching them unfold is the fun part. I didn't have any of the problems that I did with his last novel where I kept losing track of who was who. In case I did though, DIRT has a handy reference guide at the beginning which tells who the characters are and gives a quick one liner on each. It sounds kind of tacky but it adds to the spirit of the book and makes it more enjoyable. I'm looking forward to the next book by Doolittle and hoping for more of the same.

Dirty Martini by J.A. Konrath

• Purchase it here
• Published February 2013 (J.A. Konrath ebook edition)
• Finished reading it on November 12, 2025
• Book 4 of Jacqueline "Jack" Daniels series
  unreviewed

Dirty White Boys by Stephen Hunter

• Purchase it here
• Published December 1995 (paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on November 30, 1997
• This is an awesome, kick-ass book! From the very first sentence this book portrays itself as a hard-core and extreme story of three convicts who escape from jail and it continues all the way through to the very end. Nothing is held back, ever. The convicts are reminiscent of a demented Lenny and George from "Of Mice And Men." The third member of the escape party is an mild-mannered artist who finds himself dragged along and being changed little by little. The three of them are chased by an equally intense trooper who doesn't want to be that way but coincidences pull him in again and again. If you love intense and exhilarating crime novels that can blow away Mike Hammer any day of the week, then this is a book for you. By the way, I was turned on to this book by a recommendation from the comic book "Preacher" so I think that it is only equally fair that I recommend "Preacher." If you like this novel, try the comic, it is of the exact same caliber!

The Disappearance by Bentley Little

• Purchase it here
• Published September 2010 (Signet Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on August 15, 2019
• One thing about having a super long To Be Read list of books is that some authors don't show up for large chunks of time. Bentley Little has been missed. And THE DISAPPEARANCE was the perfect way to catch up with him. Not as many supernatural elements in this story as most of his others but still spooky and scary. Gary, his girlfriend Joan, and three other friends are all students at UCLA. They all decide to go out to Burning Man in the middle of the desert. While there, Joan vanishes. Hoping she got another ride home, Gary and his friends go back to UCLA where they discover that Joan has really disappeared. No more Facebook page, no more school records, nothing. Completely erased. Frustrated with the lack of help from the police who are hesitant to investigate a missing person who doesn't exist, Gary starts looking for her himself. The book follows the theme for a Bentley Little book: a normal person has their life disrupted by "something bad". In this case though, the evil entity behind the something bad is a little easier to understand. I'm not going to spoil the story because when I found out, it both pleased me and disappointed me. The theme of being powerless while other forces ruin your life still exists. I enjoyed the hunt and the results. I also enjoyed how the book could have ended at about page 300 with a good ending but it didn't. That final 100 pages helped hammer in the reality of the situation. At the same time, the location of the final confrontation was figured out a tad conveniently. Realistic but convenient. A minor point that was easy to bypass in the big picture. An enjoyable book. I'm glad I'm at that part of my To Be Read list where Bentley Little will be making more appearances.

Disappearance at Devil's Rock by Paul Tremblay

• Purchase it here
• Published June 2016 (William Morrow ebook edition)
• Finished reading it on March 26, 2018
• This is another excellent book by Tremblay. The characters and emotions within the book are incredibly real. My heartstrings were pulled hard. There were multiple points where I had to pause to let the story and the latest events sink in. The story starts with Elizabeth Sanderson and her thirteen-year-old son Tommy. Tommy was supposed to be at a sleepover at a friend's house when he went missing in the woods of Borderland State Park. The rest of the story is around what happened to Tommy. At times the story is a police procedural. At other times a possible ghost story. Throughout the book is the mystery of what happened and the emotions that it brings forth. While it was kind of annoying that the "facts" of what happened kept changing, it was also realistic with any investigation. Each piece of evidence uncovers new info and reveals lies being told for various reasons. I will admit that I was a tad disappointed with the revelation of the final conflict; it introduced a previously undiscussed idea that was semi-pivotal to that conflict. But it also depends on what you the reader want to believe. Similar to A HEAD FULL OF GHOSTS, many of the key moments could be interpreted in a couple different ways depending on what you want to believe. Did the characters see something for real? Or just imagine it? That ends up being for you to decide. As for me, I'm going to continue buying and reading Tremblay's books.

