Night Visions

The latest in this series of horror anthologies is uneven but, overall, rewarding. Three writers are showcased. F. Paul Wilson, best known for his novels The Keep and The Touch , contributes three minor short stories. ``Feelings'' is a predictable piece about a cynical attorney cursed with a hypersensitive empathic sense; ``Faces'' is touching, but the payoff is telegraphed; ``Tenants'' is a clever tale of an old recluse and his leprechauns. Ray Garton, whose horror novels Live Girls and Crucifax Autumn were crude but effective pulp fiction, takes a step up with the novelette ``Monsters,'' that proffers an unusual theory on lycanthropy. The prize of the book is science fiction writer Sheri S. Tepper's ``The Gardener,'' a beautifully written short novel about a man determined not to permit intimacy into his life who is undone when the wrong young woman believes his words of love. His gradual disintegration and inability to ask for help are wrenchingly and perfectly delineated. (Dec.)