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Best Horror of the Year #12
The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Twelve
From Ellen Datlow (“the venerable queen of horror anthologies” (New York Times) comes a new entry in the series that has brought you stories from Stephen King and Neil Gaiman comes thrilling stories, the best horror stories available.
For more than three decades, Ellen Datlow has been at the center of horror. Bringing you the most frightening and terrifying stories, Datlow always has her finger on the pulse of what horror readers crave. Now, with the eleventh volume of the series, Datlow is back again to bring you the stories that will keep you up at night. Encompassed in the pages of The Best Horror of the Year have been such illustrious writers as: Neil Gaiman, Kim Newman, Stephen King, Linda Nagata, Laird Barron, Margo Lanagan, and many others.
With each passing year, science, technology, and the march of time shine light into the craggy corners of the universe, making the fears of an earlier generation seem quaint. But this light creates its own shadows. The Best Horror of the Year chronicles these shifting shadows. It is a catalog of terror, fear, and unpleasantness as articulated by today’s most challenging and exciting writers.
For more than three decades, Ellen Datlow has been at the center of horror. Bringing you the most frightening and terrifying stories, Datlow always has her finger on the pulse of what horror readers crave. Now, with the eleventh volume of the series, Datlow is back again to bring you the stories that will keep you up at night. Encompassed in the pages of The Best Horror of the Year have been such illustrious writers as: Neil Gaiman, Kim Newman, Stephen King, Linda Nagata, Laird Barron, Margo Lanagan, and many others.
With each passing year, science, technology, and the march of time shine light into the craggy corners of the universe, making the fears of an earlier generation seem quaint. But this light creates its own shadows. The Best Horror of the Year chronicles these shifting shadows. It is a catalog of terror, fear, and unpleasantness as articulated by today’s most challenging and exciting writers.
599 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 1, 2020
About the author
Ellen Datlow
250 books1,809 followersEllen Datlow has been editing science fiction, fantasy, and horror short fiction for forty years as fiction editor of OMNI Magazine and editor of Event Horizon and SCIFICTION. She currently acquires short stories and novellas for Tor.com. In addition, she has edited about one hundred science fiction, fantasy, and horror anthologies, including the annual The Best Horror of the Year series, The Doll Collection, Mad Hatters and March Hares, The Devil and the Deep: Horror Stories of the Sea, Echoes: The Saga Anthology of Ghost Stories, Edited By, and Final Cuts: New Tales of Hollywood Horror and Other Spectacles.
She's won multiple World Fantasy Awards, Locus Awards, Hugo Awards, Bram Stoker Awards, International Horror Guild Awards, Shirley Jackson Awards, and the 2012 Il Posto Nero Black Spot Award for Excellence as Best Foreign Editor. Datlow was named recipient of the 2007 Karl Edward Wagner Award, given at the British Fantasy Convention for "outstanding contribution to the genre," was honored with the Life Achievement Award by the Horror Writers Association, in acknowledgment of superior achievement over an entire career, and honored with the World Fantasy Life Achievement Award at the 2014 World Fantasy Convention.
She's won multiple World Fantasy Awards, Locus Awards, Hugo Awards, Bram Stoker Awards, International Horror Guild Awards, Shirley Jackson Awards, and the 2012 Il Posto Nero Black Spot Award for Excellence as Best Foreign Editor. Datlow was named recipient of the 2007 Karl Edward Wagner Award, given at the British Fantasy Convention for "outstanding contribution to the genre," was honored with the Life Achievement Award by the Horror Writers Association, in acknowledgment of superior achievement over an entire career, and honored with the World Fantasy Life Achievement Award at the 2014 World Fantasy Convention.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 61 reviews
February 26, 2021
Another year, another Datlow collection. As always, she favors the weird and the eerie over the shocking and gory. Ups and downs (as always), but more of the former than the latter:
I̶c̶e̶ ̶C̶o̶l̶d̶ ̶L̶e̶m̶o̶n̶a̶d̶e̶ ̶2̶5̶ȼ̶̶ Haunted House Tour: 1 Per Person (Paul Tremblay)
Paul reflects on his lonely childhood in the 80s, when he stole someone else’s creepy ghost. Oops - not only is it a memento mori, it's also a memento-lost-pieces-of-yourself. Very nice.
A Song for Wounded Mouths (Kristi DeMeester)
A shitty band explores an abandoned house for a music video. They find teeth, and other things, and feel compulsions. Seems a bit afield from her other stories I’ve read, but then her trademark focus on families and abuse comes into frame. Good creepy bits, but a very annoying love triangle and some almost-meta commentary from the characters that falls flat.
Birds of Passage (Gordon B. White)
A father and son run into something numinous on a camping trip. A bit of “The Willows,” a bit of “A Bit of the Dark World,” nicely captures the yearning and awe-struck terror (not horror) of the experience. Good (and surprisingly hopeful) stuff.
The Puppet Motel (Gemma Files)
A student manages (and then occupies) a creepy Airbnb: sick building syndrome, or something even darker? It's something even darker. Ligottian in outlook; pure Files in affect and relentless forward momentum (and Torontonian-ism). Excellent.
The Senior Girls Bayonet Drill Team (Joe Lansdale)
On an alien planet, tSGBDT make their way to a match. There are off-handed references to how bloody and brutal it will be, but overall this is just the story of a sports team bonding. Huh. Written well enough, I suppose.
They Are Us (1964): An Oral History (Jack Lothian)
An oral history (go figure) about a cult movie based on a cult book about doppelgangers (nicely creepy). Very much my thing, formally/thematically, but felt a bit brief; an excellent idea that needed a bit more grounding.
The Night Nurse (Sarah Langan)
A miserable mother in Brooklyn accepts help from a mysterious witch. There’s a fee. A nice dark fairy tale, the mother’s desperation conveyed very nicely, as is the husband's uselessness; the prose a little too casual/hyper-contemporary for my taste at times.
As Dark As Hunger (S. Qiouyi Lu)
Secondary-world fantasy where a woman takes in a wounded mermaid, just as an old lover shows up on a mermaid hunt. Thematically concerned with belonging/diaspora/transitioning/assimilating. I would quibble about genre, but who cares. Very good!
I Say (I Say, I Say) (Robert Shearman)
Embodied joke caricatures live in surreal existential horror. Absolutely jet-black humor, well-told and -constructed, pretty sui generis. Guess I’m going to have to scare up a copy of We All Hear Stories in the Dark, damn it.
The Pain-Eater’s Daughter (Laura N. Mauro)
A woman watches her Romani father and grandfather die from taking on the pain of others, for which they are paid a pittance. Something of Omelas but with actual characters. Beautiful, although the simmering tension did lead me to expect a swerve or eruption or irruption that never came.
The Hope Chest (Sarah Read)
A little girl tries to survive her abusive mother after her beloved grandmother dies. She finds solace with a dress form. Usually not on board with stories where you're just waiting for karma to catch up with an abuser, but the comfort of the grandmother worked well here. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by way of Ray Bradbury.
Nor Cease You Never Now (Ren Warom)
Twins survive a boat wreck that kills all their classmates. Also there’s a big traffic accident. Their parents are full of guilt, the fens are full of creepy water, the twins are also full of guilt. Cartoonishly gory, constant POV shifts, scrambled words, choppy prose, a bit of an overwrought mess.
Playscape (Diana Peterfreund)
You knew that woman whose baby vanished at the playground, but you weren't really friends, and you'd never let that happen to your own baby, right? ... right? I'm a sucker for 2nd person, this hit close to home, great stuff.
Adrenaline Junkies (Ray Cluley)
Adrenaline junkies skydive over a cenote in Mexico. They’re beset by a swarm of feathered serpent bat monsters. The monsters are also adrenaline junkies. Flashbacks twine throughout about a dead lover. Good; surprisingly abrupt ending.
Watching (Tim Lees)
Kidnapping, child abuse, murder, more child abuse. Very, extremely, indubitably, inarguably not my thing.
Mr. and Mrs. Kett (Sam Hicks)
A girl comes home to find her parents have taken in two mysterious guests, who guide them all in building a maze in the backyard. Aickmanesque, slightly surreal, understated and very British. Killer. Hicks's first published story was in last year's volume, and I was very impressed with it for a first outing, and this is even better. An author to watch.
Below (Simon Bestwick)
A pair of truants in 1980s Manchester fall into a subterranean city of monsters. Some initial creepiness gives way to diminishing returns and a series of deus ex machinas.
My Name is Ellie (Sam Rebelein)
A girl recounts her creepy family’s creepy houses and creepy figurines. A good story marred by a grating narrative conceit, a stream of single-sentence paragraphs that almost all start with “Which...” to sell the precocious narrator.
Slipper (Catriona Ward)
A brother and sister attend their father’s funeral and make plans for his estate, which comes with a lot of baggage. You know I love things dark and melancholy but this is just abject misery: pissy bickering, child abuse, incest, alcoholism, etc.
How to Stay Afloat When Drowning (Daniel Braum)
A man goes fishing in Montauk to help his sister with a business deal. He's got a lot of things to be sad about. Opening yourself up is bound to attract sharks.
This Was Always Going to Happen (Stephen Graham Jones)
You get a flat tire driving up a mountain near Denver. A cyclist stops to "help"... ?" Another second-person humdinger, just absolutely incredibly tense and odd for a very brief number of pages.
The Butcher’s Table (Nathan Ballingrud)
A gloriously lurid, unabashedly pulpy tale of pirates and the damned at the shores of Hell; cartoonishly gory, narratively taut, incredibly inventive, god damn.
I̶c̶e̶ ̶C̶o̶l̶d̶ ̶L̶e̶m̶o̶n̶a̶d̶e̶ ̶2̶5̶ȼ̶̶ Haunted House Tour: 1 Per Person (Paul Tremblay)
Paul reflects on his lonely childhood in the 80s, when he stole someone else’s creepy ghost. Oops - not only is it a memento mori, it's also a memento-lost-pieces-of-yourself. Very nice.
A Song for Wounded Mouths (Kristi DeMeester)
A shitty band explores an abandoned house for a music video. They find teeth, and other things, and feel compulsions. Seems a bit afield from her other stories I’ve read, but then her trademark focus on families and abuse comes into frame. Good creepy bits, but a very annoying love triangle and some almost-meta commentary from the characters that falls flat.
Birds of Passage (Gordon B. White)
A father and son run into something numinous on a camping trip. A bit of “The Willows,” a bit of “A Bit of the Dark World,” nicely captures the yearning and awe-struck terror (not horror) of the experience. Good (and surprisingly hopeful) stuff.
The Puppet Motel (Gemma Files)
A student manages (and then occupies) a creepy Airbnb: sick building syndrome, or something even darker? It's something even darker. Ligottian in outlook; pure Files in affect and relentless forward momentum (and Torontonian-ism). Excellent.
The Senior Girls Bayonet Drill Team (Joe Lansdale)
On an alien planet, tSGBDT make their way to a match. There are off-handed references to how bloody and brutal it will be, but overall this is just the story of a sports team bonding. Huh. Written well enough, I suppose.
