Doug MuranoRecensioner

i found myself looking at the five or six short stories i had to make my way through to finish this book and just feeling bleagh. that's when you know you should put down this book. the first story was *chefs kiss* michael wehunt? you gave me a little shiver. as for the rest of the ones i got through, there were only two out of them all that i even really liked.

Monsters, in so many diverse forms! This is a fantastic collection. The stories and poems have enormous variety within the theme and all are engaging and intriguing. I highly recommend this anthology.

4.5/5 stars!

WELCOME TO THE SHOW is a themed anthology with all of the stories revolving around, (or involving in some way), a rock 'n' roll club named The Shantyman. That's it! There's no hard thread connecting all the tales other than the club itself. That makes WELCOME TO THE SHOW different because there's no one "bad guy" to blame things on. In this case, the "bad guy" is anyone or anything the writer wanted them to be. In this regard, I think the authors involved had a lot more leeway as far as the direction each story would take and I think that resulted in an above average anthology as far as the quality AND the variety of the stories within.

I can't get into all of them here, because I don't want this review to be as long as the book itself, but the ones that stood out the most to me were:

WHAT SORT OF RUBE by Alan M. Clark. A was a perfect start to this book, providing a bit of history and setting the tone. (I've never read any of Clark's work before, but he's on my radar now.)

NIGHT AND DAY AND IN BETWEEN by Jonathan Janz. This story went in a totally different direction than what I had expected. Loved it!

TRUE STARMEN by Max Booth. I'm not sure that it was supposed to, but this story cracked me the hell me up! It's the first time The Shantyman hosted pod-casters instead of a band, and the results just made me laugh.

OPEN MIC NIGHT by Kelli Owen. The 27 Club-you know, those singers and musicians that never made it past that age? I thought this anthology would be a shoe-in for stories about that club, but this was the only one. I was glad because it made this tale stand out even more.

PARODY by Jeff Strand. Zany Chester and his plans to be the next Weird Al fizzle out before they even got started. (It's birdies, not bodies!) Chester had to go to a few back up plans, actually, and none of them were pretty.

DARK STAGE by Matt Hayward. This tale spoke to me in a personal way which made it that much more horrifying at the end.

A TONGUE LIKE FIRE by Rachel Autumn Deering. The end was NOT what I was expecting at the beginning. Usually I can see that coming..in this case I saw something coming, but not what I got. Well done!

Brian Keene's tale RUNNING FREE made me laugh at the premise before it got all serious. (A man trying to run himself to death by heart attack, thereby evading death from the cancer already running through his body. Come on, that's kind of funny! [All right, I know I'm messed up.]) Anyway, this story didn't go the way I thought it would and I loved how it tied into previous tales in this book.

WE SING IN DARKNESS by Mary SanGiovanni. This story had everything that I've come to expect from Mary's work. A terrifying future where music is banned is only the beginning.

I enjoyed this collection and even though it was a little uneven throughout, the variety and quality more than made up for that. I liked that everyone didn't have quite the same view was to what was going on at The Shantyman because that allowed for more creativity in the tales. Variety is the spice of life and all that, you know?

I read a lot of collections and anthologies over the course of a year and there is no doubt in my mind that WELCOME TO THE SHOW will be among the best I've read this year. For this reason, I highly recommend it!

You can get your copy here: https://amzn.to/2RQ6a50

*11.12.18 We are currently reading this book, along with most of the authors in the Horror Aficionados Group at Goodreads. Feel free to join us, read along, and ask questions of the writers, if you like! (Our read continues until the end of this month.) Here's a link: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/19582938-november-2018-group-read-1-with-gu...

**I bought this book with my hard earned cash and these opinions are my own.*

I expect short story collections to be “uneven,” but this was particularly the case with “Behold.” By which I mean, there were a couple excellent stories, several that were fine, and a lot of “meh.” My favorites were “A Ware That Will Not Keep,” by John Taff, and “Knitter,” by Christopher Coake. “LaRue's Dime Museum,” by Lisa Morton, is odd but interesting, and Neil Gaiman's “Chivalry” is cute, though it felt familiar (perhaps I've read it before?). “The Baker of Millepoix,” by Hal Bodner, is sweet, if predictable, but Brian Hodge's “The Shiny Fruit of Our Tomorrows” caught me by surprise. Erinn Kemper's “In Amelia's Wake” and Sarah Read's “Through Gravel” were both pretty marginal – some intriguing elements, but ultimately unsatisfying, and the rest of the collection – ten out of the eighteen stories – were uninteresting. Not a total waste, but there are plenty of better collections.

