Shudder Again

Twenty-two tales of terror and the macabre include J. G. Ballard's story of a doctor with a most bizarre bedside manner, Harlan Ellison's fable about the dark side of beauty, and works by Ray Bradbury, Ramsey Campbell, and others.

As she did in her previous anthology, I Shudder at Your Touch , Slung assembles stories that come together at the nexus of sex and horror. She has selected works from a diverse group of authors who use different means to portray the nightmarish side of such ordinary human emotions as jealousy, envy and unrequited love. Three of the best tales have never before been published. "Aphra," by Nancy Collins, wittily follows the evolution of the narrator's boyhood fascination with X-Ray Specs into a spooky adult fetish. David Kuehls's morbidly humorous "The First Time" depicts an aging bachelor of the not-far-distant future who finds unwelcome his co-workers' gift of an android to re-enact his first sexual experience. In the sober, affecting "On the Lake of Last Wishes," Claudia O'Keefe writes of a young woman with AIDS who finds sexual fulfillment only in the dream world at the edge of death. Rarely seen classics by Robert Aickman, Arthur Conan Doyle and T.H. White, blend with entries from such modern masters as Harlan Ellison and Ray Bradbury to give this collection a freewheeling variety that highlights the entertainment value of its volatile themes.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This anthology is a follow-up to Slung's previous effort, I Shudder at Your Touch (1991). Both books offer a kinder, gentler version of psycho-sexual horror than the graphically described intercourse-with-an-exit-wound variety that pervades the market. The tales, featuring a host of familiar names, were originally published from the 1890s through the 1990s. In the former category is "The Parasite" (1894), in which Arthur Conan Doyle examines the then-trendy subject of hypnotism, effectively extrapolating the ultimate result of being able to control another person's will. In the middle of the time span (1955) falls Charles Beaumont's classic story "The Crooked Man," which is set in a world where hetero- and homosexuality are inverted in terms of social acceptance. There's also a crisp yarn by Ray Bradbury, "Heavy Set," that's atypical of his usual style. Except for a clunker here and there, this is an interesting assembly of low-key, nongraphic horror tales with some sensual or sexual theme. Some will find the stories tasteful, others tame. Elliott Swanson