Two more short story reviews from Wolfe's 'The Dead Man and Other Horror Stories'

"The Friendship Light"
I have to say, this is probably the first dud of the collection, except for perhaps the OG Dead Man story. The best way to comment on this story is to reference something Wolfe said in one of his interviews. He said that he once wrote a story that he thought was so good, and it got rejected by everyone. Years later, he dug it up, reread it, and realized he completely failed to tell the story that he wanted to tell. He certainly wasn't referring to this story when reading it, but I felt it was very applicable here. What we essentially get is some dude and his fuckbuddy getting creeped out by weird occurrences around his house. I liked Ty's voice, but we leave him for most of the story to be with Jack who is pretty uninteresting. I feel mixed on the twist with the sister. I half expected it, half hoped he wouldn't go that path. In the end, I just don't think there is too much here to like.

"The Haunted Boardinghouse"
While this is fairly predictable and conventional (by Wolfe's standards), I think this story is done very well. It is one of the longer ones thus far in the collection and I think that works to its benefit. He paints a wonderfully late 19th century esque world and story, despite the world clearly being set in the future. Most importantly, I think the prose and characterization is excellent, especially the characterization for our protagonist. He really represents those of us who believe that (real) education, learning, and knowledge are worthwhile pursuits in their own right. Definitely reminds me of those stories of people from the old days fighting to have an education... in contrast to our modern equivalent of shirking it off as a state mandated burden. A bittersweet ending ties it all together in a mostly satisfactory way... maybe slightly too bitter for my tastes. I think this is definitely in the upper tier of stories for the collection, but I have a couple others that still beat it out.