As I almost always say, I received this book in a GoodReads giveaway. Despite that kind consideration my candid opinion follows.

The simplest thing I can say about this is to simply compare it to the old Creepshow comic books but in short story format. Most of the stories adhere to the standard formulas of “something unexpected trying to kill you” or “people/things travel between dimensions” or “human comes in contact with some powerful artifact and funny things happen.” I suspect that you get the idea.

From a qualitative standpoint this book is fairly typical of the genre. I’d not think any of the stories out of place if they were to appear in a fantasy or sci anthology of the 60s. While the author’s tales aren’t especially novel (there’s nothing here that made me say, “wow! That’s new!”) I’d say the execution and writing is reasonably tantalizing and had the desired emotional effect. At times I was pretty potently creeped out, which I suspect was exactly the point.

As with all self-published works I’ve ever read, there were a few times that I wanted to take out a highlighter and mark up some minor error. These things are never perfect, but issues were few and far between and largely ignorable. Also, the author’s longer works seemed to over-tease a bit using phrases like “Things would never be the same again…” repeatedly within the same story, making the reader sit up a bit and wonder if he’d skipped to another story somehow. Despite that small glitch, Swartwood really shines in the longer form stories. The author’s shorter stories get efficiently and quickly to the point but leave the reader rather breathless wanting a more developed narrative.

In summary, the author has provided for us a nice, well-written collection of creepy campfire tales. There’s nothing especially deep here but I don’t really think that was the intention. This is well-crafted pulp thriller-gore and nothing more, but even that said it’s a worthwhile trip for fans of the genre. ( )