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Four Summoner’s Tales
It is part of the Joe Ledger #6.5 series and is a in Paperback edition on September 17, 2013 and has 321 pages.
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Four short stories of horror in this anthology revolving around the basic plot of someone offering to raise the dead…for a price.
Series:
“Alive Day” (Joe Ledger, 6.5)
My Take
All four were horrorific in varying degrees. And all four were well written as complete stories with backgrounds and developed characters.
The Stories
Kelley Armstrong‘s “Suffer the Children” is a nasty bit of complex betrayal in a small village outside Ontario in the nineteenth century, and I cried so at the end.
Christopher Golden‘s “Pipers” was the most depressing as events fall apart around the townsfolk. People who mostly hoped to bring back their loved ones, but were pushed and blackmailed into continuing with a deadly plan.
David Liss‘s “A Bad Season for Necromancy” was my least favorite as the “hero” was such a weak man who preyed on others for his own advancement. Although Liss did provide for this aspect of Reginald/January with the effects of being revived.
Jonathan Maberry‘s “Alive Day” is the most horrific, partially because Maberry leaves so much to my confused imagination, and partially because he was so brilliant in pulling me into the terror of what happened to Finn in Afghanistan.
The Cover and Title
The cover is actually not so scary with its behatted man in a leather coat, his back to us as he stands in the rain in the middle of a cemetery.
The title is short and to the point, for these are Four Summoner’s Tales. Hope they never summon you!
