Another great anthology. A good variety of stories with something for everyone.

Halloween Carnival Volume 5, by Richard T. Chizmar is the fifth (obviously) installment in Hydra's Halloween Carnival series. The four short stories and one novella in this collection, once again, featured a range of topics and emotions. Although in this one--particularly Peter Straub's "Pork Pie Hat"--I didn't feel the "Halloween theme" as strongly, despite it taking place on Halloween.

My personal favorites in this anthology were:

--"Devil's Night", by Richard Chizmar: Honestly, I think I've enjoyed every tale I've read by this author lately. This story embodied multiple emotions, and ended on a VERY unexpected note.

--"The Halloween Bleed", by Norman Prentiss: I need to read more of his stories featuring Dr. Sibley! This one really got to me, in a "mental" sense, evoking a strong Halloween connection.

Overall, not my favorite in the series, but worthwhile reading for those two stories alone. As in any collection, individual tastes vary greatly!

In this, the last entry of the HALLOWEEN CARNIVAL series, Hydra hands us a great group of stories that couldn't possibly be more different from each other. This is a good thing!

Richard Chizmar's DEVIL'S NIGHT, impressed the heck out of me. The only thing of his I've read is his collaboration with Stephen King. Now I'm going to have to read more of his work. 4*

THE LAST DARE by Lisa Tuttle was a neat little story with no explanation. The characters were very well drawn for such a short tale and I found myself thinking more about them after I finished the story. This one grew on me, but after the fact-if that makes any sense. ?Look, all I know is I'm not entering any houses with tower rooms, okay? 3.5*

THE HALLOWEEN BLEED by Norman Prentiss was a twisty little tale, with half told secrets taking place between a learned man and his eager to learn interviewer. Little does he know that he isn't as smart as he thinks. 4.5*

SWING by Kevin Quigley. This was an excellent, sad and poignant tale and I enjoyed it. I just didn't see what it had to do with Halloween? 3*

PORKPIE HAT by Peter Straub. Let me preface this by saying Straub's Ghost Story was my favorite novel for a few years-I just loved it so much. Shadowland and Floating Dragon followed and I liked those too, and don't even get me started on how much I loved The Talisman. But since then, not much of his work has appealed to me. Until now. I ADORED this story. It has jazz, musicians, a student/reporter/nobody, and a subtle back story packed with racism, double standards, adulterers fear and loathing. I loved how PORKPIE HAT unfolded like some kind of origami animal and I just had to have some peace and quiet to read it in its entirety. For me, this was the star of this collection. 5*

I didn't have time to read all of the Halloween Carnival entries, but of the ones I did read, this is my favorite. I like all kinds of dark fiction stories and I loved the variety here. I didn't think even one of them was a clunker, but of course your mileage may vary.

Highly recommended!

*Thanks to Hydra and NetGalley for the e-ARC of this book in exchange for my honest feedback. This is it.*

A BOOtiful Bounty!

A wickedly good collection of stories to spook you this Halloween season. Each story is unique and has a creative creep factor. These authors have outdone themselves!

*I received a complimentary ARC of this story collection through NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Hydra in order to read and provide a voluntary, unbiased and honest review, should I choose to do so.

Sometimes the best IS left for last. In Volume 5 of HALLOWEEN CARNIVAL, the reader is given a five course meal of very different tales of the night that spirits and demons abound.

DEVIL’S NIGHT by Richard Chizmar
It is really quite amazing the way that a good horror story usually ends up sending the right message. Good and evil. Right and wrong. These are the ultimate battles the heroes of horror must face. (5 stars)
 
THE LAST DARE by Lisa Tuttle
Move over rough and tumble boys, grandmas and little girls have scary stories to tell too! Lisa Tuttle offers a modern take on the tried and true Hansel and Gretel tale. (5 stars)
 
THE HALLOWEEN BLEED by Norman Prentiss
Norman Prentiss is fast becoming one of my favorite authors, and not just his short stories either. (If you haven't read ODD ADVENTURES WITH YOUR OTHER FATHER, you're missing out on a truly great read.)

