It’s a shame that an anthology with as many good stories as Queer Fear II will be overlooked by many readers because of its obvious affiliation with genre fiction. Readers fearing an overdose of Tales from the Crypt tackiness and Anne Rice-inspired sex and bloodletting sessions should give the collection a closer look. Though there is no shortage of goofy, drive-in thrills here, there are also some moody set pieces that would not be out of place in any collection of contemporary literary fiction.

There is an inherent tension in most crossings between gay and straight worlds, and that tension is played to great effect in such stories as Robert Boyczuk’s “Gaytown.” Boyczuk combines the classic city folk stranded in a small town scenario with the nuanced emotional tensions of a long-term gay couple, one of whom is more out than the other. When a punctured gas tank forces the couple to spend the night in Gaytown (not found on any map!), the stranded lovers find themselves in a hallucinatory David Lynch backwater brimming with such bizarre gay signifiers as a big pink monster briefly glimpsed in a gas station.

David Nickle’s “Polyphemus’ Cave” features an oddly touching encounter between a closeted cinema idol and an empathic cyclops recently escaped from a circus freak show. The story builds to a violent, inevitable climax and is shot through with brisk, visceral imagery – “He opened his great mouth, and a tongue came out, thick as a marlin and rough like a towel.”

The best story is Steve Duffy’s “Numbers,” a creepy, multi-voiced piece that drifts in and out of the minds and memories of patients on an AIDS ward. Not a strict horror story as such – the boundaries of possibility are never violated by the appearance of the supernatural – the narrative replaces the monster with the grim presence of disease and the desperate theories and urban myths surrounding its origins.

Only a couple of the stories are downright clunkers, pasting overtly gay themes over stock horror scenarios, but even the most beholden to the horror genre make for an entertaining read late at night.