Nightmare at 20,000 Feet: Horror Stories

I greatly enjoyed “I am Legend and other stories” and have been wanting to read more of Matheson’s works. This book was a good way to satisfy. There are some repeat stories in this one, but they are ones that I enjoyed reading again. Repeats I liked: Dress of White Silk, Dance of the Dead, and Prey.

Matheson is incredible at building short stories and many in this book prove that like Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, Blood Son, Long Distance Call, The Distributor, and Crickets. The build-up of something normal to something terrifying is something I love about all these stories. The two bolded stories are my favourites of the new stories I read. These two were to me the most intense that I could not put the book down until I finished them.

These are older stories and are dated in their views at times but not so much as to make you dislike the book. There are two exceptions to that The Likeness of Julie and The Children of Noah. For the children's story if they didn’t say the People are “bad” because of an indigenous mother it would have been a good story. Julie on the other hand was just awful. Rape and the victim bringing it upon herself should not be a plot point.