What surprises me is how consistent Datlow's anthologies are. Even with a few more clunkers than average in this set, it still averages out to a 4.0. That's solid for a short story anthology. Interestingly, some of the highest rated pieces from this group were zombie tales and poetry. Not a fan of either. Also, as much as I don't care for Lovecraftian stories, Laird Barron continues to rank high with me due to the quality of his style, although the entry here is more folk horror rather than Love...

Uneven collectionI love good horror stories. I am a big fan of Stephen King. There were some good stories here, but a couple that were a bit confusing, and felt unfinished to me.All in all a pretty good collection.

On the whole, not a bad compilation of stories. Some were really impactful and left a lasting impression. Not all are supernatural though - some are psychological and not what I would term "horror" at all. Would have got a better rating from me if it weren't for a few lousy tales that were a complete waste of time.

Standouts:"Wild Acre" by Nathan Ballingrud"The Word-Made Flesh" by Richard Gavin"Frontier Death Song" by Laird Barron

This is my first Datlow "Best Of", so I'm interested in seeing if I can dope out similarities and differences between her and Stephen Jones. More on this at the end.The "Summation 2012" that starts the volume is the analog of Jones' "Year In Horror" entry that starts his collections. I found it as thorough and about as useful, in both the positive and negative readings of that statement.So, given all that, here we go - weakest to strongest: The only story I actively disliked was "The Word-Made F...

It took me a while to finish this book, reading one story every night or so. Note that since I reviewed every single story, I ran out of space below, so some of the stories are reviewed in the comments.Overall: 4 stars for the collection as a whole. Not every story was perfect (or what I'd necessarily agree was "Best Horror of the Year" material) but there were no stinkers. Everything was worth reading, and Ms. Datlow has introduced me to a number of new authors whose work I will be looking out

Whew! For a while there, this book didn't look like it was going to happen. Night Shade Books finally sank under the weight of long-running problems afflicting the publisher. But like Big Auto and the banks, Night Shade got a bailout deal that ensured the publication of Ellen Datlow's indispensable anthology. I'll forgo the standard finger-pointing where Night Shade's management is concerned. The important thing is that the books got out, and hopefully, the right people got their paychecks. Volu...

This has to be the best of The Best Horror of the Year. These stories are just fantastic. Excellent reading material for around Halloween.

I certainly enjoyed this book. I am a hound for anthologies, most of the work in here had a very "British horror" sensibility to it, which while enjoyable is a little more softcore than what I prefer. There are two or three real gems in here that appealed to my taste for exploitation, taboo, and violence. However I have to say that the rest of the book is certainly compiled from a great amount of high quality stories, written by competent authors. Certainly more competent than I as you can infer...

Some of the best and worst horror I've encountered, and I loved it even more for that. There were only a few stories I didn't finish and far more that I outright loved. Standouts were Gary McMahon, Conrad Williams, Priya Sharma, and the incomparable "Final Exam" from Megan Arkenberg.

This installment of Ellen Datlow's Best Horror series was pretty run-of-the-mill compared to previous volumes. Most of the stories follow a straightforward narrative structure and there are few daring experiments in this volume. I remember previous volumes in this series as having several stories that kept the reader off balance from the first sentence with narratives that seemed irreal and imparted a sense of terror and strangeness. This volume sticks mostly to the tried and true. It's not bad,...

4.5 starsOverall, this was a very good collection of horror stories, with a nice variety of both supernatural and psychological monsters. It's worth reading just for the stories by Laird Barron, with whom I was already familiar, and Gary McMahon, who is now on my "authors to watch" list. My rating and review of each story appear below.Nikishi, by Lucy Taylor: 2.5 stars. An utterly predictable tale of a bad guy finding out that there are worse monsters in the world than he is.Little America, by D...

I only got this book to read Dead Song by Jay Wilburn. He has made this into a 12 book series and I wanted to start from the beginning. I'm glad I did. Now to get to book 1 of Dead Song Legend Dodecology.

The best volume from this series so far. I enjoyed all of the stories- some more than others- but no duds. "Final Exam" was my favorite, but I also loved "The Ballad of Boomtown" and "Dead Song".

Yet another excellent anthology with some genuinely exciting stories.http://opionator.wordpress.com/2013/1...

Even now and then, I read an anthology with "best of" in the title because I want to know whether there is one out there that lives up to the claim. But, yet again, I was disappointed. I have read numerous great horror stories that were first published in 2012, but none of them appear in this volume. The prose was of a generally commendable quality but the tales themselves were lacking in narrative, direction, and originality. There were only two that I particularly liked; "Nanny Grey" and "None...

This was a solid collection of horror stories. Some were the truly gruesome horror one would expect and others more psychological. The collection tends toward horror writers from around the world. Who know there was New Zealand horror? Just kidding.

I purchased this anthology because I had heard that Ellen Datlow was one of the best editors for horror anthologies. I had previously read Lovecraft Unbound and Supernatural Noir so I already knew that she could throw together a good anthology. But I did wonder if she could do the same with general horror stories. The answer is yes, yes she can.This collection contains a number of haunting stories that both haunted me as well as made me question the reality around me. A vast majority of the tale...

Each time I read one of these Best Horror of the Year anthologies put together by Ellen Datlow,I realize that horror is indeed in the eye of the Beholder. After reading #5, I'm going to roll with that observation. For me, horror is something that sends that little shiver or frisson of fear up my spine as I'm reading, and out of the 28 stories that made up this book, that happened with eight. That's not to say that this book was bad -- au contraire -- there were some incredibly well-written stori...