MODERN MASTERS OF HORROR

Fifteen so-so horror tales--some brand-new, some magazine-published in the last few years. The modest standout is ""A Cabin in the Woods"" by John Coyne--in which an author of wretched occult novels (Coyne wrote such stinkers as The Piercing) finds his hi-tech, woodsy hideaway infested with a creepy-crawly fungus. Also neat: William Hallahan's wry ""The New Tenant"" (tax benefits and ghosts); Gahan Wilson's ""The Power of the Mandarin"" (about the writer of a Fu Manchu-style series, who kills off his hero and finds himself pursued by his villainous Mandarin); and Felice Picano's campily styled ""Absolute Ebony"" (in which a melancholy American painter finds a pigment that has a life of its own). But entries from Stephen King, Davis Grubb, George A. Romero, Robert Bloch, and others are grindingly familiar--and overall this is only for hard-core horror/occult fans and other uncritical browsers.