Shivers IV

Publishers Weekly

The dedicated publisher of Cemetery Dance, the leading magazine in the horror field, assembles 20 original stories by writers old and new for this fourth incarnation of his dependable Shivers series. As with previous volumes, no single theme predominates, though many stories strive for the ambiguous supernaturalism of the Twilight Zone-school of writing. Randy Chandler's "The Spook" tells of a soldier whose discovery that Arab fighters are beings from hell may be a case of demonizing the enemy taken to a psychotic extreme. Al Sarrantonio offers a premonitory fantasy of horrors that lurk just up around the bend for a dysfunctional family on a stressful road trip in "The Man in the Other Car." Few of horror's traditional monsters are on display, though Stephen Mark Rainey's "LZ-116: Das Flegenschloss," about the beings that the Germans were actually targeting in their WWII bombing runs, comes closest. Not all of Chizmar's choices are standouts, but an adequate number deliver what the title of this anthology promises. (June) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.