{"id":6394,"date":"2019-05-16T22:30:53","date_gmt":"2019-05-17T02:30:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/?p=6394"},"modified":"2019-05-16T22:30:53","modified_gmt":"2019-05-17T02:30:53","slug":"book-review-the-horror-collection-black-edition-by-kevin-kennedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/book-review-the-horror-collection-black-edition-by-kevin-kennedy\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: The Horror Collection, Black Edition by Kevin Kennedy"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>\"\"
\nThe Horror Collection: Black Edition<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>edited by Becky Narron and Kevin J. Kennedy<\/p>\n

KJK Publishing, 2019<\/p>\n

ISBN-13: 978-1798000991<\/p>\n

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Horror Collection: Black Edition<\/em>\u00a0is an anthology of horror short stories.<\/p>\n

“The Lake is Life”, by Richard Chizmar describes a troubled, teenage girl whose parents are facing divorce. She seeks emotional refuge visiting her grandmother at a tranquil lake. \u00a0There is a bloody massacre, and the keys to who and why are in the girl\u2019s past. Unfortunately, the author never clearly explains her past.<\/p>\n

“Pie Bingo: Last Man Standing”, by Veronica Smith describes a dystopian future with overcrowded jails.\u00a0 The authorities need to winnow the jail population. Prisoners can opt to play bingo for pies, conjugal visits and freedom. However, if they don\u2019t win, they won\u2019t like the consolation prizes. The story is memorable because of the gruesome, sadistic details of the contest.<\/p>\n

“Goblin Financial”, by Lee McGeorge is a lesson about the consequences of bad debts. A woman reneges on a loan she should have used for her education, causing her creditors emotional pain. She runs, but they have a hideous debt collector, and a horrific way of making themselves whole.<\/p>\n

Readers familiar with the concept of informed consent in human experiments will cringe at “The Switch”, by Mark Lukens.\u00a0 A financially desperate man agrees to be locked alone in a room for pay and told he must not flip a switch on the wall. The purpose, benefits, alternative choices and risks are not explained to him. Readers can guess what happens; it\u2019s not really an experiment, because the researchers know the outcome.<\/p>\n

“Those Who Watch from on High”, by Eric Guignard is an interesting account of emotional and psychological stresses on a drone pilot. Bored, isolated and suffering from disrupted sleep\/wake cycles, an Air Force lieutenant in the Nevada desert struggles with reality. Is he looking down at a terrorist\u2019s young son in the Afghan desert with a drone, or is he watching the terrorist\u2019s hut from the desert floor? When he gets the order to fire on the hut, will he obey? If he does, what will he do the next day?<\/p>\n

“The Ghost of Agnes Gallow”, by James Byers is an impressive poem about a witch whose curse stalks a family over generations on Halloween Eve.\u00a0 Reciting his poem of ten stanzas of rhyming couplets out loud adds to the enjoyment.<\/p>\n

Kevin Kennedy warns that\u00a0 “A Tarantino Oz”contains strong doses of sex, violence and profanity. Readers who dislike Quentin Tarantino\u2019s movies and misogyny should skip this story. Kennedy says all fairy tales were originally horror stories. In this tale, characters of L. Frank Baum\u2019s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz<\/em> meet for an orgy and murderous rampage.<\/p>\n

In “Smolder”, Michael Arnzen uses the well-known difficulty of stopping smoking and the Surgeon General\u2019s health warning to draw readers into his story. Who knew that there is something magical about each word of\u00a0 \u201cSURGEON GENERAL\u2019S WARNING: Smoklng Causes Lung Cancer, Heart Disease, Emphysema, And May Complicate Pregnancy\u201d?\u00a0 A concerned husband tries to help his pregnant wife kick the habit. He finds a hidden pack of cigarettes, but has no idea that calamity strikes smokers when words of the warning are destroyed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Contains: Gore, graphic sex and profanity<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Reviewed by Robert D. Yee<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Horror Collection: Black Edition\u00a0edited by Becky Narron and Kevin J. Kennedy KJK Publishing, 2019 ISBN-13: 978-1798000991 Available: Paperback, Kindle edition   The Horror Collection: Black Edition\u00a0is an anthology of horror short stories. “The Lake is Life”, by Richard Chizmar describes a troubled, teenage girl whose parents are facing divorce. She seeks emotional refuge visiting<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2979,3843,750,83,3412,1526,3842],"class_list":["post-6394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-anthology","tag-becky-narron","tag-horror-anthologies","tag-horror-fiction","tag-kevin-j-kennedy","tag-short-stories","tag-the-horror-collection-black-edition"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6394"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6599,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6394\/revisions\/6599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}