A Cheap Thrill (Vampires & Other Horrors)

Member Name: ANDREWSJK

Product:	Vampires & Other Horrors
Date:	18/03/02 (234 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fills up spaces on your bookshelf, Good as a door stop !!, Only cost me 50p !!

Disadvantages: Oxfam will not have it back., Could lose you friends !!, Won't influence people !!

Just when you thought it was safe to go out in the dark, ANDREWSJK does another op !!! Well, what DID you want ??? (Don't answer that !!!). In the best interests of Dooyoo I have decided to do another book review, something I'm not really used to.

So, I was in my local Oxfam the other week feeling flush, I had 50p in my pocket, when I saw this book. It is Great Vampires and Other Horrors, first published in 1992 by Chancellor Press, an imprint of Reed International Books Limited. For those with more than 50p to waste the ISBN is 1 85152 235 2. It is a hardback book of 538 pages, I lovingly counted them all for you. It contains 47 short stories by various master horror writers. Let me tell you a bit of what the cover says :-
" A door creaks, a spectral hand reaches out, and the night rings with a bloodcurdling scream - these and other unholy terrors lurk within these pages. From the deadly lure of a vampires kiss to a dance with a hideous corpse this superb selection of stories, modern and classic, will bring a chill to your spine.. "

The cover illustration is by Theo Platt, and appears to be of Dracula outside his castle, so it all looks good so far.

Well, baaahh, phoooeey, splaaaat, I wasn't impressed at all. I've been more frightened by my driving. and WHO asked you for your opinion ??? I was falling asleep reading this book, virtually no story impressed me, there were certainly more other horror stories than anything to do with vampires !! What do I like in this way, well I love a good vampire or Dracula tale, a few teeth sunk into somebody's neck and I'm anybody's !! I drool over the old Hammer Horror films, and love to go up to bed frightened that a vampire will appear from nowhere and I'll be prepared with my cross and necklace of garlic.

This book did nothing at all for me, and I would not recommend it to any of you. Basically all the stories were far too short, and by the time
the scene had been set in each, it was time for a couple of lines to frighten the reader before moving on, there was no blood on the lips, stake through the heart, though there were a few ghouls walking round a town ringing church bells, and a lost town or three !!!

This fascination to deceive was much like a Ford car, looks good on paper, just to find it's overpriced and never works. There were many famous writers, to name but a dozen Bram Stoker, Edgar Allan Poe, H.P Lovecraft, Charles Dickens, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Rudyard Kipling, Guy De Maupassant, Robert Louis Stevenson, Mark Twain, etc

Well, I'd rather have the Mercedes than the Ford, this book continually promised more but failed to deliver. Robert Louis Stevenson should have stuck to trains, Rudyard Kipling makes nice cakes... for Boy Scouts, Charles Dickens can do better, Saki should be drunk not read !!

Did I tell you not to bother with this book ??? I would rather not go on to tell you about any of the stories, just imagine from one of the titles, An Account of some strange Disturbance in Aungier Street by J. Sheridan Le Fanu. Now, doesn't that just scare you rigid ??

Boo !!!

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