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Shadow Rules
by John Makean

Release Date: 1st May 2009
Publisher: 3D Creative
ISBN: 978 0 9559 4571 7
RRP: £7.99

Average Customer Rating: 
(0.0 based on 0 ratings)

Short stories short on the scare factor...

Shadow Rules wants to be a compilation of stories that you share around the campfire or at sleepover – remember those days, when you would try to outdo your friends in offering up the scariest story you could think of? Unfortunately, as a collective it falls a bit flat, lacking the fizzle and pop that makes a memorable ghost or otherworldly tale.

First we have the namesake, “Shadow Rules”, a classic, if somewhat benign haunted house story. Its main source of interest is the unusual perspective proffering insight into the science of the paranormal through the main character’s sessions with a parapsychologist. Next, we have an uninspiring rendition of crop-circle junkies attempting to establish the rationale behind said crop circles, but with no real sense of suspense of creepiness. “Paranoia” is the shortest of the stories and also one of the better ones; leaving the reader hanging, thereby enabling them to use their own vivid imaginations and ensuring a maximum creep-out factor. The compilation wouldn’t be complete without the requisite near-death tale involving a couple, a car and the dark. By far, the most engrossing and menacing is “When Darkness Falls”, which is Orwellian in theme and offers a truly intimidating and chilling transcription of a government slowly taking control over the lives of its people. The notion of human culling makes your blood run cold and many will wonder at the approximation to current governmental proclivities to doing away with our individual rights.

Overall, Shadow Rules disappoints. Its lack of originality and distinct failing to induce any level of fear making the assemblage of short stories overly temperate in my view – I was looking for scares and thrills and sleepless nights, what I got was a growing sense of being cheated.

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