Ghost Summer

 I don't normally comment on prose in my reviews; I generally feel like good writing fades into the background, so I want to take this first moment to state that Tananarive Due's writing is absolutely beautiful.  While I didn't fall madly in love with any of these stories (I came close with Ghost Summer, which is practically a novella, Danger Word, one of the only zombie stories I think I have ever really connected with, and Free Jim's Mine, which I imagined as a horrifying Morrowind quest), I can't think of a single one of them I disliked, or even felt "eh" about, which is an astounding feat in a collection of this size.  The characterization is all top-notch and several of these I would have happily read as a novel (I understand one of them was actually turned into a novel, and even a movie, and I'm going to have to pick that up).  I'll be keeping an eye on this author and adding a few more of her books to my to-be-read list, because she's got the craft down and can keep my attention, and because authors good at short stories are few and far between. I'm not sure any of these strictly "scared" me, but quite a few of them made me think about the horrors of life, and that in itself suggests a skill worth watching. This book was provided to me for free by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.