This one has been up near the top of my list of books to track down for years NOW and to finally get my hands on a copy was a real treat.
The book holds 26 stories of which there were only two that I'd read before, the haunted house of 'Minuke' and the amphibious revenge of 'The Pond'. I'd read enough reviews of the book to know that it was going to perhaps be a bit of a patchy read but I'm ever the optimist and so dived right in. Turns out it's a bit of a patchy read.
There are some nicely effective tales here. There are moments of light horror such as the two stories already mentioned and 'The Stocking', a ghost story or two ('Patter of Tiny Feet' & 'Peg'), a fun snippet of sci-fi ('The Calculation of M'Bambwe'), stories of madness ('Jeremy in the Wind'), illness ('The Photograph'), innocence ('A Lotus for Jamie') friendship ('The Excursion'), deceit ('Oh Mirror, Mirror') and death ('Zachary Crebbins Angel') to name just those stories that had the most impact. There are many more that felt like filler. All readable enough but with little about them that was either interesting or memorable'
I am though very glad to finally get to put a mental tick next to this one and that it had some very enjoyable moments - 'Jeremy in the Wind' and 'A Lotus for Jaime' in particular. It wasn't all I hoped it would be but it was much more than I feared.
..........................................................................................
If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much appreciate a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain
No comments:
Post a Comment