"Oh! What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive" - from Marmion, by Sir Walter Scott… my first thought upon finishing the story. (5 stars)
 
SWING by Kevin Quigley
Never will you read a more haunting story of love and death than here. Death is a dance to be savored, and its music can be whatever it needs to be. (5 stars)
 
PORK PIE HAT by Peter Straub
"Pork Pie Hat" is not a new story; I recognized the title right away. In fact, I thought I might have even read it a time or two. As I read, I realized that I had not.

Peter Straub is an artist with words. He will often use a phrase that bears repeating once, twice, even three times in the course of reading a particular piece. In "Pork Pie Hat" I read these words several times "…most of what is called information is interpretation, and interpretation is always partial" - appreciating their profoundness not only in relation to the story, but in their timelessness and applicability to this particular time in history. These words seem to sum up, quite nicely, the reason we read Straub's works.

"Pork Pie Hat" is a thinking person's tale of Halloween horror told by an old man remembering through his childhood eyes. Sometimes reality is far worse than any monster conjured by the imagination. (5 stars)

Sadly, this is the last volume of Halloween Carnival. I wish it wasn't! I enjoyed the stories in this volume too. It's been a great way for me to enjoy the upcoming holiday Halloween. I hope that next year another series will be written for Halloween. Trick or treat! Enjoy!

The last volume of Halloween-themed short stories was a real page-turner.I was absorbed in it!

Having now listened to volumes 2-5, I can say that the series is excellent as well as fun. I really enjoyed getting to know each authors' writing style, and plan to seek out more books by them. As horror is not a genre I read much of (although I enjoy it when I do), I was taken by the characters' backgrounds and paranormal elements of the stories,as well as the interpretation and weaving in of traditional Halloween practices and myths, past and present.

I didm't want this book or the series to end, and recommend it if you want a quick read. I especially loved the covers. Very atmospheric!

5 stars.

Thanks so much to the authors and Random House for an ARC copy in exchange for an honest review.

Random House released the Halloween Carnival series throughout October 2017. Appropriately, volume 5 has Halloween as its release date, which was well thought out.

Halloween Carnival Vol 5, like the previous collections, is a mix of new and reprinted stories. The first by Richard Chizmar, while not new, is nothing short of excellent. It moves at a furious pace and had me second guessing the ending multiple times. I really loved the way the story was told and the protagonist had me rooting for him all the way. To me this story really fit with the theme of Halloween. A few of the other stories, while good, just didn’t feel like they worked as well. The Last Dare by Lisa Tuttle had a lot of potential but it felt rushed. I liked the idea that I think the author was going for but the story wasn’t a smooth read and ended with me scratching my head. Sadly, for me the, final story, Pork Pie Hat brought the book limping to its ending. I’ve been a fan of Peter Straub for ages but was never a fan of this story.

The Halloween Carnival series is a set of five ebooks, each containing five short stories set on and around October 31st. One volume has been released every Tuesday beginning October 3rd, with the final volume due to be published on Halloween itself. The books all contain stories by different authors so there is a wide range of styles on display; however, I would have liked to see more female authors included (just six of the twenty-five stories are written by women).

The stories cover a range of story types, some involving supernatural forces at play while in others the evil comes from more human sources – between the two, it’s hard to decide which type was the most horrifying. There is a noticeable American bias to the collection, which is understandable, but a few stories do focus on Dia de Los Muertos as well. Oddly, for a Halloween collection, I didn’t find very many of the stories to be particularly scary. Tragedy seemed to be more present than fear, although that sadness was always laced with spooky undertones.

As with any collection, there are hits, and then there are misses. Thankfully, those real misses are few and far between here, with far more good quality stories to be found than their poorer cousins. Personally, I found volumes one and three to be the best of the bunch in terms of overall quality, and volume four the weakest, although there is little to separate them. “The Rage of Achilles” by Kevin Lucia, “La Hacienda De Los Muertos” by Lisa Morton, “Mr. Dark’s Carnival” by Glen Hirshberg, “The Way Lost” by Kelley Armstrong, “When The Leaves Fall” by Paul Melniczek, and, “Swing” by Kevin Quigley were my stand out stories of the bunch.

