"Peter
Crowther has assembled a worthy new look at ghosts, real and imagined,
through the eyes of some of the best writers now working in the realm
of the horrific. These stories challenge the ordinary and the expected
while acknowledging the legacies of Charles Dickens and M.R. James;
in these pages you will find styles and structures that are traditional
and those that are unique, but mostly you will find stories that are
not simply about ghosts but that seem unerringly to confront the reader
with the issue of their meaning.
"Whatever
we may believe, or disbelieve, about the existence of the supernatural,
we make our own ghosts. If not, then the ghosts -- our past, our parents,
our failed potential -- make us.
"In
the pages of this anthology you will find many well-made ghosts, summoned
from the shadows of time -- and places beyond time -- for your entertainment
and, perhaps, edification. Tonight the rain is made of words, not
water, but it is full of ghosts, that tap and sigh. . . and listen for
reply."
-- Douglas E. Winter, from his Introduction
Contents:
"Charms"
by Michael Marshall Smith
"The Prisoner's Tale" by Thomas F. Monteleone
"Circling the Drain" by Peter Crowther and Tracy Knight
"Candia" by Graham Joyce
"All You Inherit" by Brian Stableford
"Return Journey" by Ramsey Campbell
"The Words That Remain" by Charles de Lint
"Nailed" by Poppy Z. Brite
"Ghosts" by Ed Gorman
"The Glove" by Ken Wisman
"Spirits of the Age" by Graham Masterton
"Coming Home" by Mark Morris
"The Insolence of Candles Against the Light's Dying" by
Chaz Brenchley
"The Walking Sticks" by Gene Wolfe
"His Very Own Spatchen" by Terry Lamsley
