Holiday

Combining fantasy with slow-burning, dreamlike horror, Rickert's second collection (after 2006's Map of Dreams) includes several seasonal stories that make The Nightmare Before Christmas look like a Charlie Brown special. In "Memoir of a Deer Woman," a woman's incurable slow transformation into a deer comes upon her like a cancer. The cheerful brutality of a disturbed child is a fatally bad match for tiny fairies in "Was She Wicked? Was She Good?" A happy little girl is turned into an unknowing suicide bomber by her own mother in "Traitor." In the World Fantasy Award winner "The Kingdom," a girl is seduced into unlife and a widower finds peace by successfully courting death. Fans of Rickert's talent for atmospheric, artistic terror will find plenty to enjoy in this slim volume. (Nov.)