They Are Us (1964): An Oral History (Jack Lothian)
An oral history (go figure) about a cult movie based on a cult book about doppelgangers (nicely creepy). Very much my thing, formally/thematically, but felt a bit brief; an excellent idea that needed a bit more grounding.
The Night Nurse (Sarah Langan)
A miserable mother in Brooklyn accepts help from a mysterious witch. There’s a fee. A nice dark fairy tale, the mother’s desperation conveyed very nicely, as is the husband's uselessness; the prose a little too casual/hyper-contemporary for my taste at times.
As Dark As Hunger (S. Qiouyi Lu)
Secondary-world fantasy where a woman takes in a wounded mermaid, just as an old lover shows up on a mermaid hunt. Thematically concerned with belonging/diaspora/transitioning/assimilating. I would quibble about genre, but who cares. Very good!
I Say (I Say, I Say) (Robert Shearman)
Embodied joke caricatures live in surreal existential horror. Absolutely jet-black humor, well-told and -constructed, pretty sui generis. Guess I’m going to have to scare up a copy of We All Hear Stories in the Dark, damn it.
The Pain-Eater’s Daughter (Laura N. Mauro)
A woman watches her Romani father and grandfather die from taking on the pain of others, for which they are paid a pittance. Something of Omelas but with actual characters. Beautiful, although the simmering tension did lead me to expect a swerve or eruption or irruption that never came.
The Hope Chest (Sarah Read)
A little girl tries to survive her abusive mother after her beloved grandmother dies. She finds solace with a dress form. Usually not on board with stories where you're just waiting for karma to catch up with an abuser, but the comfort of the grandmother worked well here. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by way of Ray Bradbury.
Nor Cease You Never Now (Ren Warom)
Twins survive a boat wreck that kills all their classmates. Also there’s a big traffic accident. Their parents are full of guilt, the fens are full of creepy water, the twins are also full of guilt. Cartoonishly gory, constant POV shifts, scrambled words, choppy prose, a bit of an overwrought mess.
Playscape (Diana Peterfreund)
You knew that woman whose baby vanished at the playground, but you weren't really friends, and you'd never let that happen to your own baby, right? ... right? I'm a sucker for 2nd person, this hit close to home, great stuff.
Adrenaline Junkies (Ray Cluley)
Adrenaline junkies skydive over a cenote in Mexico. They’re beset by a swarm of feathered serpent bat monsters. The monsters are also adrenaline junkies. Flashbacks twine throughout about a dead lover. Good; surprisingly abrupt ending.
Watching (Tim Lees)
Kidnapping, child abuse, murder, more child abuse. Very, extremely, indubitably, inarguably not my thing.
Mr. and Mrs. Kett (Sam Hicks)
A girl comes home to find her parents have taken in two mysterious guests, who guide them all in building a maze in the backyard. Aickmanesque, slightly surreal, understated and very British. Killer. Hicks's first published story was in last year's volume, and I was very impressed with it for a first outing, and this is even better. An author to watch.
Below (Simon Bestwick)
A pair of truants in 1980s Manchester fall into a subterranean city of monsters. Some initial creepiness gives way to diminishing returns and a series of deus ex machinas.
My Name is Ellie (Sam Rebelein)
A girl recounts her creepy family’s creepy houses and creepy figurines. A good story marred by a grating narrative conceit, a stream of single-sentence paragraphs that almost all start with “Which...” to sell the precocious narrator.
Slipper (Catriona Ward)
A brother and sister attend their father’s funeral and make plans for his estate, which comes with a lot of baggage. You know I love things dark and melancholy but this is just abject misery: pissy bickering, child abuse, incest, alcoholism, etc.
How to Stay Afloat When Drowning (Daniel Braum)
A man goes fishing in Montauk to help his sister with a business deal. He's got a lot of things to be sad about. Opening yourself up is bound to attract sharks.
This Was Always Going to Happen (Stephen Graham Jones)
You get a flat tire driving up a mountain near Denver. A cyclist stops to "help"... ?" Another second-person humdinger, just absolutely incredibly tense and odd for a very brief number of pages.
The Butcher’s Table (Nathan Ballingrud)
A gloriously lurid, unabashedly pulpy tale of pirates and the damned at the shores of Hell; cartoonishly gory, narratively taut, incredibly inventive, god damn.
December 1, 2020
Last year's selection was far superior to this, but there's still some quality scares to be had here. Before proceeding to the stories, the editor presents a survey of the horror scene in 2019. It suggests some promising reads.
As with most anthologies, there are gems scattered among ponderous bores. I noticed that the choicest morsels can be found in the middle portion, after one slogs through some uninspiring appetizers.
It finishes on a soaring note though. Like last year's volume, the most intriguing piece here features cannibalism, although it's more or less incidental to the sprawling plot.
The best stories are:
The Puppet Motel - AirBnB from hell.
The Night Nurse - an exhausted mother contracts the services of a peculiar nanny.
They Are Us (1964) : An Oral History - a haunted book is developed into an inevitably cursed film.
I Say (I Say, I Say) - how comedies play out in the afterlife.
The Butcher's Table - a besotted satanist braves the terrors of the high seas to wed his lady-love in the very mouth of Hell.
7/10. I'm tilting it to 4 stars because of Ballingrud's masterful novella.
As with most anthologies, there are gems scattered among ponderous bores. I noticed that the choicest morsels can be found in the middle portion, after one slogs through some uninspiring appetizers.
It finishes on a soaring note though. Like last year's volume, the most intriguing piece here features cannibalism, although it's more or less incidental to the sprawling plot.
The best stories are:
The Puppet Motel - AirBnB from hell.
The Night Nurse - an exhausted mother contracts the services of a peculiar nanny.
They Are Us (1964) : An Oral History - a haunted book is developed into an inevitably cursed film.
I Say (I Say, I Say) - how comedies play out in the afterlife.
The Butcher's Table - a besotted satanist braves the terrors of the high seas to wed his lady-love in the very mouth of Hell.
7/10. I'm tilting it to 4 stars because of Ballingrud's masterful novella.
January 23, 2022
I can always count on Datlow to deliver a great anthology. As is typical not all the stories are to my taste, but the overall quality is high. My favorite was the final story of pirates and a journey into hell(?) with a generous dose of gore and violence. Datlow does tend to favor more abstract forms of horror, to the point where a lot of the selections were not even horror to me, for example the Joe Landale (who has written some truly disgusting tales) offering that only implied future horror, while focusing instead on team cohesion.
April 19, 2021
This actually 2.9 out of 5 but I'm taking off a star due to the large amount of child abuse stories in here and one particularly abusive-pedo type story that was really fucked up. Don't get me wrong, there are a few excellent stories here, but I'm quite disappointed with too many of them. Datlow can do better than this.
March 28, 2021
The Butcher’s Table by Nathan Ballingrud ★★★★★
Hideous beauty, confronting and objectionable grace - everything I ever wanted from Clive Barker.
The Senior Girls Bayonet Drill Team by Joe R. Lansdale ★★★★½
This is my second Lansdale short story and I am officially a fan. I like his colorful landscape, human connections, and bright unexpected violence. The story leaves you wanting a novella’s worth of backstory: How did young female gladiatorial sports become a grassroots movement on Mars? Is this a matriarchal planet? How does the respect of young violence translate to success in the rest of their lives? I liked that the author put forth that beauty does not last but perhaps camaraderie and vicious reputations do.
Slipper by Catriona Ward ★★★★½
This was the twisted tale I was waiting for, Flowers in the Attic rewritten as a Neil Gaiman dark fantasy. It was disturbing and memorable.
Birds of Passage by Gordon B. White ★★★★☆
If The Willows were a father son camping trip written like an episode of The Wonder Years you would have this story. I wish there had been more but its spooky nostalgia was better than the previous stories.
The Night Nurse by Sarah Langan ★★★★☆
This was true horror - three children under six. Shudder. The author didn’t even need a witch, just the daily description of life had me reeling.
Bellow by Simon Bestwick ★★★½☆
A bit of Stephen King YA, a bit of Kolchak: The Night Stalker. This was an ok story of children being naughty and running into monsters.
Playscape by Diana Peter Freund ★★★☆☆
“My doctor asked me if I ever have those thoughts, like I’d be better off without the baby. And I know you’re supposed to answer ‘of course not.’ But really. Think about it. I haven’t washed my hair in ten days.”
This was another all-too-real motherhood-as-a-horror story. There were no monsters, just a lack of help.
The Pain-Eater’s Daughter by Laura Mauro ★★★☆☆
I find magical Romani stories fascinating and colorful but this one is irrepressibly sad.
That Was Always Going to Happen by Stephen Graham Jones ★★★☆☆
That was starting to get frightening when it ended. Abrupt.
The Hope Chest by Sarah Read ★★★☆☆
Mostly a depressing story of an alcoholic abusive mother but with a magically happy ending.
Watching by Tim Lees ★★★☆☆
That was SVU horror pillowed by fluffy language. But generally, it’s the horror of a man realizing that after being abused as a child he has grown into a pedophile. He says he just watches but...
Mr. and Mrs. Kett by Sam Hicks ★★★☆☆
I think this was a fae story: the mounds, the physical description of the glamour, and possibly the rust on the teen who breaks their magic.
The Puppet Motel by Gemma Files ★★½☆☆
Boring frustrated millennial haunted house story. The half star is for the touch of Lovecrafty goodness but it was too long.
That was a boring beginning. It started off well with 80s reference and a spooky vibe but that was it. Nothing happens.
A Song For Wounded Mouths Kristi DeMeester ★★☆☆☆
The worlds most depressing fag hag walks into a haunted house. She did not care about herself so neither did I.
Adrenaline Junkies by Ray Cluley ★★☆☆☆
It was one long action sequence chewed up by a dozen flashbacks. That just killed the flow.
They Are Us (1964): An Oral History by Jack Lothian ★½☆☆☆
There was very little here, disappointing. I have read a good celluloid themed horror short, The Hurrah (aka Corpse Scene).
I Say (I Say, I Say) by Robert Sherman ★☆☆☆☆ (DNF)
I read more than half over four starts and am outraged at the waste of time and effort. This was a barroom joke that kept not hitting a punchline. How is this in a horror collection, much less a best-of?!?!
My Name is Ellie by Sam Rebelein DNF
This is a child telling a story. “Mom said... Dad said... Word I don’t understand ... Swear Jar...” Walking away now.
How to Stay Afloat When Drowning by Daniel Braum DNF
No I did not need that image of tourist bastards beating a shark to death with bat.
As Dark As Hunger by S. Qiouyi Lu DNF
This read like mermaid torture porn and I never want to read that again.
Nor Cease You Never Now by Ren Warom DNF
“There’s no story, either, only fragments scattered all around.”
That did not sound promising and I was falling asleep on page two. Pass.
I read 18/22 stories that averaged out to 3.02. As four DNFs are about 20% of the book that I considered unreadable this is getting 2 stars.
January 13, 2021
The Nathan Ballingrud alone is worth the price of admission here. Phenomenal. Other stand-outs for me were by Sarah Read, Diana Peterfreund, Ray Cluley, Sam Hicks, Sam Rebelein, and Stephen Graham Jones.
