Shudder Again: 22 Tales of Sex and Horror

After having tasted the delicious flavors that Slung first put together in "I Shudder At Your Touch", I found my mouth watering for more of the same. "Shudder Again" did not disappoint me. This time Slung has dug up some treats from the past, from such authors as Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Beaumont, Robert Aickman, T.H. White, and Mervyn Peake, combining their savory passions with such newer authors as Harlan Ellison, Robert Bloch, Ray Bradbury, Lisa Tuttle, Nancy A. Collins, Sarah Smith, and Claudia O'Keefe. Beaumont's `The Crooked Man' I first read in my rare and treasured copy of the 1966 Playboy Book Of Sci-Fi And Fantasy, and its as juicy today as it was then. Sarah Smith's `When The Red Storm Comes' is a superb vampire tale of the old school, Elizabeth Jane Howard's `Mr. Wrong' is a slowly creeping horror over a young girl's first automobile, and Claudia O'Keefe's `On The Lake Of Last Wishes' takes us into the vivid dreams of a dying young girl, and the fantasy she finds there. I enjoyed each tale in this collection, again with the exception of one I was lukewarm on, but the real treat is going to hit you straight out of the chute, with Nancy A. Collin's 'Aphra' being the first story in the book. It's a grisly and knobby adventure with a man's infatuation with skeletons. Superbly written and deviant enough to be delectable, I found it worth the price of the book alone. Slung's second collection, like her first, only skirts the edges of both eroticism and gore, but includes such haunting, well written tales that the flavor of the stories leaves a stinging aftertaste in your mouth that is not unpleasant at all. `Shudder Again' is a definite `Yes' to your collection of horror anthologies. Enjoy!

Go buy this anthology. Stories are superb. You will not be disappointed. I've read it like a year back, but some of them (Ballard's, Ligotti's) haunt me still.

This volume contains one of the most terrifying short stories I have ever read: Ramsey Campbell's "Again." I defy anyone to read this story and not have their night's sleep disturbed.