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Sometimes reading a book specifically for doing a review of it is not the best way to enjoy that book. With an anthology, no matter how much you might enjoy the individual stories, still you have to look for flaws with the book as a whole. Individually, there were no bad stories in Dark Wonders. Every one of them would score at least a 3.5 and quite a few were 5's. What knocked the book down to a 3.5 were that too many of the stories could be classified as flash fiction and the length of the book was just too short at 122 pages. That said, I very much did enjoy reading Dark Wonders. Maybe that was what annoyed me about the length, I wanted more. Mark Allan Reynolds writes with a smoothness that only comes with hard work and proofreading over and over again, until every word sounds exactly the way you intend it to sound and adds to the effect you want to create in that short story. My favorites out of these stories (and it is hard to narrow it down because so many are good) are "Fireflies Eternal," "Like Mother, Like Daughter" and "Rolled Rules." "Fireflies Eternal" is a beautifully poetic rendering of the longing for a lost childhood. This one should be read out loud. It sings a mournful tale. "Like Mother, Like Daughter" is a truly savage short. This story was so graphic and cold blooded that I was laughing like hell at the end and feeling guilty because I was. "Rolled Rules" is about an incredibly cruel game played to its extreme limits. This one would have made a perfect Tales From The Crypt episode. These stories are all fun to read and a few of them approach the status of fine art. Great stuff. This is the type of book that could be left on the coffee table for guests to pick up and run through one of the shorts. All of them are entertaining. Dark Wonders by Mark
Allan Reynolds is highly recommended. Buy a copy, read it, then give it as
a gift to your horror loving friends. You won't get any complaints. -
Bob L. Morgan, Jr. |
