Monday, June 20, 2011

Peaceable Kingdom written by Jack Ketchum






Peaceable Kingdom is a collection of short stories and novellas written by Jack Ketchum and published by Leisure books in 2003. It contains 3 stories that won Jack Ketchum the Bram Stoker award for best short stories. I am pretty sure this book is now out of print,but shouldn't be too hard to find.

I became a fan of Jack Ketchum back in 2008,and after reading a few of his novels I wanted to try out some of his short stories. I got lucky and found this book at the nearest bookstore. This book has 32 stories in it. The Box was nominated and won Jack his first Bram Stoker award. It is a short tale of a young boy who wants to know what is in the box a strange on the bus is holding and the effects this knowledge has on the boy and his entire family. The Rifle is a story about a mother that find out her son has a gruesome hobby and decides to punish him for it. Gone is the second story that won Ketchum a Bram Stoker award. It is a tale of a mother who child has disappear a few years before the story starts and the pain she suffers when on Halloween night she gets a small clue as to what happened to her daughter. Closing time won Jack his third Bram Stoker award. It is a story that Jack wrote to help him deal with his feelings after the 9/11 attacks. The rest of the stories in this collection range from brilliant to so so. But it is worth picking up if you are a fan of Jack Ketchum. Peaceable Kingdom gets a solid B+.