The Century's Best Horror Fiction Volume One [Hardcover]

You can dip into these books, picking and choosing among your favorite authors or intriguing titles. Or you can start at the beginning and slowly make your way through more than 1,500 pages of the 20th century's best horror stories. It's best to read these stories one or two at a time (though it's difficult to put the book down) as the chilling effect is blunted if you try to absorb too much at one time.

Starting at the beginning has the advantage of showcasing changing prose styles, manners, and speech patterns. And introducing you to some outstanding writers you may not be familiar with unless you're a real horror aficionado like Pelan.

Pelan's task was a tough one -- one story per year and only one story per author. A brief note at the beginning of each story takes us through his process, including the runner-up stories and why he chose the one he did.

There are plenty of famous names: H.G. Wells, H.P. Lovecraft and Richard Matheson in Volume I. Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" is as horrifying on the umpteenth reading as it was on the first; Theodore Sturgeon's story of weird young love, "Bianca's Hands," is creepy on so many levels it's hard to count them all; Ray Bradbury's riveting "The Jar" explores some of the basest of human instincts, and the closing story in Volume I, Richard Matheson's 1950 "Born of Man and Woman" brings a parent's deepest nightmares to life.

Many of the earlier stories rely more on atmosphere than grisly detail, although there isn't a story in either volume that doesn't have some of both elements as well, of course, as shock. Edward Lucas White's 1906 story "The House of the Nightmare" is a classic ghost story and while the conclusion will not surprise most readers, getting there is as poignant as it is chilling.

A lot of the stories in this collection are ghost stories, although vengeful malevolences and Faustian bargains are also well represented. Violet Hunt's 1909 story "The Coach" puts an unexpected twist on the Flying Dutchman theme as does Robert Bloch's 1958 tale "That Hell-Bound Train.

Though classic horror themes remain timeless their treatment is sometimes more graphic in Volume II, like Stephen Laws' grisly tale of a relentless monster and the burden of conscience or Caitlin R. Kiernan's grim and graphic tale of an abused and self-destructive girl, or Jon R. Lansdale's tale of some truly lowdown horrible folks.

But Stephen King, king of grisly horror, gives us an atmospheric ghostly tale of New England island life and death in "The Reach," and Terry Lamsley's "The Toddler" brings a medieval ghost into the present to explore need, cruelty and loneliness, while Fritz Leiber's long ghost story, "Horrible Imaginings," is classically atmospheric, building to graphic shock.

Vampires and zombies are rarely encountered in this collection (although we can't always be sure) but there are a few stories that cross genres, like Clifford D. Simak's "Founding Father," which combines sci- fi with psychological horror.

Mostly this selection of 100 stories explores the gamut of things that fill the human psyche with dread and fear -- the stuff of nightmares, guilty conscience and the worst fate can offer.

All stories are well written and have the solid feel of classics.

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