Reviews

Foundations of Fear by Octavia E. Butler, Frederik Pohl, Carlos Fuentes, Gerald Durrell, Madeline Yale Wynne, Philip K. Dick, Scott Baker, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Peter Straub, Theodore Sturgeon, David G. Hartwell, Arthur Machen, Elizabeth Engstrom, Violet Hunt, Richard Matheson, Thomas Hardy, Thomas Ligotti, Robert Silverberg, Harriet Prescott Spofford, Daphne du Maurier, George R.R. Martin, Gertrude Atherton, H.P. Lovecraft, Robert A. Heinlein, Edgar Pangborn, Jean Ray, Clive Barker, Thomas M. Disch

bloodravenlib's review

4.0

There are one or two stories that seemed a bit slow, but overall, this is a very good collection. I have always enjoyed the anthologies edited by David Hartwell. The book includes a good scholarly essay as way of introduction. I wrote back in my journal that the editor views horror as a mode authors use in many categories of fiction, and that the book looks at the transaction between the reader and text which "yields the horrific response."

I was reading this when I was still teaching public school. Back then I was worried some of my colleagues would look down on me for reading a book like this. How times have changed since I have learned not to apologize for my reading tastes, and that genres like this can be both light and sophisticated. Horror for me makes a good way to let the imagination roam free, especially into some dark places. Definitely a book I recommend to anyone wanting to get a good overview of the horror genre.