Some stories though, were a bit tough to get through and I found myself grinding through them to get to the next one.

They could blissfully continue to struggle through joyless slop like Dickens, I was getting a little taste of Harlan Ellison, Dan Simmons, J.NANCY COLLINS demystifies the messiah reborn, an avenging angel of the suburbs with a strange and savage appetite. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. I highly recommend this book especially for people like myself who just got into reading and wanted to find some different authors, this is a quick way to get a snapshot of their various writing styles and genre. This was perhaps the first thing I noticed as I sat down to read the book, and this wasn’t very promising.

Then the last couple of stories reassured me that yes, I’m in the right genre (along with a few other reviews that echoed my thoughts).

Stephen King's "Rainy Season" is passable, but classic King filler; Neil Gaiman impresses as always - perhaps more so alongside some of the less experienced authors included in this collection. That said, I think it is important to bear in mind that some people can find stories that are designed to be pleasant, unpleasant. Or Dan Simmons' "The River Styx Runs Upstream," a story of resurrection -- with a ghastly difference.

The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. I hunkered down in the uncomfortable confines of the stairwell in my usual train-car to distance myself from the bustling cretins of the world and whipped the relic known as ‘Midnight Graffiti’ out. I would prefer to be almost entirely unaware of the editor's existence, and allow their selections to speak for themselves. Many of King's other horror novels have been adapted into movies, including The Shining, Firestarter, Pet Semetary, Cujo, Misery, The Stand, and The Tommyknockers. W. JETER, and JOHN SHIRLEY all bring you original tales from the farthest corners of the imagination that until now could only be found in the horror-haunted pages of .Further, Horsting attempts to flatter each author with an introductory bio, but just comes off overly congratulatory and all too chummy. Eight issues were published in total, seven between 1988-1992, with the final Winter 1994/1995 issue (''Midnight Graffiti Special'') appearing several years later. Here it was, tangible proof that not only do I kick ass, but have been kicking ass since back in ‘the day’.

Schow's "Bad Guy Hats," a detailed study of intraspecific predator-prey relationships and social ecology that will have you scrutinizing even the kindest-seeming of people with suspicion for years to come. Some of them are decent: the Gil Lamont yarn “Sinus Fiction” begins promisingly until falling apart in some misunderstanding-between-the-sexes codswallop, and the usually-reliable Dan Simmons and Harlan Ellison both offer up stories which are well below their standard, with “The River Styx Runs Upstream” and “Where I Shall Dwell in the Next World”, respectively. I think of them at least once a week on the norm and more than that if I am writing something of my own, and looking for the vibes I picked up from those stories to share now, with my readers.Come to think of it, there must have been a pretty good reason to quit reading anthologies in the first place, right?