Book Review: Horror Library Vol 3 – Edited by R.J. Cavender

HORROR-LIBRARY VOLUME 3

Seated in the dark confines of my bedroom which serves as my office space, I’ve just finished reading Horror-Library Volume 3. The third installment of the Horror-Library series edited by R.J. Cavender. This time around, the thirty twisted and disturbing tales written by the minds of people who are just as ordinary as we are…or are they? From the very beginning to the end, it was all tense and frightening. The first story written by R.J. Cavender and Boyd E. Harris was appalling and just plain f*cked up. This was considered to be a very realistic story. The prose coming from R.J and Boyd is just plain out there.

The other stories are equally disturbing as the first. These are writers I’ve never heard of until I recognized one writer by the name of Jeff Strand. I’ve read and did a review for his ‘serious’ novel Pressure, which if you haven’t already, go out and by the book. You the reader of dark and macabre fiction will surely enjoy the novel as much as you enjoyed his short tale ‘The Apocalypse Ain’t So Bad.’ Toll by Blu Gilliand was sad and disturbing at the same time. Now, there’s nothing wrong with sad and disturbing. It doesn’t hurt to have people who are suffering from the pain and abuse inflicted upon them by their loved ones. It is apart of the horror genre to relate to characters who are going through the same thing we all go through and to read about them going through something far worse than their everyday pain and suffering, why, we just want to scream out and yell for them to quit while they can. Though if you do that in a library, well, don’t come crying to me when they kick you out.

Golden Eyes is one of those stories where you can’t help but think the story is f*cked up and disturbing. Animals turning on humankind. We haven’t seen much of that in the past with the horror genre. Cujo was a good film, now if Golden Eyes were to be turned into a feature length movie, people would definitely pay to see this. It’s something that hasn’t been touched upon for years.

One story Fish Bait by John Everson was one of those tales you would see in a Stephen King book, mainly about that one small town where something seems not right, but you can’t place your finger on it, well the characters learn that first hand when they play a little seemingly childish game called ‘Fish-Bait.’ The Haven and The Birdie are interesting tales. They’re on the surreal part, but, manage to get under your skin.