And Yet ANOTHER Solid Collection...

LORE edited by Rod Heather and Sean O'Leary (2011 The Lore Firm, LLC / 199 pp / tp)
As a brief history of this "quaint and curious volume of selected stories," LORE was a NJ-based horror fiction magazine that ran for 9 issues in the late 1990s. The editors have decided to re-launch the magazine in 2011, and as a preview have released this 15-story "best-of" from LORE's initial run to whet readers' appetites. 

Among the best here are Harlan Ellison's 'Chatting With Anubis,' a Bram Stoker AND Deathtrealm Award-winner about two explorers who discover deep cosmic secrets underneath the sands of the Sahara; 'The Mandala' by Kendall Evans, where a doctor is reunited with a most unusual young woman in Amsterdam; Brian Lumley's 'The Vehicle,' where tiny aliens use a brutal escaped convict to help them out of a sticky predicament, and 'The Challenge From Below,' a four-author collaboration that shares the history of an Indian Shaman that turns into a dark lesson on the ancient gods. 

LORE is a high-quality collection, despite several familiar-feeling tales. Whether this helps LORE magazine 2.0 succeed is yet to be seen, but if its offerings are anything like those on display here, it should do fine.