Masques IV: All-New Works of Horror and the Supernatural

First Edition bound in black boards with silver designs on the front board and silver lettering along the spine. VG+ with small bumps a the outer corners and a small bump at the lower edge of the front board. No dust jacket as issued. Stories by F. Paul Wilson, Dan Simmons, Steve Allen, Chet Williamson and others.

Fourth volume, the best yet, in this sometimes waver-y series. A high number of hits marks this collection of horror originals, with two or three possible classics in the field. Not so oddly, the most charming tale is the sole reprint, entertainer Steve Allen's ``The Secret'' (1956), which opens with ``I didn't know I was dead until I walked into the bathroom and looked in the mirror''--and never misses a beat throughout. Dan Simmons's ``My Private Memoirs of the Hoffer Stigmata Pandemic'' is the top tale for inventiveness, originality, and unity of effect, and deserves expansion. It opens with Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News; his face melts, undergoing the Change--a pandemic that strikes mankind- -in which one's moral character suddenly becomes monstrously evident on one's face. ``Official word was that Mrs. Reagan died of shock at the sight of her husband after the Change. It's true that Ron's case of Liar's leprosy, apathy osseus, and stupidity sarcoma was impressive....'' Chet Williamson's ``The Pack'' has a sizzling opening, with the return to life of dogs killed violently by humankind who are still grotesquely flattened by car tires, have spines splintered and innards hanging out, and now run in packs hunting men. Cartoonist Gahan Wilson has a clever variation on The Birds in his ``Sea Gulls,'' which finds baleful sea gulls as nemeses to a wife-murderer. F. Paul Wilson's ``Please Don't Hurt Me,'' told entirely in dialogue, is quite sexy as an 11-year-old girl unwittingly turns the tables on her abuser. James Kisner's ``Splatter Me an Angel'' tells of a worm turned into a cruel seducer, who meets his match in a woman who is his sexual mirror- opposite. Bruce Boston's ``Animal Husbandry'' reveals a wife's bristling rage for revenge when her husband comes home with a vasectomy--she gets very hairy about it. Some misfires, but largely a sheaf of bright storytelling. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

The veteran horror editor and novelist ( Shadows of Death ) here assembles two poems and 24 short stories, 23 written specifically for this volume. The exception is Steve Allen's 1956 classic "The Secret," in which a man chronicles his out-of-body experience during his first death. (He is not so lucky the second time around.) The dead--human and animal--wreak havoc on the living throughout the collection. "The Pack" by Chet Williamson allows a group of dogs to narrate the tale of their return to life to feed on the humans who killed them. In Graham Masterson's "The Heart of Helen Day," a salesman stranded in a hotel room discovers that an apparently live radio show is broadcasting a 50-year-old murder. Humor adds to the horror of such offerings as "Animal Husbandry," Bruce Boston's tale of a woman eager to have children who wreaks revenge when her husband has a vasectomy and tells her to get a pet instead. These polished stories elicit shivers and give pause for reflection. Among the contributors are F. Paul Wilson, Kristin Kathryn Rusch, Ed Gorman and James Kisner.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Ordinary and extraordinary themes acquire horrific twists in this collection of 23 stories and two poems which includes works by veterans of horror like Graham Masterton ("The Heart of Helen Day") and John Coyne ("Obscene Phone Calls") and newcomers like David T. Connolly ("Julia's Touch") and Cameron Nolan ("The Children Never Lie"). Explicit sex and gore seem to be the rule rather than the exception, however, so libraries will want to carefully consider their patrons' tastes before purchasing this otherwise top-notch volume of dark fiction.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.