Even Odder - Reviews

Steve Burt appears to be a rarity—an ex-minister and storyteller who’s not afraid to explore the dark side for the purpose of giving readers thrills and chills. He’s willing to send his characters there to teach them lessons, yes, but also just for the joy of telling scary stories, or stories that lean in the direction of eerie, with occasional stops at plain bizarre.

In this fifteen story follow-up to the Young Adult collection Odd Lot: Stories to Chill the Heart, Burt tells of old men and children, both innocent and not-so, doing normal things or strange things, but then having to cope as even stranger things occur. Burt’s short stories are plain of language and straightforward, mostly devoid of stylistic tricks. They jump right into the action without frills or unwarranted distractions, but then they meander down narrow, uncharted corridors—often ending up nowhere near where you might expect.

Some of the better tales include “The Peanut Harvest,” where the concept of fingers and thumbs found among peanut shells ends very weirdly indeed, and “Caretaker,” in which an apprentice learns what his uncle actually mows in a potter’s cemetery (for convicted felons). “Door Number Three” proves that an overgrown nose hair can be very unsettling, while in “The Camp,” three boys break into a house and find a real “pool table” and its grotesque contents. Surreal is the order of the day in “Visitation Rights,” in which a baby is kidnapped by a gorilla, and in “Neighborhood Watch” two old men investigate an odd factory break-in. In the more traditional “Carousel,” a nervous father glimpses the creatures who ride his children’s backs on the merry-go-round, and in “Beneath the Streets,” boys square off against giant rats and their sibling in a storm drainage tunnel. Old favorites like the vampire, the Wendigo, the banshee, and even the animated ventriloquist’s puppet make appearances, but in untraditional ways.

The collection is surprisingly uncompromising, considering the youthful audience at which it’s aimed. Narrated with enviable simplicity and directness, the stories can be enjoyed by readers of all ages, providing they’re willing to part with the normal and accept the weird. Even Odder was a finalist for the Young Readers 2003 Bram Stoker Award, and deservedly so. Excellent illustrations by the talented Jessica Hagerman could easily have been doubled in number. Steve Burt’s attraction for the eerie seems obvious and genuine—as a training ground for more adult tales of horror and the bizarre, this grouping can’t be beat.
— Review by William D. Gagliani
Cemetery Dance magazine (#49, Summer 2004)

Stories that will have you shaking in your shoes

I’m sure all of you out there have, at one time or another, most likely during childhood, told tales around the campfire or during slumber parties, strictly for the purpose of scaring the heck out of one another. Well, if this style of storytelling is your thing or if you have just become tired of the standard spooky tales about hooks found in car doors of young necking couples and disembodied hands walking the floors, this book is for you.

Even Odder: More Stories to Chill the Heart will do what the title infers and more. These 15 short horror stories are creatively ripe and totally unexpected. Written by Steve Burt as a writing exercise and a way to alleviate writer’s block, these creepy tales will have you shaking in your shoes as you read stories about banshees, vampires, wendigos and other assorted unknown creatures.

Each story is compact, fitting into 10 pages of less. Burt utilizes each and every word to draw the desired emotions from the reader. This economy of words is essential when concocting tales that are intended not only to be read, but to be told and retold verbally.

Each story is written in the first person, thereby putting the storyteller in the midst of the action, making a more realistic journey towards the ending twist. Some of the stories were so real at first that you could almost picture Burt having gone through these events, especially in tales where the characters were young people.

When the teller of Beneath the Streets began with the popularity of Wham-O slingshots in the 1950s and that he and all of his friends had owned them, the reader immediately identifies that the teller is an adult relating an incident from his youth. Each story reaches out to the reader in this way, in order to create a bond with him or her. When the reader can relate to the characters on a more intimate level, it draws him or her deeper into the plot and increases the emotional impact. Burt does a superb job with this.

