Horror Stories

Twenty-Six Scary Tales

By: Jack Kilborn, J. A. Konrath

Narrated by: MacLeod Andrews

Length: 8 hrs and 26 mins

Publisher's summary

This collection features a menagerie of horror stories. Some are scary. Some are disturbing. Some are funny. Meet werewolves, vampires, zombies, psychopaths, aliens, cannibals, ghosts, and various things that go bump in the night.

Previously published in dozens of anthologies and magazines, some of these tales are mild, but some are extreme. Let the reader beware...

The stories include:

Finicky Eater - It's after a nuclear war, and a mother and her son are in a fallout shelter, the food long long...

The Screaming - Van Helsing and vampires, in 1960s England.

Mr. Pull Ups - A body modification tale taken to the extreme.

The Shed - Two burglars find the door to hell.

Them's Good Eats - Rednecks vs. aliens, on a spaceship ride of horrors.

First Time - A coming of age tale where all may not be what it seems.

Forgiveness - A dying serial killer asks for a priest to hear his last confession.

Redux - Ghost story noir, about a private eye and a deadly haunting.

The Bag - What's in the bag? You really don't want to know...

Careful, He Bites - Lycanthrope flash fiction.

Symbios - A sci-fi novella about man's first encounter with alien life, and how things can quickly turn bad.

A Matter of Taste - Zombie flash fiction.

Embrace - A bit of gothic horror.

Trailer Sucks - Some trailer park jerks kidnap a vampire.

Markey - Flash fiction, from a twisted point of view.

Punishment Room - A horrific suspense tale about a not-so-distant future.

The Confession - Terrible crimes, told entirely in dialog.

Basketcase - Hardboiled noir with a horrific twist.

The Agreement - A gambler pays the ultimate price to get out of a debt.

Well Balanced Meal - The worst restaurant you've ever been in.

S.A. - A werewolf novella about a Shapshifters Anonymous group that must battle Santa Claus.

Dear Diary - A very twisted pom pon girl reveals the secret of her inner strength.

Mr. Spaceman - We've come to mate with earth women.

Appalachian Lullaby - What do you do with a radioactive monkey?

©2010 Jack Kilborn, J.A. Konrath (P)2011 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

What are u talking about!?

I dont know what these other reviews are saying.. This book was awesome! The stories were fun and very imaginative! The narrator did a great job bringing the characters to life, while the stories themselves were well written and not so elaborate on every detail, that u get bored! I highly recommend this book to horror fans! VERY FUN!!

A chilling collection that offers genuine scares

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Definitely! The short story format is built for audio compatibility. It's like listening to scary stories around a campfire and, unlike a longer narrative, it is easier to keep from getting lost. It's also easier to binge, because you want to just keep listening to one after another.

What other book might you compare Horror Stories to and why?

I've read almost all of Kilborn's horror novels - he writes detective stories as Konrath - and these definitely fall in line. His contemporaries are Matt Shaw, Iain Robb Wright, and Blake Crouch - with whom he occasionally writes. This particular collection also calls to mind some of the more gruesome horror authors out there like Edward Lee. Some of these stories are rather stomach-turning.

Have you listened to any of MacLeod Andrews’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I'm relatively new to audio books, but MacLeod Andrews made for a great introduction. His reading is expressive and clear. His performance draws out the emotion of characters and never leaves the listener confused as to who's speaking or what's happening. A truly fantastic narrator.

If you could take any character from Horror Stories out to dinner, who would it be and why?

No, no, no - you definitely don't want to associate with any of these people. And any thoughts of food will probably be quashed after the first story. Yuck!

Best so far...

I've listened to quite a few books of short horror stories and this is the best book I've listened to in the last year.

stories were awesome

I seriously laughed at a few out loud, and a few made me squirm,. I've already listened to one or two of the stories over again. I looove horror....this guy is gold. I've read several of his books and haven't been disappointed yet!

Edgy and entertaining

What did you love best about Horror Stories?

You have to read/listen to Shapeshifters Anonymous. It was campy and silly and marvelous! I laughed out loud and I loved the ending. I'm going to go online and research the long lost 'Book of Bob'.

Any additional comments?

Jack Kilborn is to horror what Seth MacFarlane is to comedy. His writing is entertaining and he pushes the boundaries to the point of discomfort. Sometimes he crosses the line of decency. Sometimes I am disturbed by the subject matter. But I can't put it down. I HAVE to know how the story ends. He's just that good.

Loved it!

This was so good and also funny I highly recommend it was read by a great actor as well!

Unconventional horror

Most of these stories were creepy/gory, but the ones that weren’t were laugh out loud funny. Great listen. Highly recommend.

Chapter 24: The story is titled SA

Chapter 24 seems so familiar to me and it's because there was a Christmas special back in the eighties involving the creepshow anthology series and there was a Christmas episode titled Shapeshifters Anonymous with the same character name and everything.... But the author doesn't mention anything about the connection... Besides that some of the stories are pretty disturbing even for me and I'm a horror fanatic. The narration is great it definitely draws you into the story.

All Over the Place

It's really hard to give a fair review to a collection of short stories. Some of them were riveting, some I couldn't wait for them to end. I should give titles for each but since they are on my iPod (an old one) the collection is just that, a collection.

The narrator is good, he does a reasonably good job of shifting tone between stories for the most part. The only one that was kind of annoying was about some drug addicted petty thieves who encountered a vampire in their search for things to steal. It was set in England and the accents were a little hard to understand

Going with that theme, petty thieves, one of the stories about two men trying to steal something from an old man and were rewarded with an ugly surprise was not one I liked simply because the surprise was 'telegraphed'..but then the author's prologue on several of the stories does admit to that.

All in all I don't know that I would buy it again. Reading this one would have been more to my liking because some of the stories are really short and that makes for a choppy audiobook.

favorite book.

I liked about 90% of the stories in this book although I still wouldn't mind listening to the whole book. besides the stories, I like the narrator reading this book. I don't like narrators that just read the book or put very little effort in getting inside the book. this narrator gets inside each story and acts each part perfectly giving each person in every story the own personality. awesome job. definitely following this narrator!!!