James Roy DaleyBesprekingen

The Ray Garton story "Zombie Love" and Jonathan Maberry's "Pegleg and Paddy save the world" were the best of the bunch.

I received a complimentary copy of Terror Town in exchange for review.
What a frightfully good read! This book brought back childhood fears that were long forgotten, but are now fresh in my mind once again. As a child I always knew there were monsters in the basement, and psycho killers living in the house down the street. Terror Town has brought them all back to life for me. I'm not sure if I'll have nightmares tonight, about my friends and family turning into razor sharp, needle toothed creatures, or whether I'll have pleasant dreams of the lazy Saturday afternoons I spent as a kid watching creature double feature while thumbing through much beloved copies of the old horror comic books. Terror Town brought those memories back for me too. I would recommend this book to any horror fan who's looking for a scary good time.

Introduction (Best New Zombie Tales, Volume One) • essay by James Roy Daley
Zombie Love • (2003) • novella by Ray Garton
Feeding Frenzy • (2007) • short story by Matt Hults
Wings • short fiction by Jessica Brown
The Man Who Breaks the Bad News • (2003) • short fiction by Kealan Patrick Burke
Immunity • (2008) • short story by Jeff Strand
In the Land of the Blind • (2004) • short story by Robert Swartwood
Nowhere People • (2006) • short story by Gary McMahon
Muddy Waters • (2002) • short fiction by Brian Knight
Darkness Comprehended • (2003) • short story by Gord Rollo and Harry Shannon
Connections • (2006) • short fiction by Simon McCaffery
Sign of the Times • short fiction by John Grover
After, Life • short fiction by Jeff Parish
Paradise Denied • short fiction by John L. French
On the Usefulness of Old Books • short fiction by Kim Paffenroth
The Revelations of Dr. Maitland • short fiction by Charles Black
Pegleg and Paddy Save the World • (2007) • short story by Jonathan Maberry
SKN-3 • short fiction by Steven E. Wedel
Fishing • short fiction by Jason Brannon
Groundwood • short story by Bev Vincent
Zombie 1: Mixed Drink • essay by James Roy Daley

A quick short story about the dead rising in the old west. The story is about the journey to the ending of the story, because the ending is ever so predictable.

Anything Can Be Dangerous was, all in all, a fun read.
It contains 4 short stories and a few previews.
I enjoyed the shorts as follows:

Anything Can Be Dangerous-3*
This one reminded me of early King shorts. Does anyone remember The Mangler about an ironing machine gone wild? Well this is plastic gone wild.
Feeding Frenzy-3*-Fast food and a fast paced read.
Valley of Death-4*-This story starts off with a stranded family on a deserted road. Into the valley they will go.
The Finger-5* Totally awesome, imaginative and fun!

Altogether this averaged out to 3.75 stars, so 4 it is.
I think this collection served the author as a great way to reel in new readers. It worked for me!

I read this as part of our Horror Readers group at Shelfari.
I previously read a short story collection by the same author which I enjoyed very much.

This is the story of a dead serial killer who is somehow killing again. What makes this story different and interesting is the abilities of this killer.
The book begins with the death of the above mentioned serial-murderer. Then it fast forwards a few years where we find out that the killer actually didn't really die until just a few weeks prior. From there the story branches out with a nice selection of characters that were developed well, for the most part. A lot of them were teenagers and their characters were ok, but my favorites were Frank, the police detective forced to retire because his beliefs wandered out of the realm of reality; Melissa, the modern day detective who slowly comes around to believe what Frank is telling her and Tim, a teenaged boy who morphs into a man during the course of this novel.

The story was very fast paced and whipped right by and before I knew it, it was over. All in all, I enjoyed this read and I look forward to reading more by Mr. Hults.

3.5 Stars

This was a decent short story collection. All vampire themed stories, some much better than others. The standouts for me were as follows:

Through the Valley of Death by Matt Hults. I believe I read this story in a collection of Mr. Hult's works. Nevertheless, I was happy to read it again and I liked it just as much as I did the first time.

A Sunset So Glorious by Rycke Foreman. I liked the originality of this story of vampire and djinn.

The Verbpire by Frederick Obermeyer. At first the idea seemed pretty silly, but by the end of the story, I thought it was awesome.

Morning Sickness by William Meikle. Just plain awesome. (This was my first experince with this author, it won't be my last.

Preserver by Tim Waggoner. A unique look at what else a vampire can suck away from you.