Disclosure by Michael Crichton

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• Published October 1994 (Ballantine Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on October 26, 1998
• Yet another example of a book that is better than the movie. The novel is more involving and realistic than the movie was. It is also more interesting since the characters get built up more and are given a background. Plus the changes are enough from the movie to make you say, "OK, I can believe this rather than that crap peddled in the film." Overall it was entertaining. Not as strong a book as JURASSIC PARK, but still good.

Dispatch by Bentley Little

• Purchase it here
• Published October 2005 (Signet paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on October 18, 2006
• Little continues writing excellent books that are a thrill to read. In yet another of his "one word title" books, our protagonist (Jason Hanford) finds that he has the ability to convince people of things via writing. He can write letters of complaint and get a feel meal. He writes a letter to the editorial section of a newspaper and sways the public's opinion. He then gets an offer to write letters for a living. This novel follows in the same tradition of many other Little novels in that a mysterious corporate organization is involved with something that could be innocent and normal. Theoretically I should become bored with the formula and stop reading his books, after all that is what turned me off to Koontz. However I'm not bored with Little's books. I thoroughly enjoy reading them. And I look forward to his next.

Disposal by Jeff Strand

• Purchase it here
• Published 2007 (Biting Dog Publications hardcover signed, numbered and limited to 400 copies edition)
• Finished reading it on April 25, 2014
• While Strand continues to horrify and amuse, this time around he doesn't do it by himself. Instead he's pulled in ten other authors to help him out; each writing their own mini foreword for the book. Authors like Brian Keene, J.A Konrath, Christopher Golden and others. And none of them had a good word to say about Strand. Of course, they are all having fun but it is a great way to start the story and set the mood. From there we move into the story of Frank, an admitted scumbag. One evening while robbing a dry cleaner this scumbag gets an offer that is perfect for him. Gretchen, the clerk at the dry cleaner, offers him an evening of sex if Frank kills her husband. Only after accepting the offer does Frank realize that her husband is hard to kill. Like next to impossible to kill! Frank then goes from one difficult problem to the next, keeping us amused the whole time. From that perspective, this novel is more aligned with Strand's Andrew Mayhem series; the protagonist is introduced, given a problem to solve and then has humorous mishap after mishap occur. It doesn't have the emotional depth of Strand's DWELLER but then it is not meant to. It is crazy fun that will have you shaking your head and smiling.

Doctor Sleep by Stephen King

• Purchase it here
• Published June 2014 (Gallery Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on October 23, 2019
• I wish that more sequels were like DOCTOR SLEEP because King exactly nailed the way it should be approached. Bad sequels end up throwing the surviving characters from the first book or movie into a rehash of the same events but with bigger, strong, more bad guys to defeat. Too infrequently there is little to no character development. No changes to justify the sequel. Good sequels bring characters back so that we can see how their lives were affected by that first book or movie. DOCTOR SLEEP is a good sequel. Dan Torrance is no longer the little boy Danny but he is still haunted by the ghosts of the Overlook Hotel. He also fights the same alcoholism that helped destroy his father. After a bottom where us readers see Dan at his worst, he slowly starts to pull it together in the small town Frazier. He is found by Abra, another shining-enabled child who before too long needs Dan's help to survive a fight against monsters. I'm avoiding spoilers because I know the discovery is part of the enjoyment; and if you've been able to avoid spoilers for the book and movie to be reading this, then you don't need me spoiling it for you. I will warn you though that the last 125 pages will go by fast. The final climatic battle approached quickly and was over in one big push of reading. Afterwards, I was left feeling happy and satisfied.

Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King

• Purchase it here
• Published December 1993 (paperback version)
• Finished reading it on April 2, 1996
• Very quick reading! I finished this in just four days and considering my busy schedule that it pretty amazing. I enjoyed this book. It wasn't very scary or gory, except for maybe in one or two scenes, but it was still done well. It was very easy to see the characters and to become part of their lives. And then following what happened and what was done becomes natural. The curiosity just sneaks up on you and you find yourself continuing to read and read and read. This novel is sort of a companion novel to GERALD'S GAME and sort of not. They both occur in the same "reality" and Dolores finds herself thinking of the main character in GERALD'S GAME even though she does not know who she is. I always like novels that tie together like that. It expands on a "reality" that is familiar to the reader and also lends more depth to it. Plus it sort of feels like an in-joke for readers who are familiar with both novels.

