Consistently excellent works of the strange and the horrific

An interesting cacophony of short horror stories everywhere from the “I don’t understand” weird kind to the “I don’t want to go to sleep” terrifying kind. Examples of some of the stories that stood out to me are: The Moraine by Simon Bestwick, two hikers confront a fatal mist, The Show by Priya Sharma, a television medium who realizes her skills are not what she thought they were, Final Girl Theory by A.C. Wise, a fan who meets a starlet from a notorious horror B film that makes you rethink what...

A little bit of shivers to suit every taste!

Book Info: Genre: Anthology: Horror Reading Level: Adult Disclosure: I received a free eGalley – eBook uncorrected proof/ARC – in exchange for an honest review.Synopsis: The first three volumes of The Best Horror of the Year from Nightshade books have been widely praised for their quality, variety, and comprehensiveness.Now, for the fourth consecutive year, editor Ellen Datlow, winner of multiple Hugo, Bram Stoker, and World Fantasy awards, has explored the entirety of the diverse horror market,...

You can feel free to disagree, but while I've been kind of disappointed with this series as a whole, I did see marked improvement between Volume Three and Volume Four of this series. I have a longer discussion of this book here on the horror/sci-fi/fantasy/etc page of my online reading journal; if you'd like the short form keep reading. Overall, there were a few stories in this installment that I felt were beyond good. There are 18 total; out of those I've starred five that I thought were very

This was THE perfect book to read in the month of spooky October. I'm glad I spotted this at the library. I have requested the others that have come before this one as I enjoyed this so much. As of course, with a book full of different stories, some were better than others but for the most part they each ranked about the same for me. Looking forward to the others just like this one.

This book has taken me a long time to “finish” because I refused to accept that I didn’t want to read the last story, no matter how many times I started it. I am finally coming to terms with that. There are some really haunting, standout stories here, but of course, also some that are less so. Let’s see what I think. . . Amazing, loved:Stay by Leah BobetMulberry Boys by Margo Lanagan (what a concept; very uncomfortable!!)Roots and All by Brian HodgeFinal Girl Theory by A. C. Wise (What I wish Ni...

Stephen King: "The Little Green God of Agony" ***** - Excellent.Leah Bobet: "Stay" **** - Do love me a good Windigo yarn.Simon Bestwick: "The Moraine" **** - Nice.Laird Barron: "Blackwood's Baby" ***** - Mr. Barron is quickly becoming one of my favorite horror writers.David Nickle: "Looker" **** - Creepy cool.Priya Sharma: "The Show" *** - Very good, but none of the characters are very personable - and having a sympathetic character in the mix helps with horror. Still sometimes bad things do

I won't be reading all of these stories. Frankly, I don't know why I keep picking these "Best Horror of the Year" anthologies up whenever I come across them at the library. It's almost as if every semblance of fun has been scientifically purged from the pages in some stoic pursuit of literary acceptance and broad acknowledgment of the merit of horror.C'mon! Why read horror if not to have fun? If you want to be bored to sleep, read William Faulkner.Anyway, this being horror, a couple of good stor...

Overall rating: 4 stars--I really liked it.I greatly enjoyed this collection of stories, so much so that I've given each one its own star rating. There's a good variety of topics and authors here, and I found many of them truly chilling. I always enjoy Datlow's story collections, and this was no exception.Individual story ratings:The Little Green God of Agony by Stephen King: 3 stars. Good, but a pretty standard King story.Stay by Leah Bobet: 3 stars. I loved the use of Alaskan mythology here.Th...

This is Ellen Datlow's fourth time editing Best Horror of the Year for Night Shade Books. This edition is the best so far, combining potent, ambitious longer works by genre stars with a varied sampler of up and coming names. Eighteen stories (including several novellas) follow Datlow's lengthy introduction, a wide-ranging summary of the genre year touching on noteworthy novels, anthologies, collections, periodicals, awards and events. If the tasting menu of the year's finest short fiction weren'...

Ellen Datlow accused me of being overly snarky the last time I reviewed one of these things, so this year, I'm starting off by saying something nice: It's good to see that Datlow's back. Small presses have a reputation for unsteadiness, and last year, there were ominous Internet rumblings and grumblings about Night Shade Books. But Night Shade is still publishing, the books are still rolling out, and Datlow is still performing her invaluable service to horror fans. Though my notion of "best" may...

This cultivated collection moves back into four star territory for me. These stories were more creeping dread than outright horror I found but in that creeping dread you find some truly gasp worthy gems that pushed my boundaries a bit in a good way. Easy to get lost in this collection and easy to devour them quickly.

Favorite stories: NUMBER ONE "You Become the Neighborhood" by Glen Hirshberg, which is just great, and then "Dermot" by Simon Bestwick, "In Paris, in the Mouth of Kronos" by John Langan, "Mulberry Boys" by Margo Lanagan, and "Final Verse" by Chet Williamson.

So, working my way backwards through the Datlows (thank goodness, less of them than Jones' MBOBNH series) on the lookout for a good read and maybe a story purchase for the PSEUDOPOD podcast (although, since I'm working retroactively here, some have already been submitted, bought and produced). This was a solidly successful installment of the series, as there were no stories I actively disliked or felt indifferent about. It's a cliche at this point to say that all anthologies are a mixed bag, but...

My favorite stories: Normally, I maintain a list of favorite stories in any anthology I read, because, as in this case, I might be reading several collections of shorts at once, plus a novel or two; I might absorb it over a period of months. I kept a growing list for this book for the first few stories and then abandoned the idea. This is one of the most perfect anthologies I've ever read. Not even the weakest of the stories Ellen Datlow selected for this volume should rate below four-stars; I'm...

I'm a little surprised this one made the full 4 stars of the previous volumes in the series. Big names in this one - big disappointments. The King only rated 4 stars from me, and the last story, the one by Peter Straub was so bad it pissed me off. It's the reason I HATE Lovecraftian horror. An author starts with some sort of reality-based tale, takes it into a narcotic haze of weirdness and then starts babbling on into nonsense about elder gods (in this case We (bold type-face included). AAAARGH...

If this was the best, I'd hate to read the worst. The best one was the Stephen King story. There were perhaps two others that were pretty good, the rest were a trial to plod through.

So, this Anthology of Horror proved to be much better than the mix of fantasy and horror produced by the same Datlow in collaboration with other names. Usually i`m sure that an Anthology by Datlow will be a miss, but this time i found some good surprises hidden here. And no, i`m not talking about King. i don`t know why, but his story wasn`t something worth finishing.Simon Bestwick has two stories here. The first one, The Moraine (****), was intense, chilling and fast, proving that a good ideea i...

This has been a real slog. I actually gave up at 50% as I’m just dragging myself through the 17 hours listening time, and people keep telling me life is too short to waste on this title. Some if the tales were interesting, and some probably would have been better with better narration, but there was just not enough shine on this collection to make it worth plodding along with. A lot of the tales felt cut off abruptly. Most of them just seemed unprofessional and the language too colloquial. As I