Poe: 19 New Tales Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe

To coincide with the 200th anniversary of the birth of Edgar Allan Poe, this anthology celebrates the depth and diversity of one of the most important figures in literature. Compiled by multi-award winning editor, Ellen Datlow, it presents some of the foremost talents of the genre, who have come together to reimagine tales inspired by Poe. Sharyn McCrumb, Lucius Shepard, Pat Cadigan, M. Rickert, and more, have lent their craft to this anthology, retelling such classics as "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Masque of the Red Death," exploring the very fringes of the genre.

From Publishers Weekly

This anthology's title notwithstanding, the 19 original stories commissioned for it seem largely devoid of the Poe principle. Kim Newman (Illimitable Domain) contributes a gleefully subversive alternate history in which Poe movie adaptations take over American culture; John Langan (Technicolor) offers an incisive deconstruction of Poe's Masque of the Red Death that also functions as a magnificently creepy horror tale; and Delia Sherman (The Red Piano) proffers a horror romance whose villain is clearly modeled on Poe's sound-sensitive Roderick Usher. For the most part, however, readers will have to work toward the explanatory note each author provides at the story's end to see which Poesque resonance he or she intended. Still, Datlow (Inferno) has assembled an all-star lineup and chosen inventive stories whose quality are certainly an extension of Poe's tradition of excellent weird fiction. (Jan.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

An editor for over thirty years, first in book publishing, but mostly editing short stories for Omni Magazine and webzine, Event Horizon, a webzine, and SciFiction, the fiction area of scifi.com. She now edits original and reprint anthologies. A born and bred New Yorker.

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