January 11, 2022
Top 5:
1. The Butcher's Table - Nathan Ballingrud
2. The Senior Girls Bayonet Drill Team - Joe R. Lansdale
3. My Name is Ellie - Sam Rebelein
4. Adrenaline Junkies - Ray Cluley
5. Birds of Passage - Gordon B. White
1. The Butcher's Table - Nathan Ballingrud
2. The Senior Girls Bayonet Drill Team - Joe R. Lansdale
3. My Name is Ellie - Sam Rebelein
4. Adrenaline Junkies - Ray Cluley
5. Birds of Passage - Gordon B. White
December 17, 2021
I always love Datlow's Best Horror books, read them every year, but this one was especially good. What's so strong about this series is that she pushes the limits of what is considered horror so you get a really expansive and diverse spread of stories, with no style dominating. My favorites in this volume were "A Song for Wounded Mouths" by Kristi DeMeester, "The Hope Chest" by Sarah Read, "Playscape" by Diana Peterfreund (which is a great example of the loose horror description), "Adrenaline Junkies" by Ray Cluley, and "Slipper" by Catriona Ward. But honestly I really liked about 80% of these stories, which is high praise and uncommon consistency. But, as I said, this series is dependably full of great stories.
August 8, 2020
Another top-quality smorgasbord of horror. This years serving feels more varied than usual - with a range of subtler tales that flirt with the edges of what horror can be - Robert Shearman, I’m looking at you a as d your crazy “I Say (I Say I Say).
Standouts, for me, are Paul Tremblay’s “Haunted House Tour, 1 Per Person”, Joe Lansdale’s “The Senior Girls Bayonet Drill Team” and, way our front, Sarah Langan’s “The Night Nurse”.
Great stuff as ever.
Standouts, for me, are Paul Tremblay’s “Haunted House Tour, 1 Per Person”, Joe Lansdale’s “The Senior Girls Bayonet Drill Team” and, way our front, Sarah Langan’s “The Night Nurse”.
Great stuff as ever.
June 15, 2021
Volume 12 beats Volume 11 all hollow. Where 11's stories had good premises, 12 has the stones to commit almost all the way through. These are stories that aren't afraid to show the cards in their hand, and are willing to content themselves with scaring the tobacco juice out of readers without straining to be "high art" - though some manage that feat just fine anyhow.
1. "Haunted House Tour - 1 Per Person" - a grand, King-esque start. Scary but fails to stick the landing. Very well-written and manages considerable depth.
2. "A Song for Wounded Mouths" - a little confusing. Scary ideas but muddles the ending too much to make significant impact.
3. "Birds of Passage" - a damn fine coming-of-age story. Nostalgic, affecting writing with grand eldritch scares in the middle.
4. "The Puppet Motel" - needed a different title, but is still the scariest story in the book. Real sleep-with-the-lights-on material here.
5. "The Senior Girls Bayonet Drill Team" - not scary, not meant to be. A surprisingly heartfelt little character study about high school girls trying to murder each other for sport. Probably my favorite piece overall, despite the lack of any real terror.
6. "The Night Nurse" - quite unnerving. Perhaps more so if I'd ever birthed a child, but you can just feel the hormones in this one.
7. "They Are Us (1964) An Oral History" - Also quiet scary. I'm biased because I love stories about movie-making, but the epistolary format serves the story well. Reminded me of Gaiman's "Orange."
8. "As Dark as Hunger" - an uncomfortable read, one where I actually might have preferred a happier ending. Verges on torture porn. Not really for me.
9. "I Say (I Say, I Say)" - black, black, black humor here. Again, not horror, but healthier for you! Kind of an extended joke all throughout. Fun, if you like that sort of thing. I do.
10. "The Pain Eater's Daughter" - fine in concept. Didn't particularly grab me.
11. "The Hope Chest" - a surreal and unnerving read. Very much a "humans are the real monsters" plot... except they're not. A creative and scary beastie lurks.
12. "Nor Cease You Never Now" - this one feels... transgressive. Boundary-pushing, in a good way. Solid horror concept. Good luck eating meat for a while.
13. "Playscape" - anxious to the max. Hug your kids tonight.
14. "Adrenaline Junkies" - the best kind of weird fiction, the kind that ties up its themes neatly. Storytelling like bricklaying here, everything lies together angle on angle.
15. "Watching" - too close to torture porn for this buscus. Verged on exploitative. Not for me.
16. "Mr. and Mrs. Kett" - a vampire story without vampires. Spooky through most of it, but a muddled ending puts its thumb in the pie.
17. "Below" - a sprawling schoolboy epic. Strong character work and old-school creature-feature scares. My cup of tea exactly. I like my horror to hit broadsides like this.
18. "My Name is Ellie" - apologies to the author and editor of this collection, but there's no reason to read this story. Petulant, tedious, and not scary at all. This was one of the year's best horror stories?
19. "Slipper" - a grand return to form. An eldritch locale, past abuses surfacing, a transgressive twist that pushes the bounds of taste. Hill House below the House. I dig.
20. "How to Stay Afloat When Drowning" - what starts as a character-focused exploration takes a hard and fun right turn into monster movie. Trauma circles when the water turns red.
21. "This Was Always Going to Happen" - Bram Stoker-winning author Stephen Graham Jones turns in a clunker. Not a bad story by any stretch, just one that doesn't make much use of his considerable powers. Maybe the novel is his better weapon?
22. "The Butcher's Table" - a novella, and a grand anchor point for this collection. Great in concept, with despicable yet engaging characters - pirates sailing to hell for nefarious purposes! Satanic cults! Cannibalism! Could easily be expanded into a novel or even a series. Great stuff. Worth price of purchase for this tale alone.
Overall: 4.75 out of 5 stars.
1. "Haunted House Tour - 1 Per Person" - a grand, King-esque start. Scary but fails to stick the landing. Very well-written and manages considerable depth.
2. "A Song for Wounded Mouths" - a little confusing. Scary ideas but muddles the ending too much to make significant impact.
3. "Birds of Passage" - a damn fine coming-of-age story. Nostalgic, affecting writing with grand eldritch scares in the middle.
4. "The Puppet Motel" - needed a different title, but is still the scariest story in the book. Real sleep-with-the-lights-on material here.
5. "The Senior Girls Bayonet Drill Team" - not scary, not meant to be. A surprisingly heartfelt little character study about high school girls trying to murder each other for sport. Probably my favorite piece overall, despite the lack of any real terror.
6. "The Night Nurse" - quite unnerving. Perhaps more so if I'd ever birthed a child, but you can just feel the hormones in this one.
7. "They Are Us (1964) An Oral History" - Also quiet scary. I'm biased because I love stories about movie-making, but the epistolary format serves the story well. Reminded me of Gaiman's "Orange."
8. "As Dark as Hunger" - an uncomfortable read, one where I actually might have preferred a happier ending. Verges on torture porn. Not really for me.
9. "I Say (I Say, I Say)" - black, black, black humor here. Again, not horror, but healthier for you! Kind of an extended joke all throughout. Fun, if you like that sort of thing. I do.
10. "The Pain Eater's Daughter" - fine in concept. Didn't particularly grab me.
11. "The Hope Chest" - a surreal and unnerving read. Very much a "humans are the real monsters" plot... except they're not. A creative and scary beastie lurks.
12. "Nor Cease You Never Now" - this one feels... transgressive. Boundary-pushing, in a good way. Solid horror concept. Good luck eating meat for a while.
13. "Playscape" - anxious to the max. Hug your kids tonight.
14. "Adrenaline Junkies" - the best kind of weird fiction, the kind that ties up its themes neatly. Storytelling like bricklaying here, everything lies together angle on angle.
15. "Watching" - too close to torture porn for this buscus. Verged on exploitative. Not for me.
16. "Mr. and Mrs. Kett" - a vampire story without vampires. Spooky through most of it, but a muddled ending puts its thumb in the pie.
17. "Below" - a sprawling schoolboy epic. Strong character work and old-school creature-feature scares. My cup of tea exactly. I like my horror to hit broadsides like this.
18. "My Name is Ellie" - apologies to the author and editor of this collection, but there's no reason to read this story. Petulant, tedious, and not scary at all. This was one of the year's best horror stories?
19. "Slipper" - a grand return to form. An eldritch locale, past abuses surfacing, a transgressive twist that pushes the bounds of taste. Hill House below the House. I dig.
20. "How to Stay Afloat When Drowning" - what starts as a character-focused exploration takes a hard and fun right turn into monster movie. Trauma circles when the water turns red.
21. "This Was Always Going to Happen" - Bram Stoker-winning author Stephen Graham Jones turns in a clunker. Not a bad story by any stretch, just one that doesn't make much use of his considerable powers. Maybe the novel is his better weapon?
22. "The Butcher's Table" - a novella, and a grand anchor point for this collection. Great in concept, with despicable yet engaging characters - pirates sailing to hell for nefarious purposes! Satanic cults! Cannibalism! Could easily be expanded into a novel or even a series. Great stuff. Worth price of purchase for this tale alone.
Overall: 4.75 out of 5 stars.
May 2, 2023
Rating: 4½ stars.
It's a big claim to say a book contains the best horror of a year (in this case, 2019), but if anything could approach that, it'd be this book. This was an absolutely fantastic collection of short stories. I loved many of them and there weren't any that I completely disliked, which is hard to say with any anthology! Some of these stories definitely stretch the definition of horror, more being moody or dark, but that's always going to be subjective so I'm not going to complain about it.
If I had to pick favourites, The Puppet Motel by Gemma Files and The Butcher’s Table by Nathan Ballingrud were particular stand outs. I already wanted to read Wounds, Ballingrud's anthology that Butcher’s Table is from, but now I'm racing out to.
There were no big lows, and enough highs that I'm rounding up to five stars. If the rest of Datlow's Best Horror of the Year books can match this one in quality, I'm definitely starting a collection.
It's a big claim to say a book contains the best horror of a year (in this case, 2019), but if anything could approach that, it'd be this book. This was an absolutely fantastic collection of short stories. I loved many of them and there weren't any that I completely disliked, which is hard to say with any anthology! Some of these stories definitely stretch the definition of horror, more being moody or dark, but that's always going to be subjective so I'm not going to complain about it.
If I had to pick favourites, The Puppet Motel by Gemma Files and The Butcher’s Table by Nathan Ballingrud were particular stand outs. I already wanted to read Wounds, Ballingrud's anthology that Butcher’s Table is from, but now I'm racing out to.
There were no big lows, and enough highs that I'm rounding up to five stars. If the rest of Datlow's Best Horror of the Year books can match this one in quality, I'm definitely starting a collection.
November 28, 2023
I dragged on this one, as it was the weakest of these BHOTY anthologies I’ve read so far. I was planning on 2 stars until it ended with Nathan Ballingrud’s novella “The Butcher’s Table”, which is a banger—this is also in his collection Wounds. The only other standout story for me was “My Name is Ellie” by Sam Rebelein, an author unknown to me—the format and way that horrific details are casually dropped was well done.