Domain by James Herbert

• Purchase it here
• Published March 1985 (Signet paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on March 1, 1988
• unreviewed

Doomstalker by Gary Brandner

• Purchase it here
• Published December 1989 (Fawcett Gold Medal paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on December 1, 1992
• unreviewed

Door To December by Dean R. Koontz

• Purchase it here
• Published June 1994 (paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on February 23, 1998
• Since Koontz originally wrote this in 1985, it has a lot of the feel of his older novels. In fact I thought for sure that it would become one of his formula novels, i.e. woman who appears weak but is stronger than she thinks and with the aid of handsome ex-military trained guy overcome impossible odds to defeat evil bad guy. Mix in little kid and/or a dog and you're set. However it is only the beginning that feels like that. The rest of the novel turns and varies enough to be enjoyable and likable, especially for occult lovers. The only other negative is that Koontz tends to get preachy at times and displays all the subtlety of Richard Simmons during a workout. Pulling myself through those sections was hellish!

The Doorkeepers by Graham Masteron

• Purchase it here
• Published October 2003 (Leisure Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on July 27, 2006
• Masterton is one of those British authors that doesn't get published in America quite as much as he should. Yes, we do get to see his novels from time to time but considering the volume of material that he has produced and the quality of his work, he takes up an amazingly small amount of space on my book shelves. I'm going to have to make it a point to include another novel or two of his in my next Amazon order. Anyway, THE DOORKEEPERS is yet another excellent novel by Masterton. The story focuses on Josh Winward as he goes to London and tries get some resolution to his sister's death. The problem is that his sister has been living at an address that is 60 years old and working at a factory that doesn't exist. As Josh gets pulled deeper and deeper into the mystery, he discovers that there is more to this world and to any other for that matter. About two-thirds of the way through, I started thinking that this would be a great novel to continue and have Josh Winward continue to explore. However, five minutes later those thoughts were dashed as the necessary end to the creatures guarding the doors was spelled out. Unfortunately that was also the point where it became predictable and much of the surprise in the ending was removed. Masterton played fair and it wasn't anything that didn't fit the rules of his novel but I wish that the ending didn't become telegraphed as of that point.

Double Edge by Dennis Etchison

• Purchase it here
• Published January 1997 (paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on March 1, 1999
• This book left me with a lot of mixed feelings. Not the type where the book made me think about stuff; more like I didn't like the book, then I did, then I didn't, then I was confused, then it ended leaving me scared. At times it was heavily slanted with a feminist point of view, so much so that it was difficult to relate to. Characters were introduced and then killed too fast to start caring about them. The main couple in the story although married, didn't act like it at all. Then when they were talking or thinking about the other it always seemed forced and strained. Maybe I felt this because there was almost no interaction between the husband and wife. Things that I did like were that the reader wasn't hand held through the course of the story. At times Jenny Marlow wasn't aware of what exactly was happening and neither was the reader, not until you find out later. The ending was extremely scary and enough to give you the shivers. I just wish that I had felt like that throughout more of the novel.

Down Here by Andrew Vachss

• Purchase it here
• Published April 2005 (Vintage Crime / Black Lizard paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on August 01, 2006
• Book 15 of the Burke novels
  One of the hard things to do when commenting on Vachss' latest Burke novel is to feel like I'm not repeating myself. Vachss is consistently a strong writer. The novels are consistently gripping and enthralling. Every time I find myself staying up late so that I can finish the book. Vachss doesn't use chapters, so it makes it that much harder since I always think "Just until the next break." which is a page or two away. Then when I reach it I think "Next break. I'll stop for the evening then." Repeat that cycle until I literally can't stay awake anymore. It's also hard to not repeat myself because it feels like the novels are all on big story and not individual books. They are more like the chapters in this thousands plus page story that is still going. I would imagine this makes it kind of difficult for a new reader to come aboard. The good thing though is that due to the intense stories and Vachss writing style, the novels are really fast reads. You can catch up pretty fast.

