Another collection of, by and large, excellent stories. This volume highlights horror from a psychological perspective--the events are not objectively horrifying, but horrifying in their effect on the human psyche. Here, fear is fear not because of what is outside, but because of how it is perceived by the human mind. Even the seemingly mundane can thus be rendered horrific if viewed through the eyes of one who fears it. And conversely, scary events lose their ability to terrify us if the characters in the story are utterly unaffected by the horrors that surround them.

The psychological focus is fodder for a much more highbrow treatment of horror, and the editor was able to pull from several authors who have garnered much more respect in the literary world. Thus, in addition to entries by popular writers like Stephen King, Clive Barker, and Richard Matheson (of the modern era) and Lovecraft and Le Fanu (from times past), Hartwell includes stories penned by such literary heavyweights as William Faulkner, D.H. Lawrence, Flannery O'Connor, Edgar Allen Poe, and Henry James.

Somewhat surprisingly, these bigwigs of the writing world did not necessarily produce the best stories in the collection. I was not terribly impressed by "The Fall of the House of Usher" (sorry, Poe--you know I love you, and I know this story is supposed to have been foundational for lots of other writers, but I didn't think it was a great story), and I had a heck of time slogging through "The Jolly Corner" (Henry James' credentials notwithstanding). But there were some definite gems in here. "The Roaches" was gross and creepy, "Bright Segment" was chilling, "Dread" was disturbing, "Good Country People" was depressing, and "The Monkey" was, if a little trite, still unsettling.

I really enjoyed "The Rocking-horse Winner" and "Three Days", though I'm not sure why they qualify as horror as opposed to merely otherworldly. Both stories had quite likable, even noble protagonists and were, in their way, sad and rather sweet.

All in all, I continue to be impressed with the collection of stories Hartwell has amassed. To the extent that his goal is to convince his readers that horror is a worthwhile and significant genre (and not just the stuff of insipid and talentless slasher films), he most definitely succeeds.

I confess, I approached this collection with a skeptical eye. In my mind, the horror genre is composed of slashers and gore and torture porn--disgusting descriptions that repulse the discriminating reader while scintillating the low-brow Philistine who wants nothing more than to leer eagerly at ever more graphic tales of death and dismemberment. It seems I may have been mistaken. Certainly, every genre has its slums--after all, libraries are full of terrible science fiction, lurid overwrought romances, trite fantasy, and stultifying mysteries. However, it turns out that horror, at its best, is not all that far removed from more "respectable" genres. Indeed, many of the stories in this volume could easily be classified as science fiction or fantasy--and many science fiction stories are sufficiently spine-tingling to warrant inclusion in a horror anthology.

The editor argues that horror is a genre best expressed in short stories. I am no expert, and I've read few if any full length horror novels, but I will agree that these short stories are, by and large, quite good. As with any anthology, there are weaker entries--to my mind, "Mr. Justice Harbottle," "John Charrington's Wedding," and "Larger Than Oneself" were rather underwhelming--but the majority are quite solid, and several are excellent (most notably "The New Mother," "There's a Long, Long Trail A-Winding," "The Call of Cthulhu," "The Summer People," and "The Autopsy").

This was also my first foray into the world of Lovecraft, and I was not disappointed. I look forward to many Lovecraftian reading adventures in the future.

Though I still lack the stomach, or the enjoyment of raw terror, to be a true horror fan, I confess I am eager to read the rest of the collection. And I may be a little slower to turn my nose up at "lesser" genres in the future.

A decent collection of mostly (apart from Le Fanu) twentieth-century dark fiction. My favorites by far were "Sticks" by Karl Edward Wagner, about a fisherman who stumbles upon an ancient ritual site festooned with unsettling stick figures; and "The Whimper of Whipped Dogs," which suggests a modern god of urban violence and the madness of the crowded, and which many years ago was my introduction to the work of Harlan Ellison.

It's always so hard to rate a book of short stories, especially one like this where some are so good and some are so...well, not. It took me about a week to work my way through it, and while I enjoyed the majority of them, there were definitely a few where I just skipped to the end to see how things turned out because I was Bored (ahem, Sticks). There were also a few where I still don't really understand what happened (The Summer People).

By and large, though, I really enjoyed this set of short stories! It was nice to come back to a few old favourites, and see some new-to-me stories by authors I've enjoyed before.

If you like horror in general and the big names in particular, this is a book worth checking out--I definitely think the good stories outweighed the bad. I would have liked to see more names I hadn't seen before; for me, the best part of picking up an anthology like this is the chance to find some new authors I might not have read otherwise. But I see how the editor was weaving through big-name authors, influential authors, and I really enjoyed his analysis of same, so I'm not letting that personal quirk affect my rating.

A great anthology for October! Especially if you’re like me, in a reading slump where you can’t get through any long-format books.

As always, Ray Bradbury and Stephen King’s short stories were my favourites, along with Karl Edward Wagner’s Sticks and Manly Wade Wellman’s Vady, Vady.

There were a couple I skipped mid-way (Young Goodman Brown and The Autopsy) due to them being slow burners, and I found their writing styles felt disjointed from the flow of the others. All in all, very good read.