January 23, 2021
It was a horrible year.
Between plague panic, protests and the cyclical exercise in partisan self-delusion, IQs plummeted and insane blew off the charts. I've been trapped alone in my own company for too long with nobody but the TV to talk to.
Then I watched HBO's "Chernobyl."
Can a look back at 2019's fictional horrors even hope to be anything more than quaint? Well, I appreciate that editor Ellen Datlow and her crew tried, even if it's only to offer an escape for a while. I hope they're all healthy and safe and secure enough to continue doing what they do. Let's look back to when all we had to worry about was Cthulhu and the odd bloodsucker/flesheater.
There's some unwieldy typographical cleverness in the title of Paul Tremblay's (trembly, that's a good name for a horror author) opener, so I'll just call it "Haunted House Tour." The narrator sifts through a box of keepsakes from his childhood in the 1980s, a "spotlight shinning on who I was and who I've become." Either that's a "Simpsons" reference (and "Haunted House Tour" is full of such slacker touchstones), or the typos are back. Ironically, the narrator engaged in boozy, melancholic reverie is neglecting an overdue editing job. What's in the box? What's in the box??!! (There's another slacker reference for you.) At the bottom is a drawing that provokes restless unease, more remember-the-'80s flashbacks and several more typos. "Haunted House Tour" is a likable, if inexcusably sloppy, bit of nightmare nostalgia, but all the next-big-thing hype around Tremblay over the past few years promised substantially more than that. If I may engage in nostalgia myself, back in the '90s, a prominent genre editor (oooohhh, what was her name?) said, "The lead story of an anthology can be the most important story in the book." This is rather a poor example.
More nostalgia, fewer mistakes in Gordon White's "Birds of Passage" as another haunted narrator looks back on a childhood what's-that-in-the-woods camping trip "adventure" with his father. White takes more care in his writing than Tremblay but gets carried away in his attempts to generate atmosphere to the point of meditations on the inner lives of creek gar and "their fish wives and fish children." After a few florid paragraphs of this, the reader is liable to start hearing a corny Richard Dreyfuss voiceover in his head. A good editor might have helped White peel back the layers of overwriting and saved a decent story from smothering -- or at least prevented the use of the same labored simile on facing pages.
A Joe Lansdale yarn is like a loony little taste of home (though I come from a much browner spot at the edge of Texas). Some doubters might accuse hisownself of spinning tall tales, but I assure you: He's not exaggerating by much. In "The Senior Girls Bayonet Drill Team," he risks inspiring the state's religiously rabid football fans to new levels of lunacy. Sharp objects, that's all they need. Let the ladies rough-house, too.
In the meandering, maddeningly chatty ("The next few weeks were uneventful, but also very eventful.") "The Night Nurse," beleaguered mother Esme could use a witch/nanny to help manage her three tykes and semi-absentee husband. Kind of like author Sarah Langan could use an editor to help manage her use of the word "literally." Being unlikable is a forgivable trait in a character (see the cast of nasties in this book's finale); being not so bright, not so much. Esme, a wannabe journalist, waits until the final pages of this interminable housewife horror before she does a quick dash of due diligence Internet research into the background of the creepy old woman she took into her home. Unfortunately, Googling the facts after-the-fact is not an uncommon practice among reporters.
I don't quibble about category so much as quality. Neither S. Qiouyi Lu's "As Dark As Hunger" nor Robert Shearman's "I Say [I Say, I Say]" is horror. But while Lu's lesbian/mermaid/lesbian love triangle tragedy is little more than ho-hum digest fantasy (and lame vegan allegory, I suspect), Shearman's dark absurdity injects offstage life, dimension and even poignancy into a crusty old pub joke.
In Ren Warom's "Nor Cease You Never Now," parents are haunted by a traffic accident. Or twins are haunted by a boating accident. Or the fens are haunted by cannibals. I donno, you tell me. My copy didn't come with the decoder ring, so I'm left to deduce just one thing: Th s s ory su ks.
In Diana Peterfreund's "Playscape," a mother waits for her toddler at the bottom of the playground slide. Will he make it down? The suspense! I got more than enough of this kind of thing from "The Night Nurse," though "Playscape" doesn't exact as big a toll on reader time or patience.
I didn't think "Adrenaline Junkies," Ray Cluley's extended Do the Dew commercial, could get much dopier after the Mexican flying snake bats attacked his skydiving thrill-seekers. Then the porn-hot lesbian started singing Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'." Despite all the "hurtling" though the air, the death-defying descent lasts long enough for our grieving heroine to learn to love again.
Flashbacks to childhood are big in Volume Twelve. In "Below," Simon Bestwick takes us to 1986 Manchester where the kids are "bagsying" outta control! (I'm usually pretty good with British slang, but I have no idea what I just wrote.) Stumpy and his sometime friend/protector Martyn skip off school to see the damned in Shudehill. "They've got nuddy mags." (Are those like nudie mags in the States?) The truants shoplift some pre-Internet paper pulchritude and scarper, taking refuge in a derelict building with rotten floorboards that give way to a netherworld of zombified dandies, ape-maggots and a sweatshop to give Nike nightmares. "Below" is difficult to take seriously, but it's a fun read -- like an R-rated "Goonies."
There's a fine line between stretching the boundaries of storytelling and artyfarty onanism. Sam Rebelein stays on the right side of that line (staring at Ren Warom flogging it on the other). His cascading clauses flout convention, but "My Name Is Ellie" is a gruesome charmer about marrying into a family with houseguests by the hundreds to be dismembered.
"Cut yourself from nape to navel and let your guts spill out," says a bar babe in Daniel Braum's "How to Stay Afloat When Drowning." It's a nice bit of alliteration but hardly practical anatomically since the nape is on the back of the body and the navel is on the front. The gibberish continues ("he insists we call just him Captain Mike," "the boatman are bickering," "the boatmen men yell at each other") throughout this beach blanket bungle of surf, suicide and slipshod editing. "The shape I thought was the woman is not a person at all but a big owl perched on road kill." It's a common mistake.
Reader reaction may vary, but whatever horror might be found in this volume is largely concentrated in its final 70 pages. Last year, I said Datlow's annual roundup almost always includes at least one should-be classic bound for the canon. I expect horror fans will be reading and rereading "The Butcher's Table" by Nathan Ballingrud for years to come (once the typos are cleaned up). The salty brigands of the pirate ship Butcher's Table ferry a group of Satan worshipers "into the Dark Water" for the Feast of the Cannibal Priest and "a wedding at the lip of Hell." "So it's a love story then," Captain Toussaint says. After a perilous voyage pursued by carrion angels (something like the creature depicted on this book's cover) through a gantlet of Hodgson tentacles, the fearless crew sits down for dinner in a dead angel's skull. The table is set, the cutlery is laid out, but not all the guests are secure in their place on the food chain. Ballingrud gives us an epic adventure of infernal swashbuckling, burnin' love, double-(upside-down)crosses and gore by the gallon. If memory serves, it's also a kind of prequel to "The Atlas of Hell," a standout from "Best Horror" Volume Seven, which gives me an excuse to revisit that essential.
I'm feeling more charitable after reading "The Butcher's Table," but Volume Twelve is bad. At times, it's "Dead Don't Die," what-were-you-thinking? bad. The badness becomes all the more perplexing upon perusal of the "Honorable Mentions" list. There was work available by reliable professionals including Laird Barron, Michael Cisco, Jeffrey Ford, Brian Hodge, Joyce Carol Oates and Steve Rasnic Tem. Not to say these authors are infallible, but they've diligently developed their craft, and they practice it at a consistently high level. Critics must allow for subjectivity and taste. But then there's unequivocally inferior fiction by people who either don't fully grasp or simply ignore the fundamental ways words work and fit together to express coherent thought. If Datlow wants to run an amateur showcase, that's dandy, it's her series. But it shouldn't be billed as the Best when the best authors in and around the genre are relegated to the also-ran pages. I don't take back what I said at the beginning of this review. I'm thankful for the diversion. As frustrating as a bad story can be, time spent on it is time not spent watching the world fall apart outside my window. I just wish "Best Horror" had distracted me with well-written, sharply edited and SCARY stories.
Between plague panic, protests and the cyclical exercise in partisan self-delusion, IQs plummeted and insane blew off the charts. I've been trapped alone in my own company for too long with nobody but the TV to talk to.
Then I watched HBO's "Chernobyl."
Can a look back at 2019's fictional horrors even hope to be anything more than quaint? Well, I appreciate that editor Ellen Datlow and her crew tried, even if it's only to offer an escape for a while. I hope they're all healthy and safe and secure enough to continue doing what they do. Let's look back to when all we had to worry about was Cthulhu and the odd bloodsucker/flesheater.
There's some unwieldy typographical cleverness in the title of Paul Tremblay's (trembly, that's a good name for a horror author) opener, so I'll just call it "Haunted House Tour." The narrator sifts through a box of keepsakes from his childhood in the 1980s, a "spotlight shinning on who I was and who I've become." Either that's a "Simpsons" reference (and "Haunted House Tour" is full of such slacker touchstones), or the typos are back. Ironically, the narrator engaged in boozy, melancholic reverie is neglecting an overdue editing job. What's in the box? What's in the box??!! (There's another slacker reference for you.) At the bottom is a drawing that provokes restless unease, more remember-the-'80s flashbacks and several more typos. "Haunted House Tour" is a likable, if inexcusably sloppy, bit of nightmare nostalgia, but all the next-big-thing hype around Tremblay over the past few years promised substantially more than that. If I may engage in nostalgia myself, back in the '90s, a prominent genre editor (oooohhh, what was her name?) said, "The lead story of an anthology can be the most important story in the book." This is rather a poor example.
More nostalgia, fewer mistakes in Gordon White's "Birds of Passage" as another haunted narrator looks back on a childhood what's-that-in-the-woods camping trip "adventure" with his father. White takes more care in his writing than Tremblay but gets carried away in his attempts to generate atmosphere to the point of meditations on the inner lives of creek gar and "their fish wives and fish children." After a few florid paragraphs of this, the reader is liable to start hearing a corny Richard Dreyfuss voiceover in his head. A good editor might have helped White peel back the layers of overwriting and saved a decent story from smothering -- or at least prevented the use of the same labored simile on facing pages.
A Joe Lansdale yarn is like a loony little taste of home (though I come from a much browner spot at the edge of Texas). Some doubters might accuse hisownself of spinning tall tales, but I assure you: He's not exaggerating by much. In "The Senior Girls Bayonet Drill Team," he risks inspiring the state's religiously rabid football fans to new levels of lunacy. Sharp objects, that's all they need. Let the ladies rough-house, too.
In the meandering, maddeningly chatty ("The next few weeks were uneventful, but also very eventful.") "The Night Nurse," beleaguered mother Esme could use a witch/nanny to help manage her three tykes and semi-absentee husband. Kind of like author Sarah Langan could use an editor to help manage her use of the word "literally." Being unlikable is a forgivable trait in a character (see the cast of nasties in this book's finale); being not so bright, not so much. Esme, a wannabe journalist, waits until the final pages of this interminable housewife horror before she does a quick dash of due diligence Internet research into the background of the creepy old woman she took into her home. Unfortunately, Googling the facts after-the-fact is not an uncommon practice among reporters.
