Fear Itself

by Jeff Gelb (Editor / Contributor), Graham Watkins (Contributor), Stephen Gresham (Contributor)

A collection of stories about the fears that prey on ordinary people every day--plane crashes, intruders, spiders, snakes, and rape--Fear Itself features works by 21 popular authors, including Nancy A. Collins, Rex Miller, Thomas F. Monteleone, Joyce Carol Oates, Rick Hautala, Graham Masterson, and Max Allan Collins.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Anthologies, Fiction

310 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1995

About the author

Jeff Gelb is a former disc jockey and music columnist who created the SHOCK ROCK series of music-based horror fiction. He has also written a number of short stories, including Graveyard Shift, The Last Victim and The Portrait. In 2001, he collaborated with Max Allan Collins to create the anthology series FLESH AND BLOOD, tales of erotic noir from some of the finest writers in crime fiction. Mr. Gelb is now in his fifth decade producing the comic book fanzine MEN OF MYSTERY.

Reviews

[Lou · Rating 4 out of 5]

The editor Jeff Gelb gave these writers a task of writing of their fears or phobias, a truth mixed in with fiction. These tales are shocking dark and real. Visceral and well put together stories about real everyday horrors, true horrors from real lives. These stories prove how human these writers are and how they have fears the same as any of us could have.

Victims
By Scott Urban

Tense and traumatic story of strangers in your home. What's happens and could have happened really makes this story put you on the edge of your seat and you will find yourself saying ' oh no don't do it'.
Once an invasion of this kind occurs what's left behind is even more harrowing than what took place. The fear and the insecurity soul destroying. Great story he makes you feel your there and feeling the fear. Great start to this collection of stories on writers fears and phobias.

Home Again By Jeff Gleb
Life has its ups and downs loved ones we gain and loose. Many crack under pressure, people can react to a given situation with severe state of shock or just something in the brain a chemical reaction or in many cases an imbalance occurs. No one really knows the crux and reason why so many who face tortures and abuses come through unharmed while others can face normally everyday evils and come out the other end disturbed and a different person. One of our greatest fears is to loose our grip on the reality, our minds are fragile and so many suffer beneath the cloak of a normal looking sane face. It's something that is so wide spread now in 2012 an epidemic.
This story is all about loved ones and loosing a grip on reality.
Thought provoking, memorable and well put together.

Sewercide by Rex miller
This was an interesting story a bit more n the extreme and dark side. Literally to hell and back with excess luggage. What would you do?
Good point of view writing and visceral.

Unfinished Business by Michael Garrett
Economy in downfall jobs have to go. Do you want to be the one to tell it to the feared man in this story?
Then wait a minute the unexpected happens the tables are turned.

The Merry Go-Round Man by Gary Brandner
Nice story he really makes you feel your there in the experience of the carnival and its rides. You feel the boys concerns on death and the ignorance of youth. All the things he wrote about and the way he presented it in here i liked and would love myself to write this kind of story one day.

Food For The Beast by Paul Kupperberg
A writer who's under the influence and an addict produced good stories. Once cleaned up his work seemed to lack anything good. He finds himself visiting a therapist. He talks of a strange beast influence and as time passes you witness his behavior become very violent and different.
"Art comes from disease and despair, from the shit stew of emotional turmoil, that's got to be kept simmering with every trauma you've ever experienced."


Mommy by Max Allan Collins
A daughter who's good at school a mother should be proud but when the daughter does not win a certain award mommy dearest pays a visit to speak with those responsible. Mommy dearest has a dark passenger that dear daughter soon discovers to her shock and horror.
Interesting story you really have concern for the young girl. Nice dark twist to a mother.

The Highway by Edo Van Belkom
One protagonists fear of being unsafe on the road in a vehicle. He is on a business trip and can't help thinking flying would be so much safer. His motor vehicle takes a turn for the worst and he gets a puncher, now that what you don't need a driver feeling unsafe and now broken down on the road in bad weathers conditions. Interesting reading nice little fear story.

Home For The Holidays by Elsa Rutherford
The main character somehow finds that she can have her dead grandfather back, as a corpse, for the holidays. Having him back is great but as a corpse rotting and ugly he's not received with open arms except by dear grandmother she feels bliss where everyone else feels repulsed at his presence.
Nice little creepy tale.

Time Enough To Sleep by Thomas F. Monteleone
A father can never be too carefully when it comes to making sure his daughter is safe. Right from birth the main narrator a father show concerns over cot death. Thats an understandable fear but It doesn't stop there he becomes obsessed and almost paranoid on her safety and unhealthy goes over the top. One thing leads to another and blood will be on the cards, but by who?
Thought provoking and good read.

The Powers Of Darkness by Richard Lee Byers
The man in this story is a family man and a writer. His writes about the dark side of the world it is only a work of fiction he writing, the neighbors and community don't see that they see him as a devil worshiper.
They spread rumors of his evil and he wants to put things right and the record straight big mistake!
Many people possibly can't tell the truth between fiction and reality they perceive the writer to be like what he writes. A fear many writers could have.

Snakes by Jack Ketchum
Jack Ketchum tackles his fear of snakes head on with a story where a female protagonist finds herself head to head with her fear of snakes.
A good visceral fear story.

Review also @ http://more2read.com/review/fear-itself/

[Philipp · Rating 3 out of 5]

Picked up in a used-books-shop (Bella Books!) purely because of the awesome cover: a bunch of flies encircle a screaming mouth. Funny enough there's no story featuring flies here.

A horror anthology around the theme of each writer's personal worst fear. Two stories feature heavy sexual violence, the rest features more of your 'usual' fear fare: an overbearing murderous mother, an invasion of snakes, a cave full of spiders, a murderous pro-life statue. Two big names in the author list: Jack Ketchum (the mentioned snake-story; unusually tame for Ketchum!) and Joyce Carol Oates (a great nightmare of visiting the worst uncle). Not very gory stories, rarely supernatural.

Recommended for: 80s horror fans, fans of great covers

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid collection of horror stories, with the only real dud, for me, being by the editor. Otherwise, the stories start strong and maintains an above-average quality throughout. The theme of the book being that the authors write a story about there own fears yields some rather strong entries well worth the time if you're into this sort of thing.

Recommended.

[James Francis · Rating 3 out of 5]

The anthology was good overall but like all anthologies some stories were better than others. I did not find the anthology very scary or disturbing so for scares I would pick-up Clive Barker or the Dark Delicacies anthologies.

[Bill Borre]

"Once Upon a Darkness" by Stephen Gresham - wc
"Food for the Beast" by Paul Kupperberg - wc
"Pyre" by Th. Metzger - wc
"Sewercide" by Rex Miller - wc

[Yvonne Riggs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good book, I enjoyed most of the stories, and the one about spiders scared me the most.