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Title: Isaac Asimov's Halloween by Gardner Dozois, Sheila Williams ISBN: 0-441-00854-2 Publisher: Ace Books Pub. Date: 29 August, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $5.99

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Average Customer Rating: 2 (3 reviews)

Rating: 4
Summary: A Great Book for Relaxed SF Fans.
Comment: I found the collection to be an excellent selection of spooky, funny and always extremely readable tales perfect for Halloween. No, you won't find Algernon Blackwood or the all-too obvious HP Lovecraft. However, I felt not the least bit guilty setting these venerable literary corpses aside to read some of the modern talents of the SF field. Macleod, Duncan, and Sanders were all stand-outs for me. I also enjoyed the Lovecraft homage "The Shunned Trailer." Too bad they couldn't include the hilarious art from the magazine along with the story.

You can't go wrong with the Asimov's titles. This is my favorite next to Isaac Asimov's Moons. I suppose my advice to all of the potential readers out there is this: Put the lights low. Relax. Enjoy a few hours of guiltless, spooky fun! Pumpkin pie and your Mom optional.

Rating: 1
Summary: Deceptive Packaging
Comment: It's not that the stories in this collection aren't good ones. In fact most are very good indeed. But the book itself is a very misleading package. To begin with despite the title there are no stories by Isaac Asimov, he didn't edit the book (some of the stories were written after he died) and had no connection with it. Except that evidently the stories first appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. Which is not enough to justify putting Isaac Asimov's name on the cover.

Also the stories are not about Halloween. They are merely horror or dark fantasy stories. They aren't even necessarily scary; many of them are humorous. (A couple pretty funny, I must admit.)

Worst of all, the book itself is defective. The story "Dikduk" by Eliot Fintushel just stops in the middle, halfway down the page. The last part of the story is completely missing. At least it is in my copy.

All this is a shame because most of the stories are pretty good. (Though not new. All of them are reprints.) If it had been called "Dark Fantasy From Asimov's S.F. Magazine" or some such, and if the publisher had paid attention and not let the printer lose half of what might be the best story in the book, it would be a book worth having. As it is I can't recommend it. Why encourage dishonest packaging and sloppy production?

Rating: 1
Summary: Where's Halloween?
Comment: With a title Halloween and a JOL in a space suit you're thinking there might be some cool Halloween stories set in space? There were no space stories and no Halloween stories. Just a collection of horror stories that had nothing to do with Halloween. I feel like the title and the cover were false advertising. I don't want a horror book, I wanted Halloween!