IN THE FOG

Fourth and final volume—but only the first in hardcover—of original stories about spooky doings in the Massachusetts oceanside town of Greystone Bay (The Seaharp Hotel, 1990, etc.). Here, series-editor Grant (Raven, 1992, etc.) dips into a shallow talent pool—the majority of contributors are fellow Tor-authors—to deliver seven tales, of varying quality, that mirror his taste for ``quiet'' horror. The more conscientious entries here use Greystone Bay's peculiar kind of weirdness—conducive to climatic and emotional extremes—to generate occult outrages. In the leadoff ``The Fog Knew Her Name,'' Elizabeth Engstrom imagines a spinster librarian (the one clichÇ in an otherwise fresh tale) moving into town to find the local library a sepulchral place where patrons talk only in whispers and where serious nonfiction books dominate the shelves. Greystone Bay, she learns, is ``a spiritual and emotional void''—but it's also the abode of an entity that infuses new life through sexual romance. By contrast, Craig Shaw Gardner's routine ``Warm''—the spirit of a man's abusive mom invades the body of his comatose wife—could have been set anywhere; as could have ``The Home,'' Kathryn Ptacek's melancholy tale of a forsaken nursing home, or ``Whiteface,'' Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's stylish blend of horror (were-leopard) and crime (mafia) set against a circus backdrop. Arising more organically from the town's atmospherics are two backward-looking tales—Nancy Holder's ``O Love, Thy Kiss,'' ripe with summer heat and witchcraft; and Steve Tasnic Tem's ``Ice House Pond,'' equally palpable with dread winter cold. An appropriate little coda of a ghost story by Grant (``Josie, In the Fog'') closes the collection. Not a four-star horror destination, but Greystone Bay is worth a detour by those already en route to H.P. Lovecraft's Miskatonic Valley or Stephen King's Castle Rock.