WOWZA! Gripping, chilling, dark, riveting, and horrific! Glenn Rolfe's Unusual Occurrences is a short story collection that delivers tales of horror ranging from vampires to the horrors only humans can deliver! With short story collections it is usually a mixed bag for me. I tend to enjoy some and don't care for others in short story collections. I enjoyed every single unique short story in this book!!!!! The horrors in this book come in all shapes and sizes with the stories being of various lengths. I loved the unease, the tension, the dread, and the darkness in the tales. Plus, none are too gory or scary so most readers will enjoy Unusual Occurrences.

Glenn Rolfe came on my radar when I read It Came From The Lake. That book had me wanting to read more of his books! I have been a fan of his writing ever since. Have you ever read an author and think 'I wish more people were reading this author's books' because their books are amazing? That is how I feel about Glenn Rolfe's books. This is the 6th book which I have read by Rolfe, and they have all been 4 to 5 star reads for me. I enjoy his writing, his plots, his small-town horror tales, and his fully fleshed out characters.

If you are looking for something in the horror genre, give Glenn Rolfe and this book a read! You can't go wrong! He is a great storyteller, and his books are bloody good! I highly recommend them!

Unusual Occurrences is a collection of fifteen short horror stories that span an impressive range of subgenres, from aliens and vampires to zombies to the horrors of human nature, etc. The variety makes the book exciting to read because there truly is something for everyone.

What impressed me most was how quickly each story pulls you in. Even the shortest pieces feel complete and effective, with twists that are often completely unpredictable. The writing is sharp, engaging, and keeps the tension high throughout the collection.

This is the kind of book you can pick up for a quick read and still come away feeling fully immersed. A strong, well-crafted anthology that horror fans will definitely enjoy.

I've said it repeatedly: I love short horror stories - and this is precisely why! Every one of the fifteen tales in Glenn Rolfe's collection is tightly plotted, fast-paced, and totally engrossing! The stories are long, rich, and dark, but also heavy on raw emotion and chockfull of delightfully eerie moments of creepiness. It's simply amazing how Rolfe manages again and again to pack an entire novel's horror into a short story! The style is reminiscent of Lansdale and early King, the themes covering aliens, vampires, ghosts, haunted houses, and cursed objects. I read the book in a day's time, eager to dive into another thrilling display of Rolfe's storytelling!

Four stories are worth expanding on a bit more. "Out of Range," the opening story, was, just, holy, what a bleak alien invasion story! It never actually crosses into sci-fi territory, limiting itself to mentioning a signal from space after which the internet no longer works, and it's written as a post-apocalyptic, dystopian tale of a family waiting for the end, with some twists on the way. The following story, "Abram's Bridge," in lesser hands would have been turned into a novel, perhaps even romance; Rolfe cuts all the fluff and ends up with a riveting ghost story of revenge, abuse, and teenage boys playing detectives. The cast is larger than usual for a story of this size, but every little detail counts. The end is incredibly satisfying. "Skull of Snakes," the fifth story, revolves around a cursed coin found by a kid in 1989. Rolfe's attention to detail in this one is simply astounding, not to mention the late 80s feel, the gritty dialogue, and the young male friendship atmosphere. Finally, "Jackie Boy," about a mother's love for her son, and her son being a disgusting pervert (though of the non-sexual sort), is an unsettling feat of brilliant characterization. Special mention should be made of "The Rooster," of which I'm unsure whether it's fiction: told in first-person, it recounts the narrator's loss of his brother to cancer. Devastating.

I highly recommend the collection, it pulls you in and doesn't let go till the end!

Loved this collection of short stories from Glenn Rolfe, with a real classic Stephen King vibe (at times explicitly referential - wearing its influences on its sleeve). There’s a few longer form short stories in here (not novella length, but worth breaking into sections) and they are particularly strong - Too Much of a Dead Thing and Boom Town, but some of the shorter sharp shocks are also super effective - The Fixer and Fire for instance.
The Rooster is an emotional (real life, I assume) hit in the middle that caught me unawares.

Not every story is five star, but the overall package is.