Skin of the Soul is a book of horror stories, or 'tales of terror' as it says on the cover, by women. Lisa Tuttle's Introduction focuses on the male domination of the horror genre—editorially, critically, and in the prominence of male writers—and goes on to address the question of whether women, in general, write horror differently than do men.

Some stories in this book draw on uniquely female experience, such as Suzy McKee Charnas' "Boobs", and many stories make concrete the fears of sexual abuse or rape, but there is no one theme. On the contrary, the stories have been well selected to show a variety of lengths, styles, and subject matters. The authors, too, come from all over, and it's the story by former New Zealander Cherry Wilder, that had the greatest effect on me.

Any story entitled "Anzac Day" automatically carries with it considerable emotional freight for anyone brought up in Australasia. Cherry Wilder's story begins with an impoverished Depression family arriving at a relative's home in hopes of charity, and ends in carnage. The author of the carnage is old Len Fell, who hasn't been right since he came back from Gallipoli, Len Fell in his army uniform with his cut-throat razor and his bayonet. It's a very New Zealand story of rural poverty and violence, a story where that old cliché 'as real as today's headlines' is all too sadly appropriate.

That story made Skin of the Soul for me, and there are others just as good. Whether or not you're a horror fan, I recommend it.

Review originally written for WARP magazine, New Zealand ( )