Reviews

The Fading Light anthology: 30 Short Stories About Darkness

By June 9, 2020June 11th, 2020No Comments

I just love anthologies – they give me a chance to discover names, who I’ve never heard of before.

Fading Light: An Anthology of the Monstrous was a real godsend for me. This book includes 30 stories, created by not only experienced but also new writers.

My First Impression About The Book

Fading Light was released in 2012, however, I’ve bought it not long ago. It’s available on the Internet as a paperback book (I tried to find an audio version, but, apparently, it doesn’t exist). 

The compilation has a nice cover with an impressive picture – huge tentacles are stretching to the ground from the heavens. A few names of the authors are listed below the picture – Mark Lawrence, Gene O’Neill, William Meikle, David Dalglish, Gord Rollo, Nick Cato, Adam Millard. There are women among the authors as well – for example, Georgina Kamsika.

In spite of the fact the anthology is multi-genre (horror, science fiction, and fantasy stories сo-exist under one cover), it’s very easy to read- I think, we should thank the editor, Tim Marquitz, for that.

A promising theme unifies all the stories – darkness.

Life In The Darkness: Plots And Characters

The light has failed. Man isn’t already the master of the world. People try to protect themselves or their loved ones from mysterious evil day by day. The narrators witnessed a ghastly tragedy at best…

The majority of characters have nothing in common with superheroes. We meet a waitress, a teacher, a traveling family.

Some of the stories in the book are creepy (Friends of a Forgotten Man by Gord Rollo, Late Night Customer by David Dalglish), others are full of hope (Dark Tide by Mark Lawrence).

It’s interesting that the action does not necessarily occur in the Future.  Let’s say, Carl Barker’s characters (The Beastly Ninthby) are Napoleon’s contemporaries.  

The short stories in Fading Light are amazingly moreish – you are going to spare a moment and read a couple of the stories, but the moment turns into three hours. Almost each of them captures your attention from start to finish.

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