A horror anthology just when horror seems to be out of fashion, and, on top of that, featuring none of the usual “big names”? The Editor and Publisher must be stark crazy… or tremendously ambitious. Whatever the truth, here we are with fourteen new tales “of terror and suspense” mostly from comparatively new writers trying their hands at the old game of frightening their readers in any possible way. Predictably, some succeed and others fail but everyone tries real hard.

Armand Constantine opens the ball with Monsoon Devil, a colourful, entertaining tale of violence and (wrongly placed) revenge. John Palisano contributes The Tennatrick, a story always on the verge of total implausibility, revolving around an alien creature starting fires in the forest. Unfortunately, after an excellent, thrilling start, the tale runs out of steam. Del Howinson’s Alley Oops is a cute, well told story with an unexpected twist in the tail, featuring an old lady and a bag-snatcher. In The Grieving Process by Mike McCarthy, an extremely well written although rather conventional piece, a man is overwhelmed by the grief for the fate of his beloved wife, while in the deliciously gruesome Eddie G. At The Gates of Hell another man fights in vain against his personal demon.Vince Churchill’s Late Check-In, in spite of its time-honoured subject (a haunted hotel accommodating a lonely traveller on a stormy night) manages to create a suspenseful and scary atmosphere. Inside Out by Lisa Majewski is a charming tale of witchcraft where a plain but vengeful girl strikes back after being seduced and abandoned by a vain male model.

Some stories are less traditional and more imaginative, such as Jason M Light’s very enjoyable The Bear Who Swallowed The Sky, a curious medley of Indian legends and office conflicts and Joey O’Brian’s The Svancara Supper Society an unusual “fanta-gastronomic” piece endowed with the imaginative power of a SF tale, the adrenaline-charged character of an action thriller and the hideous substance of a horror story.

Tired as I am of zombies I was fully captivated by the vivid The Measure Of A Man, a superb story where a ship full of hungry undead berths at the coast of a Zulu village. The other highlight of the anthology is provided by Editor Lisa Morton, whose exciting Diana And The Goong-Si is an excellent pulp fiction piece with an exotic taste, set in the 19th century China, featuring an English woman trying to rescue her missing husband by defeating a local vampire monster.

Hopefully we’ll read more of the intrepid Diana in some future story by the same author. All in all a very good anthology offering a large supply of solid and entertaining (although not always original) horror fiction.

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