I don't quibble about category so much as quality. Neither S. Qiouyi Lu's "As Dark As Hunger" nor Robert Shearman's "I Say [I Say, I Say]" is horror. But while Lu's lesbian/mermaid/lesbian love triangle tragedy is little more than ho-hum digest fantasy (and lame vegan allegory, I suspect), Shearman's dark absurdity injects offstage life, dimension and even poignancy into a crusty old pub joke.
In Ren Warom's "Nor Cease You Never Now," parents are haunted by a traffic accident. Or twins are haunted by a boating accident. Or the fens are haunted by cannibals. I donno, you tell me. My copy didn't come with the decoder ring, so I'm left to deduce just one thing: Th s s ory su ks.
In Diana Peterfreund's "Playscape," a mother waits for her toddler at the bottom of the playground slide. Will he make it down? The suspense! I got more than enough of this kind of thing from "The Night Nurse," though "Playscape" doesn't exact as big a toll on reader time or patience.
I didn't think "Adrenaline Junkies," Ray Cluley's extended Do the Dew commercial, could get much dopier after the Mexican flying snake bats attacked his skydiving thrill-seekers. Then the porn-hot lesbian started singing Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'." Despite all the "hurtling" though the air, the death-defying descent lasts long enough for our grieving heroine to learn to love again.
Flashbacks to childhood are big in Volume Twelve. In "Below," Simon Bestwick takes us to 1986 Manchester where the kids are "bagsying" outta control! (I'm usually pretty good with British slang, but I have no idea what I just wrote.) Stumpy and his sometime friend/protector Martyn skip off school to see the damned in Shudehill. "They've got nuddy mags." (Are those like nudie mags in the States?) The truants shoplift some pre-Internet paper pulchritude and scarper, taking refuge in a derelict building with rotten floorboards that give way to a netherworld of zombified dandies, ape-maggots and a sweatshop to give Nike nightmares. "Below" is difficult to take seriously, but it's a fun read -- like an R-rated "Goonies."
There's a fine line between stretching the boundaries of storytelling and artyfarty onanism. Sam Rebelein stays on the right side of that line (staring at Ren Warom flogging it on the other). His cascading clauses flout convention, but "My Name Is Ellie" is a gruesome charmer about marrying into a family with houseguests by the hundreds to be dismembered.
"Cut yourself from nape to navel and let your guts spill out," says a bar babe in Daniel Braum's "How to Stay Afloat When Drowning." It's a nice bit of alliteration but hardly practical anatomically since the nape is on the back of the body and the navel is on the front. The gibberish continues ("he insists we call just him Captain Mike," "the boatman are bickering," "the boatmen men yell at each other") throughout this beach blanket bungle of surf, suicide and slipshod editing. "The shape I thought was the woman is not a person at all but a big owl perched on road kill." It's a common mistake.
Reader reaction may vary, but whatever horror might be found in this volume is largely concentrated in its final 70 pages. Last year, I said Datlow's annual roundup almost always includes at least one should-be classic bound for the canon. I expect horror fans will be reading and rereading "The Butcher's Table" by Nathan Ballingrud for years to come (once the typos are cleaned up). The salty brigands of the pirate ship Butcher's Table ferry a group of Satan worshipers "into the Dark Water" for the Feast of the Cannibal Priest and "a wedding at the lip of Hell." "So it's a love story then," Captain Toussaint says. After a perilous voyage pursued by carrion angels (something like the creature depicted on this book's cover) through a gantlet of Hodgson tentacles, the fearless crew sits down for dinner in a dead angel's skull. The table is set, the cutlery is laid out, but not all the guests are secure in their place on the food chain. Ballingrud gives us an epic adventure of infernal swashbuckling, burnin' love, double-(upside-down)crosses and gore by the gallon. If memory serves, it's also a kind of prequel to "The Atlas of Hell," a standout from "Best Horror" Volume Seven, which gives me an excuse to revisit that essential.
I'm feeling more charitable after reading "The Butcher's Table," but Volume Twelve is bad. At times, it's "Dead Don't Die," what-were-you-thinking? bad. The badness becomes all the more perplexing upon perusal of the "Honorable Mentions" list. There was work available by reliable professionals including Laird Barron, Michael Cisco, Jeffrey Ford, Brian Hodge, Joyce Carol Oates and Steve Rasnic Tem. Not to say these authors are infallible, but they've diligently developed their craft, and they practice it at a consistently high level. Critics must allow for subjectivity and taste. But then there's unequivocally inferior fiction by people who either don't fully grasp or simply ignore the fundamental ways words work and fit together to express coherent thought. If Datlow wants to run an amateur showcase, that's dandy, it's her series. But it shouldn't be billed as the Best when the best authors in and around the genre are relegated to the also-ran pages. I don't take back what I said at the beginning of this review. I'm thankful for the diversion. As frustrating as a bad story can be, time spent on it is time not spent watching the world fall apart outside my window. I just wish "Best Horror" had distracted me with well-written, sharply edited and SCARY stories.
November 3, 2024
The Pirate Horror novella was insanely good.
January 21, 2024
I didn't realize when I checked this book out of the library that it was an anthology compiled by just one person, and I doubt that I'll read another of Datlow's anthologies.
Several stories simply weren't to my taste, which isn't a huge problem, but I have a HUGE problem with the fact that three of the 22 stories were about child abuse, and two of those stories were also about the sexual abuse of a child?!? That's... a high percentage, and is coming really close to fetishizing child abuse. Child abuse is an overused and very problematic horror trope, especially considering how triggering it is to many people. I think it's overused because it's easy--the thought of something bad happening to a child IS scary, and child abuse is the easiest way to make something bad happen to a child. But child abuse as entertainment is voyeuristic in the way that true crime and Law and Order: SVU are, and we all know it's low to take pleasure in the pain and fear of our most vulnerable members of society.
Below are most of the stories from the anthology; a very few didn't hold my interest and so I skimmed/DNF'd them, and they're not included:
I̶c̶e̶ ̶C̶o̶l̶d̶ ̶L̶e̶m̶o̶n̶a̶d̶e̶ ̶2̶5̶ȼ̶̶ Haunted House Tour: 1 Per Person (Paul Tremblay)
This one wasn't my favorite, although I normally love Tremblay. I might need more time to get into his characters, because I couldn't understand why Paul stole that girl's haunted drawing? The horror of your parents continually dumping your childhood shit on you without warning is universal, however.
A Song for Wounded Mouths (Kristi DeMeester)
I love a good This Damned Band-like haunted rock band story! I also really liked the concept of a found family gone wrong.
Birds of Passage (Gordon B. White)
I don't *think* anything horrifying happens? It's just weird and people are scared but it's fine?
The Puppet Motel (Gemma Files)
Because people who buy up local housing and turn it into short-term rentals *should* have bad things happen to them, but you know it's only ever the lowly wage-worker who suffers.
The Senior Girls Bayonet Drill Team (Joe Lansdale)
Fine, nothing horrifying actually happens in this story, either, but the concept is SO good!
The Night Nurse (Sarah Langan)
This is another one of my favorites; Datlow has a couple of excellent works in this anthology that really draw out the horror of mothering babies. Just between us, I would have had NO problem choosing the husband!
As Dark As Hunger (S. Qiouyi Lu)
This kind of felt like fantasy, not horror?
I Say (I Say, I Say) (Robert Shearman)
This is exactly the type of work I want in a horror anthology! It's not something I would have read on my own, and it's not exactly to my own personal taste, but it is very well-written, and I'm happy to expand my palate with the goal of reading widely within the genre.
The Pain-Eater’s Daughter (Laura N. Mauro)
I thought this was another strong selection, and another story that serves to escort me through the variety of sub-themes within the horror genre.
The Hope Chest (Sarah Read)
At least in this particular story the kid isn't sexually abused, just violently physically abused on camera (sigh...), and it gets bonus points for having a crafting theme.
Playscape (Diana Peterfreund)
This selection is by far my favorite work in the book. I have older teens, and Peterfreund made me relive that exact feeling that I had when I lost sight of my toddler or preschooler on the playground. Worst feeling in the world when you suddenly can't see your kid and you just KNOW that they're gone forever.
Adrenaline Junkies (Ray Cluley)
I loved the tone shift between this and Playscape. The Maya people are one of my Special Interests, and I was VERY into the mythical monsters and cenotes.
Watching (Tim Lees)
This story is fucked up and unnecessary. More child abuse, plus child sexual abuse. Needs a trigger warning at the least.
Mr. and Mrs. Kett (Sam Hicks)
Super weird and AWESOME. Poor Grandma!
Below (Simon Bestwick)
I liked the concept, but the author lost me when we went into a series of action sequences with monsters. I zoned back in for the excellent ending.
My Name is Ellie (Sam Rebelein)
This was another one of my favorites. It's super creepy, finally we have a kid who's not being molested or beaten, and I'm very into the evil family trope. I love the horror version of the mother/daughter alignment with Dad left out in the cold.
Slipper (Catriona Ward)
Trigger Warnings: child abuse, sexual abuse, and underage incest.
This one has more supernatural/paranormal elements and is spookier than the OTHER child sexual abuse story in this anthology, so if Datlow simply has to have the sexual abuse of children as a fun horror trope, then I guess go with this one?
This Was Always Going to Happen (Stephen Graham Jones)
Ugh, this is EXACTLY how I would die: doing something stupid while egged on by the world's most gormless ghost.
Several stories simply weren't to my taste, which isn't a huge problem, but I have a HUGE problem with the fact that three of the 22 stories were about child abuse, and two of those stories were also about the sexual abuse of a child?!? That's... a high percentage, and is coming really close to fetishizing child abuse. Child abuse is an overused and very problematic horror trope, especially considering how triggering it is to many people. I think it's overused because it's easy--the thought of something bad happening to a child IS scary, and child abuse is the easiest way to make something bad happen to a child. But child abuse as entertainment is voyeuristic in the way that true crime and Law and Order: SVU are, and we all know it's low to take pleasure in the pain and fear of our most vulnerable members of society.
Below are most of the stories from the anthology; a very few didn't hold my interest and so I skimmed/DNF'd them, and they're not included:
I̶c̶e̶ ̶C̶o̶l̶d̶ ̶L̶e̶m̶o̶n̶a̶d̶e̶ ̶2̶5̶ȼ̶̶ Haunted House Tour: 1 Per Person (Paul Tremblay)
This one wasn't my favorite, although I normally love Tremblay. I might need more time to get into his characters, because I couldn't understand why Paul stole that girl's haunted drawing? The horror of your parents continually dumping your childhood shit on you without warning is universal, however.
A Song for Wounded Mouths (Kristi DeMeester)
I love a good This Damned Band-like haunted rock band story! I also really liked the concept of a found family gone wrong.
Birds of Passage (Gordon B. White)
I don't *think* anything horrifying happens? It's just weird and people are scared but it's fine?
