HAVE YOURSELF A SCARY LITTLE CHRISTMAS

We wish you a macabre Christmas with thirteen of the best horror tales of the season. Hang your stocking with very special care by “The Chimney,” a chiller about what really comes down from the roof on Christmas Eve. Or join Robert Bloch on “The Night Before Christmas” by trimming the tree…in a shocking fashion. It’s hardly a silent night even in outer space, where Arthur C. Clarke makes our blood run cold with the truth about Bethlehem’s star.

So curl up by those chestnuts roasting on an open fire…as these masters leave you screaming on a white Christmas

RAMSEY CAMPBELL • ROBERT BLOCH • H.P. LOVECRAFT • H.G. WELLS • ARTHUR C. CLARKE • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON • MRS. GASKELL • S. BARING-GOULD • RON GOULART • GRANT ALLEN • JAMES McCONNELL • J.T. McINTOSH

And don’t miss Avon Books’ other Christmas collection…THE TWELVE CRIMES OF CHRISTMAS

This is a surprisingly agreeable anthology, although it has nothing by Asimov in it. (His most frightening Christmas story, I suppose, is ”Christmas on Ganymede”—not that the story is supposed to be frightening, but it’s rather scary to contemplate that Asimov actually wrote it.) The stories vary from suspense-driven science fiction (Ron Goulart’s “The Hellhound Project”) to more gothic horror (H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Festival”).

The one real surprise is the presence of Arthur C. Clarke’s “The Star”—an excellent story, to be sure, and thrown in as a special added bonus. Chilling, perhaps—but frightening? Hardly!