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I like some horror, not the gross stuff, but more the unsettling stuff. And sometimes horror is easier to take in smaller doses, like short stories.This was a pretty decent collection. There are stories by Kelley Armstrong, Neil Gaiman, Stephen Graham Jones, Laird Barron, John Langan, and others. None really stick out in my mind though. I'd read a couple of them before.Short stories are a good format for horror, IMHO.
Some very enjoyable stories.
There were some outstanding stories in here, and I wanted to give this collection top marks, but of course the book is balanced out by some lesser content. Nonetheless this is another solid collection from Datlow.My favorite tales were "Fabulous Beasts", "We Are All Monsters Here", "Indian Giver", and "This Stagnant Breath Of Change", with "Fabulous Beasts" by Priya Sharma being a hands-down instant favorite.Recommended.
Always the cream of modern horror, this volume is no exception.
If you've read any of my reviews (thanks!!) where an anthology is the subject, you'll know that this type of book is one of my favorites. I love the variety of not just the offered stories, but also authors; many times I will discover the work of someone previously unread or unknown, and that usually is an added bonus. The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Eight is no exception.The book opens with a "best of the year" introduction from its editor, Ellen Datlow, my favorite editor of anthologies. I...
I first read this anthology in paperback almost five years ago, but I could only remember two stories in particular, so when my Audible Plus subscription included it among their freebies, I decided to give it another listen . . . and I'm glad I did.Anthologies are my gateway to discovering new authors, and this book first introduced me to Dale Bailey, whose story "Snow" is a tragic post-apocalyptic tale. A group of friends in an SUV are trying to escape both a deadly pandemic in Boulder, Colorad...
Where's Nathan Ballingrud?His regular Table of Contents companions, Laird Barron and John Langan, made it, but beyond a nod on the acknowledgments page and an Honorable Mention, there's no Nathan. Surely he wrote something in 2015 that was worthy of inclusion here. Surely this rather truncated volume could have added a few pages to accommodate an extra story (Night Shade Books' science fiction annual got about 600 pages, no fair!).Leading the authors who did get editor Ellen Datlow's TOC tap is
As per usual, with any anthology, you have stories that are great, good, okay and meh. I enjoy reading the Best Horror of the Year series, especially around Halloween because they tend to be fast reads and you get a lot of variety of stories. I think Ellen Datlow does a really good job at picking a variety of stories that are out there. Here is my take on each individual story:We Are All Monsters Here (Kelley Armstrong) - An interesting take on a vampire epidemic. I liked how the character was p...
This anthology felt a bit different to me. While most of the stories were well written, I felt that a lot of them just ended abruptly. For some of them that worked well, but for others, it didn't quite work for me. All in all though, it was a good collection.
This was the third Ellen Datlow-edited book I've read (she's legendary), and the first I've read of her best horror of the year stuff. I've always been a big fan of the Stephen Jones Mammoth Books, but, I have to say, I kind of think, at least these days, Ellen Datlow has a better eye for what's good, or at least for what I like.The stories in this book contain some of my favorite writers and a lot of poeple I'd never heard of, and the stories ranged from pretty good to badass. I didn't understa...
One of the more solid collections I've come across. There were only 2 stories I didn't care for. The rest were either excellent or middling. It is a collection that has reawakened my love of short stories. They're so satisfying without being mentally exhausting, even the ones that hit hardest.
Only a few stories are bad. Two or three. Only the one by Adam Neville is unreadable: Literally, I couldn't make it after the first page. I tried it three times and I failed to understand a single paragraph three times.All other stories are good or very good, and a few are amazing.
Some of these stories are incredible. I specially enjoy Priya Sharma, every one of her works has been superb.
This volume of Datlow's series struck me as taking fewer risks. There is only one story that I just didn't like - My Boy Builds Coffins - and a handful that I thought were okay. But at the same time, there were no stories that I thought were amazing. In previous editions, there has always been at least one story that left me feeling like, "well, that was probably the best one of the year, thanks Ellen." There are four stories here that stood out from the pack for me: Snow by Dale Bailey, The Roo...
Ellen Datlow's collections are always good, and volume 8 of Best Horror of the Year was an Audible freebie. Usually I don't like listening to anthologies as audiobooks, but these were all of sufficient length and weight to be good listening even while driving or distracted with other tasks.The lineup is all the big names you usually see in contemporary horror: Kelley Armstrong, Laird Barron, Tamsyn Muir, Neil Gaiman, along with a few I did not recognize.Some of the ones that were memorable:"We A...
Excellent book that contains the best of the best horror stories for the year.
Once again Ellen Datlow has presented us a ghoulishly fun compendium of horror stories with her eighth volume of The Best Horror of the Year. One of the most valuable parts is her introduction (based on her Facebook page postings, it's not her favorite thing to do) which gives me ideas for reading throughout the year. Then it's on to the stories, which vary from the simply creepy, like Tom Johnstone's "Slaughtered Lamb," which only suggests carnage, to Ray Cluley's "Indian Giver," which describe...
FIRST TIERAnother installment in the annual Datlow roundup, this one fairly solid although lacking a particular standout. Beyond that, it's down to tastes.SECOND TIERAs above, a solid installment but lacking a particular "knocks it out the park" example. Given the wide range of tastes among horror fiction fans, and given Datlow's own predilections and tastes (from my POV, a bit less willing to entertain the standard "ghost/horror" story and authors, a bit more willing to give time for the experi...
I love my short story horror anthologies and this one is definitely worth a shot. Most of the stories are great, the real problems are the endings. Some of the endings are phenomenal, but most of the endings are just okay or downright blah. Not the best collection I've ever read, but certainly not the worst!