The Sabbatarian by David M. Fitzpatrick. I thought that not only was this a good story, it was kind of funny too.

Moving Lines bt Steve Vernon. Having a gypsy read the palm of a vampire is probably not going to turn out well.

A total of 18 stories, with 7 standouts (for me), leaves me with a 3.5 rating. Because the stories that stood out REALLY stood out, I rounded it up to 4 stars.

A very solid collection of "undead" short stories that isn't afraid to venture out some beyond the "normal" ideal, Best New Zombies Vol. 1 reminds me that horror can provide some of the best short fiction around. Lots of writing talent to be had here, plus it's an overall intriguing read, even for the non-zombie person. :)

Scary Fun

What a pleasant surprise this anthology was. The author had me from the first page and I couldn't stop reading. My favorite of the 4 short stories is "Feeding Frenzy." It was scary fun and refreshingly original. I'll definitely be reading all Matt Hults books!

I decided to read this before starting the author's novel Husk. This collection contains four short stories (which in my estimation average about 40 pages each) as well as a sample from Husk and some other books from the publisher. It's a nice package - the shorts are long enough so that you feel you've read something before the samples start. They also demonstrate that Matt Hults is one sick puppy, and if these are any indication, I'm going to enjoy Husk. His twisted imagination is right up my alley.

I didn't read through the entirety of all the samples, but there are a couple that got my attention, and I plan to follow up and read those novels.

This collection is really very good. There is some really creepy stuff here: zombie stories that are not of the norm. Brian Knight's "Muddy Waters" was probably the creepiest for me.

I was already reading a book when I picked up Best New Zombie Tales, Volume 1, but it was my lunch hour and I didn't have my other book with me. I said, what the heck, I'll read the first story of this anthology and catch the rest later. First off, the entry story is more of a novella, but that is okay because it's by Ray Garton and anything by him is well worth reading. As a matter of fact, it was so good that I put the other book down and continued with the Ray Garton story when I got home. That led to the next story and the next one...

For the last several years the zombie stories have poured forth making it almost impossible to come up with a new twist. Well, Best New Zombie Tales Volume I reached into the depths of zombiedom and brought forth not one original twist, but several. Most of these aren't the end of the world apocalyptic Romero stories. Now, there is nothing wrong with a good Romero zombie tale, and I have a sweet tooth for apocalyptic stories, but only a few fell into this specific slot. That isn't to say that the others weren't fine stories, they were. It made the stories more original and often surprising.

For instance, Ray Garton spins a tale of young love gone horribly wrong in a 'Pet Semetary' sort of way and it turned out to be one of the best zombie stories I've ever read. Matt Hults brings to life an undead and bizarre restaurant where zombies relentlessly force a couple of entrepreneurs to serve them anything their non-beating hearts can desire. Kealan Patrick Burke tells of a man who died but doesn't know it, a common problem at the time that the government assists with. In Jeff Strand's Immunity a darkly humorous story is told of a man's larger than life ego. Another story full of flavor and dark humor is Jonathan Maberry's Pegleg and Paddy Save the World. If you want a story to make you cringe and squirm check out the brutal tale SKN-3 by Steven E. Wedel.

And that isn't all the stories, just some of the highlights. So, if you are a fan of zombie fiction, or a fan of horror, or even a person who likes dark humor then this collection of stories is well worth checking out.½

Like Lee Thomas' Stoker-winning novel STAINED and the Denzel Washington film FALLEN, THE DEAD PARADE is another entry into the 'mysterious-demon-possesses-people then uses them to kill' subgenre (I've read many novels the past few years with this basic plot so I guess at this point we can call it its own subgenre).

After one of his best friends commits suicide, James McGee becomes the host for a small (and vicious) African demon (don't ask) who turns him into a murder machine. But among his (near) victims is an ex-con named Elmer who decides to call one of his old cell mates to help him take down the nutjob who nearly killed him. James is hiding out at his girlfriend Debra's secluded cottage, waiting for her to arrive---but his mind's no longer sure if he loves her or wants to butcher her like his growing trail of victims.

As Debra, the two ex-cons, the police and an invisible "dead parade" of James' victims close in along with the "Bakisi" demon, the stage is set for a brutal--although familiar--slash & shoot-a-thon.

If you're a fan of this subgenre you'll probably enjoy Daley's debut novel--if you're not, much of it may seem routine. But regardless, THE DEAD PARADE is fast paced (thanks to the tiny chapters and upbeat prose) and a decent first novel by an author who seems to have a lot of gusto.