Ghosts: Recent Hauntings

Attention Book Nerds:

Today, I received an e-mail alert for one of my favorite authors; Neil Gaiman! The alert is for an anthology of ghost stories that he has contributed to called, Ghosts: Recent Hauntings.

“The spirits of the dead have walked among our legends, myths, and stories since before recorded history. Ghostly visitations, hauntings, unquiet souls seeking the living, vengeful wraiths, the possibility of life beyond the grave that can somehow reach out and touch us are some of literature’s most enduring icons. Now, in the twenty-first century, we are no less fascinated with phantoms than our cave-dwelling ancestors or our Victorian-age forebears. Thirty modern masters of fright and fantasy fill this anthology with shivers, chills, and spooky explorations of both sides of the veil. Be prepared to keep a light on all night!”

Don’t get too excited, this collection has 29 reprinted short stories (whomp whomp) and one grim original by Stephen Graham Jones titled “Uncle”.

That shouldn’t discourage you though. I have perused the list of authors and this anthology is pretty promising. Tim Powers for example wrote “On Stranger Tides” which was used as inspiration for the most recent Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Also the author of Bubba Ho-Tep Joe R. Lansdale has a story included. Lots more (including Gaiman goodness) after the jump.

here is a quick blurb from Fiction Review:

Richard Bowes’s “There’s a Hole in the City” finds ghosts from New York City’s past treading the streets after 9/11. “A Soul in a Bottle” by Tim Powers is a tangled love story of a tricksy spirit looking to take advantage of the living, while John Shirley’s “Faces in Walls” reverses that premise with bloody results.  Barbara Roden’s “The Palace.” Spirits are bent on gruesome revenge in Sarah Monette’s “The Watcher in the Corners” and Nisi Shawl’s “Cruel Sistah.” The afterlife is nothing like you’d expect in “Ancestor Money” by Maureen F. McHugh and “Cell Call” by Marc Laidlaw. Guran delivers a diverse and solidly entertaining variety of spooks and chills.

As I write to you, I am flipping through my copies of Gaiman short story collections to see if I have a copy of his “October in the Chair” which is being included in this collection. Even so I may just have to pick up this book on September 5th with the rest of the devoted fans. If trying new authors is not your thing may I suggest you pick up one of Neil Gaiman’s short story collections?

M is for Magic

• Which Includes:
• “The Case Of The Four And Twenty Blackbirds”
• “Troll Bridge”
• “Don’t Ask Jack”
• “How To Sell The Ponti Bridge”
• “October In The Chair”
• “Chivalry”
• “The Price”
• “How to Talk to Girls at Parties”
• “Sunbird”
• “The Witch’s Headstone”
• “Instructions”

Which Includes (partial list):

• “The Mapmaker”
• “A Study in Emerald” – a Sherlock Holmes/Cthulhu Mythos pastiche
• “October in the Chair”
• “Good Boys Deserve Favors”
• “Strange Little Girls”
• “Harlequin Valentine”
• “Fifteen Painted Cards from a Vampire Tarot”
• “Goliath” – set in the Matrix universe and included with The Matrix Comics Vol. 1
• “How to Talk to Girls at Parties”
• “The Day the Saucers Came”
• “Sunbird” – a story in the style of R. A. Lafferty
• “Inventing Aladdin”
• The Monarch of the Glen – a novella-length sequel to Gaiman’s novel, American Gods

Which Includes (partial list):

• Reading the Entrails: A Rondel
• Chivalry
• Troll Bridge
• Don’t Ask Jack
• The Goldfish Pool and Other Stories
• Eaten (Scenes from a Moving picture) ^†
• The White Road
• Looking for the Girl
• The Sweeper of Dreams
• Foreign Parts
• Vampire Sestina
• How Do You Think It Feels?
• When We Went to See the End of the World by Dawnie Morningside, age 11¼
• Babycakes
• Murder Mysteries
• Snow, Glass, Apples