Sarrantonio delivers with this refreshing take on a familiar subject. Horrific and funny. His handling of historical figures and contempory celebs is not to be missed.

The dead rise when our spec of the universe passes through cosmic gas, and they're intent on destroying humanity and creating they're own order. As the living rebel against the dead in a fight for survival it becomes obvious man's reign as the dominant species of earth has reached a fatal end.

As Frederick Douglass once said, "I confess I love littleness in all things." These ironic and timeless tales are less horrifying than startling for their perfection and originality. There appear to be no prescriptions or standards for the short short horror. Each victim, each critical moment in time and place is unique and unlike its companions in the collection. And why not, when some of the authors are named Twain, Saki, Poe, Lovecraft, Hawthorne and Crane to name a few. Every tale is narrated by a voice that gives away nothing while it adds to the tension. Guaranteed to make you shiver, from laughter, dread or awe, this collection is an extended experience within the unexpected and the unpredictable. My favorite has to be Dark Wings by Phyllis Eisenstein, where the sight of a large bird in flight against a white moon, becomes an obsession with the strangest end a soaring climax I can recall in fiction of this length.
As the editors and contributors, Al Sarrantino and Martin H. Greenberg point out in the preface; this form, the short short story, is the hardest of all literary forms to perfect. Every word and every mark of punctuation is critical and must be exact. Though they appear brief and simple, they are about as effortless as say---flying. Just about every decade in the 20th century and many from the 19th are represented in some of the greatest literary giants. Giants of brevity and brilliance. Savor it, but definitely get a copy.

So many authors have forgotten how to hook and hold a reader without going off onto uninteresting tangents. Al Sarrantonio is not one of them. Despite so many characters in this book, each has a unique personality without volumes of side-stories to help "build character" over and over again. And every character is fascinating. His writing flows well and quickly, and his imagery is admirable. Perhaps the best book I have ever read.

If you grew up in the '70s, you are a bad person. It's not your fault. Spending all those nights at the disco watching Gerry Ford and Karen Carpenter dance the night away with the cast of "Hello, Larry", that's going to leave a mark. But nothing cut quite so deep as the National Lampoon. This bound edition of material from the first several years(along with some previously unpublished articles) sums up the attack dog humor that would later be memorialized in SNL, Animal House, Caddyshack, and Jane Austin's Mafia. Well, maybe the first three.

In short, if you are a bitter, angry social malcontent who wishes to see hatred gleefully and comically spray-painted over everything you call holy, buy this book. Or they'll shoot your dog.

This limited edition novel from Cemetery Dance publications is a great piece of fiction. Sarrantonio, who wrote the Halloween novel "October" some years back and edited perhaps the greatest collection of short stories by popular genre authors "999", returns with a powerful short novel about a force of evil that exists in the town of "Orangefield". The characters are all well rounded despite minimal characterization (less is more) and we care about what happens to each of them, even the ones we want to see lose. The author's prose has a flow to it that is hard to find in so much genre fiction, and he takes a theme that has been done time and again and puts some new and interesting spins on it. This one is worth the price, and I hope to see more new works of this quality from the author in the near future.

Paola Gavin has done down-to-earth cooks a huge favor by proving that the words "French" and "vegetarian" can co-exist in peace and simplicity. Refreshingly short ingredient lists grace the pages, presented in an austere format which belies the tempting and tasty dishes that will result.

The multi-talented Al Sarrantonio, noted for his many contributions to the horror/science fiction field, now turns his dark eye toward the bone-chilling world of French vegetarian cooking. You'll cover your eyes in fright as the murderous Broccoli Rabe leaps from the steaming pot and screams horrific gibberish while performing satanic jigs on the kitchen counter. An army of undead Taters from Paree, berets set at unholy and rakish angles, march toward Newburgh, NY, leaving a path of death and destruction along with many unwanted peelings. My only gripe with this book was the ending--Julia Childs' overly gruesome and bloody struggle with a giant cyclops string bean just doesn't work for me. I certainly enjoyed the gor--and the many helpful tips on steaming rice--but when Julia's All-Girl Kung Fu Army emerges and kills the string bean with a barrage of Almondine, it just didn't ring true.

I very much enjoyed this book. A good short story is like a miniature masterpiece, without a word out of place. This collection is chock-full of them. The story-within-a-story that binds them all together is imaginative. I also felt that all the stories were unique, not merely a rehashing of someone else's ideas. Each story kept me guessing, the way good horror should. The prose is clean but lyrical. I highly recommend this compilation if goosebumps are what you crave.

This is one of the better horror collections in a while. Just about all of the stories provide the requisite goosebumps of creepy tales. Ranks up there with some of King's/Bachman's collections. Be sure to check out the boy that runs on electricity. Great addition to any good horror collection.

The problem with a lot of science fiction these days is that they spend a lot of time inventing aliens to be the bad guys and monsters. Al gets back to basics, we are the monsters and you need only to read the history of the last 75 years to see the truth in that. He invents a wild future science to prosecute his war but I'm sure that the scientists at Los Alamos in 1945 thought that was pretty wild too. He kills off the populations of the outer planets but the body count was no where close to what the Nazi's did in WWII. I think I enjoyed this series because the story is essentially plausable and the horrors described have already been perpetrated many times over by the monsters of earth.

I haven't finished the book yet. In what I've read I've seemed to see more gimmicry than ideas.

