Banquet of Souls

This horror collection has an impressive amount of variety, so each “course” is always something new. Ghosts, psychics, werewolves, vampires, serial killers, changelings, aliens, and a very Lovecraft feeling story... the author throws it all out there with a lot of real horrors, and some wonderfully dark humor.

He also has a lot of great action scenes and is really great at making the reader feel the tension of what is going on. The characters are well done and I found myself rooting for them to ‘win' instead of just going along with the story like I do in many other things I've read.

For example in RUTH, an abused wife is fed up with her husband and knocks him down the stairs and locks him into the basement. He's an absolutely horrible person, but the way his fate is described and his troubles written I empathized with him. That made me feel incredibly uncomfortable... There are of course other stories that have you rooting for more likable personalities but that one stood out to me. His ordeal is so awful I couldn't help but feel sorry for him even though he got his comeuppance.

There are several stories that possibly have an unreliable narrator... They left me a bit unsettled figuring out what is what, and I always like that. Then, on the other hand, one features a man who goes on a joy ride with aliens... maybe. It's so fun I didn't care what was real, but I would love to go on that joyride, too!

There is again, just so much variety in this thing. It's incredibly well written, the characters are all great, I was never bored and I enjoyed every story. Horror, action, dark humor... It's all here. Enjoy the meal.