Never Bet the Devil by Orrin Grey
Orrin Grey is one of our fellow crypt keepers at the Countdown to Halloween . Never Bet the Devil is the first of two short story collections that he's published thus far (Painted Monsters, being the second). It has recently been republished in a gorgeous limited edition hardcover, with an additional story not included in it's initial publication.
The stories are all outstanding. Grey is much more interested in conveying the strange and peculiar tropes of horror than the "horror," and I have no problem with that. It's as if someone handed Grey a big trunk full of essential elements of the genre in toy form and he's having a blast playing with them. I find his enthusiasm contagious, and watching what he's done with these toys was almost as much fun as playing with them myself.
The stories vary in length, but include disturbing artifacts, giant slumbering old gods, strange experiments, unsettling artworks, monsters of all kinds, creepy old houses with mysterious basements, and the devil incarnate. Never Bet the Devil makes for perfect Halloween reading.
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