The very best are truly horrible, in the most complimentary sense of that word. "His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood" (Poppy Z. Brite), "The Adder" (Fred Chappell), "Fat Face" (Michael Shea), "The Unthinkable" (Bruce Sterling), "Love's Eldritch Ichor" (Esther M. Friesner) and "On the Slab" (Harlan Ellison) are the keen standouts, but all the rest, practically, are of almost equal quality. However, there are a couple of tales that do not deserve to be amongst this company, and the tome would have been better and tighter by their absence. Certainly, at 398 pages, there's no lack of material.
In "His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood," Poppy Z. Brite deftly invokes a vampric flavor to themes of decay and the forbidden, his writing style as ornate and refined as rococo and in the real spirit of the master. Fred Chappell's "The Adder" draws the dangerous and inimical from the ordinary in a tale delightful for its originality. Bruce Sterling also slings some fresh ideas around in "The Unthinkable," melding modernity and necromancy in a brief, effective story.
Horror gourmands will find a good meal here, but Cthulhu 2000 should have a bit of life outside its traditional genre, for the writing is strong, imaginative and entertaining. --Tamara Hladik
]]> Note: the two previous HWA anthologies are Under the Fang, edited by Robert R. McCammon, and Peter Straub's Ghosts, edited by Peter Straub. --Fiona Webster
Contents:
Autopsy Room Four by Stephen King
Haunted by Charles Grant
Out There in the Darkness by Ed Gorman
Please Help Me by Richard Christian Matheson
The Lesser of Two Evils by Denise M. Bruchman
Point of Intersection by Dominick Cancilla
Doctor, Lawyer, Kansas City Chief by Brent Monahan
Grandpa's Head by Lawrence Watt-Evans
Lonelyhearts by Esther M. Friesner
Lighting the Corpses by Del Stone Jr.
Echoes by Cindie Geddes
Lifeline by Yvonne Navarro
Blameless by David Niall Wilson
Deep Down There by Clark Perry
Knacker Man by Richard Parks
So You Wanna Be a Hitman by Gary Jonas
The Rug by Edo van Belkom
Interview with a Psycho by Billie Sue Mosiman
Icewall by William D. Gagliani
A Southern Night by Jane Yolen
The Forgiven by Stephen M. Rainey
Safe by Gary A. Braunbeck
So let’s welcome our first group of supernatural suburbanites, the witches. Their powers are awesome, their methods of coping with the lumps, bumps, and idiosyncrasies of Suburbia are ingenious, and they always bring the loveliest gingerbread to the PTA bake sale. But whatever you do, don’t try telling them that life in a non-city setting is bland, banal and boring, or you might get turned into . . . ribbit!
Stories of suburban sorcery by Harry Turtledove, Sarah A. Hoyt, Jan and S.M. Stirling, K. D. Wentworth, and more—including Esther Friesner herself.
]]>
When your dad normally gets his kicks hanging out on the rings of Saturn, finding a unique Father's Day gift is a real dilemma. But Sabrina thinks she has the perfect solution for her warlock dad: Witchopoly, a magical new board game.
Everyone thinks it's just part of the game when Sabrina's dad loses his powers and Salem gets a double dose of magic. But when they're all sent to a realm full of monsters, suddenly they're not having fun anymore. Sabrina's dad can't rescue them -- he's a mere mortal now. And Salem -- well, with all that magic, he's got a world to conquer!
Is Sabrina's magic strong enough to save her father and herself? And save Salem from himself?
]]>Therefore, welcome to the fur-sprouting, mall-browsing, moon-howling, latté-sipping world of Strip Mauled. You’ll like what you find.
Sit.
Stay.
Good reader.
Stories of suburban lycanthropy by Sarah A. Hoyt, Dave Freer, K. D. Wentworth, and more—including Esther Friesner herself.
]]>After the Westbridge High football team wins an amazing two games in a row, the whole team becomes superstitious. But the teammates take things a little too far by refusing to shower or change their socks and underwear, thinking it will bring them more good luck.
Sabrina and Dreama ask Principal Kraft to curb the boys? bad hygiene, but he thinks that if the football team continues to win, they can be as smelly as they want to be! So Sabrina and Dreama decide to teach the guys a lesson to show them how silly it is to be superstitious. But their plan backfires. Can Sabrina fix the problem or will the people of Westbridge have to be forever wary of breaking mirrors and walking under ladders?
]]>Erzählt wird der Roman aus der Perspektive von Schwester Ana Teresa de Serra e Hita (was ungefähr so viel heißt wie: die barfüßigen Frauen von heiligem Geblüte), einer Nonne, die bei der Beurteilung ihrer Mitreisenden kein Blatt vor den Mund nimmt. Sie erzählt von einer Welt, in der Gewalt im Dienste der Kirche ebenso alltäglich ist wie die Verurteilung eines Menschen aufgrund seiner Hautfarbe oder Klassenzugehörigkeit. Trotzdem ist Gestern noch sahen wir Meerjungfrauen ein außergewöhnlich schönes Buch, das seine Leser mit seinem Einfallsreichtum und seiner lyrischen Sprache zu bannen weiß. Mit 200 Seiten ist es verglichen mit den Mehr-Gänge-Menüs der allgegenwärtigen Endlosserien zwar eher eine Zwischenmahlzeit. Dafür mundet es vorzüglich und macht Appetit auf weitere Bücher dieser Autorin. --Felix Darwin
]]>