Confederacy of the Dead - Softcover

Martin H. Greenbergwas honored in 1995 by the Mystery Writers of America with the Ellery Queen Award for lifetime achievement in mystery editing. He is also the recipient of two Anthony awards. Mystery Scene magazine called him "the best mystery anthologist since Ellery Queen." He has compiled more than 1,000 anthologies andis the president of TEKNO books.He lives in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Anthology comprising 25 original entries illustrating the Civil War from a generally supernatural vantage. Most, but not all, are written from a southern perspective, upon which political correctness occasionally exerts a somewhat stifling effect. The standouts: Ed Gorman's sad, brutally effective piece about a Christ-like figure who threatens to alter the course of the war; Anne McCaffrey's splendid yarn of a liberal southern family and African magic; a wrenching tale of a wounded soldier's homecoming, from Nancy A. Collins; African sorcery and an abused white boy (S.P. Somtow); voodoo and revenge, with a twist ending (Brad Strickland); battlefield surgery (Gregory Nicoll); deserters and the walking dead (Robert Sampson); child victims (Lee Hoffman); and an immortality serum (Algis Budrys). Elsewhere, though the details vary, the ideas tend to trudge around in predictable circles: voodoo, animated corpses, revenge, ghouls, cannibals, and Indians, plus the usual handful of indefinable pieces. A major weakness is the editors' failure to notice that the horrors of war are rarely heightened by mere splatterpunk embellishments. Still, the Civil War theme has built-in popularity, and the best stories here are very good indeed. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.