The Quiet Game: Five Tales To Chill Your Bones

A good collection of horror shorts with variety and little repeating themes. At the end of each story, the author has a little explanation for them.

Beginning with “Addict”, I was worried that I picked a bad collection. It's told from a second-person point of view, which I'm always a little iffy about. I'm fine with it for really short stories but here it's a bit too long and too specific. I didn't feel it worked and it was hard to get through it. I did however like the plot, even if it was a bit confusing. A sex addict finally seeks help, and after watching a self-help program he begins to see illusions of women trying to get him to relapse. Of course with the author's explanation afterward, I understood, he wanted “You” to stand for all addicts, but it doesn't make the story any easier to read in my opinion.

“I'm Going To Be The Next James Bond” has a group of kids going into an abandoned building thought to be haunted. They of course run into trouble, and the ghosts were well done and creepy and I liked how non PC the dialogue was. The story gets the name because the main character loves action movies, going so far as wanting to become the next James Bond...

“In The Lady Ogre's Den” is about an autistic boy in a hospital who is tortured by a nurse and sees a black death wolf. You're never left to understand what is actually real, but you will feel for the boy. It's a really good and sad story. My favorite of the collection.

“The Quiet Game”, the story that the collection gets its name from, is the longest and it's really good. At St. Dunstan's School for Girls one day everyone wakes up and realizes they can't hear anything at all. While trying to figure out what is going on, a person named RGF hijacks the PowerPoint presentation and says they are all playing his game, the Quiet Game. It's a good back and forth mystery, and deals with the corruption of religious officials.

Ending with “Samson Weiss's Curse” we have a ghost revenge story that I wasn't really able to get into. A senator on the campaign trail suffers from escalating harassment and weird things until well... It's OK but the storyline has been done to death. The senator was a good character at least.

All in all, it's a worthwhile read and a good debut for the author.