Jeff Names the Planets

What an awful, boring yawn-fest. *Really* heavy on the 'Dark Fantasy' (which apparently means loads of bored, stuffy, slightly discomfited English people and names like Botheringstile--I know, try and slow your pulse, because there are a ton of bored, elegant rich vampires and bored, elegant werefolk too!), and the horror is mainly of the Earl Grey and stuffed armchair variety. The word 'stultifying' could have been invented just to describe this book.A couple of notable bright spots: 'Vampire Lake', which you may have seen before--a dark, sonorous, poetic piece of western horror, showing why Norm Partridge, at his best, is such a master.And what horror comp would be complete without a Stephen King story? This is a goddamn fine one, an old school short story all the way, quick, clean, and complete with a great ending. The kind of story that has always separated King from the pretenders, and the kind of story that shows how a storyteller will always be better than a writer of stories.