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Title details for Poe's Children by Peter Straub - Wait list

Poe's Children

The New Horror: An Anthology

by Peter Straub
Various
Audiobook
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From the incomparable master of horror and suspense comes an electrifying collection of contemporary literary horror, with stories from twenty-five writers representing today’s most talented voices in the genre.

Horror writing is usually associated with formulaic gore, but New Wave horror writers have more in common with the wildly inventive, evocative spookiness of Edgar Allan Poe than with the sometimes-predictable hallmarks of their peers. Showcasing this cutting-edge talent, Poe’s Children now brings the best of the genre’s stories to a wider audience. Each previously published story has been selected by Peter Straub to represent what he thinks is the most interesting development in our literature during the last two decades.
Selections range from the early Stephen King psychological thriller “The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet,” in which an editor confronts an author’s belief that his typewriter is inhabited by supernatural creatures, to “The Man on the Ceiling,” Melanie and Steve Rasnic Tem’s award-winning surreal tale of night terrors, woven with daylight fears that haunt a family. Other selections include National Book Award finalist Dan Chaon’s “The Bees”; Peter Straub’s “Little Red’s Tango,” the legend of a music aficionado whose past is as mysterious as the ghostly visitors to his Manhattan apartment; Elizabeth Hand’s visionary and shocking “Cleopatra Brimstone”; Thomas Ligotti’s brilliant, mind-stretching “Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story”; and “Body,” Brian Evenson’s disturbing twist on correctional facilities.
Crossing boundaries and packed with imaginative chills, Poe’s Children bears all the telltale signs of fearless, addictive fiction.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    October 14, 2008

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781415958247
      • File size: 711804 KB
      • Duration: 24:42:55

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Disdaining the stereotype of guts, gore, and little more by which many people identify horror, Peter Straub probes some of the best of today's work in the genre. This collection presents 23 stories of varying length, from novella-long to very short, written by both popular and little-known writers. Each performer imparts a sense of graveness to his or her work, as well as a clear respect for the written word and its author. Not a single story disappoints, either in content or delivery. It would be helpful for such a collection to include a printed table of contents that lists both the authors and performers of each work. R.L.L. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from September 8, 2008
      Anyone concerned about the future of horror will find plenty of reassurance in this outstanding reprint anthology showcasing short fiction by today's best writers in the genre. Straub (The Throat
      ) skillfully varies tempo and style, mixing stories of psychological terror with more traditional ghostly tales. Thomas Tessier puts a fresh spin on the empty old house theme in the memorable “In Praise of Folly,” in which the lonely protagonist pursues his fascination with bizarre structures to the Adirondacks. Tessier subtly raises chills even as the tale proceeds to its inevitable and dark conclusion. Another winner is Dan Chaon's “The Bees,” a powerful account of a man haunted by mistakes of the past. Ramsey Campbell's terrifying “The Voice of the Beach” echoes Algernon Blackwood's classic “The Willows,” with its account of two friends' fateful encounter with a remote beach that may be an entry point to another dimension. Aimed at a general audience, this volume also includes works by Stephen King, Elizabeth Hand, Kelly Link and Joe Hill.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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