| Title | : | Helter Skelter |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0983498938 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780983498933 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 218 |
| Publication | : | First published July 31, 2011 |
The Dead of the Night--was that a zombie in my window?
Lamia--a teenager comes of age in an eerie cathouse.
It's for You--the girl next door has an admirer, unfortunately for her.
The Green Parrot--or Leave It to Cleaver.
Blindman's Buff--a blind man plays a game of life or death.
Room 208--this isn't a room at Motel 6.
Black Dog--let sleeping dogs lie.
The Undertaker--a ruthless mortician wants to grow his business, with deadly results.
Shambles--a bad day at work just got worse when an employee finds out just how nasty his boss really is.
Kiss of Death--love sucks for an aspiring writer.
Snakebit--a man bitten by a snake loses his head--and then some.
Confessions from the Grave--a dead, popular senator has skeletons in his closet.
The Invisible Enemy--things aren't like they used to be after an unidentifiable plague hits town.
Helter Skelter Reviews
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Originally posted at
Butterfly-o-Meter Books on Oct 9 2011:
This was my first read for the Frightful Fall Read-a-thon, I figured going in with a collection of short stories would be a good strategy. It is a good strategy for a read-a-thon, but this week became crazy busy for me, and I barely found the time to sit down and read. And when I did, I wasn’t in a very happy place in my head, if you know what I mean. It’s my favorite time of the year, the fall, but this week was horrible. Probably in theme with the horror I was supposed to eat up…life gets funny like that sometimes. Anyways…
So, horror. My tastes in horror are perhaps a bit peculiar; I like a certain type of horror stories, and it’s not the obvious scary type. I don’t really know how to put this…I like fantastic horror, more literary then realistic. Clowns with shark teeth, for instance, is beyond my humble limits. I think you can tell, I’m not a horror fan, just like I’m not a sci-fi fan. I’ll like books in any genre because they’re well written from my point of view, meaning I connect with the writing and get emotionally involved. That’s my standard for good books.
I didn’t connect with the writing here; I found some of the stories very clever, and had fun reading them, like Lamia for instance; some were the type of story I love reading, only I wasn’t involved enough to really get into them particularly, like The Dead of the Night, Shambles and The Green Parrot. I was nauseous about It’s for You, and though the book has the obvious goal of horrifying you, this story disturbed me in a way that I can’t really find the merits of, but that has to do with my own sensibilities and personal views and whatnot. The idea behind the story is something I dread to read, hear or think about, but it is yet another side of humanity, as much as I dread it.
In fact, what I really liked about the book as a whole is the fact that it’s a study of humanity. The stories explore sides of humanity in brave, fearless ways, from different angles and with different degrees of depth. I believe this collection of short stories is very well thought, and planned.
But what it comes down to is personal preference. The dark sides of humanity are a very promising realm to explore, and there are ways upon ways of doing so; by large, I didn’t connect with Bryan Cassiday‘s. While I found some of the stories very clever, and intriguing, despite my over-all lack of connection, I wouldn’t say I’d like to read them again, for instance.
It’s a good collection of short stories, it just wasn’t a good match with me. -
Full review to be found @
Shivers of Horror , this is only a small chunk of it.
It seemed like a thesaurus was used way too much. The writing was simple and for some stories there seemed to be random words that just felt out of place and in some cases I was baffled as to what they meant - I was reading it on a Kindle so I could look them up but it got very annoying to keep doing it so eventually I gave up. I also got very irritated with the overuse of peoples names. For example in one paragraph with 3 sentences the characters name would be used like 1-2 times in each sentence.
The stories “almost” felt as though they were like a “Scary Stories to tell in the Dark” sort of story. They were obviously adult, but the subject matter felt juvenile and not written as well as Adult material would have. I would not recommend this book for children though!
With a little tweaking this book could be sort of like a Tales from the Crypt sort of novel. The stories really reminded me of that feeling, but just fell a little short. I really expected this book to be horror stories, and I didn’t find them to be horror really.
So, overall, the writing is a little weak. I felt like I was reading a fan’s account of a few different horror movies meshed together. The writer (and the stories) definitely have potential, but I was interested in a good horror book, and these didn’t really feel like horror to me. -
http://www.thedeepening.com/horror/20... -
Not a good read
Could of been better I mean it was ok I my words it s sucked dick it just was not a good book
