Thursday, December 17, 2009

Book Review: Fearful Symmetries By Thomas F. Monteleone


Fearful Symmetries By Thomas F. Monteleone
479 pages
Cemetery Dance Publications

For those of you horror geeks out there you probably know this Monteleone character is, Cemetery Dance columnist and long time contributer. He and his wife Elizabeth are also co-founders of borderlands press and runs the borderlands boot camp for writers that I am attending next month. I wanted to be as prepared as possible so I thought it would be a good idea to read some of his work. I got this wonderful short story collection from the library. I expected it to be good, but to be honest I was blown away by the quality of many of the stories.

Aspiring writers have more to find than just good yarns. TFM gives each story an introduction and there is a lot to learn from in the introductions alone. Just as important it can be inspiring to young writers to follow in order an authors progression as a short storyteller.

Like all great short story collections FS has stories that range from Dark to funny. Brutal to sentimental and best of all sometimes in the same story. My favorites were two very Twilight zone-ish tales “The Rehearsal” (Which is hands down my favorite in the book) and “The Night is Freezing Fast.” another highlight for me is Prodigal Son, which is an inventive take on a post vampire takeover of the world.

I think this was limited edition and is out of print but if you can find a copy it is one of the best you can read. Can't praise it enough.

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