What Terrence Rafferty seems to forget in his review column, “The Thinking Reader’s Guide to Fear,” is that vampires, zombies and poltergeists are often metaphors for disease, financial ruin, loss of love, etc. They are not simply pale attempts by lazy or immature writers at avoiding these heftier subjects. Horror fiction has no monopoly on “determinedly nonaspirational” prose. And while Mr. Rafferty may feel he needs to defend his reading choices, some of us just look for good books and be done with it.

Chances are nil that it’ll run now. On the other hand, Dave Itzkoff did finally return with a new science fiction column. There’s no lack of elsewheres where you can read about it. The general consensus seems to be along the lines of, “Well, it’s not as bad as his first one.”