Horror in 100 words. Can a story saying so little come to so much?
This second collection of 100 word stories, based on the posted nightmares from Dailynightmare.com, hopes to do just that. Their goal: enhance in story form any of the posted nightmares on the website with a focus on any one of the five narrative “pentacles” – Mood, character, plot, setting, or theme.
Why Short Story Anthologies Deserve Your Attention and Why a Miraculous Book of 100-Word Stories Deserves it Doubly So in less than 100 words: Because this one pretty much kicks ass, and because we just don’t seem to have much of an attention span anymore. And because there are some real gems in this collection – although, I’ll say up front, it’s more prose-poetry than short stories, and some of the stories fall well short of the mark of the five narrative “pentacles”. But that’s not why we read. We read because the stories are good.
The Good, the Bad, The Utterly Banal as I understand it.
My taste in books is vastly different from that of my good friend, the stand-up dude behind this website: he veers toward the Lee/Pelan/Goon “eating the corn” gross-out where I prefer not reading about that, ever. Ever. So when said stand-up dude hands me a book to read I have a tendency to sigh, read the first few pages and go back to whatever else I was reading. This one, however, grabbed me immediately. The compilers of said publication ask, “Had any good nightmares?” Well, if you haven’t, someone else has done it for you, and some far more talented people have explored those nightmares for stories that are truly chilling.
The Good as per any decent review, and here is why you should pony up the pittance being asked to procure this volume. The poetic beauty of creating a truly complete story in so few words. Prose poetry in all its glory, children. Take Agreement for instance; a beautiful piece of poetry disguised as fine print—the sort of thing you click through and never read when you agree to the latest Google app bent on stealing your identity and taking over the known world and such. Or Birth Ritual, a poetic esoteric that drips with fear, as the perfect new birth so pink and fresh and defenseless is born, a boon for the maggot offspring of these insectile celebrants. Or my personal favorite, RIP ellipses, a story in utter pause, with not an ellipsis to be found. And about the typography—Glenn Mielke, self-styled “Canadian Art-Snob” does one hell of a job picking font and design that compliments the content of each story, though in some cases the artistic bent becomes somewhat heavy-handed, rendering the text difficult to read.
The cover art feeds the overall sense of darkness and nightmare. Photographed by James Frederick Leach, it is an improvement on the cover for the original collection (13 Quick Shivers) which seemed somewhat amateurish in its composition. It’s the same distinctive Jeremy Haney gargoyle sculpture but the placement of the title is better effected here with the image, creating an overall more complete and artistic work.
The Bad in my opinion hardly outweighs the good, but it is there, and must be noted for fairness. As I already noted, some of the more artistic fonts make for difficult reading. For instance, Tornado Girl is beautiful to behold, with all the swirls and eddies of the serifs indicating the wind-work of little tornadoes, but it makes the story more of a challenge to read. Additionally, there are a few stories that just won’t make any sense to you unless you peruse the website. As a stand-alone volume, I can’t help but think the stories should…you know…stand alone. Most do, but there are others that absolutely require finding the referenced nightmare on Dailynightmare.com. Good luck with that search. They don’t make it easy.
And…The Banal and horribly obvious, I liked this book, and here’s where I try to get you to like it too. It kicks ass. There are writers in this work that are worth knowing. There are stories in this book that will rob you of sleep. Baby Candle, my God and Goddess, did more to freak me out than most horror movies. The visuals I got from the text alone affected me more deeply than the visual horror in movies. READ this book! Do it.
All in all, an awesome return for very little cost and a quick, enjoyable read. Out of a six pack of decent stout, I’d give this one 4 of the 6, though you can read the volume in the time it takes to drink 2.
Reviewed by Laura Langford
Eviscerating Pen 
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