The Puppet Motel (Gemma Files)
Because people who buy up local housing and turn it into short-term rentals *should* have bad things happen to them, but you know it's only ever the lowly wage-worker who suffers.
The Senior Girls Bayonet Drill Team (Joe Lansdale)
Fine, nothing horrifying actually happens in this story, either, but the concept is SO good!
The Night Nurse (Sarah Langan)
This is another one of my favorites; Datlow has a couple of excellent works in this anthology that really draw out the horror of mothering babies. Just between us, I would have had NO problem choosing the husband!
As Dark As Hunger (S. Qiouyi Lu)
This kind of felt like fantasy, not horror?
I Say (I Say, I Say) (Robert Shearman)
This is exactly the type of work I want in a horror anthology! It's not something I would have read on my own, and it's not exactly to my own personal taste, but it is very well-written, and I'm happy to expand my palate with the goal of reading widely within the genre.
The Pain-Eater’s Daughter (Laura N. Mauro)
I thought this was another strong selection, and another story that serves to escort me through the variety of sub-themes within the horror genre.
The Hope Chest (Sarah Read)
At least in this particular story the kid isn't sexually abused, just violently physically abused on camera (sigh...), and it gets bonus points for having a crafting theme.
Playscape (Diana Peterfreund)
This selection is by far my favorite work in the book. I have older teens, and Peterfreund made me relive that exact feeling that I had when I lost sight of my toddler or preschooler on the playground. Worst feeling in the world when you suddenly can't see your kid and you just KNOW that they're gone forever.
Adrenaline Junkies (Ray Cluley)
I loved the tone shift between this and Playscape. The Maya people are one of my Special Interests, and I was VERY into the mythical monsters and cenotes.
Watching (Tim Lees)
This story is fucked up and unnecessary. More child abuse, plus child sexual abuse. Needs a trigger warning at the least.
Mr. and Mrs. Kett (Sam Hicks)
Super weird and AWESOME. Poor Grandma!
Below (Simon Bestwick)
I liked the concept, but the author lost me when we went into a series of action sequences with monsters. I zoned back in for the excellent ending.
My Name is Ellie (Sam Rebelein)
This was another one of my favorites. It's super creepy, finally we have a kid who's not being molested or beaten, and I'm very into the evil family trope. I love the horror version of the mother/daughter alignment with Dad left out in the cold.
Slipper (Catriona Ward)
Trigger Warnings: child abuse, sexual abuse, and underage incest.
This one has more supernatural/paranormal elements and is spookier than the OTHER child sexual abuse story in this anthology, so if Datlow simply has to have the sexual abuse of children as a fun horror trope, then I guess go with this one?
This Was Always Going to Happen (Stephen Graham Jones)
Ugh, this is EXACTLY how I would die: doing something stupid while egged on by the world's most gormless ghost.
August 11, 2021
Like a really mixed Halloween bag, but with some good candy inside.
Birds of Passage was a truly beautiful dark fantasy story, 5/5 stars, worth re-reading--but definitely not what I consider horror, so I'm not sure why it was in this collection. I felt similarly about some of the other stories I liked less, including Adrenaline Junkies, As Dark as Hunger, The Pain-Eaters Daughter, all of which I firmly consider as dark fantasy or even sci-fi, not horror.
Top of the charts and definitely worth re-reading: The Night Nurse, Slipper, and Mr and Mrs Kett, the latter in particular for how inevitable and inescapable it felt.
I Say (I Say, I Say) was not my favorite of the anthology, but one to which I keep returning because of how creative and somehow touching it was.
Fun, comedic reads: This Was Always Going to Happen, with its almost slapstick build to the expected ending, and My Name Is Ellie, with its precociously cute and creepy kid horror.
Predictable or somewhat derivative, but still good thrills: Playscape, The Puppet Motel, and They Are Us (1964: An Oral History), Adrenaline Junkies.
Really not my cup of tea at all:Ice Cold Lemonade 25c Haunted House Tour: 1 Per Person (didn't understand how it was supposed to be horror, or even scary, which is odd because normally I love Paul Tremblay), A Song for Wounded Mouths*, The Senior Girls Bayonet Drill Team, As Dark as Hunger, The Pain-Eaters Daughter, The Hope Chest, Nor Cease You Never Now**, Watching, Below, How to Stay Afloat When Drowning.
The Butcher's Table, at 70 pages, was by far the longest story. It started out so promisingly, but I felt it didn't quite deliver on the payoff. Contains beautifully phantasmagoric imagery, however.
*
**
Birds of Passage was a truly beautiful dark fantasy story, 5/5 stars, worth re-reading--but definitely not what I consider horror, so I'm not sure why it was in this collection. I felt similarly about some of the other stories I liked less, including Adrenaline Junkies, As Dark as Hunger, The Pain-Eaters Daughter, all of which I firmly consider as dark fantasy or even sci-fi, not horror.
Top of the charts and definitely worth re-reading: The Night Nurse, Slipper, and Mr and Mrs Kett, the latter in particular for how inevitable and inescapable it felt.
I Say (I Say, I Say) was not my favorite of the anthology, but one to which I keep returning because of how creative and somehow touching it was.
Fun, comedic reads: This Was Always Going to Happen, with its almost slapstick build to the expected ending, and My Name Is Ellie, with its precociously cute and creepy kid horror.
Predictable or somewhat derivative, but still good thrills: Playscape, The Puppet Motel, and They Are Us (1964: An Oral History), Adrenaline Junkies.
Really not my cup of tea at all:
The Butcher's Table, at 70 pages, was by far the longest story. It started out so promisingly, but I felt it didn't quite deliver on the payoff. Contains beautifully phantasmagoric imagery, however.
*
**
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 9, 2021
A selection box of bloody treats.
Datlow's taste in horror is close to my own, so her anthologies tend to resonate well with me. I buy her themed collections, as well as her 'Best of the Year' books, which is why I got that sinking feeling I sometimes get with anthologies when I read the first story. 'Oh shit, I've already read this collection.'
So I did a quick check, and everything is OK. The confusion arose because the first story in the book, Paul Tremblay's haunted house ghost story, is also featured in 'Echoes', Datlow's recent collection of ghost stories, which I read quite recently. I was glad to see another appearance of 'The Puppet Motel' by Gemma Files, this story was in Echoes as well, and I was happy to read it again. Even new buildings can be haunted.
I won't comment on all the stories, just the ones that really caught my attention the first time round. 'The Senior Girls Bayonet Drill Team' by Joe R Lansdale is such a perfect Stephen King story that I had to check that the master hadn't been using the name as a pseudonym for the last several decades. I loved this story, and will read it again, and again ...
Sarah Langan's 'The Night Nurse' is one of those perfect horror stories that take it slowly with the terror, building up to a conclusion that takes a while to deal with. I had to take a break after that particular story.
S Qiouyi Lu's 'As Dark As Hunger' digs deep into folk tales, and pits desire and loyalty against each other. Mermaid stories seem be getting more and more popular, a trend that I can't complain about.
Robert Shearman's 'I Say (I Say, I Say) is as splendid a tale as you'd expect from him. Joking aside, what really happens when a nation's sense of humour changes?
Sarah Read's 'The Hope Chest' is a great horror story, it puts me in mind of the work of Lisa Tuttle.
Dana Peterfreund's 'Playscape' well and truly gave me the creeps. It's too believable. It terrified me, and I don't even have kids.
Simon Bestwick's 'Below' is one of my favourites from this book, but I have to confess a degree of prejudice. Simon is an anthology brother of mine (from the Hic Dragones anthologies) and in this story, he writes about a time and a place that I am very familiar with. The streets and shops of the story are places that I warily traversed as a young teenager, aware of their creepiness and the danger that lurked within. And yeah, I loved it - both the story and the experience.
Sam Rebelein's 'My Name Is Ellie' is a gruesome tale of an outsider slowly discovering the blood drenched horror show that he's married into. I liked the writing style, it inexorably draws the reader from shock to shock with blase innocence.
'This Was Always Going To Happen' by Stephen Graham Jones is a very short story that does that wonderful thing to a reader ... it takes a bad situation that could happen to anyone, and transforms it from one of mild anxiety to utter terror. Absolutely expertly done.
Datlow's taste in horror is close to my own, so her anthologies tend to resonate well with me. I buy her themed collections, as well as her 'Best of the Year' books, which is why I got that sinking feeling I sometimes get with anthologies when I read the first story. 'Oh shit, I've already read this collection.'
So I did a quick check, and everything is OK. The confusion arose because the first story in the book, Paul Tremblay's haunted house ghost story, is also featured in 'Echoes', Datlow's recent collection of ghost stories, which I read quite recently. I was glad to see another appearance of 'The Puppet Motel' by Gemma Files, this story was in Echoes as well, and I was happy to read it again. Even new buildings can be haunted.
I won't comment on all the stories, just the ones that really caught my attention the first time round. 'The Senior Girls Bayonet Drill Team' by Joe R Lansdale is such a perfect Stephen King story that I had to check that the master hadn't been using the name as a pseudonym for the last several decades. I loved this story, and will read it again, and again ...
Sarah Langan's 'The Night Nurse' is one of those perfect horror stories that take it slowly with the terror, building up to a conclusion that takes a while to deal with. I had to take a break after that particular story.
S Qiouyi Lu's 'As Dark As Hunger' digs deep into folk tales, and pits desire and loyalty against each other. Mermaid stories seem be getting more and more popular, a trend that I can't complain about.
Robert Shearman's 'I Say (I Say, I Say) is as splendid a tale as you'd expect from him. Joking aside, what really happens when a nation's sense of humour changes?
Sarah Read's 'The Hope Chest' is a great horror story, it puts me in mind of the work of Lisa Tuttle.
Dana Peterfreund's 'Playscape' well and truly gave me the creeps. It's too believable. It terrified me, and I don't even have kids.
Simon Bestwick's 'Below' is one of my favourites from this book, but I have to confess a degree of prejudice. Simon is an anthology brother of mine (from the Hic Dragones anthologies) and in this story, he writes about a time and a place that I am very familiar with. The streets and shops of the story are places that I warily traversed as a young teenager, aware of their creepiness and the danger that lurked within. And yeah, I loved it - both the story and the experience.
Sam Rebelein's 'My Name Is Ellie' is a gruesome tale of an outsider slowly discovering the blood drenched horror show that he's married into. I liked the writing style, it inexorably draws the reader from shock to shock with blase innocence.
'This Was Always Going To Happen' by Stephen Graham Jones is a very short story that does that wonderful thing to a reader ... it takes a bad situation that could happen to anyone, and transforms it from one of mild anxiety to utter terror. Absolutely expertly done.
June 8, 2021
As a rather huge fan of Ellen Datlow, I have to say, all in all, I was disappointed in this collection. While I understand that short stories are often hit or miss, and that horror has a different definition in the eyes of each reader, too many of these seemed unfinished, half-conceptualized, or in the wrong genre. This was the first time in a long time that I've had to stop reading for days at a time simply because too many of the stories contained within were, in my opinion, just plain difficult to read.
