Walls of Fear

Edited by Kathryn Cramer.

From Publishers Weekly: "A sequel and companion volume to the praised Architecture of Fear, this anthology of 16 previously unpublished stories should delight fans of contemporary horror. In her chatty, scholarly introduction, Cramer explains the unifying theme: horror stories in which a building plays a prominent role (she alludes to "the metaphor of house as mind"). Featured structures include, as might be expected, an ancient familial castle (Chet Williamson's "The Cairnwell Horror") and an isolated house perched high above the raging sea (Susan Palwick's "Erosion"). Ian Wilson's "Happy Hour" is set in an old British pub, while James Morrow's "Tales From a New England Telephone Directory" casts a malevolent telephone booth as its villain. Richard A. Lupoff's fact-based "The House on Rue Chartres" tells of a New Orleans meeting between classic horror authors H. P. Lovecraft and E. Hoffman Price in a house of a bawdy sort. Perhaps most effective is Karl Edward Wagner's "Cedar Lane," a painful tale about all the might-have-beens contained in each human life and the aftermath of civilization's most threatening horror of all."