Dark Stars: New Tales of Darkest Horror Published by Nightfire by John F.D. Taff, Josh Malerman, Stephen Graham Jones, Priya Sharma, Alma Katsu, John Langan, Caroline Kepnes, Usman T. Malik, Chesya Burke, Livia Llewellyn, Gemma Files, Ramsey Campbell
on May 10, 2022
Genres: Adult, Anthology, Fantasy, Horror, Paranormal, Short Stories
Pages: 368
Source: Netgalley
Format: ARC, eBook
Also by this author: The Deep
Find the Book: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads
Rating:
Dark Stars, edited by John F.D. Taff, is a tribute to horror’s longstanding short fiction legacy, featuring 12 terrifying original stories from today's most noteworthy authors, with an introduction by bestselling author Josh Malerman and an afterword by Ramsey Campbell.
Created as an homage to the 1980 classic horror anthology, Dark Forces, edited by Kirby McCauley, this collection contains 12 original novelettes showcasing today’s top horror talent. Dark Stars features all-new stories from award-winning authors and up-and-coming voices like Stephen Graham Jones, Priya Sharma, Usman T. Malik, Caroline Kepnes, and Alma Katsu, with seasoned author John F.D. Taff at the helm. An afterword from original Dark Forces contributor Ramsey Campbell is a poignant finale to this bone-chilling collection.
Within these pages you’ll find tales of dead men walking, an insidious secret summer fling, an island harboring unspeakable power, and a dark hallway that beckons. You’ll encounter terrible monsters—both human and supernatural—and be forever changed. The stories in Dark Stars run the gamut from traditional to modern, from dark fantasy to neo-noir, from explorations of beloved horror tropes to the unknown—possibly unknowable—threats.
It’s all in here because it’s all out there, now, in horror.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
What I Thought…
So, I was kind of expecting to love this one. I mean, the authors that contributed are some seriously talented writers…
However, I found myself wondering a few times when the stories would start to get scary. Maybe it’s me, maybe I’m just difficult to spook.
However, I gave this three and a half stars because of the fact that I did enjoy the stories, even if I didn’t find them quite scary enough. The writing is exactly what you’d expect it to be from the caliber of authors this book brought.
Just don’t expect to be haunted by these stories–expect more to be impressed at the minds that came up with some serious weird material.
About Alma Katsu
Alma Katsu is the author of The Hunger, a reimagining of the story of the Donner Party with a horror twist. The Hunger made NPR’s list of the 100 Best Horror Stories, was named one of the best novels of 2018 by the Observer, Barnes & Noble, Powell’s Books (and more), and was nominated for a Stoker and Locus Award for best horror novel.
The Taker, her debut novel, has been compared to the early works of Anne Rice and Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander for combining historical, the supernatural, and fantasy into one story. The Taker was named a Top Ten Debut Novel of 2011 by Booklist, was nominated for a Goodreads Readers Choice award, and has been published in over 10 languages. It is the first in an award-winning trilogy that includes The Reckoning and The Descent.
Ms. Katsu lives outside of Washington DC with her husband, musician Bruce Katsu. In addition to her novels, she has been a signature reviewer for Publishers Weekly, and a contributor to the Huffington Post. She is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins Writing Program and Brandeis University, where she studied with novelist John Irving. She also is an alumni of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers.
Prior to publication of her first novel, Ms. Katsu had a long career in intelligence, working for several US agencies and a think tank. She currently is a consultant on emerging technologies. Additional information can be found on Wikipedia and in this interview with Ozy.com.
About Caroline Kepnes
Caroline Kepnes is the New York Times bestselling author of You, Hidden Bodies, Providence and...
You Love Me. Publishing in the US on Aril 6, 2021
(You know You Netflix? That's based on my Joe Goldberg books! You can read You3 before Season 3)
Her work has been translated into a multitude of languages and inspired a television series adaptation of You, currently on Netflix. Kepnes graduated from Brown University and then worked as a pop culture journalist for Entertainment Weekly and a TV writer for 7th Heaven and The Secret Life of the American Teenager. She grew up on Cape Cod, and now lives in Los Angeles.