Each of the five volumes is available on Kindle for just $2.40, so if you’re looking for some cheap chills to read this Halloween you can’t really go wrong.

A great collection of creepy, scary stories by some great writers! Highly recommend!

Editor Brian James Freeman serves up a final batch of Halloween-themed stories in this fifth volume of the Halloween Carnival series.

Whether or not these stories are more tricks than treats, or vice versa, is up to the reader. I will say that while I have enjoyed a number of the stories over the series run, I have not been a fan of the series overall. There were several tales I just did not like, and I would have appreciated a more balanced structure in these volumes.

As with prior installments, nearly fifty percent of the book is devoted to a single story (here it's PORK PIE HAT by Peter Straub), prefaced with a smattering of shorter stories. Here's what you get:

DEVIL'S NIGHT by Richard Chizmar
My first intro to Chizmar’s writing was his collaboration with Stephen King for Gwendy’s Button Box, but this short story really sealed the deal for me. Chizmar can write, man! Although set on Devil’s Night, this story of murder is purely human and very well crafted.
4/5 stars

THE LAST DARE by Lisa Tuttle
This second story is an ultra-weak attempt at telling a tale about a box and the children who go missing when confronted with it. It’s short, but also dull and takes forever to get nowhere.
1/5 stars

THE HALLOWEEN BLEED by Norman Prentiss
Norman Prentiss delivers a hell of a short story with a perfectly good Halloween twist. No details from me on this one, except to say that it's effective, creepy, and mysterious. It's also part of a series of short stories involving the mysterious Dr. Sibley, which means I've got some digging to do in order to find the rest of these stories and learn more about Sibley and his various encounters.
4/5 stars

SWING by Kevin Quigley
I know I read this one, but I'll be damned if I can tell you anything about it two days later... I have zero, and I do mean zero, recollection of it. Nothing. Not a single damn thing. Here's my notes from my Goodreads progress update:

Swing carried with an interesting premise, and while it was well written and had a few evocative scenes, it didn’t quite strike a proper chord with me. Maybe if it had been longer and given more room for the characters to breathe and develop it could have been really exceptional.

I'm going to skip rating this one. It seems I dug elements of it in the immediate post-reading, but whatever those were they weren't quite as evocative I had thought at the time.

No rating.

PORK PIE HAT by Peter Straub
Taking up the bulk of this anthology is a long short story from Peter Straub. It's well told and jazz fans will likely find a lot to enjoy here. I liked the story for what it was and dug the conversational nature of its delivery. Although it is set on Halloween and maybe involves some minor supernatural elements, as well as Hat's superstitions surrounding the holiday, it lacked the strong Halloween flavor I had been looking for. It's a good read, but it's not a good Halloween read with its lack of scares and chills. (Sadly, that's been a fairly common theme across this series as a whole...)
3/5 stars

After reading these five Halloween Carnival books back-to-back, I can pretty safely say I'm burn out on anthologies for a while. I can also pretty safely say that I did not get the Halloween scares I had wanted, and that this series, taken a whole, was pretty much a dud. Some good stories here and there, but I doubt I'll ever be returning for another trip through this particular carnival.

[Note: I received an advanced copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley.]

Excerpt from Review: "...Halloween Carnival: Volume Five is less horror, more dark fiction, but nonetheless as enjoyable as the rest of the series. I enjoyed Devil’s Night and the fact that I kept silently yelling (at least I think I wasn’t yelling out loud, but there were some interesting glances drawn from others in the room) at the protagonist about not calling the police and entering areas he should stay well clear of. It reminded me of your classic horror film, where you can’t help but yell, “Don’t go in there!” and groan when the person on-screen doesn’t listen. The Last Dare was classic Pandora's box with a twist – instead of letting something out of the box to haunt the world, you are letting something in. I wasn’t too happy with The Halloween Bleed until the twist at the end – that made me smile.

