Book Review: The Architecture of Fear

Book Review: 'The Architecture of Fear' edited by Kathryn Cramer and Peter D. Pautz

2 / 5 Stars

'The Architecture of Fear' first was published in hardcover by Arbor House in October, 1987. This Avon Books paperback edition (278 pp.) was published in January, 1989. The cover artist is Tim O'Brien.  

Editor Cramer has assembled numerous anthologies in the horror, fantasy, and sf genres.

In his Introduction, editor Pautz, who takes himself very seriously, tells the reader that this anthology has a Purpose:

.......Always the stories. I hope they horrify you. I hope they awaken you, help you to do something about the horror. Call a cop, protect a child, vote, read another book. But do something !   

I'm afraid that for my part, with 'The Architecture of Fear', I simply was looking for some entertainment, not inspiration to take action against Social Injustice.............so call me brutish and uncaring, then.

My capsule reviews of the contents:

In the House of Gingerbread, by Gene Wolfe: Tina Heim's husband died of lung cancer, despite not being a smoker. The life insurance company sends an investigator to interview Tina about this peculiarity..........perhaps there is something in the house that was responsible ?

Wolfe's prose style is surprisingly accessible, and although the story ends on something of an oblique note, it does feature some convincing villains.

Ellen, In Her Time, by Charles L. Grant: in their Introduction to this entry, the editors announce that:

 

....Charles L. Grant is a pervasive presence in contemporary fantasy.....a successful author who reads human reaction like a country physician. He is a writer who knows the darker sides of love.

'Ellen' sees our protagonist, Tim Edding, trying to climb over the wall into a Winter-time cemetery.........most readers will see where this story is going well in advance. I can't say that I found this story to be a remarkable exploration of the 'darker sides of love'. Maybe someone else did.

Nesting Instinct, by Scott Baker: Paris, 1968, and innocent young American girl Tracy arrives at a peculiar apartment building. The communal first floor toilet smells horrible (this is France, after all) but soon she learns there are much stranger things going on further up the staircase.......a decent tale.

Endless Night, by Karl Edward Wagner: a plotless series of vignettes about someone's nightmares. The Editors assure us that Wagner's contribution is a powerful reminder of The Banality of Evil. For my part, I thought this story was an example of how Wagner would meet commitments to anthology editors by grabbing something from the Reject Pile and turning it around with minimal effort............

The Fetch, by Robert Aickman: I had no illusions about a novelette from Aickman, and 'The Fetch' didn't steer me wrong. The plot has something to do with a haunted house situated in a remote area of Scotland. There is a housekeeper named Cuddy, who says enigmatic things. There is a caretaker named Mason, who serves overcooked steaks. There is a maid named Aline, who finds the house disturbing. None of these make the story at all interesting. 

Aickman's prose style is wordy and tedious; more talented authors would have taken the thin plot of 'The Fetch' and easily bounded it within a six-page story. Readers will need to prepare to encounter the words 'meiosis' (understatement), 'maquillage' (cosmetics, makeup) and 'hereditament' (an item of inheritance).

Trust Me, by Joseph Lyons: a 2-pager about the Boogeyman, competently done.

Visitors, by Jack Dann: A young man named Charlie, who is suffering from peritonitis, is in the hospital. He Sees Dead People. An effective story with an ending that avoids contrivance.

Gentlemen, by John Skipp and Craig Spector: what are the Splatterpunks doing in this anthology ?! 'Gentlemen' is about first-person narrator Dave, a Sensitive Guy who finds himself obliged to visit a Manhattan dive bar in order to comfort a girl he long has pined for. By the story's end, Dave has become a Real Man.

This story tries oh-so-hard to say something Important about misogyny and the corrupting nature of traditional masculinity, but comes across as preachy. It's saved by a stomach-churning description of the worst Bar and Grill men's room ever to be presented in a work of fiction.......... 

Down in the Darkness, by Dean R. Koontz: Jesus Gonzalez has purchased a very fine home in Laguna Beach, California. He discovers a door leading down to a basement. But the Realtor never mentioned anything about a basement.......didn't she ? One of the better stories in the anthology.

Haunted, by Joyce Carol Oates: Melissa and her friend Mary Lou like to visit the abandoned houses in their rural neighborhood. Someone should've told them to stay away from one house, in particular........I found this story to be a little too over-written (do we really need exhaustive descriptions of the interior contents of old houses ?) to be effective.

In the Memory Room, by Michael Bishop: while Gina Callan lies in her coffin, being viewed by her relatives in the funeral parlor (the eponymous 'memory room'), she has a telepathic conversation with the parlor hostess. More of a humor tale, certainly not horror or dark fantasy.

Tales from the Original Gothic, by John M. Ford: a team of paranormal researchers investigate the apparition of a haunted house. Things do not go well when a damsel seemingly in distress makes her appearance.

This is the worst entry in the anthology. I have no idea why editors Cramer and Pautz accepted it. Ford deploys a self-consciously 'metafictional' prose style that reads like something Philip Jose Farmer did in his New Wave stories, like 'Riders of the Purple Wage', back in the late 60s. 

If you can't work up a functioning plot and characters, then don't try and pass off stream-of-consciousness as coherence. Tell the editors 'sorry, I can't contribute', and let someone else get the call to contribute...........

The House that Knew No Hate, by Jessica Amanda Salmonson: middle-aged couple Nona and Donald move into the latter's childhood home. Soon Donald is seeing ghosts from the past.....or are they hallucinations ? Salmonson invests considerable effort in building up mood and atmosphere, but the denouement is too vague to be effective. 

The verdict ? 'The Architecture of Fear' is like the majority of horror anthologies that saw print in the 1980s: a surfeit of unremarkable, phoned-in entrants, along with a few worthwhile tales. I can't give it more than a 2-star rating.