A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Evil:

‘ “9-11 resembled cheap, lazy fiction,” says horror author Neil Gaiman, whose slim volume Coraline is already being called the scariest novel of the year, “and because it did, it made it strange for writers to decide what is valid artistically.”

Gaiman’s domain is often looked down upon as hack work, but the attack on the World Trade Center and the subsequent social dislocation have dovetailed precisely with the field’s new themes. After a spasm of doubt within the genre, which was just beginning to find new voices and readers at the close of a decade-long downturn, horror is back, freshly relevant and ready for a prime place on the shelves…’ The Village Voice