A pastor and professor by profession, author Steve Burt has become an accomplished award-winning writer. He has garnered such prestigious writing awards as the Ray Bradbury Creative Writing Award, Readers’ Choice Award from The Storytellerand an Editor’s Choice Award from My Legacy. He is also a public speaker who is known for his use of storytelling to further the learning process. Now a full-time writer and storyteller, Burt has retired from ministry.
— Review by Elyse Thibodeaux, staff writer
The Examiner’s SETX Entertainment Guide (Southeast Texas - March 11-17, 2004)
RATING 5 Stars out of 5

Steve Burt’s debut horror collection, Odd Lot, contained an interesting group of thoughtful and occasionally quite original ghost stories … Burt’s new book, Even Odder, is aimed at the Young Adult market … the Goosebumps and Charmed crowd, where it will undoubtedly find many fans. … Most of the stories would fall into a category perhaps described as ‘weird tales’. Roald Dahl comes to mind, as some of the tales have a sting in the tail like many of his, and a few of the stories even recall Robert Aickman or Thomas Ligotti, albeit retold for the middle school set. The average young adult reader who likes creepy stuff will probably enjoy these tales very much; I know I would have at that age. … By all means buy it for the young person on your list who likes spooky tales.
— Excerpts from review of Even Odder by Rob Grano
All Hallows 34, the Magazine of the Ghost Story Society (Oct 2003)

"You know how you just hate it when you're enjoying the book you're reading and it suddenly ends, last page, game over? Me, too!  That's why I'm so glad that award winning author Steve Burt wrote a second collection of creepy, grisly and ghostly stories. Dark fantasies abound in this volume of shorties that are custom designed for hot summer nights.  Jessica Hagerman's marvelous artwork make these tales of fun and terror even more fun and terrifying (see her illustration on page 61 for "Chancey's Puppetry"--scary puppets! I love scary puppets!).  Enjoy these cool little stories that you can share with your kids and, if you're a kid, you can share with your parents. Spooktacularly entertaining summertime reading.  Click on the cover and get yourself a copy.  And maybe one for the kids, too!  Highly recommended."
— J.L. Comeau, Tomb Keeper for The Creature Feature Tomb

"Personally, scary stories don’t scare me but some of these did. Steve Burt really wrote Even Odder with a lot of suspense. He described the setting and the characters so well that the reader could feel like you were in it. I can relate to these scary stories because I also write scary stories myself. I also like these kinds of stories because it keeps me reading. The novel had many interesting stories but this is one I liked the best. The short story, Beneath the Streets was about how a boy and three of his closest friends went looking in a dry sewer drain for a lost homeless guy and found something unforgettably frightening.

I liked how the author of the novel set the plot of the short story step by step so the reader could feel the characters becoming scared and feeling their thoughts. In the beginning the boy and his three friends Spider, Ramon and Chuck, went into a dry sewer pipe just to hang out. Then they decided, after they heard a homeless guy named Tom Thumb was missing, they were going to search the sewer. Their objective was to be heroes after they had found Tom Thumb, but they were in for something they would never forget. They agreed that they would be thirty minutes in the tunnel and thirty minutes out to get back to their houses for dinner. They made a mistake by going further when they heard squeaking a little farther away. Thinking it was Tom, they walked further. When they took a last turn they saw a horrifying sight. They found a giant nest of gargantuan rats. The rats were like the monsters you saw on TV in the monster movies. In the corner of the nest was Tom Thumb playing with the rats like he was one of them. And he was. The rats and him smelled the air with their noses and then looked at the corner with their beady pink eyes where the boys had been. The boys were already running. The rats were chasing the boys through the sewer. As the boys ran they put themselves in groups of two and fired rocks at the rats with their sling shots as they ran out the sewer. When the rats hit the light, they disappeared. Later they saw Tom again and he looked at them with beady pink eyes.

The only reason I didn’t like this story was because it never told us the name of the boy who was narrating it and the main character. He told us the name of the other boys Spider, Chuck and Ramon but they didn’t tell us the narrators.

I think Even Odder  is for pre-teens and above only because it might be scary for younger kids and there are some swears. I would recommend this for boys and girls because it is a good book to read to and with your family. People who like scary stories would like this book. Somebody who gets scared easy or can’t take suspense would not like this book to much. In my opinion it was a ten out of ten. This novel was a great."
— Steve, student at Helen Keller Middle School, Easton, CT, found on the school's website 

Dear Mr. Burt,

I have just finished your second book (Even Odder).  I read your first book (Odd Lot) yesterday.  I have been so busy with school that just now was I able to read them.  I think they are amazing.  Every story I read I thought had figured out.  But then the story completly turned around.  I was so curious what the next story would be about that I couldn't put either one down.  My favorite story was The Strand in Odd Lot.  My other favorite was The Spoon -Bender in Even Odder.

I was wondering if you were going to be at the Arts Festival In Mystic this year.  I was so glad that I met you.  You have been a great influence on my writing.  I like the style that you use when you write your books. Every story was so interesting.  I especially like the New England setting and atmosphere.

Thank you.
— Douglas Mallas, Scranton, PA (age 13)