This anthology contains 20 stories of light horror/fantasy and for me it was very uneven. At least a third were clunkers. Some were badly written while others just didn't go anywhere. Some of the best tales were the fantasy pieces. "A Wine of Heart's Desire" by Ron Nance was a treat, mixing adventure and humor in a well-told story. Phyllis Ann Karr has two stories here in a world she created and both were well written and imaginative. In the horror genre I liked Janet Fox's "Witches", Steve Rasnic Tem's "The Sky Came Down to Earth", "Spring Conditions" by Eileen Gunn and George Florance-Guthridge's "See the Station Master". The final story "The Inhabitant of the Pond" by Linda Thornton had a few creepy moments but I felt there was so much more potential for the story that wasn't realized. It was overwritten in the language used and the formality of the some of the dialogue. These two things blunted what could have been.
The book begins with an odd introduction by Stephen King where he calls out certain stories for being, in his words, "exquisitely awful". I've never read an intro where the author did anything but heap praise on the book in question, but I guess King was just being honest. There are good stories in Tales by Moonlight, just not enough of them.
