Four terror-inducing novellas from acclaimed bestselling authors Kelley Armstrong, David Liss, Christopher Golden, and Jonathan Maberry beginning with the premise: "A stranger comes to town, offering to raise the townsfolk's dearly departed from the dead--for a price." In Kelley Armstrong's "Suffer the Children," an acute diphtheria outbreak kills most of the children in an isolated village in nineteen-century Ontario. Then a stranger arrives and offers to bring the children back to life. He wants money, of course, an extravagant sum, but more importantly, but for each child resurrected, one villager must voluntarily offer his life... In David Liss's "The Good-Natured Man," a con man on the margins of eighteenth-century British society discovers a book that reveals the method for bringing the dead back to life. After considering just how far he would go to avoid bringing his violent father back, he realizes the real value of this book. Instead of getting people to pay him to revive their departed, he will get people to pay him "not" to... In "Pipers" by Christopher Golden, the Texas Border Volunteers wage a private war against drug smuggling by Mexican cartels in a modern-day South Texas town, complete with an indestructible army of the risen dead... In "Alive Day" by Jonathan Maberry, a US Army sergeant must dive into the underworld of modern-day Afghanistan to try and barter for the release of his team, never dreaming of the horrors that await him...--
A strange visitor comes to town, offering to raise the townsfolk's dearly departed from the dead--for a price...
That's the premise behind all four stories, and each author in this collection has their own take on this passage.
I thoroughly enjoyed all of the stories in this collection, and I'm looking forward to reading work from the three authors I haven't read prior to this collection: Kelley Armstrong, Christopher Golden, and David Liss.
My favorite story in this collection was Christopher Golden's Pipers. I absolutely loved his character development in Zeke, and the plot. I think I liked this one the most because of the hoodoo aspects in it, and for the fact that the ending gave me goosebumps.
I'd recommend this to anyone who doesn't mind short stories.
Reading updates
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Started reading
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9 April, 2014:
Finished reading
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9 April, 2014:
Reviewed