'Tales from the Graveyard' – Guy N. Smith (Sinister Horror Company)


This is a collection of horror stories originally published in ‘Graveyard Rendezvous’, the Guy N. Smith fanzine, that ran from 1992 - 2012. They feature mayhem and murder, cannibals, zombies and spectral beings which lurk in deserted graveyards during the hours of darkness, and numerous other blood curdling stories.

This collection also features a brand new story ‘Sabat: The Robber’s Grave’.

I had a lot of fun with Guy N. Smith's 'From the Dark Hours' a week and a bit ago (it feels like so much longer than that, time flies and all that...) so in the spirit of picking up books that I know I'll enjoy, I didn't hang around in grabbing a copy of 'Tales from the Graveyard'. I also grabbed a copy of 'Nightmares from the Black Hill' but lets not get ahead of ourselves, I'll talk about that another time.

I tore through 'Tales from the Graveyard' over the course of yesterday which should tell you everything that you need to know. You probably want a little bit more than that in a post though, right? Okay, here goes...

For a relative newcomer to Guy N. Smith's work (I mean, I feel like I've read a lot of his books but there are so many more to go...), I'm really grateful that someone took the trouble to collect all these short stories, from the original fanzines, here so I could read them. This is all stuff that I would never have known about, and therefore never have read, otherwise. I can get pretty obsessive over collecting books but fanzines are another thing entirely, I wouldn't have known where to start looking. So yes, thanks Guy and the Sinister Horror Company for putting this book together. I know it wasn't for me but you helped me out all the same ;o)

As for the stories themselves... I used to be able to post a little something about every single short story in a collection but not these days; I'm way too old for that kind of endeavour ;o) Lets just say that the only entry that I couldn't finish was 'The Werewolf Legend' and that wasn't really it's fault, I just don't get on too well with non-fiction stuff so bailed just over halfway through.

The rest of the book though is a good mix of chills and thrills. Yep. We're not just about the horror here.as private eye Raymond Odell makes an appearance in 'The Case of the Ostrich Slasher' and 'The Howling on the Moors'; a couple of short but very sweet pulp detective stories that show, once again, that Smith really was capable of turning his hand to anything and coming up with a very readable adventure. I know there's a 'Raymond Odell Casebook' floating around somewhere, I'll have to check that out now.

I'm still all about the horror though and there's plenty of that here to keep you on your toes. I always feel a little weird saying what didn't work for me as I don't think you should base your 'scary reading' around what scared me. What scares me might not scare you and vice versa. On the whole though, it was more hit than miss. My personal highlights were 'The Executioner' (nice twist in the tale!), 'I Couldn't Care Less' (again, great twist) and 'The Shooting on the Moss' (because I love a bit of creeping dread that you actually get to see right at the end). There wasn't a lot in it though, there are a number of stories here that are very good at what they do.

'Tales from the Graveyard' is another collection that I suspect fans will get the most out of but there's also a lot here to recommend to newcomers, who want to find out what Smith was all about, as well of fans of old-school pulp horror in general. A short but grim read that has got me in the mood for similar in the lead up to Halloween...

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