Judy Comeau reviewed 'The Monster, the Bad, and the Ugly' and 'The Beauty of Death' anthology

Judy Comeau reviewed on Tomb of Dark Delight 'The Monster, the Bad, and the Ugly' by Paolo Di Orazio and me, and 'The Beauty of Death' Anthology, edited by me. Excerpt of the review:

I’m devoting this Halloween to Italian horror. What would horror be without all of those great Dario Argento and Mario Bava films—I can’t think of better Halloween viewing! And now horror fiction has its own new Italian master, Alessandro Manzetti, award-winning poet/author/editor whose work I’m recommending as the perfect Halloween fiction treat for dark minded Readers.

THE MONSTER, THE BAD AND UGLY AND OTHER STORIES by Alessandro Manzetti and Paolo Di Orazio
I just love that the title of this anthology of dark tales references the Italian Western film that made Clint Eastwood famous, because I love horror and I love Westerns. Author/artist Paolo Di Orazio contributes both art and fiction to this delightful book, striking just the right tone with both. Alesandro Manzetti is talented poet as well as a prose writer, and his lyrical approach to the horror tale makes for an exquisite storytelling. This marvelous collaboration contains tales that range from graphic horror to dark psychological terror. Allesandro Manzetti opens the antho with a shocking and gory tale of The Battle of Little Big Horn, a battle that is fought yearly on the supernatural plane by a weary Custer, raised from the dead to fight again and again in “Long Hair’s Inferno.” Paolo Di Orzio has written perhaps the penultimate pregnant woman’s nightmare in his story, “The Incubator.” And there is more—much more! Whether the tales are about serial killers, prostitutes, or evil personified, each tale is beautifully crafted and entirely entertaining. This is a worthy volume of stories from Allesandro Manzetti and Paolo Di Orzio that readers of dark fiction will enjoy. Bravo!

THE BEAUTY OF DEATH edited by Alessandro Manzetti and Jodi Renee Lester
This is a huge anthology both literally and figuratively speaking, weighing in at nearly 700 pages of dark fiction created by a stellar group of both established and upcoming practitioners of terror tales. Most of the stories have never been published previously, and there a few superbly selected reprints from Shane McKenzie, Ramsey Campbell, Poppy Z. Brite, Alesandro Manzetti, Del Howison, Maria Alexander, and the inimitable Peter Straub. Monica O’Rourke opens the anthology with her trademark mixture of terror and humor, followed by a bleak dark fantasy by Thersa Matsuura, which is an indication of the depth and breadth of the style of tales that follow. Each of the stories followed the broad theme of this anthology summed up in the title, and death arrives in these pages in all manner of guises, exposing the terror, the beauty, and often the hilariously funny facets of the final moments of life faced by each of us. Lisa Morton exposes the daily horrors experienced by caretakers of the aged in “In the Garden.” The tables are turned on a group of hunters stalking a dangerous mythical creature in Daniele Bonfanti’s “Game”. Famed gore master Edward Lee grosses us out again in a gleefully vicious excerpt from “White Trash Gothic.” Bruce Boston and Marge Simon have created a poetically chilling reinterpretation of a beloved children’s fairy tale in “Cold Finale.” Kathryn Ptacek’s “The I of the Beholder” is a chilly but exquisitely touching story of an isolated young woman who struggles to make sense of her separation from her world and from herself. Although the voice and subject matter of each story is quite different, the result of the stories taken as a whole is cohesive and satisfying as a volume. THE BEAUTY OF DEATH is perfect Halloween reading.

​Read the review on Tomb of Dark Delight