Shivers VII

This year’s collection of mostly new fiction, bookended by classic reprints from Clive Barker and Steven King, focuses on small, creepy stories in well-realized modern settings—creative psychological horror that hits close to home and sticks in the mind long after the reading is done. Misbehavior turns back on the offender in stories like Joel Arnold’s “Bovine” and Lisa Martin’s synesthetic “Feel the Noise,” while objects insist on telling their own stories to their unfortunate owners in Rio Youers’s “Depth” and Del James’s “Arbeit Macht Frei.” Stories like Graham Masterton’s “Beholder” and Roberta Lannes’s “Room 8” are simultaneously horrible and heartbreaking, interspersed with lighter amusements such as Kevin Quigley’s tip of the hat to the old masters, “I Am Become Poe,” which offers a tongue-in-cheek warning to those who might take their reading too seriously. More traditional monsters become sympathetic narrators, like the newly ghostly mother in Barker’s “The Departed,” (1992) who will take a chance at terrifying her son just to touch him one more time. These stories blend sharpness and grace, making the anthology a worthwhile read for thoughtful horror fans. (July)