So far only read/listened to:

-- Property Condemned by Jonathan Maberry - DNF
It starts out with some young teens talking themselves into going into a "haunted house". I ended up quitting because I'm done reading stories with young protagonists. I hear it goes somewhere adult and dark but I'm just going to move on. Dialog like “Jeeeez,” said Stick softly, “Holy moley,” agreed Terry. "You haven’t been here, either—does that make you a sissy, too?” It probably wasn't transferring well from page to audio and I've lost interest now.

To Read:

-- Afterlife by Sarah Langan - I want to read it based on this comment in a Lucy Taylor interview: "For me a great story is one with multiple levels, where the horror increases exponentially as new facets of the character and his/her true situation is more accurately revealed. A great story leaves me gasping and breathless, wanting to immediately sit down and read it again to savor every nuance and subtlety. I could name dozens, but the one that immediately comes to mind is "Afterlife" by Sarah Langan, Nightmare Magazine October 2012." http://www.nightmare-magazine.com/fiction/afterlife/

Intriguing story of monsters told through the lens of the wild hunt mythology. It is a story of bleak survival and ice-cold revenge in the frozen landscape of Alaska and the northern continental US.

The first issue of "Nightmare", edited by John Joseph Adams, was released in October 2012 and features four new pieces of horror fiction. Adams provides an introductory editorial setting out the aims of "Nightmare", which at its most basic he describes as "to bring great horror short fiction to the masses". The first of these is "Property Condemned: A Story of Pine Deep" by Jonathan Maberry, which is a haunted house yarn with a difference. When four young kids, Crow, Val, Terry and Stick, dare themselves to enter the Croft House, a reputedly haunted old mansion on the edge of town, they see "ghosts", but not the type they bargained for. This is a good opening piece; it an engagingly written story of childhood and predestination that poses the question of whether it's possible to be haunted by the future? Next up is "Frontier Death Song" by Laird Barron, an excellent story about the Horned God and the Wild Hunt, with the story's hero pursued across America by the Hunt. The story has a hint of Lovecraft and a great feel for the Alaskan snowfields, possibly owing to Barron having raced the Iditarod on a number of occasions in the 1990s. It also ends with a superbly ambiguous finale that can be viewed as both upbeat and humorous as well as horrific. "Good Fences" by Genevieve Valentine has a protagonist slowly going out of his mind over a burnt-out car on his street that no one seems concerned about. The story has a good ambiguous feel as to whether the events are real or within the man's mind. The final piece of fiction is "Afterlife" by Sarah Langan which is a story of alienation and detachment that I found difficult to break into. The magazine has interviews with the four authors, which are very interesting despite being relatively short. The interviews focus on the author's stories that appear in the magazine and add a bit of additional depth and nuance to the tales. The magazine is rounded out by an artist gallery and interview with artist Jeff Simpson, who provided the cover for the issue, the first part of an extended interview with Peter Straub and an article entitled "The H Word: The Other Scarlet Letter" which discuss the value of the word horror in relation to literature, which is an interesting although slightly redundant piece. Overall "Nightmare" issue one was an excellent first issue and a good, bright introduction for a new magazine. The tales by Jonathan Maberry and Laird Barron, in particular, were both excellent, with the quality on offer boding well for the future. ( )

Jonathan Maberry's contribution makes this a solid debut for this sister to Lightspeed. ( )