{"id":1704,"date":"2018-12-31T12:00:54","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T01:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/?p=1704"},"modified":"2018-12-31T21:27:56","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T10:27:56","slug":"book-review-hark-the-herald-angels-scream-christopher-golden-editor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/?p=1704","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Hark! The Herald Angels Scream \u00e2\u20ac\u201d  Christopher Golden, editor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/batrock.net\/keep\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/36700645.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1705\" width=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/batrock.net\/keep\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/36700645.jpg 255w, https:\/\/batrock.net\/keep\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/36700645-195x300.jpg 195w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 255px) 100vw, 255px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">December is a rough month for reading and, depending on the reader, any Christmas themed book undertaking may well keep you occupied well past the day of festivities. Hence <em>Hark! The Herald Angels Scream <\/em>was finished on New Year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Eve. The best thing about it is the title, which isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t exactly a shame, but this collection of vaguely Christmasy horror is a mixed-bag, and a randomly curated one at that. These eighteen stories range from twelve pages to novella length, and a lot of them have exactly the same ending: children dying, women screaming in another room or, often, an unholy combination of the two \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and then, consecutively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not entirely clear why <em>Hark! The Herald Angels Scream <\/em>begins with a streak of its weakest stories, including a travel nightmare where the people \u00e2\u20ac\u0153punished\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for Christmas infractions are completely innocent. There are a few transferable curses on display, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a stern warning of the dangers of technology in that unbelievably accelerated way those sorts of stories take on, and also a bizarre entry in what is presumably a pre-existing world that remarkably little information exists about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But <em>Hark! The Herald Angels Scream <\/em>is not without its gems: Jeff Strand\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s brief \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Good Deeds\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is a genuinely amusing study of a truly awful Christmas song, which is particularly relevant to the last six weeks of the year when all of the music in public spaces is both a) about Christmas; and b) somehow something you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never heard before from that incredibly specific cottage industry; \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a Wonderful Knife\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, editor Christopher Golden\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s contribution, does more than coast on its title and offers a magical movie history time travel revenge tale; John McIlveen\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yankee Swap\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is a seasonal <em>Saw <\/em>take that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t quite stick the landing but is arresting up until that point; Tim Lebbon\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Home\u00e2\u20ac\u009d provides a post-apocalyptic ritual in a world that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s moved on; and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all tied together by Sarah Pinborough\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s quite long \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Hangman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Bride\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, which starts with a chimney adventure and is almost as emphatic as Dickens at assuring us that Tiny Tim did NOT die by the end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Hark! The Herald Angels Scream <\/em>isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a consistent collection, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not overly fun to dip in and out of, but there are a few pieces genuinely worth the time. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an impressive collection of authors, but apart from the final story there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no logical order to proceedings. Horror and Christmas are bedfellows from way back \u00e2\u20ac\u201d <em>A Christmas Carol <\/em>is a ghost story after all, and through it Dickens invented the modern conception of the day \u00e2\u20ac\u201d but <em>Hark! The Herald Angels Scream <\/em>isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t quite enough to put you in the festive mood enough in time for the day itself.<br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>December is a rough month for reading and, depending on the reader, any Christmas themed book undertaking may well keep you occupied well past the day of festivities. Hence Hark! The Herald Angels Scream was finished on New Year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Eve. The best thing about it is the title, which isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t exactly a shame, but this collection of vaguely Christmasy horror is a mixed-bag, and a randomly curated one at that. These eighteen stories range from twelve pages to novella length, and a lot of them have exactly the same ending: children dying, women screaming in another room or, often, an <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1HLZ6-ru","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1704"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1707,"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1704\/revisions\/1707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}