Ask the Bones and its sequel, More Bones, both are short anthologies of "scary stories from around the world."
Sound familiar?
Yeah, it's the same as Robert D. San Souci's Short and Shivery series and I believe several of the tales repeat from there. I don't have them in front of me to verify, but I've definitely read some of these before.
I zipped through Ask the Bones when I got it and honestly wasn't very impressed. The only story I really liked was "Ask the Bones" itself. The opening tale "The Haunted Forest" doesn't even finish. It's one of those "you decide" stories, which I hate, because a story's literal job is to tell me what happened. The other stories either just didn't stand out to me or had endings on the down side, which gets tiresome after a while.
More Bones arrived yesterday and once again, I read it quickly. These stories were far better than those in the first book and held my attention a lot more. "The Prince's Fate" from Egypt was the best, being something Egyptian I've actually never read. (Minor points off for the use of "hieroglyphics" though.) A lot of them are also repeats from other books, but they're told enjoyably, so I didn't mind.
Neither of these books are the best of their type. I recommend the Short and Shivery series far more than these, but if you have read all the Short and Shiverys and want something more, try these out.
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