Down in the Zero by Andrew Vachss

• Purchase it here
• Published July 1995 (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on September 12, 1997
• unreviewed

Draculas by Blake Crouch, J.A. Konrath, F. Paul Wilson and Jeff Strand

• Purchase it here
• Published March 2020 (Kydala Publishing ebook edition)
• Finished reading it on March 18, 2022
• OK, you can think of this as a feeling guilty review. Originally I meant to write something up but I've been swamped lately. As such, I simply rated the book 4 stars in my usual spots and moved on. But then I got a bunch of likes on my "review". It was a rating, not a review. Anyway, then I got a like on my rating by F. Paul Wilson! Gah, one of the authors is liking my simplistic 4 stars rating and I can't even write a couple hundred words on his book!? Guilt, guilt, guilt.
  Then as the words were noodling in my head but before I could make the time to write up a proper review, J.A. Konrath likes my rating! Double gah! Now I truly have to get something written and posted soon! Otherwise I might end up with Strand and/or Crouch liking my rating too!
  There turned to be a really nice blending of all the authors into a single book. I was expecting something along the lines of each chapter being written by a different author and a slightly disconnected feeling. Instead this is a true co-author book in that it's one story which happens to be written by four people. There were scenes where I guessed "lots of humor, I think Strand wrote this" or "medical jargon that sounds accurate, probably Wilson" but in reality, I had no idea if I was right or not. Doesn't matter because it was very enjoyable.
  The story focuses on a eccentric billionaire who's dying and is able to retrieve a skull hypothesized as Dracula's skull. The billionaire infects himself and during his metamorphosis, he infects many others. Death and mayhem ensues.
  As I mentioned, I was really enjoying the story when suddenly it ended. Right at the mid-point of the book. The story itself truly did end; it wasn't an abrupt ending. It was more a wtf moment of I'm literally at 50% of the book completed. What useless fluff was left to read. It turned out to be a lot, and actually not fluff at all. First there were a few short stories, enjoyable reads but thinking back I remember the main story and not these short stories. The really cool part though was the ton of behind the scenes material on how DRACULAS came into being. The emails that went back and forth with all of them on how to start and write the book. There were some deleted scenes. A lot of explanation as to why choices were made. In the end, I enjoyed the second half of the book just as much as the story in the first half.
  If it is not apparent by now, I do recommend the book as a fun, enjoyable read. All four authors did a great job. The behind-the-scenes notes do tell which author wrote which characters and certain scenes but in the end, it doesn't matter who wrote what. The book made me smile, laugh, cringe, thrilled and care. Then it involved me to a small degree in the lives of four authors that I respect. With all that, I consider myself well entertained.

Dragon Tears by Dean R. Koontz

• Purchase it here
• Published October 1993 (Berkley Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on October 31, 1995
• unreviewed

Drawing Blood by Poppy Z. Brite

• Purchase it here
• Published October 1994 (Dell paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on October 19, 2000
• Poppy Brite has written another wonderfully complex, enthralling and scary novel. And it's called DRAWING BLOOD! It's characters and settings are rich and lively; I found myself caring for them more than I thought. A couple of times I was near tears because of the pain the characters were going through, and this was before I realized that I cared for them. And then I also found myself getting pretty scared at the ending. The story is about Trevor McGee, a sole survivor of a murder-suicide by his father. It is also about Zachary Bosch, a computer hacker from New Orleans. Together these two find out more about their past by facing it in the form of a haunted house. The details are many and are beautifully weaved together in this intense and loving story. Yes, that's right, in addition to be pretty damn scary the novel is also very erotic and loving. I look forward to reading the next book by Brite.

Dreadful Tales by Richard Laymon

• Purchase it here
• Published originally in 2000 (Headline Book Publishing paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on June 17, 2006
• I was a little disappointed by this collection. It wasn't the quality of the stories. All of the stories found here were top quality. Gripping and exciting. Unique and memorable characters. Personally I believe that Laymon is better at the novel than the short story. These tend to read too fast and don't involve as much as I would hope. There's not as much character development or changes as found in his novels; obviously length has a huge factor here. The thrills are good, just short. What I was disappointed with was that I had read many of these same stories before. It must have been from MADMAN STAN AND OTHER STORIES since that's the only other short story collection I think Laymon did. It's always more enjoyable though to experience new fun and exciting stories than old fun and exciting stories. Don't let the select few favorites listed below fool you into thinking there wasn't much good in it; you'll find almost every story is great! It's picking out your favorites that will become hard.