Here's a collection that is a little too big for its own good. Of course the focus is on "extreme visions of speculative fiction," but what exactly is extreme is a matter of opinion. Just because something is different doesn't necessarily make it good or readable. This book does contain some very intriguing and enjoyable stories that are great in their uniqueness. Favorites include the submissions from Dan Simmons, Stephen Baxter, Robert E. Vardemann, Catherine Wells, and the newcomer Laura Whitton. Probably two-thirds of the stories here are successful for the reader looking for strange new horizons. However, there is a lack of editorial focus that leads to the inclusion of just too many sub-par stories, like the inane and pointless offering from Joyce Carol Oates (whose strengths clearly do NOT include speculation, as shown embarrassingly here), the self-indulgent story from Thomas M. Disch, the sappy and syrupy submission from David Morrell, or the completely unreadable closer by Neal Barrett Jr. Another mistake is most of the story introductions from Sarrantonio, who is a pretty good writer himself but is low in the sense of humor department. This collection could have been much leaner and meaner, and often proves that "cutting edge" isn't always cutting.

"Redshift: Extreme Visions of Speculative Fiction," edited by Al Sarrantonio, brings together 30 pieces of fiction of varying lengths; in his intro the editor breaks the pieces down as 22 short stories, 3 novellas, and 5 novelettes. Mainly science fiction, the collection also encompasses fantasy, horror and satire.

In his intro, Sarrantonio notes that he was inspired by Harlan Ellison's important 1967 anthology "Dangerous Visions." Many of the stories in this book deal with adult themes: rape, addiction, bondage, war, etc. There is some graphic sex and violence, but I did not find these elements to be gratuitous.

Some of the most memorable pieces in the collection include Laura Whitton's "Froggies," about the difficulty of interspecies communication; Harry Turtledove's "Black Tulip," a stylish tale set during the Soviet-Afghan conflict; Robert E. Vardeman's "Feedback," a stunning tale about telepaths and illicit sexuality; Rudy Rucker & John Shirley's "Pockets," a story of higher dimensions which draws on the classic "Flatland"; and Joe Haldeman's "Road Kill," about "a serial murderer with an interesting specialty."

Other authors represented in the anthology include Michael Moorcock, Ursula K. LeGuin, and Joyce Carol Oates. Overall, this is a solid collection. There are some vivid characters, intriguing sci-fi concepts, and memorable scenes.

Unlike some of the others, I thought Stephen King and Joyce Carol Oates' stories were beneath their usual genius, but I loved "Rio Grande Gothic" and "Mad Dog Summer." However, it amazes me that fewer people have singled out the return of William Peter Blatty with "Elsewhere." The story is arguably the best in the "999" collection, as several characters (including the flamboyant Terence Dare) wander through a haunted mansion in search of spirits. Doesn't sound too original, I know, but we are in the hands of the master of "The Exorcist." "Elsewhere" shines.

I have a dog-eared copy of Kirby McCauley's "Dark Forces" - probably the best collection of horror and suspense thus far. "999" is a close second. It's always fun to read material from unfamiliar writers, but less fun to read the old stand-bys. King's short story is predictable and self-derivitive; and William Peter Blatty's novella is so filled with purple prose and almost Bulwer-Littonish bad writing that I couldn't even finish it. And Joyce Carol Oates is good -- as usual, but her point of view confused me. Who is the narrator? One of the children? Which child?

There were quite a few editorial thorns in this anthology as well. In "An Exultation of Termagants" one character's name is spelled LILLY at one point, and then it inexplicably changes to LILY thereafter. Is there a reason for this? Did I miss something? In other stories fine, unimportant details are not kept track of very well. (A blue Jeep Cherokee is later described as a green Jeep etc.) Minor, nit-picky points, but I still get annoyed by things like that.

Overall, though, this is a fun collection to have and I'm keeping an eye on some of the lesser-known writers. Go ahead: buy this one!

'You felt as if you were bleeding to death, only inside your head...' This excellent description of feeling uncomfortable comes early on in the new Stephen King story to be found in this horror anthology. In the story, the narrator is viewing a particularly horrible painting, which is going to have a particularly horrible effect on his life. But it's also an appropriate description of how a good horror story should make a reader feel: threatened, in danger, in a quiet way. Reading horror is different to watching it at the movies - it's easy to feel scared in a dark cinema. A bit harder, though, to do it through a book. 999, a collection of previously-unpublished work in the horror genre, does it - and does it many times. The anthology contains a short novel from William Peter Blatty, author of the famed scary novel The Exorcist; novellas by David Morrell (creator of the Rambo books and also a fine horror writer) and Joyce Carol Oates; and more than two dozen shorter pieces - including an effort from Stephen King, The Road Virus Heads North. Many readers will turn to the King story first, and they won't be disappointed. It's short, sharp and shocking, and will frighten even the most sceptical realist. In the story, bestselling horror novelist Richard Kinnell buys a painting at a yard sale. It shows a deathly figure driving a car, and it's theme of horror and death appeals to Kinnell. From the moment he buys the picture, Kinnell is doomed. The reader knows this, but it's a tribute to King's skill at the macabre that over twenty pages of steadily-mounting paranoia and suspense pass before the bloody conclusion is reached. Once done with King readers will turn to the less well-known authors here, hoping that standards aren't too bad. For example, the first story in 999 is by Kim Newman, an writer of moderately prominent vampire tales. Newman's story, Amerikanski Dead at the Moscow Morgue, is almost as good as King's. It is set in a gruesome Moscow of the near-future and has American citizens from all walks of life wandering around the Russian capital as zombies, with an appetite for fresh human flesh. The atmosphere of freezing fear in a chaotic Moscow is brilliantly conveyed in the story, and the horror of how the zombies have to be dealt with chills the bones. Most of the other stories in 999 are of a similarly high standard - they will provide chills of fear and horror in a hot Perth summer. The apocalyptic theme to many of the stories is summed up in the book's title. 999 is a contraction of the year of its publication, but it is also 666 - the Number of the Beast and the figure that heralds the End of Days.