*What follows is a review on a horror anthology in which one of my alternative-type stories appears. The review was published October 20, 2002 at my "Alternative Writing" column for Suite101.com.*

"Moon Over Madness" is a horror anthology edited by Danielle Naibert whose Art of Horror webzine has been recommended for a Bram Stoker Award. Vampires, ghosts, witches, demons and Frankenstein are the subjects of the anthology's five classical-themed stories.

"Family Values," the first tale, is written by Rebecca L. Brock. Her heroine, Lucy, has two children by her own blood whom she doesn't want and an obstinate teenage stepdaughter whom she wants less. During a car ride the stepdaughter, Jennifer, whacks Lucy's son bad enough for a nosebleed to result. Lucy pulls over, telling her stepdaughter to get out of the car for the sake of a seating change. Jennifer gets out but refuses to get back in. Furious, Lucy leaves the girl on the road to walk the half-mile home. The girl's body is soon found in the woods near the spot Lucy left her. While Lucy is relieved by her death, frightening events begin to happen. Her youngest offspring Gracie sees her stepsister in the bedroom nights. The grief stricken husband of Lucy spends an entire night digging the route down to his daughter's coffin so he can give her one last "kiss."

Have you figured it out? We're talking vampires, of course.

Brock's lack of inhibition is the reader's delight. Her characters think and curse the worst of any lot. A brutal honesty is present, allowing for immediate reader identification. Lucy’s critical take on her stepdaughter is shared from story's start, evidenced in the following excerpt of its first page:

“Coupled with the usual teenage pissiness and Jennifer’s natural bitchiness, the result was a horror show that Lucy had to endure on a daily basis.”

The element of immediacy piques more when the undead Jennifer slams Lucy into a wall, getting her payback. What is particularly intriguing is how Brock chooses nasty women as her strongest characters. She is atypical in the way she effortlessly manages to gain reader empathy for unlikable characters.

"Always a Bride, Never a Bridesmaid," the second tale, is another one that manipulates the fear factor. It involves the rhetorical bride putting finishing touches on herself before entering a church hall. Something seems amiss, however, when she walks down the aisle and doesn't recognize a face. Upon reaching her groom, she finds he is staring at another bride coming down the aisle! Naibert moves readers from happiness to horror when the bride looks down to find she is charred. Naibert's style designates first-person viewpoint to the ghost bride -- who we prematurely assume is a living person -- then shifts the viewpoint to that of the living groom and bride.

"Sundog," by horror author Larry Sells, involves a sun glitch and two witches that might or might not be friends. While a sundog is flying into the town of Hooterville, the first introduced witch spots it, sees it destroy a warlock's home then suspects her friend to be the catalyst. She invites the friend (also a witch) over for tea with designs of learning how to extinguish the sundog. Feigning ignorance to motive, she casually asks how a witch might evoke or destroy the sundog. The second witch gives her a folded paper with the supposed spells for evoking and extinguishing one. After the educator of the two leaves, a sundog dives into the do-gooder’s home, killing her. The second before her death, she unfolds the paper, reading one word: "sorry."

Sells' writing is reminiscent of Stephen King's early work, which uses the blunt style ripe for shocking ends. There IS danger in telling it like it is. The temptation is to include details that may give away too much of the plot before the answer should be known by readers - such as reporting prematurely that the invited witch reads the suspicious thoughts of the other. All things aside, this story is a fast and fun read.

"Demon in the Details," by yours truly, is a tale about a young man who gets more than he bargains for at a new job writing for Supernatural Magazine. The job pays well but has a price –- it tends to attract demons. The evidence for this appears on the first day of the job when the young man receives an anonymous letter warning him about the evil the job can attract, a sort that has killed his predecessors. The letter dares to add, "As God is in the details, so is the demon." On his way home, a shadow darkens his car interior. Within seconds something black passes before his car, skimming it. Looking through the passenger side window, inhuman eyes penetrate his, defying speed.

Up to this point, Naibert's anthology has covered the classical monsters of vampires, ghosts and witches. This tale belonging to that of the demon is "classical" in another sense. It favors old school, psychological fear tactics over obvious ones of gore and injury. The young man's mental then physical states are called into question, deteriorating more with each new demon sighting. All the while, the young man is struggling to research the letter and demon subject before losing all self-mastery. Hidden motives are shortly discovered to be involved on the parts of his employers who practice demon worship.

It is difficult to rate my own technique so I will refrain from doing so in this case.

"The Correct and Final Account of the Birth and Death of Frankenstein's Monster," written by revered horror author H. Turnip Smith, uses the shock element almost from tale's beginning, whetting reader appetite before serving up full explanation. Set in Germany during the French Revolution, a blind, hungry Jew begs his way into a cruel mayor's home who has the man burned at the stake where a giant being emerges from the fire. A local schoolmaster, noticing the giant to be boy like, rescues him by dousing him with water then sheltering him in his wine cellar to protect him from the villagers. The boy explains to his savior his name is Frankenstein, he is centuries old and he once had a mother burned for witchery. He adds the kind Jew was a watchful companion whom he'd tried saving him from the fire. An affinity develops between Frankenstein and the schoolmaster's daughter Anna, but an abrupt parting is necessary when the villagers show up at the house ready to kill Frankenstein, who is soon long gone. The two lovers meet again when Anna is a woman and it's the same issue all over again: the townspeople want to kill Frank and they corner him on all sides. He chooses the cliff route and Anna decides to go with him into the roaring ocean below.

All in all, Naibert has put together an anthology that makes for delicious horror reading.

Naibert's "Art of Horror" website: http://zombie.horrorseek.com/horror/ravenbroom/