Walls of Fear [Paperback]

Kathryn Cramer (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A sequel and companion volume to the praised Architecture of Fear , this anthology of 16 previously unpublished stories should delight fans of contemporary horror. In her chatty, scholarly introduction, Cramer explains the unifying theme: horror stories in which a building plays a prominent role (she alludes to "the metaphor of house as mind"). Featured structures include, as might be expected, an ancient familial castle (Chet Williamson's "The Cairnwell Horror") and an isolated house perched high above the raging sea (Susan Palwick's "Erosion"). Ian Wilson's "Happy Hour" is set in an old British pub, while James Morrow's "Tales From a New England Telephone Directory" casts a malevolent telephone booth as its villain. Richard A. Lupoff's fact-based "The House on Rue Chartres" tells of a New Orleans meeting between classic horror authors H. P. Lovecraft and E. Hoffman Price in a house of a bawdy sort. Perhaps most effective is Karl Edward Wagner's "Cedar Lane," a painful tale about all the might-have-beens contained in each human life and the aftermath of civilization's most threatening horror of all.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

A Scottish castle's dungeons hide a morbid legacy in Chet Williamson's "The Cairnwell Horror," while a nondescript telephone booth conceals a curse of a different color in James Morrow's "Tales from a New England Telephone Directory" in this collection of 16 original stories which pay tribute to the haunted house in all its guises. Jonathan Carroll, Ian Watson, Gene Wolfe, Sharon Baker, and other sf, fantasy, and horror writers display a wide variety of styles in this uneven but intriguing companion to The Architecture of Fear ( LJ 10/15/87). For large libraries.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Avon Books (Mm) (October 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380707896
• ISBN-13: 978-0380707898
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,823,305 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Kathryn Cramer is a writer, anthologist, & Internet consultant who lives in Pleasantville, New York. She won a World Fantasy Award for best anthology for The Architecture of Fear, co-edited with Peter Pautz; she was nominated for a World Fantasy Award for her anthology Walls of Fear. She co-edited several anthologies of Christmas and fantasy stories with David G. Hartwell and now does the annual Year's Best Fantasy and Year's Best SF with him. She is on the editorial board of The New York Review of Science Fiction, (for which she has been nominated for the Hugo Award many times). She is a consultant with the Scientific Information Group for Wolfram Research.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Horror that seeps through the very cracks of your home, July 20, 2006

By 

Madelyn Pryor "Goblyn Queen" (Mesa, AZ United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Walls of Fear (Paperback)

In this anthology of 16 stories, Kathryn Cramer has assembled a wide mix of original fiction about haunted houses. Sometimes it is the homes themselves that are haunted, and sometimes, it is the people that are haunted by the homes. Some of the stories are more traditional-ghost ridden, horrific- but many of the stories are more psychologically based. Though every anthology has its good and bad stories, only one among the group Penelope Comes Home by M.J. Engh seemed to be a `clinker' in my eyes, the only story the book could have done without. It's not a bad story but it is a 50 page long story that could have been written easily in 15 pages so it drags on much more than I prefer. The rest were quite good and well worth reading.

The stories are:

***Out of Sight, Out of Mind by Jack Womack
***Takes from a New England Telephone Directory by James Morrow -(this story is great!)
***Firetrap by Greg Cox
***The Art of Falling Down by Jonathan Carroll
***The Cairnwell Horror by Chet Williamson- (One of the most horrifying stories I've ever read)
***Erosion by Susan Palwick
***Happy Hour by Ian Watson
*** The Haunted Boardinghouse by Gene Wolfe
*** Inside the Walled City by Garry Kilworth (So creepy, this is one of those stories that stays with you after you're done reading it)
*** Grandmother's Footsteps by Gwyneth Jones
*** Madame Enchantia and the Maze of Dream by Jessica Amanda Salmonson
*** Slippage by Edward Bryant
*** The House on Rue Chartres by Richard A. Lupoff
*** House Hunter by Sharon Baker
*** Penelope Comes Home by M.J. Engh
*** Cedar Lane by Karl Edward Wagner

So if you're looking for something to keep you up at night and make you wonder if the sounds of your house settleing are that or something far more sinister, then this is the perfect book to reach for. Just don't be surprised if you have to have a bit of light in order to go to sleep, if for no other reason than to better see what your house may be up to when it thinks you're not looking...