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Christopher Golden is an award-winning author whose original novels have been published in more than fourteen languages in countries around the world. He was born and raised in Massachusetts, where he still lives with his family.
Spotlighting monsters of all varieties (other than the explicitly proscribed zombies and vampires), Golden (The New Dead) assembles a solid variety of tales. The best is Gary Braunbeck's gonzo, metafictional "And You Still Wonder Why Our First Impulse Is to Kill You." Simultaneously hilarious and heartbreaking, it gradually transforms into elegant musing on the nature of monsters in fiction even as the prose becomes deliberately chaotic. Other highlights include Tom Piccirilli's "The Cruel Thief of Rosy Infants," an intriguing faerie changeling tale; Sarah Pinborough's "The Screaming Room," a nice twist on the gorgon myth; Jeff Strand's "Specimen 313," an effectively funny tale of love and plant monsters; and Tananarive Due's "The Lake" and David Liss's "The Awkward Age," both of which explore the nature of sexual predators. The few stories that miss the mark are well outnumbered, and readers will appreciate the diverse monsters, including radioactive giants and an Indian Rakshasi. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
From Kevin J. Anderson's poignant chronicle of Frankenstein's monster brought forward to Germany in 1938 ("Torn Stitches, Shattered Glass") to Simon R. Green's reenvisioning of Christ's temptation by Satan ("Jesus and Satan Go Jogging in the Desert"), the 19 stories in this collection, edited by horror writer and editor Golden, are told from the point of view of the monsters rather than the heroes. A rakshasa seeks freedom after 200 years of servitude in Kelly Armstrong's "Rakshasi," while the tragedy of a monstrously large man, victim of an experiment gone wrong, plays out to its inevitable conclusion in David Moody's "Big Man." VERDICT -Contributions from Sharyn McCrumb, Tananarive Due, Heather Graham, and others make this a strong themed anthology that should have general appeal. (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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