Review: Suspended in Dusk
Suspended In Dusk by Simon Dewar
My rating: [rating=4]
Blurb:
DUSK
A time between times.
A whore hides something monstrous and finds something special.
A homeless man discovers the razor blade inside the apple.
Unlikely love is found in the strangest of places.
Secrets and dreams are kept… forever.
Or was it all just a trick of the light?
Suspended in Dusk brings together 19 stories by some of the finest minds in Dark Fiction:
Ramsey Campbell, John Everson, Rayne Hall, Shane McKenzie, Angela Slatter, Alan Baxter, S.G Larner, Wendy Hammer, Sarah Read, Karen Runge, Toby Bennett, Benjamin Knox, Brett Rex Bruton, Icy Sedgwick, Tom Dullemond, Armand Rosamilia, Chris Limb, Anna Reith, J.C. Michael.
Introduction by Bram Stoker Award Winner and World Horror Convention Grand Master, Jack Ketchum.
Review:
[I received a copy of this book through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.]
Not as horrific a I expected it to be, or maybe I’m just hard to scare, at least when it comes to what tends to spook a lot of people? This said, while none of the works here jumped at me as being absolutely striking, none was abysmal either, and it was still an interesting collection of stories—some closer to “traditional” horror (zombies, vampires…), and some mixing their scary revelations with elements appearing out of tales at first. Only at first.
The ones I liked best:
“Shadows of the Lonely Dead”, in which a hospice nurse can feel the impending death of her patients and take this darkness into herself, looking for a reason to this strange power of hers.
“Burning”: a store burns at night, but the people of the town do not seem eager to do anything about it, nor to worry too much about the people who live there. Not a traditional horror story, but one that plays on different horrors, unfortunately so close to our world that they’re made even more terrible.
“Ministry of Outrage”: a secret government body engineers situations to keep the masses in control. Made scarier by the fact it’s not even so far-fetched, in a conspiracy-theory kind of way.
“Digging Deep”: being buried alive is probably an atavistic terror for most of us. But being rescued may be even more terrible…
“Hope Is Here”: when a group taking care of homeless people also takes matters in hand, making sure that they have all the right candidates for their program.
“Negatives”: creepy abandoned theme park is creepy. Twins go to a derelict place to take pictures, and find out what’s on the other side of the mirror—and that dreams can so easily turn into nightmares.
“A Keeper of Secrets”: when a little girl meets a fae child in the attic, and starts whispering secrets to keep her new friend strong and alive.
“The Way of All Flesh”: this story about a man who comes into a small rural town has two elements that tend to fascinate me—small towns with not so innocent inhabitants, and a flesh-eating killer.
Other stories worth mentioning, even though they may not be the ones I’ll remember in the long term: “Fit Camp”, “Maid of Bones”, “At Dusk They Come”. Overall this anthology is a good pick, especially if you scare more easily than I do. 3.5 stars, rounded to 4.