  "Barney's Bigfoot Museum" - A man discovers proof of Bigfoot

  "Oscar's Audition" - A chance meeting in an alley leads to bad news for one person

  "The Direct Approach" - A pretty clever story that seems dangerous up into the point where it proves that it is

Dreamcatcher by Stephen King

• Purchase it here
• Published December 2001 (paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on February 03, 2003
• Stephen King is one of the few people who can write an 800 page novel and make it so enjoyable. An even harder task to do when you consider that somewhere around 200-300 pages, I reached a point where I didn't know what else King could do to stretch the story out. But he did. And he made it good. The story follows four childhood friends that get together in a remote section of Maine for their annual hunting trip. The problems start when they are visited by another hunter who has been infected with a space spore from a UFO that crashed nearby. The infected hunter's condition quickly deteriorates and triggers the bulk of the story for the second half: a chase of the now infected friend before he can pollute a local water supply thereby infecting millions. Throw in some alien-enhanced telepathy, a childhood event that also linked the four friends with telepathy and some gruesome aliens and you've got a typical Stephen King book. However this time most of the action and suspense is psychological in nature. There aren't that many "action sequences" where a lot happens; instead most of the interesting action takes place in mental conversations between the telepathy linked people, especially with the link to the alien. And then there is an interesting twist thrown in at the end, a twist that had clues dropped in across the whole novel. Like all of King's novels, I highly recommend this one. Don't be put off by the size; it is worth it. And don't wimp out by seeing the upcoming movie and skipping the book. Do both!

Dreamside by Graham Joyce

• Purchase it here
• Published March 2001 (TOR Book paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on November 21, 2005
• The first half of this book is similar to INDIGO. Both involve people who are trying to expand their mind or consciousness by doing some sort of experiment. In INDIGO it had to do with visibility and seeing. In DREAMSIDE it had to do with your dreams and controlling them. And in both, the methods given to reach the state of heightened awareness seem really probable for success. DREAMSIDE focuses on four college students who work on the power of lucid dreaming, the ability to control and be aware of your dreams while dreaming. This talent and their growth in using it is told in a flashback as something dangerous and unknown starts to play havoc with their lives in the present. In that regards the story follows the typical "something evil happens when younger and comes back to revisit when adults" theme. I'm not too sure why but halfway through the book, I lost my momentum to finish it. The story seemed fine and interesting all the way through and the ending wasn't totally predictable but I wasn't able to finish the book as quickly as I started it. Despite that I would probably recommend this more than some of his later works since this book has more supernatural or weird things happening than his later and more literary material.

Drive-In: A Double Feature Omnibus by Joe R. Lansdale

• Purchase it here
• Published 1997 (paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on August 1, 1999
• This is actually a single volume of two novellas: The Drive-In and The Drive-In 2. Naturally enough the second story is a sequel to the first. And I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed both of them; don't miss them if you are a horror fan of any sort, or a movie fan for that matter. They are a grisly, realistic and often funny view of a what happens to two men one night at the drive-in. OK, the basics of the first story is four young men go to the horror-fest at the local drive-in and half way through the second movie a big comet/meteor swoops down and surrounds them by a big emptiness. So they are all trapped there; that's it. The rest of the story is how the people trapped inside deal with the events and it is not pretty at times. The second story picks up from the end of the first where the blackness is now gone but the world outside the drive-in is not the same. Lansdale definitely has a love of B-movies and it shows throughout the stories. But rather than being the mindless schlock that many of those movies are, these stories have a meaning and even a commentary on life. Sometimes it is not nice, but I think that it is realistic none the less.

Duel by Richard Matheson

• Purchase it here
• 18 short stories, all by Richard Matheson
• Published January 2003 (Tor paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on December 07, 2003
• And once again Tor releases another collection of short stories by Matheson. The title piece this time is "Duel", Steven Spielberg's first movie that he directed. So this was a collection that I was looking forward to reading. While I generally enjoy Matheson's books and stories, I can't say that I enjoyed this one that much. The material wasn't really sub-par; I just didn't find it that interesting. Other than the title story, almost all of the stories were more aligned with Science Fiction than Horror. Not that there is anything wrong with Science Fiction but I just felt that the collection was not marketed correctly, especially since the sub-title on the book was "Terror Stories by Richard Matheson". I only that there were a couple of stories that qualified as terror; the rest were predictable or just uninteresting. Nicely written but just not engaging. If you're looking to be scared, read the couple of stories below while in the library or better yet pick up Matheson's I AM LEGEND.