While I am not generally one to call out individual authors or stories in these, but I have to draw special attention to 'My Name is Ellie', by Sam Rebelein. If anyone was able to finish this story, please offer me some spoilers, as the most horrific thing about the story from my perspective was the format. I tried multiple times to go back to it, but the way it is presented - through the dialogue of a child's mind, so I can understand what the author was attempting - just made it agonizing, and ultimately unreadable.
That said, there were a few stories that stood out to me; I offer my praise without context in order to avoid spoilers whenever possible. 'The Night Nurse', by Sarah Langan, is an excellent appetizer, and made me want to find more by her. 'They are Us', by Jack Lotharian is presented in an interview-style format, across multiple characters, that reads surprisingly well, and keeps you hooked through the end of the story (Which is excellent, by the way). 'The Pain-Eater's Daughter', while trailing the line between horror and fantasy is easily one of the best written stories I have read in a long time. The characters are believable, and the atmosphere so beautifully crafted that when I finished, I uttered a very audible 'wow'. 'The Hope Chest', by Sarah Read, is an exquisite depiction of the emotional pain attached to those dealing with the addictions of another (And could easily been among the stories of 'Lullabies for suffering'), then takes a dark, if somewhat predictable turn. Predictable or not, it's very well written, and highly recommended. Finally, 'Nor Cease You Never Now', by Ren Warom, is a surprising delight among the rest of the second half of the book. I admit, I almost discounted it because of the use of a particular writing tool that I wasn't necessarily a fan of, but I'm glad I pushed forward, as the story spilled out in impressive fashion, well-paced, and well-told. Another name on my list of authors to watch for.
But that's it...21 stories, and there were FIVE that didn't make me dread picking up the book to read the next. Again, I understand that it's all subjective, but in my opinion, this was far from the best anthology I'd ever picked up. While I'm glad to have a few more names on my watch list, I was just as glad to be finished with this particular collection.
While I am not generally one to call out individual authors or stories in these, but I have to draw special attention to 'My Name is Ellie', by Sam Rebelein. If anyone was able to finish this story, please offer me some spoilers, as the most horrific thing about the story from my perspective was the format. I tried multiple times to go back to it, but the way it is presented - through the dialogue of a child's mind, so I can understand what the author was attempting - just made it agonizing, and ultimately unreadable.
That said, there were a few stories that stood out to me; I offer my praise without context in order to avoid spoilers whenever possible. 'The Night Nurse', by Sarah Langan, is an excellent appetizer, and made me want to find more by her. 'They are Us', by Jack Lotharian is presented in an interview-style format, across multiple characters, that reads surprisingly well, and keeps you hooked through the end of the story (Which is excellent, by the way). 'The Pain-Eater's Daughter', while trailing the line between horror and fantasy is easily one of the best written stories I have read in a long time. The characters are believable, and the atmosphere so beautifully crafted that when I finished, I uttered a very audible 'wow'. 'The Hope Chest', by Sarah Read, is an exquisite depiction of the emotional pain attached to those dealing with the addictions of another (And could easily been among the stories of 'Lullabies for suffering'), then takes a dark, if somewhat predictable turn. Predictable or not, it's very well written, and highly recommended. Finally, 'Nor Cease You Never Now', by Ren Warom, is a surprising delight among the rest of the second half of the book. I admit, I almost discounted it because of the use of a particular writing tool that I wasn't necessarily a fan of, but I'm glad I pushed forward, as the story spilled out in impressive fashion, well-paced, and well-told. Another name on my list of authors to watch for.
But that's it...21 stories, and there were FIVE that didn't make me dread picking up the book to read the next. Again, I understand that it's all subjective, but in my opinion, this was far from the best anthology I'd ever picked up. While I'm glad to have a few more names on my watch list, I was just as glad to be finished with this particular collection.
April 11, 2021
Like any collection, there’s a range of quality here, but considering that I’ve tried Datlow’s annual collections a few times and never finished one up until this one showcases a higher quality than usual.
I won’t discuss each story, but mention a few that I found exceptional:
Paul Tremblay’s “Haunted House Tour: 1 Per Person” - A man stumbles upon a drawing that causes him to reflect upon a visit to a haunted house when he was younger. Classic Tremblay. If you’ve read any of his novels, you know he is a keen interrogator of horror tropes - this story is no different. Dark fantasy purists might complain about where it lands but I thought it thoughtful in its own way.
Gemma Files’ “The Puppet Motel” - In light of a tumultuous personal life, a woman takes a job managing a couple of AirBNB’s, only to find one that she cannot stand. As the strange buzz she hears whenever she enters grows louder, a series of strange happenings affects whoever stays there. This hits the spot. When I think of a horror story, something like this comes to mind. Tense throughout with fine characterization.
Sam Hicks’ “Mr. and Mrs. Kett” - The best horror doesn’t over-explain itself and instead leans into the unexplained, especially that of daily life. Hicks’ story does this well, as the main character returns home and finds that his parents have taken in a couple of mysterious strangers that are strangely appealing, despite their evil intents. It becomes a bit of a fever dream by the end, but a nicely constructed story throughout with just enough creepiness to keep you engaged.
Nathan Ballingrud’s “The Butcher’s Table” - This novella is easily worth the price of admission. Despite being the longest story in the collection, it flew by. Ballingrud has some of the best world-building elements I’ve ever seen in such a short space of time. There’s a lot going on here, but it’s essentially a pirate-themed dark fantasy where our main characters are on a journey to the borders of hell. It is bleak and bloody, but impossible to put down.
There’s one honorable mention: Sam Rebelein’s “My Name is Ellie” - This is a darkly humorous tale about the little people that live in the wall. I found myself loving it by the end, despite it being hampered by an incredibly annoying literary conceit. I almost walked away from it in the first few pages since it was so annoying to read. If Rebelein were to return to this story and find any other way to showcase the child’s perspective, it would be on the list with the others.
I won’t discuss each story, but mention a few that I found exceptional:
Paul Tremblay’s “Haunted House Tour: 1 Per Person” - A man stumbles upon a drawing that causes him to reflect upon a visit to a haunted house when he was younger. Classic Tremblay. If you’ve read any of his novels, you know he is a keen interrogator of horror tropes - this story is no different. Dark fantasy purists might complain about where it lands but I thought it thoughtful in its own way.
Gemma Files’ “The Puppet Motel” - In light of a tumultuous personal life, a woman takes a job managing a couple of AirBNB’s, only to find one that she cannot stand. As the strange buzz she hears whenever she enters grows louder, a series of strange happenings affects whoever stays there. This hits the spot. When I think of a horror story, something like this comes to mind. Tense throughout with fine characterization.
Sam Hicks’ “Mr. and Mrs. Kett” - The best horror doesn’t over-explain itself and instead leans into the unexplained, especially that of daily life. Hicks’ story does this well, as the main character returns home and finds that his parents have taken in a couple of mysterious strangers that are strangely appealing, despite their evil intents. It becomes a bit of a fever dream by the end, but a nicely constructed story throughout with just enough creepiness to keep you engaged.
Nathan Ballingrud’s “The Butcher’s Table” - This novella is easily worth the price of admission. Despite being the longest story in the collection, it flew by. Ballingrud has some of the best world-building elements I’ve ever seen in such a short space of time. There’s a lot going on here, but it’s essentially a pirate-themed dark fantasy where our main characters are on a journey to the borders of hell. It is bleak and bloody, but impossible to put down.
There’s one honorable mention: Sam Rebelein’s “My Name is Ellie” - This is a darkly humorous tale about the little people that live in the wall. I found myself loving it by the end, despite it being hampered by an incredibly annoying literary conceit. I almost walked away from it in the first few pages since it was so annoying to read. If Rebelein were to return to this story and find any other way to showcase the child’s perspective, it would be on the list with the others.
September 28, 2021
It did take me the better part of a year to finish this book, but I still don’t understand the wealth of negative reviews for it. Were there some typos that could have been easily corrected? Yes. Were there a couple of stories that were either boring or too vague? Yes.
Still, I enjoyed more stories than I didn’t, and the outstanding ones were really outstanding. I’m not going to go through them all here and summarize them, as I’ve seen some people do, because I simply don’t have the patience. But Kristi DeMeester’s A Song for Wounded Mouths, Gemma Files’ The Puppet Motel, Sarah Langan’s The Night Nurse, and Ren Warom’s Nor Cease You Never Now were my particular favorites. Especially Ren Warom’s story, so beautiful, so gross, so accurate with regard to the depiction of trauma and its aftermath.
What I do want to expound on is the final story in the collection. Nathan Ballingrud’s The Visible Filth is one of the nastiest, creepiest things I’ve ever read, so it stands to reason that his novella, The Butcher’s Table, would be equally as spectacular. It’s worth the price of the whole book just to read it. It’s violent, bloody, brutal, funny, tender, and bleak all at the same time. No one is particularly likable, but somehow everyone is at least a little sympathetic. There are pirates and carrion angels and cannibals and a sea voyage into hell, literally, and I loved it so much. When I started it, I thought it wasn’t going to grab me, and I almost considered just skipping it and calling it a day, but I’m so glad I stuck with it. You should definitely read it if you have the stomach for it. What a gem.
Ellen Datlow hasn’t assembled a flawless collection, but who could? It’s still one I’ll return to, even if not in its entirety, and thus it’s worth the 4 stars to me.
Still, I enjoyed more stories than I didn’t, and the outstanding ones were really outstanding. I’m not going to go through them all here and summarize them, as I’ve seen some people do, because I simply don’t have the patience. But Kristi DeMeester’s A Song for Wounded Mouths, Gemma Files’ The Puppet Motel, Sarah Langan’s The Night Nurse, and Ren Warom’s Nor Cease You Never Now were my particular favorites. Especially Ren Warom’s story, so beautiful, so gross, so accurate with regard to the depiction of trauma and its aftermath.
What I do want to expound on is the final story in the collection. Nathan Ballingrud’s The Visible Filth is one of the nastiest, creepiest things I’ve ever read, so it stands to reason that his novella, The Butcher’s Table, would be equally as spectacular. It’s worth the price of the whole book just to read it. It’s violent, bloody, brutal, funny, tender, and bleak all at the same time. No one is particularly likable, but somehow everyone is at least a little sympathetic. There are pirates and carrion angels and cannibals and a sea voyage into hell, literally, and I loved it so much. When I started it, I thought it wasn’t going to grab me, and I almost considered just skipping it and calling it a day, but I’m so glad I stuck with it. You should definitely read it if you have the stomach for it. What a gem.
Ellen Datlow hasn’t assembled a flawless collection, but who could? It’s still one I’ll return to, even if not in its entirety, and thus it’s worth the 4 stars to me.
