Review: Halloween Carnival Volume 5

Halloween Carnival Volume 5 by Richard T. Chizmar
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Review: HALLOWEEN CARNIVAL VOLUME 5
Edited by Brian James Freeman
Stories by Richard Chizmar, Lisa Tuttle, Norman Prentiss, Kevin Quigley , Peter Straub

Included in this new volume are a quintology of stories centered around the Halloween theme, though they range beyond that. For example, Richard Chizmar' s "Devil's Night" commences on October 30, "Devil's Night," or "Mischief Night"--the date immediately preceding Halloween. Norman Prentiss' "The Halloween Bleed" (for this reader, the set-piece and foundation of the quintology) postulates, via a pontificating "old-school" academic, that the cultural celebration of Halloween--not just on the day itself, but the conversation, thinking, retail sales, planning, and so forth--bring the nature of Halloween earlier and earlier in the year, so that the concept of Halloween "bleeds" into much of the year. (Although the professor's premise relates to the Dark Arts, I found it pertinent to the "thought is creation" premise: by virtue of so many of us--readers, authors, journalists, children--thinking in Halloween terms--we are striving to bring to pass that "Halloween Bleed" on which Professor Sibley insists.)

View all my reviews