Haunted Nights

Halloween brings out the best in horror writers, as this fright-packed anthology of 15 new stories with Halloween themes demonstrates. In the novella "Lost in the Dark," John Langan conjures the legend of the monstrous Bad Agatha and a found-footage horror film based on it, exploring the boundary where fact blurs into fiction. Brian Evenson's "Sisters" concerns a family newly introduced to the Halloween tradition who are of a genuinely creepier ilk than the trick-or-treaters they mimic. Garth Nix, in "The Seventeen-Year Itch," introduces an inmate at an asylum for the criminally insane whose new physician foolishly discontinues the practice of restraining him on Halloween night. Other authors, including Seanan McGuire, Jeffrey Ford, and Kate Jonez, extend the Halloween theme with tales of haunted houses, witch lore, and dangerously dysfunctional families. Editors Datlow and Morton have filled this book with an assortment of Halloween treats whose horrors transcend their holiday setting. (Oct.)