 |
| Great cover art. |
Roald Dahl’s Book of Ghost Stories is a collection of 14 ghost stories as chosen by acclaimed writer Roald Dahl. [From Wikipedia: Roald Dahl (1916 – 1990) was a British novelist, short story writer, fighter pilot and screenwriter. Born in Llandaff, Cardiff
I read the first six stories: W.S. by L.P. Hartley, Harry by Rosemary Timperley, The Corner Shop by Cynthia Asquith, In the Tube by E.F. Benson, Christmas Meeting by Rosemary Timperly and Elias and the Draug by Jonas Lie.
The stories are solid as ghost stories go. My hang up is ghost stories don’t have pop! A third to half the story is concerned with how the ghost came to be a ghost, the other half sets up the main character to somehow get caught alone with the ghost. Most times the character doesn’t know the ghost is a ghost until the predictable “reveal”.
In The Corner Shop, no shit, the last paragraph reads:
“Oh, now I understand!” She exclaimed. “You mean Bessie’s father! But Bessie and I are only step-sisters. My poor father died years and years ago.”
You mean the creepy old man in the antique shop, w-w-was … a-a-a … g-g-ghost! SHRIEK!
But as Dalh puts it in the introduction, I good ghost story should, “give you the creeps and disturb your thoughts.” The stories were vaguely tired, but as a read I couldn’t help imagining some interesting things.
Read the book if only for the intro. In 1958, Dahl was commissioned to collect 24 short ghost stories and write one of his own for a new television series called “Ghost Time”. Apparently this series was supposed to compete with the likes of The Twilight Zone, which was launched in 1959, but it was never made it past the pilot stage. Ghost Time was scrapped by producers because they felt the story the pilot was based on would offend Catholics—a target demographic.
Whoops.
If you want to write a book, contact Sudden Publishing at http://www.suddenpublishing.com/.
