A Wonderful Collection of Scary Stories from a Variety of Veteran Writers
October is the perfect time to stock up on all the spooky things. Every streaming service, network channel, comic book publisher, and amusement park embrace the season. For those who like to read, it’s a great time to catch up on horror anthologies.
Halloween Magic, Mystery and the Macabre is one of those collections that pull from all the realms of possibility. Edited by Paula Guran (Once Upon a Time: New Fairy Tales), MMM features many celebrated authors of all ages and backgrounds. It has an incredible international feel.
Published in 2013, MMM is full of frights and fun from cover to beautiful cover. It includes nearly 20 stories of varying lengths. They include plenty of supernatural and unexplained scares, along with several happy endings and tales of transformation. One of the greatest aspects of the book is the world-building. Many of the authors create scenarios from colonies to neighborhoods just for these short stories. Others tap into worlds that they have already built but add in a new flavor of frightfulness just for the occasion.
Naming any of these stories a highlight depends entirely on the reader’s mood and interests. Stephen Graham Jones opens the anthology with Thirteen, which is focused on a dare that taunts movie-goers at the old Big Chief Drive-In Theater. Norman Partridge follows with a mummy’s memoir in The Mummy’s Heart. Other gripping tales include a werewolf assassin, doppelgangers, zombies back from the war (or others who never left town), and more witches than anyone could shake a broom at.
Several of the stories are airy and mysterious while others are up front and visual, but never to the point of unnecessary gore. This collection is all about entertainment with a macabre twist, not pushing the envelope in terms of gore or violence. There are meta stories where the characters celebrate their own love of horror, Halloween and even Hammer films. In these tales, it feels like the reader is right along with them for the ride.
The collection of awards and nominations among these authors is plentiful. Many have dozens or even hundreds of stories published. The writing is consistently high-quality and will introduce readers to worlds and nations they may never have explored.
Halloween Magic, Mystery and the Macabre runs 384 pages. The stories are short enough to enjoy one at a time, or all at once. It is available in print and ebook on Amazon.