Wednesday Lee Friday’s second horror collection, Spitefully Stabbity Spidery Stuff, is a smorgasbord of dark delights.  This is a diverse, briskly paced and blackly imagined set of tales that will doubtlessly please fans of the macabre.

Friday is nothing if not inventive.  These stories are not only original in their conception, but also frequently close with a genuinely unpredictable twist.  Yet the endings aren’t forced — however unnerving, Friday makes each feel like it is a logical conclusion to the story.

And many of these tales are truly frightening.  You can tell that Friday is a genuine horror fan, because she writes as only a true fan of the genre can — her stories are unflinching, but also injected with a warped humor that is germane to the story concept itself.  There is a natural symbiosis between her pathos and humor that makes each vignette feel tightly constructed.  (It helps, too, that her stories are quickly paced.  Sometimes stories are scarier when they barrel along toward their denouement.) In his insightful introduction to Spitefully Stabbity Spidery Stuff, author Alistair Cross notes that “Friday’s prose has the feel of Bradbury.”  I agree with the comparison.

Another of Friday’s strengths as a writer is her ease in capturing a character’s point of view — and then immersing the reader in his or her perspective.  The author employs direct language to deftly portray her characters’ motivations and states of mind.  The horrific events we witness seem more real when they are perceived by characters who think and speak much the way we do.

There is a nice variety to this collection as well.  The plot drivers here stem alternately from subgenres like sci-fi/horror, psychological horror, supernatural horror or crime stories.  (There are four poems too, along with a bonus — the first chapter of Friday’s novel, A Stabbing for Sadie.)  The author is a fan of true crime, according to her bio.  It shows, I think — the entries I found the most disturbing were rooted firmly in the real world.  There is one story by which I am still a bit haunted — it involves one character’s surprise disappearance and return.  What transpires for this person in the interim is largely a mystery … but the story’s ending is both explicit and maddeningly tragic.  (I’ve refrained from naming any story titles here because I am too concerned about inadvertent spoilers.)

In short, Spitefully Stabbity Spidery Stuff is clever, well executed and sometimes brutal.  I cheerfully recommend it to fans of short horror fiction.