Swing was an interesting and unusual tale that had my complete interest. This was a tale like nothing I had read before and I loved it. Pork Pie Hat was a bit hard to figure out at first – was this a tale about a jazz artist’s slide into oblivion, a young man’s obsession with a musician that was seemingly unreachable or a glimpse into a dark and troubled past that helped mold who the jazz musician would eventually become. I enjoyed the mystery of it all and the darkness of the tale, but felt it was a bit lengthy in getting to the point.

So here we are at the end of the Halloween Carnival anthology series and I have to say I enjoyed every single volume. What a great way to get ready for Halloween with dark tales all set on or around Halloween! Definitely worth the read!"

Another seasonal collection of dark and disturbing tales , and once again its a mixed bag.
Opening with Devil's Night, where we read about a man who witnesses the aftermath of a murder and jumps to a dangerous conclusion, immediately the tone is set, and we feel that the real monsters may be human after all.
The second story, The Last Dare brings us back to childhood, and a time where anything could seem mysterious and terrifying.
Next is The Halloween Bleed which introduces a hint of dark magic to the collection, but was probably my least favourite of the bunch.
Speaking of favourites, Swing Time was definitely the highlight of this collection for me, with its examination of the darker side of love.
The final and longest story is Pork Pie, and while its a good story and well told it feels a little out of place in this collection.

This was just a passable read. All of the previous volumes were great, but this one was lacking. I kept looking to see how far I had to go to get to the end. Not interesting enough for me.

This is the fifth and final in a series of short story collections to be released throughout October this year. This one started off strong but faltered a bit towards the end.

Opening this collection, Devil's Night is a very different of story in a positive way. Very fast moving and engaging, I enjoyed this one a lot.

The Last Dare was back into the more typical fare but still a nice story. The ending left a real impression even if the scares throughout weren't quite as prevalent.

The Halloween Bleed was another solid story though it left a bit too much unexplained in my opinion. There were some very good moments but too far between and the characters didn't leave much of an impression.

More mood than substance, Swing was a little hard to get through. The mood was very well done but there didn't feel like there was much actual story there.

The final story, Pork Pie Hat, was by far the longest story in the collection and possibly in all 5 volumes. I found the story outside of the actual Halloween element more interesting but overall it felt a bit too long.

This is definitely worth reading even it's not the strongest in the series, especially if you like the other volumes. I'd order the stories in this order from favorite to least favorite:

Devil's Night
The Last Dare
The Halloween Bleed
Pork Pie Hat
Swing

I received an advance copy of this title for review.

Editor's note: This review first appeared on the Mountain Time (Boone, NC) website on Friday, Oct. 13, 2017: http://www.wataugademocrat.com/mountaintimes/horror-writing-for-the-mind-brian-james-freeman-s-halloween/article_d8689f00-81fd-590c-aad9-e1ae44571894.html

Horror writing for the mind: Brian James Freeman's 'Halloween Carnival' series offers weekly dose of terror

By Tom Mayer
tom.mayer@mountaintimes.com

We join our heroes and villains in media res. Sort of.

Not sort of because we are short of heroes or villains — there are plenty of each in Brian James Freeman’s well-edited five-volume “Halloween Carnival” (Hydra) anthology series — but because the volumes are publishing as an e-book one per week on the five Tuesdays of October. Currently, we are on Volume 2, with Volume 3 following on Oct. 17, Volume 4 on Oct. 24 and the whole thing smartly culminating with the Oct. 31, Halloween release of Volume 5.

Not to worry. Since the series is e-reader only with each volume composed of stand-alone short stories of the horror variety, it’s an easy matter, and fairly inexpensive at $2.99 each, to quickly catch up at your favorite online platform.

Which, after reading any volume in the queue, is what you’ll want to do.

