Charles L. Grant (1942–2006)

I found very few commendable tales in this Gallery Of Horror. In my experience, most story anthologies, horror or otherwise, are uneven: a few good stories a few mediocre stories. This collection was, to my tastes anyway, mostly mediocre, dull, uninteresting. The best story by far, the only one that I thoroughly liked, was "Nunc Dimittis" by Tanith Lee. "The Typewriter" by David Morrell and "Talent" by Theodore Sturgeon had Twilight Zone-ish qualities and were fine. "Canavan's Back Yard" by Joseph Payne Brennan and Stephen King's "Nona" were fine, too. The remainder of the tales in this 20-story collection had me shrugging and saying "meh"; one or two had me saying a distasteful "ugh." I suppose the enjoyment of an anthology depends on how much the tastes of the editor and of the reader are aligned. Seeing as I found editor Charles L. Grant's introductory paragraphs to each story to be trite, uninteresting, and occasionally annoying, I don't thing our tastes align much at all. Oh well, not every read will be a winner. There was just enough in Gallery Of Horror, though, to keep me plugging away to the end.… (more)

I'm not convinced this book was written to be YA but it comes across that way because of the focus on the teenage protagonist, his schoolmates, parents etc. In theory, here was an interesting idea: teenage boy who feels put upon, with bullying from boys in the football team, and parents who belittle his ambition to be a veterinarian, retreats into a fantasy world which then turns into reality. His animal posters on the bedroom wall, which he views as friends and talks to, begin to take on a life of their own, as the horse in one fades out and a phantom horse begins to stalk those associated with him. He has found a protector, who turns out to be overprotective. Meanwhile, a nasty serial killer with delusions of being a werewolf has arrived in town and started killing kids.

Perhaps the story suffered from being stretched too thin over so many bases. We have the serial killer story which doesn't last long, the teenage angst thread running throughout which does get a bit wearing unfortunately, and the spectral horse plot. Plus the irresponsible and unpleasant behaviour of the boy's parents. The story did seem to sag a bit in the middle, and although the 'good guys' in the story, especially the girl he has a crush on - can't really be love given how he treats her - have more life to them - the girl is the most sympathetic character in the book - and in theory the reader should be concerned when they also start to be menaced, the overall effect, I'm afraid, is a 'so what'. Nasty people get stomped on so there isn't much to be concerned about, and the ending is rather a cliche. So only a 2-star rating.… (more)