A World of Terror

by Christopher Shields (Publisher), Danielle DeVor, Murielle Cyr

The authors of ASMSG have determined this Halloween to be a great time for Terror. Ghouls, ghosts, vamps, death, and psychos reign in World of Terror. Twenty stories of fright and nightmares await you as you peruse these tales of fear and horror. Enjoy, and don't forget to keep a bed light on just in case.

Genres: Romance, Paranormal, Horror

91 pages, ebook

First published October 6, 2013

About the author

Christopher Shields lives in Northwest Arkansas with his family and three dogs. Following what he considers to be his calling, he is a professor of criminal justice at the University of Arkansas, in Fayetteville. He loves working with students during the day, and writing at night. Christopher also enjoys spending time with his circle of close friends, playing his sax, and indulging his life-long passion for the Arkansas Razorbacks.

Founder of the Goodreads Group: Modern Good Reads

Reviews

[chucklesthescot · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here is a brief bit about each one that I read:

Murielle Cyr-Class Reunion
A pupil from June's past arrives to ruin her chance of promotion.
I liked this one. June was a real bitch to her pupils and staff and you want her to get what she deserves. Nicely told and developed (3 star)

Danielle DeVor-Dawn
Something evil is chasing a boy and he is 'saved' by a werewolf.
I liked the tension filled start then it kinda fizzled out a bit. OK I guess (2 star)

Wodke Hawkinson-Death hates his job
The Grim Reaper becomes depressed over his role in people's lives and is shown how important he is.
It was a bit like a twisted form of It's a Wonderful Life. Ok. (2 star)

Simon Okill-Nightmare Circus
I'm still trying to work out what the hell this was about. It seemed a very confusing mix of dreams about a circus, a circus psycho gameshow and torture. It jumps around so much that I couldn't work out what was going on. (1 star)

Lucy Pireel-Hunger
The coven test a new recruit on a mission to the city to see if he defeats temptation.
This one has potential and had an interesting concept. Decent read. (2.5 stars)

Chad Huskins- Jesse came to the dead tree
Nobody believes that Hannah ever existed but Jessie knows that the garden tree took her and goes out for answers.
This was a creepy little tale with a nice twist. (2.5 stars)

Berk Washburn-Millie
Millie faces a night in the house alone with someone trying to break in.
This one was ok but so predictable. The twist was no surprise. (2 stars)

JJ Toner-The Perfect Woman
A scientist creates the perfect woman in a lab but he is not her perfect man.
Creepy, intriguing Frankenstein twist. Decent read. (3 stars)

JC Eggleton-The blight moon dark lords club
A first outing into society for the Ice Queen is not a success.
Boring posh club setting with bland characters. (1 star)

Tony Gilbert-The Clearing
Um, weird story about dying birds sucking the life out of people with creepy guy doing something? Bizarre, odd and boring. (1 star)

Billy Ray Chitwood-The Closet
The bedroom closet in a man's dream home is a place where aliens can abduct.
Sounds weird but this was a clever little story that I enjoyed. (3 star)

Ann Swann-The Fee
The cost of a fertility deal with the devil.
This was a creepy, atmospheric story that was enjoyable with a nice twist. (3 star)

PJ Perryman-The land of Nobel
A weird story about a deserted gas station sucking people into another dimension. (1 star)

Michelle Brown-The Maid
Weird and bizarre sci-fi about an infected spaceship and strange employee. (1 star)

Oscar Wager II-The Mansion
A poem? It wasn't good either. (1 star)

Joe Pringle-The old oak tree
Average story of a girl making contact with ghosts. (2 star)

Thomas Ryan-The Wooden Chest
Two kids travel to grampa's house and discover the family secret.
I really liked this one! You don't mess with grampa! (3.5 star)

Claude Nougat-Wrong Move
Boring family story. (1 star)

Lauren Scharhag-Zombie Anonymous
A group of zombies who rediscovered their emotions after a semi-cure meet at a self help group.
An intriguing read that I would like to see developed into a proper novella or novel. This has real potential. (3 star)

[Christoph Fischer · Rating 5 out of 5]

"A World of Terror" contains many different worlds of terror, it is in fact an amazing cross section of all types of horror: it contains werewolves, haunted school buildings, ghosts, flesh eating monsters and dead trees to name a few.
Bringing together a large ensemble of writers the pieces are naturally written in a broad variety of style which makes this a inspiring reading experience. The stories range from more classic horror settings with wooden chests, dead trees and the devil to modern ones with gps systems and Zombies Anonymous.
I was impressed with the versatility of some authors whom I know from their excellent writing in other genres,one even in children's books.
Credit is due to the skilled editing that has compiled this entertaining anthology in a way that never bores. The flow is perfect from the first story to the last.
There is great psychological terror in "Millie" and a well written modern take on Frankenstein in "The Perfect Woman".
This is a thrilling showcase of writing talent that has something good and scary for every fan of horror.

[Kyra Dune · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a diverse collection of short horror stories sure to have something for every appetite. Many of the stories I enjoyed very much, while others weren't to my taste. But that's the way it is when you a read collection like this.

My favorite was The Clearing by Tony Gilbert. It was creepy, cool, and fantastical, just the way I like my horror to be. I also really enjoyed Millie by Berk Washburn. Don't read it if it's dark and you're home alone. (Or do, if you want to spend the rest of the night listening for eerie whispers and creaking footsteps.) Death Hates His Job by Wodke Hawkinson was good too, not scary but interesting. I always like a good story about the Grim Reaper.

The best part about this anthology is that it's free. So why not download a copy? You're sure to find something to love and you might even stumble across a new favorite author

[Logan · Rating 1 out of 5]

1 star

This sucked. I'm not quite sure why ASMSG collections get such high ratings on this site, but after reading around three of them, they definitely don't deserve it. A lack of editing makes it bad, but what makes it worse is how awful most of the story ideas were. Around three or four of these stories deserve to be developed into full-fledged novellas, but the vast majority were just derivative, unoriginal, and badly written.

[Graham Downs · Rating 4 out of 5]

For the most part, I enjoyed this book far better than A World of Possibility, the first book in the series of anthologies by ASMSG Authors.

I found the stories to be generally well-written, the plots were good, and some of them were even quite funny. They were also all quite short, something I really like in a collection of stories. Some of the stories suffered from minor grammatical errors, inconsistent tenses, stuff like that, but not enough to detract from the stories themselves.

My only serious complaint is, like the aforementioned book, the Table of Contents is non-existent. There's a beginning and a midpoint (which I know from experience is what Smashwords generates, when the formatters neglect to put a proper TOC in). This made it impossible for me to go back to individual stories that I liked, to find out who the author is, and also for me to judge how many pages/screens I had left in each story as I was reading, which is important for me when I'm planning my reading sessions.

It's something that could've been put in very easily, but it's a glaring oversight that it's not there. And it really doesn't help the authors. I hope they fix it in a later edition (which are really easy to upload in today's world of e-books).

[Keefler Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really like this genre of books, especially this