Volume 2 is where I picked up the series, and was hooked by the end of Glen Hirshberg’s “Mr. Dark’s Carnival,” an eerie tale reminiscent of the best horror writing from a generation ago. Well-written with the type of competency that appear effortless, Hirshberg offers the "I watched Tricia trot out the string of studiously whitened teeth like a row of groomed show horses” throwaway metaphor that seems so easy we all could do it.

But we can’t, and neither can most authors, at least not to the level of mastery in these five volumes.

From the likes of Hirshberg’s wonderfully dark tale and the even more wonderfully unsettling Al Sarantonio’s “The Pumpkin Boy” in Volume 2, to those authors you’ll look forward to in other volumes, including Richard Chizmar, Lisa Tuttle and Peter Straub, these are some of the best horror stories you’ve never read, and some of the best you may have — most stories are of 2017 origin, with a few, such as Hirshberg’s and Sarrantonio’s, having an earlier copyright.

Yet, every tale reads like it was written as an homage to the Golden Age of terror. Can a horror story be both character and plot driven, both contemporary and generational? The best can, and there are many fine examples in these volumes.

Freeman, an author, publisher and editor who sold his first short story at 14 and first novel at 24, has collaborated with many of the authors you’ll find in these pages. He’s in great editor mode here, producing enough chilling tales in just the right weekly bytes to take you from now to Halloween.

DEVIL’S NIGHT by Richard Chizmar
"You’ve read about what happened that night. What you don’t know is the true extent of the damage. The papers got it wrong—and the truth is so much worse than you thought." blurb

This was a pretty good story. It was weird and a little predictable but I like the way the story played out.

THE LAST DARE by Lisa Tuttle
"Elaine hasn’t been back to her hometown in years. The house she lived in is gone. The tower house isn’t—nor are the stories of the fate that befalls whoever dares to go there." blurb

This is probably my favorite in this volume. It's creepy, creepy is good I like creepy. The menacing tower house, a ghost story, and lost memories it's a great Halloween read.

THE HALLOWEEN BLEED by Norman Prentiss
"What if Halloween... bleeds into other days? It doesn't matter when the story was written, or when you read it. What matters is that it has an effect on you. It's casts a spell." from the uncorrected proof.

It's a strange and unusual story, it makes you think and then creeps you out and leaves you questioning, "what just happened?"

SWING by Kevin Quigley
"In Hollywood, everyone lives forever. At least that’s what I used to think . . . before Jessica. But no one seems to live long when they’re around me." burb

Yeah it was weird and creepy but the story did nothing for me.

PORK PIE HAT by Peter Straub
"When it comes to jazz, there are players, and there are legends. “Hat” was a legend. His real name didn’t even matter. Still, he had his secrets—secrets best left buried in the past." blurb

It was long and took forever to get to the point and it wasn't even that scary.

The first story was the best of the bunch. The others were decent but not as interesting.

The Halloween Carnival Vol 5 is the last in a five e-book horror series launched just in time for the spooky season. Each book serves up five short stories by genre masters – as well as some talented up-and-comers – for the low cost price of $2.99 and will be released, one a week, throughout October in the lead up to Halloween.

Volume 5 sees stories by Richard Chizar, Lisa Tuttle, Norman Prentiss, Kevin Quigley and Peter Straub but is a rather disappointing end to an otherwise great series.

Chizmar’s Devil’s Night is the first story off the ranks and the highlight of this volume. A suspenseful story about a teacher who witnesses the body of one of his students being dumped, it’s a tense and well written story that gets things off to a flyer.

Tuttle’s Last Dance, Prentiss’ The Halloween Bleed and Quigley’s Swing are all solid entries, Prentiss’ being the pick of the bunch, but lack the wow factor that ran through the earlier volumes.
Straub’s Pork Pie Hat – republished here, while elegantly written, is the type of story you either love or hate, and unfortunately is the first real miss of the novellas.

This one has less to recommend. But if you’re a fan of the series, the price tag is low enough to grab it and complete the set. Overall though, this has been a great series and is a must buy if you’re a fan of Halloween themed horror and suspense.