Last year Chizmar co-edited October Dreams, a Halloween tribute volume that won the International Horror Guild Award for best anthology. This compilation of new novellas by five horror heavyweights reprises the Halloween theme, but proves a very mixed bag of treats. The book leads with strength: Al Sarrantonio's "Hornets" strikes an eerie pitch of autumn gloom in its account of a blocked horror writer battling an insect infestation and the creeping influence of the dark lord Samhain. Gary Braunbeck, in "Tessellations," evokes the dark carnival atmosphere of Halloween revels, but in a spew of chaotic images that virtually derail its sensitive account of a woman's exorcism of family guilt one All Hallows Eve. Nancy Collins's "The Eighth Devil" and Rick Hautala's "Miss Henry's Bottles" are both teen coming-of-age stories in which the authors try with varying degrees of success to juxtapose the childish innocence of Halloween make-believe with real-life horrors spawned by adult lies and illusions. Although competently told, the majority of stories fail to deliver any of the expected holiday magic or chills, and might just as easily have taken place another day of the year. This is most obvious in Thomas Tessier's uncharacteristically over-the-top "Scramburg, U.S.A.," a tale of juvenile delinquents on a Fourth of July rampage that segues unconvincingly into Halloween hijinks only in its last few pages. Horror devotees will find most of these stories thematically forced and not up to their authors' usual standards. (Oct.)
