This is the first multi-author compilation I've read in which every story was at least 3 stars (and that 3-star was, without a doubt, not because of low quality - it was just because of my own weird tastes). Most of the stories were 5 stars. I've never given a multi-author compilation above 3 stars total before.
Part of what made this compilation so good was the consistently high quality of editing. I didn't find any mistakes in the work, which is something I tend to find in at least one author's story in these compilations. I bet it's hard to get every story from multiple authors to feel like they're all done well and edited to their best!
Another thing that made the compilation so good was the darkness that linked them. Though the theme was very vague, the creepiness factor remained the same for all the stories. Though they had disparate settings, characters, and even sometimes genre, the collection went together very well. The order in which the stories were presented was also perfect; it went together like an album of music.
When I review a compilation, I like to leave a review of 3 stories: my favorite, one that stood out, and my least favorite. This time, I'm proud to say, I even liked the least favorite!
The Favorite: Padua's Eyes
HOLY MOLY. This story turned vampire stories on their head. Padua was a vampiric horse that helped her human rider seek vengeance for turning her father. Not only was the story an exciting bit of fantasy, but the journey that Padua and her rider Cordelia make is dark and filled with difficult decisions. I also loved the author's choice of a German-inspired setting. Even though it was simple, the small hints and flicks of German inspired names, dress, and activity gave it just that little kick that made this story my favorite.
The Standout: Red Flag
This was a Southern Gothic tale, and I loved it. There were all kinds of little niceties about how being quiet and maintaining honor was important, even if it was never explicitly stated. Though I think some of the Southernness was a bit heavy-handed, the short as a whole made good use of the setting. The first line of the story, "Shane told me he's going to kill somebody," leads to a paranoid, macabre set of twists and turns. By the ending I knew what was going on and what needed to happen, but I couldn't look away because it was so intense.
This was one of the stories in which violence occurs, but unless you're really, truly bothered by it, the paranoia and creepiness is absolutely worth it.
Least Favorite: Crimson Snow
Honestly, this story wasn't bad. There was mystery, a sense of dread instilled by the chilly setting, and a plot that had a beginning, middle, and end. It fit the book well. Even so, I guess it was my least favorite because the story blended reality and vision in a way that my brain, which was seeking easily digestible material at the time, decided it didn't want to try so hard. Eventually some monsters show up, and I thought it was ok but wasn't the more sociopolitical direction I'd thought the story was heading.
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Great Short Spooky Reads
It was nice to be able to read a short story before bed every night. There are some real treasures in here, and some others that didn't personally resonate with me, but overall, this is a great collection of scary stories for a really affordable price. I'm also so glad there's an audiobook! I highly recommend giving it a listen in the dark!
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Top reviews from other countries
- Jennifer hintonReviewed in the United Kingdom on December 28, 2020
A most enjoyable read!
- Josh KeownReviewed in the United Kingdom on November 22, 2020
A Strong Collection of Intriguing and Thoroughly Inventive Tales
Horror anthologies, particularly those featuring stories from a varied line-up of authors, have always been a solid cornerstone of my reading habits. There is something very exciting about picking up a collection and not knowing what you’re going to get; a sort of pick-and-mix bag containing lots of different flavours, if you will. It’s even more enticing when the collection features fresh writers such as this, offering a chance to discover newcomers to the field, and to experience new voices in the genre.Josh KeownA Strong Collection of Intriguing and Thoroughly Inventive Tales
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 22, 2020
Often, they’re not all going to be to your individual taste. But every now and again an anthology comes along that provides many more hits than misses, and for me, Collective Darkness: A Horror Anthology (2020), from Editing Mee, certainly fits that description.
As John M. Olsen aptly describes in the foreword, “In this case, the theme was ‘darkness’. This gives you a view into the mind of each author, and a little insight into the form of their personal demons, the things that make them jump and check over their shoulder when the shadows grow long”. This pretty accurately sums up the stories in Collective Darkness, being that they concern the theme of darkness itself, and how that idea is interpreted by all of the authors.
The quote also highlights the anthology’s greatest strength: every writer was given the freedom to depict the theme as they saw fit, making the stories feel personal to each author. Sometimes the darkness is figurative – such as in Becca Rose’s Brisket, Please or Elizabeth Suggs’ Into the Dark – the sort that lurks within the mind or heart, that grows and gnaws internally at the characters. Other stories offer a much more literal darkness – like that shown in B. Todd Orgill’s The Last Light or Chris Jorgensen’s The Fallout – the absence or distortion of light concealing monstrous horrors and beastly creatures.
This collection was actually brought onto my radar by several of the authors themselves, namely Elizabeth Suggs and Jonathan Reddoch, whose work ethic in promoting this project on social media platforms such as Instagram, hosting readings on Facebook, and all manner of things in between, has been truly admirable. It takes an awful lot of work to stand out from the crowd, particularly within the horror genre, so kudos to those two, and indeed the rest of the team, for their respectable effort in getting their work out and into the world. As mentioned earlier, I’ve always been a fan of the anthology format, so reading this was really a no-brainer for me.
Moving on to the stories themselves, I’ll start with the few little issues I had, and get those out of the way first. There were – as ever with anthologies – some minor niggles. There is quite a significant variance in story length, which I found somewhat disorienting. I’m not sure how word counts for each individual tale was approached, but certain stories felt like they could have benefited from more fleshing out, a bit more of the old ‘meat on the bones’ so to speak, as some of the longer ones almost eclipse them in the collection. Obviously given the nature of the anthology, not every story clicked with me, though that is more attributable to individual taste than anything else.
With that being said, a large portion of the stories on offer here did resonate with me, and many were original and very enjoyable as a result. If I were to select three personal highlights they would be – in no particular order – Red Flag, The Fallout, and The Breathing Wall. Written by K. R. Patterson, Red Flag details a mother’s growing concern with her emotionally detached son, weaving a compelling psychological tale about the relationship between a mother and her child to chilling effect. Chris Jorgensen’s The Fallout is an engrossing story of psychological breakdown, and of creatures lurking in a mysterious fog, in many ways evoking the excellent Stephen King novella The Mist (1980). Finally, The Breathing Wall from Samuel Smith is a hypnotic tale of scientific experimentation and the eldritch horrors it creates, set against the backdrop of an intriguing fantasy world, conjuring up wild images of godlike entities and unknowable monstrosities à la H. P. Lovecraft.
These are just a few of the twelve stories compiled together and on offer in Collective Darkness. There are many more besides, and they all have their own draws and individual character (special mention to Jonathan Reddoch’s unique vampiric tale, Padua’s Eyes), and make this an easy recommendation from me to all fans of the mysterious and the macabre. Delve into the darkness yourself, if you dare.
VERDICT: An anthology featuring a wide variety of horror stories from fresh faces in the genre, many of whom I’ll be keeping a keen eye on, Collective Darkness is sure to offer a little something for everybody. Overall, this is a strong collection of intriguing and thoroughly inventive tales, and I am personally looking forward to the future projects from Editing Mee and Collective Tales Publishing.
A solid 4 stars out of 5 from this reviewer.
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- Kyle J. DurrantReviewed in the United Kingdom on November 8, 2020
A pleasant variety of dark themes and writing
- C. MartinReviewed in the United Kingdom on April 1, 2021
A fun, varied collection of stories