  "Duel" - Slightly dated with regards to the speeds being driven but just add 40mph to them and it's still very appropriate

  "Little Girl Lost" - This story inspired an episode of the Twilight Zone and is a fun read

  "The Test" - I've read this one before and it scares me and pulls up a lot of emotion each time

Duma Key by Stephen King

• Purchase it here
• Published January 2008 (Scribner hardcover edition)
• Finished reading it on January 17, 2010
• All those people who were writing and saying that King had lost it and stopped being good should now find something else to focus on. DUMA KEY reads very much like older Stephen King books but also is crisp and solid as only an author of decades can do. It feels like his older stories while also being new. While I never thought he lost it, this book does step it up a notch or three. The story follows Edgar Freemantle, a former builder and contractor. Edgar was at work when a crane accidentally ran him over; it was close enough to take his arm and damage him but Edgar lived. However, his life was changed. He ends up living in Duma Key, one of the keys off Florida, and painting. However, his paintings have a message to tell him. A message of past evils. A message that will change his life again. OK, enough with the summary and back-cover verbiage. The story involves just the type of spookiness I love: small things occurring which you can't explain, images of the future that may or may not occur, general weirdness which creates an uneasy atmosphere. It's nowhere as heavy as the dread from THE SHINING but you can feel it building up. And the grand climax fits perfectly with everything that had been happening. Look, it's Stephen King. Chances are you've read something by him before and/or you've already made up your opinion on him. So go out there and pick up the book (like you know you want to) and read it.

Dune by Frank Herbert

• Purchase it here
• Published June 1965 (Berkley Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on December 31, 1983
• unreviewed

Dweller by Jeff Strand

• Purchase it here
• Published April 2010 (Leisure Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on April 13, 2010
• Before I start this review, I have a confession to make about the movie "King Kong." I cry at the ending. I did when I was a little boy with the original and then again when I was older and saw the remake with Jeff Bridges. (Any crying during the Peter Jackson remake was more due to how poor the film was than anything else.) Here was a creature that was living a happy life who finally thought he found love only to be kidnapped to a foreign country and then killed while defending his love. How that could not stir tears in anyone, I don't know. Jumping forward to the book DWELLER, it will evoke a lot of the same feelings. Toby is a misfit teenager who through a series of events makes friends with a big-toothed, massive-clawed creature in the woods. They keep this friendship for decades and through many life changes. Like many friendships, it's not always easy but the friendship does persevere. All the way to the end of the book. Yes, the idea might seem a little crazy that someone could make friends with such a creature but so is a gigantic ape falling in love with a blonde human sacrifice. If you just go with it, you'll find that the book is well worth it and extremely entertaining. It will pull you in very quickly and you won't want to stop reading. This was one of those books I could barely put down and which I stayed up late reading. As always, I look forward to more books by Strand.

Dydeetown World by F. Paul Wilson

• Purchase it here
• Published July 1989 (Baen Books paperback edition)
• Finished reading it on December 26, 2004
• This is actually a collection of three related stories. They are based on an Earth from Steven Spruill's PARADOX PLANET, but don't worry if you haven't read it. I didn't either and I understood everything that was going on. The stories are all fast reading and focus around Private Eye Sigmund Dreyer. First he gets a clone of Jean Harlow as his client as she is looking for her lost love. The second story is a search for a missing child. And the third involves answering the remaining mysteries left over from the first two stories. All in all, not some of Wilson's best work. The characters are a bit cliche and predictable; luckily the events in the story aren't so we keep interest there. Plus the book is such fast reading that you end up whipping through it in nothing flat, enjoying it the whole time. It's only afterwards that you think, "OK, yeah, I should have seen that coming." A fun read but not something that you should consider a must read. And considering that this is early Wilson and not easily found, it's not something you're likely to find unless you are looking for it.

Send comments or your opinions on these books to mike@kazba.com.

Last modified on August 19, 2023