For Inferno, Ellen Datlow asked some of her favorite authors to write stories that, as she says in her introduction, “provide a frisson of shock or a moment of dread so powerful it might cause the reader outright physical discomfort; or a sensation of fear so palpable as to compel the reader to turn on bright lights and play music or seek the company of others to dispel the fear...” Twenty masterful authors, including Elizabeth Bear, Pat Cadigan, Paul Finch, Jeffrey Ford, Christopher Fowler, Stephen Gallagher, Glen Hirshberg, K. W. Jeter, Joyce Carol Oates, and Lucius Shepard, to name but a few, answered her call. These powerful, deeply affecting, sometimes disturbing tales confirm Datlow’s standing as a preeminent editor of modern horror.