Midnight Graffiti

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Granted, “Rant” has lost some of its luster of the years, probably because I’ve seen it reprinted in at least three other volumes (including the lackluster “Splatterpunks II”, which in terms of sequels, goes over about as well as Gremlins 2).

It turns out that the cover illustration is actually by some total fraud named Martin Cannon, just some unfortunate slob without an original style of his own, proving he’s capable of producing something as derivative as possible of the style of Giger, sans talent. I would prefer to be almost entirely unaware of the editor's existence, and allow their selections to speak for themselves.

Bad Guy Hats: I liked the idea behind this, but there was too much graphic violence for me to enjoy it. The final story, "Dark Embrace," comes from (mercifully silent) co-editor James Van Hise and is an adroit, if somewhat predictable, story of a boy who is forced to mature with cruel haste. Some stories though, were a bit tough to get through and I found myself grinding through them to get to the next one. Several were interesting in portraying the point of view of part of society: Rainy Season, Say Hello Mister Quigley, Emerald City Blues, Rant.

She opens the anthology with an eight-page introduction, smugly explaining to her readers every obvious, bromidic reason that people are fascinated by horror. Rather shockingly, Neil Gaiman, who I usually couldn’t care one way or the other about, actually has one of the few worthwhile reads within, with “Murder Mysteries”, a roundabout indictment of God’s alleged Master Plan and borrowing heavily from the once-popular mythos of something referred to as 'heaven' and ‘angels’. Midnight Graffiti (Warner Books, Oct 1992) is an engaging anthology from the now-defunct magazine of the same name from the late '80s. This might be the lowest point of the book, that two authors expected to deliver the big hits are poorly represented. I will give reasonable warning that the biggest difference with this collection from others I have read is the editing.Just knowing that this was tucked away in my laptop bag brought back a flood of memories from my angst-ridden high school days, pitifully eking out an existence as the typical underachieving, uninspired white kid in Suburbia, USA. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products.

Sadly, of the nineteen stories collected herein, these are the only five I’d even care to bother with again. And then… there were the other stories… which delved into insane issues, off-kilter writing styles, violent twisted viewpoints, and drugged deranged plots that made me feel uncomfortable… which, even though they were not my cup of tea, I still highly admired because I love reading and seeing things from different perspectives than my own. Under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, King has written the books The Running Man, The Regulators, Thinner, The Long Walk, Roadwork, Rage, and It. Among those I found to be particularly unreadable: "The Domino Man," "Salvation," and most of all, "Rant" by Nancy A. The rest of the stories in the book I didn't finish because either there was too much violence or I had no clue what went on and had to stop reading (something that I almost never do).NANCY COLLINS demystifies the messiah reborn, an avenging angel of the suburbs with a strange and savage appetite. I’m quite happy to have stumbled upon this book at a yard sale and will be keeping it in my collection. In 2003, he received the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.