We’re all fascinated by things that are strange, odd and just plain different. Behold! Oddities, Curiosities and Undefinable Wonders edited by Doug Murano is an anthology that embraces weirdness. When you start reading this book you know to expect the unexpected from the first story. In Larue’s Dime Museum by Lisa Morton. The story follows a woman who is obsessed with the past and finds two photos that transport her back in time. I loved how this story opens leading you to believe it’s about a circus style sideshow. Then you start to realize it’s really about a photographer and a woman who wishes to be in another time. I loved the descriptions of the setting and hearing about the woman’s daily routine and how she sees the world around her.

Another good story in this anthology is Chivalry by Neil Gaiman. In this story, an old woman finds the holy grail in a second-hand store and before long Galaad comes on a quest to bring the grail to King Arthur’s Knights Of The Round Table. The woman does not want to give it up. Galaad keeps coming back with extravagant gifts and finally offers three gifts to the woman and the woman accepts two in exchange for the chalice but the one she rejects is a huge surprise in the story. I love how the woman rejects the gift and her reaction after Galaad leaves her. At this point you are left to wonder is she crying because she liked the attention from Galaad or is it because she really wanted the third gift. This story is a must read.

Another good one is the Wildflower, Cactus Rose by Brian Kirk. This is a completely original story about a woman who goes in for surgery to take care of a sleep apnea problem. She comes out mutilated and thinks her life is over. Her new gifts seem to change her life though as she finds it easier to do the right thing. There is a good message in this story about how the way you look doesn’t affect the life you choose. In reality, it’s our attitude that either draws people to us or pushes them away. The world is a mirror, you see what you want to see.

This book is full of great stories and one of the best is Clive Barker’s Jacqueline Ess: Her Will and Testament. This is an odd story about a woman who almost dies due to a suicide attempt. She then discovers she can make men do anything she wants and kill people with a simple thought. This one is fascinating because it is told from two perspectives and there is a bizarre love story involved. This tale can be described as a journey as you watch Jacqueline change as she understands her power and you watch the men around her change as they figure out what she can do. Behold! Oddities, Curiosities and Undefinable Wonders is a speculative fiction anthology that is a must read.

The editors, as you might have guessed from the odd subtitle, wanted to make a collection of literary horror stories. They got stories that were always psychologically sensitive, sometimes inventive in structure, on rare occasion sentimental, on other occasions very disturbing. I skimmed through the tale that had a mother wondering why she wasn’t as close to her daughter as she used to be while said child sneaks out of the house to throw herself onto a freeway. I was so upset about the beginning of a story of animal abuse that I delayed finishing this short anthology for months. Clive Barker was represented in an excellent story and the great Ramsey Campbell gave it a brilliant ending.

The best horror anthology I've read in years, Gutted is a true horror experience. We have Lovecraftian creepy crawlies, we have the undead, we have twisted and weird stuff. I really enjoyed this anthology. The artwork is creepy and so beautiful at the same time. Top-notch authors, great writing, and spooks galore. The cover shows you how dark the book is. Love it.

I won an ebook copy.

This is a fantastic collection of "beautiful horror stories". The beauty is literary, in phrasing and in the way the words paint a portrait. These are not the kind of stories that rely on graphic violence for shock, and there are no stereotypical characters. Instead, these are stories that wreck us psychologically, get under our skin and make us shudder.

Sometimes reviewing a collection of stories by various authors can be a challenge, as not every reader will like every author. I didn't have that problem with this collection. Yes, there were some stories that held me riveted more than others, but I did enjoy them all.

If you like your stories to cross over to the dark side, with some psychological torment, then this is the book for you.