About Gemma Files
Previously best-known as a film critic for Toronto's eye Weekly, teacher and screenwriter, Gemma Files first broke onto the international horror scene when her story "The Emperor's Old Bones" won the 1999 International Horror Guild award for Best Short Fiction. She is the author of two collections of short work (Kissing Carrion and The Worm in Every Heart) and two chapbooks of poetry (Bent Under Night and Dust Radio). Her Hexslinger Series trilogy is now complete: A Book of Tongues, A Rope of Thorns and A Tree of Bones, all available from ChiZine Publications.
About John F.D. Taff
John F.D. Taff is a multi-Bram Stoker Award short-listed dark fiction author with more than 30 years experience, and more than 100 short stories and seven novels in print.
He has appeared in Cemetery Dance, Eldritch Tales, Unnerving, Deathrealm, Big Pulp and One Buck Horror, as well as anthologies such as Hot Blood: Seeds of Fear, Hot Blood: Fear the Fever, Shock Rock II, Lullabies for Suffering, Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories, Behold!, Shadows Over Main Street 2, Horror Library V, Best of Horror Library, Dark Visions Vol. 1, Ominous Realities, Death's Realm, I Can Taste the Blood and Savage Beasts. His work will appear soon in The Seven Deadliest and I Can Hear the Shadows.
His novels include The Bell Witch, Kill-Off and the serialized apocalyptic epic The Fearing. Thunderstorm Books and Grey Matter Press will release a one-volume version of The Fearing in 2021, in limited edition hardcover, soft cover and digital. Short fiction collections include Little Deaths: The Definitive Collection and Little Black Spots, both published by Grey Matter Press.
Taff's novella collection, The End in All Beginnings, was called one of the best novella collections by Jack Ketchum and was a Stoker Award Finalist. His short "A Winter's Tale" was also a Stoker Finalist.
About Josh Malerman
Josh Malerman is the New York Times best selling author of BIRD BOX, MALORIE, GOBLIN, PEARL, GHOUL n THE CAPE, and more.
He's also one of two singer/songwriter for the rock band The High Strung.
About Livia Llewellyn
I was born in Anchorage, Alaska, and spent my childhood in Tacoma, Washington. And now I live on the East Coast. I’m not quite sure how that happened….
By day I’m a secretary. I file papers, create spreadsheets, update calendars, sort papers — the usual secretarial things.
At night, I write about lonely young girls who can speak to engines, Nikola Tesla’s secret journals, long-horned demons lost in Northwest suburbia, giant biomechanical insects, mothers who are good monsters, monsters who are good mothers, lots of consensual human-&-creature sex, and even more broken hearts.
You can also find me on my website, where I talk a lot about ants (too many), coffee (too little), and cheese (never enough!).
About Priya Sharma
Priya Sharma’s fiction has appeared venues such as Interzone, Black Static, Nightmare, The Dark and Tor. She’s been anthologised in several of Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror of the Year series and Paula Guran’s Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror series, among other. She’s also been on many Locus’ Recommended Reading Lists.
“Fabulous Beasts” was a Shirley Jackson Award finalist and won a British Fantasy Award for Short Fiction. Priya is a Shirley Jackson Award and British Fantasy Award winner, as well as a Locus Award finalist, for “All the Fabulous Beasts”, a collection of her some of her work, available from Undertow Publications.
“Ormeshadow” is her first novella, available from Tor, won a Shirley Jackson Award.
About Ramsey Campbell
Ramsey Campbell is a British writer considered by a number of critics to be one of the great masters of horror fiction. T. E. D. Klein has written that "Campbell reigns supreme in the field today," while S. T. Joshi has said that "future generations will regard him as the leading horror writer of our generation, every bit the equal of Lovecraft or Blackwood."
About Stephen Graham Jones
Stephen Graham Jones is the NYT bestselling author of twenty-five or thirty books. He really likes werewolves and slashers. Favorite novels change daily, but Valis and Love Medicine and Lonesome Dove and It and The Things They Carried are all usually up there somewhere. Stephen lives in Boulder, Colorado. It's a big change from the West Texas he grew up in. He's married with a couple kids, and probably one too many trucks.
When I see that cover I’d expect to be scared too so it’s too bad the stories weren’t that scary.
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