December 23, 2021
This collection certainly includes a lot of different types of horror. The most transgressive story was Catriona Ward's Slipper. I was impressed on how she managed to instill utter revulsion while being completely sparing on any details--the horror goes on in the reader's head. The most darkly funny story was Joe Lansdale's The Senior Girls Bayonet Drill Team. He took a twisted idea and applied it consistently and masterfully. The one that drew me in most was Nathan Balingrud's The Butcher's Table. A tale of pirates that gets more and more twisted as they approach hell. The most perfect inducer of dread would be Sarah Langan's The Night Nurse. Chilling. One of my favorite tropes is the casual discussion written like a multiperson interview or forum where the horror comes out in dribbles--They are Us [1964]--an Oral History by Jack Lothian does this well. And Stephen Graham Jones' flash fiction piece This Was Always Going to Happen packed an immense amount of story into a small space, only resolving it at the very end.
These were the ones that stuck with me, but all of the stories held my attention. An enjoyable read.
These were the ones that stuck with me, but all of the stories held my attention. An enjoyable read.
July 24, 2022
Mostly well written, but hardly horror.
⭐⭐⭐ Ice Cold Lemonade 25ȼ Haunted House Tour: 1 Per Person? PAUL TREMBLAY
⭐⭐⭐ A Song for Wounded Mouths KRISTI DEMEESTER
⭐��� Birds of Passage GORDON B. WHITE
⭐⭐⭐ The Puppet Motel GEMMA FILES
⭐⭐ The Senior Girls Bayonet Drill Team JOE R. LANDSDALE
⭐⭐⭐ The Night Nurse SARAH LANGAN
⭐⭐⭐ They Are Us (1964) : An Oral History JACK LOTHIAN
⭐⭐ As Dark As Hunger S. QIOUYI LU
⭐⭐⭐⭐ I Say (I Say, I Say) ROBERT SHEARMAN
⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Pain-Eater's Daughter LAURA MAURO
⭐⭐ The Hope Chest SARAH READ
⭐⭐ Nor Cease You Never Now REN WAROM
⭐⭐ Playscape DIANA PETERFREUND
⭐⭐ Adrenaline Junkies RAY CLULEY
⭐⭐⭐ Watching TIM LEES
⭐⭐⭐ Mr. and Mrs. Kett SAM HICKS
⭐⭐⭐ Below SIMON BESTWICK
⭐⭐⭐ My Name is Ellie SAM REBELEIN
⭐⭐ Slipper CATRIONA WARD
⭐⭐ How to Stay Afloat When Drowning DANIEL BRAUM
⭐⭐ This Was Always Going to Happen STEPHEN GRAHAM JONES
⭐⭐⭐ The Butcher's Table NATHAN BALLINGRUD
⭐⭐⭐ Ice Cold Lemonade 25ȼ Haunted House Tour: 1 Per Person? PAUL TREMBLAY
⭐⭐⭐ A Song for Wounded Mouths KRISTI DEMEESTER
⭐��� Birds of Passage GORDON B. WHITE
⭐⭐⭐ The Puppet Motel GEMMA FILES
⭐⭐ The Senior Girls Bayonet Drill Team JOE R. LANDSDALE
⭐⭐⭐ The Night Nurse SARAH LANGAN
⭐⭐⭐ They Are Us (1964) : An Oral History JACK LOTHIAN
⭐⭐ As Dark As Hunger S. QIOUYI LU
⭐⭐⭐⭐ I Say (I Say, I Say) ROBERT SHEARMAN
⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Pain-Eater's Daughter LAURA MAURO
⭐⭐ The Hope Chest SARAH READ
⭐⭐ Nor Cease You Never Now REN WAROM
⭐⭐ Playscape DIANA PETERFREUND
⭐⭐ Adrenaline Junkies RAY CLULEY
⭐⭐⭐ Watching TIM LEES
⭐⭐⭐ Mr. and Mrs. Kett SAM HICKS
⭐⭐⭐ Below SIMON BESTWICK
⭐⭐⭐ My Name is Ellie SAM REBELEIN
⭐⭐ Slipper CATRIONA WARD
⭐⭐ How to Stay Afloat When Drowning DANIEL BRAUM
⭐⭐ This Was Always Going to Happen STEPHEN GRAHAM JONES
⭐⭐⭐ The Butcher's Table NATHAN BALLINGRUD
December 7, 2022
Absolutely dog shit. This is about as scary as taking a walk at 8:00 AM with your German Shepard Dog and 50 bodyguards. I'm more dissapointed in this book then a wife with a husband who has a 2-inch dick. I made an account on this website for the sole purpose of telling how absolutely shit this book is. "The Best Horror Of The Year" my ass. This is about as scary as playing hide and seek with a tickle me elmo. This is about as entertaining as watching someone play curling. That's the level your on Ellen. Curling. Absolutely dog shit. I would rather watch people literally eat shit then read this. I would rather die than read this.
I guess the New York Times obviously didn't read this book, because there's no way ur the "Queen if horror anthologies". Must've paid them ir something. Never read this book unless you want to be disappointed.
I mean, this is more disappointing than waking up and finding out your phone hasn't charged all the way. Take this book of the market. Actually.
I guess the New York Times obviously didn't read this book, because there's no way ur the "Queen if horror anthologies". Must've paid them ir something. Never read this book unless you want to be disappointed.
I mean, this is more disappointing than waking up and finding out your phone hasn't charged all the way. Take this book of the market. Actually.
May 13, 2021
Ellen Datlow knows a good short story when she sees it, and she has enjoyed a long and distinguished career putting together anthologies containing the very best speculative fiction being written.
This edition is the 12th in its present incarnation, containing 22 stories published the previous year. It features dark fiction and horror from established names in the genre, alongside emerging writers and lesser known authors. But you can be assured that the quality of writing, across the array of stories, is of the highest calibre.
I can honestly say that there wasn't one single story that I didn't enjoy, which is rare in an anthology, as personal taste is often so diverse it would be seemingly impossible to tick every box. And yet here we are.
If you are interested in reading the very best in modern horror fiction, this anthology is essential. Highly recommended.
This edition is the 12th in its present incarnation, containing 22 stories published the previous year. It features dark fiction and horror from established names in the genre, alongside emerging writers and lesser known authors. But you can be assured that the quality of writing, across the array of stories, is of the highest calibre.
I can honestly say that there wasn't one single story that I didn't enjoy, which is rare in an anthology, as personal taste is often so diverse it would be seemingly impossible to tick every box. And yet here we are.
If you are interested in reading the very best in modern horror fiction, this anthology is essential. Highly recommended.
July 14, 2021
I've read and enjoyed every single one of these Best Horror of the Year anthologies, but I think this may be the best one yet. I didn't skim or skip or stop reading a single story, because they're all good. My favorites, the ones that really blew my head off, were: "My Name is Ellie" by Sam Rebelein, about a little girl who collects sinister porcelain figures; "This Was Always Going to Happen" by Stephen Graham Jones, a very brief tale about getting a flat tire on a mountain road; and the novella at the back, "The Butcher's Table," by Nathan Ballingrud, which is about a satanists who hire pirates to take them to Hell, and if you think that sounds weird, just wait until you read the story! It's very original and very, very dark. Final rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 Another great job by Ellen Datlow!
February 5, 2021
Good one! As always, many names that guarantee quality horror fiction. If you're short on time, be sure to read the stories by Gemma Files, Sarah Langan (chills goddammit), Sam Hicks, Sam Rebelein, Stephen Graham Jones (I LOVE very short stories and this is why) & Nathan Ballingrud. If you're absurdly short on time, just read Ballingrud's 'The Butcher's Table' and you'll still get your money's worth. This story is Epic; sublime pacing, beautiful proze metre, truly horrific in its imagery, and by Satan, you tell me who doesn't love a truly infernal tale now and then?! Can someone please make this into a movie? Already excited for it!
October 14, 2022
A fine collection of horror tales. Some misses in this edition, but only a couple. Most of these are absolutely top notch.
BY FAR - the best of the lot is the final story by Nathan Ballingrud called "The Butcher's Table". It is amazing! Not only well-written but EXTREMELY DISTURBING - full of dark, dark, DARK themes, gore, horror and the last 20 pages of the story are simply horrifying.
If you read only one story, make sure it is "The Butcher's Table". But almost all of these are worth time and effort. A solid collection.
BY FAR - the best of the lot is the final story by Nathan Ballingrud called "The Butcher's Table". It is amazing! Not only well-written but EXTREMELY DISTURBING - full of dark, dark, DARK themes, gore, horror and the last 20 pages of the story are simply horrifying.
If you read only one story, make sure it is "The Butcher's Table". But almost all of these are worth time and effort. A solid collection.
September 14, 2023
It felt like the first few stories were kind of lukewarm, then they got better and better. The last story The Butcher by Nathan Ballingrud was incredible. It reminded me a lot of Tim Powers.
If you haven't read one of these before, the introduction ("Summation 2019") is about 60 pages long, reviewing much of the horror fiction published during the year, in some detail.
If you haven't read one of these before, the introduction ("Summation 2019") is about 60 pages long, reviewing much of the horror fiction published during the year, in some detail.
September 9, 2024
Haunted House Tour: 1 Per Person – 3.5
A Song For Wounded Mouths – 2
Birds of Passage – 2
The Puppet Motel – 4
The Senior Girls Bayonet Drill Team – 3
The Night Nurse – 5
They Are Us (1964): An Oral History – 3.5
As Dark As Hunger – 2.5
I Say (I Say, I Say) – 5
The Pain-Eater’s Daughter – 4
The Hope Chest – 4
Nor Cease You Never Now – 3
Playscape – 4
Adrenaline Junkies – 3.5
Watching – 1
Mr. And Mrs. Kett – 5
Below – 4
My Name is Ellie – 5
Slipper – 4
How To Stay Afloat When Drowning – 3
This Was Always Going to Happen – 4
The Butcher’s Table – 3
A Song For Wounded Mouths – 2
Birds of Passage – 2
The Puppet Motel – 4
The Senior Girls Bayonet Drill Team – 3
The Night Nurse – 5
They Are Us (1964): An Oral History – 3.5
As Dark As Hunger – 2.5
I Say (I Say, I Say) – 5
The Pain-Eater’s Daughter – 4
The Hope Chest – 4
Nor Cease You Never Now – 3
Playscape – 4
Adrenaline Junkies – 3.5
Watching – 1
Mr. And Mrs. Kett – 5
Below – 4
My Name is Ellie – 5
Slipper – 4
How To Stay Afloat When Drowning – 3
This Was Always Going to Happen – 4
The Butcher’s Table – 3
March 16, 2021
I don't always finish short story anthologies, or even if I do, I often put them down for long stretches at a time. This was a rare anthology that I read cover-to-cover with little interruption. Some stories were stronger than others, but all of them were worth reading. I particularly enjoyed Birds of Passage (Gordon B. White), The Puppet Motel (Gemma Files), The Night Nurse (Sarah Langan), They Are Us (1964): An Oral History (Jack Lothian), As Dark As Hunger (S. Qiouyi Lu), The Pain-Eater's Daughter (Laura Mauro), Playscape (Diane Peterfreund), Adrenaline Junkies (Ray Cluley), Below (Simon Bestwick), This Was Always Going to Happen (Stephen Graham Jones), The Butcher's Table (a novella, by Nathan Ballingrud). That might be more than half of them, so, like I said, it's a good collection.
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