Overall a good book with interesting stories. I am a sucker for horror collections. The stories were at their best when they subverted traditional tropes. The more standard zombie/werewolf stories were uninteresting.The highlight of the collection is definitely MLN Hanover's "Hurt Me", which features just an amazing protagonist and incredibly vivid writing. I'll definitely check out more of his work.And of course George R. R. Martin has the longest story by far, but it's serviceable, if probably...

As with any anthology there's going to be some good stories and some not so good stories. All of them were decent, I just liked some better than others (looking at you Neil Gaimen and Holly Black), but over all, 4.5 stars. I'd read it again and reccomend it to people that like the darker side of things.

My problem with this book was the number of zombie stories. I was really tired of zombies by the time I finished it. Because of this collection, I don't even want to watch the next season of _The Walking Dead_-a television show I used to like.

Some great stories here. I enjoyed nearly every one of them.

God, I love Christmas, because I usually get a load of new books. Most of them are ones I have asked for, but occasionally my wife surprises me, and this year's surprise was this hefty tome, which is I believe in its second year and appears to finally gives us a viable replacement for the venerable DAW "Year's Best Horror" series that sadly left us in 1994 when editor and author Karl Edward Wagner tragically passed away.Guran's choices are certainly worthy, though as a whole I found the collecti...

Some good storiesAs with most bestof collections,a very mixed bag. Worth reading,but I didn't finish quite a few of the stories

This is an unusually good entry in this venerable series, and happily new editor Paula Guran has given up the awkward trick she had in the 2010 edition of trying to ask open ended pseudo-analytical questions which frankly made her sound like a cut-rate Rod Serling at the end of a really bad Twilight Zone. Instead, she lets the tales talk for themselves, and this is an unusually excellent crop. There's a little something for everyone here frmo the Urban Paranormal Romance reader in your life who

Evidently Paula Guran's taste in stories and mine do not intersect, or intersect only rarely.I tried to read the 2010 edition of this anthology and gave up after none of the first nine stories interested me.This time, I made it two-thirds of the way through the book, but most of the stories did not appeal to me at all.I did like the stories by Norman Partridge, Maureen McHugh, Jay Lake and M. K. Hobson."Tragic Life Stories" by Steve Duffy was outstanding, both funny and terrifying. It is a terri...

3 reprints from other anthologies, Neil Gaiman's enjoyable but slight "The Thing About Cassandra" story being one of them. A long ass Dunk and Egg Novella by George RR Martin called "The Mystery Knight: A Tale of The Seven Kingdoms". The stories I like best were "The Naturalist" by Maureen McHugh"The Broadsword" by Laird Barron, "How Bria Died" by Mike Aranovitz and "The Dire Wolf" by Genevieve Valentine.Unfortunately this collection was the type of anthology that gives short story compilations

Dark fantasy, so this isn't really my genre. Since I picked it up to get an overview of what this rather nebulous genre is about, I can't say whether this is representative or not, or good for that matter.It covered quite a bit of ground, but few stories stood out to me, and I don't think that says much for the genre as a whole. Again, I don't know whether that's just because I don't know much about the genre and what it's compared to: but if I couldn't find much, is that really a good thing?May...

Eh. There were a couple of stories in here that I liked, but overall they were disappointing/boring and I gave up reading several of them. The ones that I liked were "Lesser Demons," "Raise Your Hand If You're Dead," "Red as Red" (Caitlin Kiernan's prose is so memorable), "The Broadsword," and "The Dog King." I was irritated to discover that three of the stories in here were reprints from other anthologies that I had already read, which were Neil Gaiman's story, "Hurt Me," and "The Stars Are Fal...

This is a great collection of short stories, and I'll admit, I bought it mostly just because I saw George R. R. Martin, Holly Black and Neil Gaiman had stories in it. Holly Black's short story was one of my favorites. Recommended!

I own this one and I loved most of the stories. Anything new and different is enticing indeed. I believe you will not be disappointed when you finish this book, maybe just a satisfied awww....

Apparently I'm not that fond of Dark Fantasy and Horror. If you do like this genre, then definitely read this collection.

There are some good short stories in this collection especially Laird Barron’s “The Broadsword, Lynda E. Rucker’s “The Moon Will Look Strange.” Stephen Graham Jones's "Crawlspace" and "The Things" by Peter Watts was interesting, especially since it's based on John Carpenter's The Thing. The rest were okay but that's what you get with a compilation but at least I'm more curious what have these writers been upto for the past few years.

This anthology is just what you would expect; four or five good short stories surrounded by filler. The Neil Gaiman story is good, and so are the ones by Caitlín R. Kiernan, Maureen McHugh and Angela Slatter. I really enjoyed the Dunk and Egg story by George R.R. Martin, but it didn't even belong in this book because it is not dark in any sense of the word.

I liked the formatting of this short story collection.

There are a few gems throughout this anthology, such as the stories by M.L.N Hanover and Tim Powers, among others, but I thought the 2012 edition was better. Still, there's not a bad story in here, though there are a few that fall between "not bad" and "good". The George R.R. Martin novella at the end seems out of place: it's not particularly dark, and the fantasy elements are tangential to the main story.There is enough here to get your money's worth, but I would recommend the 2012 edition.

Excellent. A great bunch of short dark fantasy/horror stories, with very few weak ones. There were two written in second person which I found annoying, but the rest were solid & well told. Last story by GRR Martin was longer & not as dark as the rest, but also a clear stand out.I will seek out other collections with the same editor.

There are enough excellent stories in this anthology to warrant five stars. In particular, Laird Barron's "The Broadsword" and Michael Aronovitz's "How Bria Died" are excellent reads, and masterfully crafted. There are a couple clunkers, but that's to be expected. The major problem with this work is the huge amount of editing errors. Typos and grammatical snafus abound.