MrBallen Presents

Back in the 1980s, when I was a kid, one of my favorite reads was [b:True Stories You Won't Believe 15775712 True Stories You Won't Believe Don L. Wulffson https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1343564749l/15775712.SY75.jpg 21487281] by Don Wulffson. I was enthralled by the stories of alien invasion in Kelly, Kentucky, the man who appeared in two places at once, the boy who caused water to come up through the floor, and others. Some were just random coincidences or strange, but entirely believable stories (like Roy Riegels' infamous running the wrong way at a football game), but it's the creepy, paranormal stories that always brought me back. Looking back, these were just snippets from news articles, edited and compiled in this tiny volume, but my imagination ran wild with them.I was hoping Strange, Dark & Mysterious would scratch that same nostalgic itch. Unlike many other reviewers, I have no idea who MrBallen is. I went into these stories just looking for weird tales that would haunt me. I was hopeful that the added illustrations would stick in my brain and occasionally keep me up at a night. Unfortunately, neither the tales nor the illustrations did a whole lot for me. As a whole, I thought the stories were rather tame. I think a big part of this was the way they were told, very matter-of-factly without much color. And yes, that barebones style worked for me in the aforementioned True Stories..., but I was nine then. Now, I'd like to be pulled in more.Despite my lackluster response, I do think the first story in this collection, “The Valley of Headless Men,” somewhat succeeded at getting at what I was looking for. It was told in a believable manner, leaving me slightly spooked and curious about the mystery. After reading this story, I went to the Internet to learn more about the Nahanni Valley, a true measure of this tale's success. The rest of the stories in this collection I practically forgot shortly after finishing them. I wonder if my response was in part the medium: while the choice of using illustrations did add something, the lack of text took a big something away from the oral tale aspect one comes to expect from campfire tales.