Things I’ve Noticed: Some short story collections are better than others

Today I finished the short Story Collection, Dark Feasts: The World of Ramsay Campbell. I’ve only ever read one novel by the author – The Doll Who Ate His Mother, which was a pretty good read and created a kind of monster I had never read before. The reason I read this collection is that it was the 100th book of from the non-ficiton title, Horror: The 100 Best Books, which I’ve reviewed elsewhere.

This collection features a selection of short stories written by the author presented in publication order – specifically stories published from 1964 to 1987. This gives the reader the ability to see how the author has changed and grown over the years, from his earliest Lovecraft-inspired stories, through to some of the creepiest stories I’ve read in quite a while.

*Quick note – my personal favourites of the collection were In The Bag (1976), The Companion (1977), and The Fit (1980).

Earlier this year I read The Call of Cthulhu and other Stories, by H.P. Lovecraft which worked in the same format, allowing the reader to see the evolution of the author's style.

I do enjoy all types of anthologies and regular short story collections, but there is something I’m finding really cool about reading stories which were published over a long period of time and show just how much a writer's skill can grow.