Voices in the Darkness

I enjoyed these short stories (each of which is very different from the others) and will be looking for more by these authors!

I was glad to get this book to review. Each of the initial stories were great, and I felt they were building up to something. I was right. The last story, La Belle Epoque by Brian Hopkins was fantastic. Met Brian years ago, and got and read quite a few of his books. Now I remember why I enjoyed his books so much, and hopefully there will be more in the future. Going to revisit some of the previous read book now too. Great book.

This was an interesting collection. I’ve no experience with the author as an editor, but once I read and hated the book by him, so there was that. But then again, I do like a good scary story and this was short enough and featured enough recognizable names to give it a try. This is literary just that, a collection of scary stories. Wilson might have tried to unite them thematically under the whatever the sh*tiness of 2020 might have inspired, but that’s way too wide of an umbrella, so there really isn’t a theme. Nor are the stories in this book anywhere near as horrific as 2020 turned out to be. Instead you just get a general selection of pleasantly literary frights. Seems like Wilson just cherry picked his favorite authors and prompted them to write and write they did, which is as legit of an approach as any.
Not that many different authors either, since over 50% of the book is all one story, an absolutely excellent novella titled La Belle Epoque by a complete unknown to me. The rest of the stories are fine, I always like whatever Massie writes and Koja never fails to puzzle. Didn’t care for Khaw’s tale of spurned loves and lovers much. It’s really the novella that’s the star of the show here. Oh so cleverly weaving in historical facts and figures into a narrative of a superpowered (in a way) young woman as she navigates decades upon decades enjoying a magically acquired negative senescence, like some kind of a sexy turtle. She lives through The Belle Epoque and more, meeting great minds and great artists, all the while continuing an epic love affair with a giant, surprisingly woke and liberal minded American cowboy with a not surprising penchant for guns and wars. Together they are immortal, but at a cost. Seems like I might not be doing this story justice, but it really is very good, the writing brings the lace to life in technicolor, there’s such a potent presence of the place and time in these pages, it’s absolutely transporting. Traditionally, it is only the vampires that enjoy such unnaturally elongated lives and this is so much more interesting and original than a vampire story.
So yeah, a pretty decent collection with a shining star of story taking up the bulk of it. Recommended for fans of darker themed literary tales of (the best here were) historical fiction. Thanks Netgalley.

This was a great collection of short stories. I enjoyed all of them. Some authors were new to me and now I can look up other books by them. Highly recommended

By Nadia Bulkin, Kathe Koja, Elizabeth Massie, Cassandra Khaw, Nick Mamatas, Brian A. Hopkins, and are brought together by editor David Niall Wilson to provide the reader with a collection of tales that are woven together.

Each story lends its own unique charms to this collaboration. The various twists and turns will keep the reader engaged and interested in learning how each will end and how they will tie together. I did enjoy each story and rated this at three stars only because nothing exceptional stood out to me as extraordinary. The stories were interesting, just not to my taste. I prefer something darker and more graphic.

This book would be great for fans of historical fiction that is a bit on the darker side.

Thanks to NetGalley for the chance to review this book.

8.4/10. This was a spectacular read. Voices in the darkness is a collection of stories from different authors; each bringing their own themes. I praise each of the authors for the beautiful writing styles that kept me intrigued in each of the stories and the editor for compiling this especially in the order it is, for that truly boosted the reading experience!

Nadia Bulkin delivers a haunting tale in Vide Cor Meum and an incredible opening for this collection. I loved it for the horror, the amazing writing style and the realistic portrayal of how violence and crime affects people.

It is followed by Kathe Koja’s Pursuivant Island, a tale of climate change, on how we humans ignore it, in a writing style that caught my attention from the very start; it was simply gorgeous.

The next story Baggie was my second favorite. The character work by Elizabeth Massie on here was amazing. I felt so attached to the character and felt so emotional to his entire arc. This was a tragic tale, a story of a villain and how circumstances dictated his life to where it ended. Samuel’s trauma and hardships and the way it was written, made Samuel exist beyond the pages, it had such a strong hold on me as a reader and in the end im simply in heartache on the way how it progressed. Truly an amazing story.

“ Even if I promised I’d stitch you together with silver, I doubt you’d let me leaf through your future. “. What a tragic and wonderful tale this was. I’d rather wear Black by Cassandra Khaw was an interesting story, Khaw is the only author here i’m familiar with and as usual the writing kept me fascinated till the end but the undertone of the writing paired with the plot, truly broke me. My only nitpick is it being a short story. (I NEED MORE)

“Ba boo Dop doo Dop boo ree” by Nick Mamatas would probably be my least favorite one on here. I enjoyed the poetic irony of the ending, but i never got attached to the character and the plot itself wasn’t that entirely constant throughout the book. In the end i just didn’t care much for the story but at the same time the writing style, again, was beautiful.

Brian A. Hopkins’ La Belle Époque was the star of this book. Immortality is a trope that’s always 50/50 with me but the author really came through with this one. It showed exactly how it could be a curse and at the same time showed us the characters enjoying the little they could. I loved the entire breeze through history, meeting different figures and especially how the ending wasn’t quite an “ending”.

All in all this was a superb read and I couldn’t put it down for almost all the stories. I recommend this to any reader who just wants to enjoy a beautifully written story (multiple ones at that). SO PICK THIS UP!!!

Thank you to Crossroad Press for granting me an ARC to this book via NetGalley for an honest review!

Wow! This is a tremendously good collection of stories that each offer something unique that all build up to something quite incredible. Every story is a jem, but the standout is the last one, La Belle Époque by Brian A. Hopkins. Highly recommended, go pick this up now!

Did not complete before expiration (hospital stay prevented completion). Will not be writing about this book in full. The first couple short stories were good however, and I likely would have returned to this collection had life not taken me away from it for a period of time.

I received an advanced copy of this book from the publisher through netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This book is well written and the characters are described well. This is a great anthology for the spooky Halloween season. Each author has a unique writing style. It will keep you turning pages. This book is in stores for $17.99 (USD).