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This is a solid collection with some stories that I loved and none that I hated (although some I liked less, for sure). It’s such a huge collection that I can’t imagine anyone who enjoys horror or fantasy wouldn’t find some stories they like—I now have quite a list of authors whose works I want to read.
Holy smoke. Holy smoke! HOLY SMOKE! Okay, so maybe that's a bit of overkill, but be fair, this is the best anthology I've read in a long while, and it tops the 2011 edition EASILY. Yes, I know I read them out of order, sue me, I received them that way. Looks like this one will be an annual to keep on the Christmas list for many years to come. Horror purists will probably complain that there's not enough out-and-out scary stuff in these, but keep in mind, it's "Dark Fantasy and Horror" in the tit...
Fine, solid stories - but kind of predictable. Maybe I'm getting better at predicting stories, but it felt like a lot of these were stories of a particular type without a lot of twist to it. I suspect I'm like, "But there are other anthology editors I especially love, and this is okay but doesn't scratch that itch," and that's all there is to it, and this is perfectly fine but I just can't love it. Any of the stories on their own would be fine...
This was the first volume of The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror, and it is rather sturdy and consistent in its selection of stories. Almost all the stories are very good, but I didn't find anything risky inside. Like all anthologies, it has a couple extraordinary entries, as well as a clunker or two. I actually found one story subpar, but it may be that this story is the risky one and I just didn't get it. In which case, this entire paragraph is founded on false premises.The stories that I
Highlights from the collection are:'Frost Mountain Picnic Massacre' by Seth Fried'Monsters' by Stewart O'Nan'The Wide, Carnivorous Sky' by John Langan'Certain Death For a Known Person' by Steve Duffy'The Water Tower' by John Mantooth'Nub Hut' by Kurt Dinan'The Crevasse' by Dale Bailey and Nathan Ballingrud'What Happens When You Wake Up in the Night' by Michael Marshall Smith
Oh, yes. A very enjoyable read...if you like this kind of thing.
I loved John Langan's The Wide, Carnivorous Sky. Everything else was just ok.
This book seemed to have more depressing than horror or dark fantasy stories. There were several that I could not get through, but the good stories boosted the rating.
Introduction by Paula GuranThe Horrid Glory of Its Wings by Elizabeth Bear Lowland Sea by Suzy McKee CharnasCopping Squid by Michael SheaMonsters by Stewart O'NanThe Brink Of Eternity by Barbara RodenFrost Mountain Picnic Massacre by Seth FriedSea-Hearts by Margo LanaganA Haunted House Of Her Own by Kelley Armstrong Headstone In My Pocket by Paul TremblayThe Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly BlackStrange Scenes From an Unfinished Film by Gary McMahonA Delicate Architecture by Catherynne M. Valen...
This anthology of the macabre and unsettling started what has now become an annual almanac of horror. I really enjoyed The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror: 2015 . This predecessor includes a third more stories, but more is not always better.Two tales merit top marks. "Lowland Sea" by Suzy McKee Charnas spectacularly brings together modern day slavery and an apocalypse in a work of speculative fiction. The beauty of this piece is in capturing the unique narrative voice of Miriam who witnes...
I have to say, Paula Guran is now my new favorite editor. What a great assortment of stories. I liked most of them. The absolute best here are "Copping Squid", "Sea-Hearts", "The Mystery", "The Wide, Carnivorous Sky", "Leng", "The Nowhere Man", "The Other Box", "Halloween Town", and "What Happens When You Wake Up in the NIght". THE HORRID GLORY OF ITS WINGS, Elizabeth Bear - Depressing and moving seem to be Elizabeth Bear's specialties. A gritty urban locale, and a harpy that is almost as unbe...
Like any anthology, some stories appeal more than others. I was hoping for more fantasy than straight horror, though I did enjoy a few of the latter. Lots of open-ended disturbing kinds of stories, where you're not quite sure what happened.
The title is missing some punctuation. It should say "Dark, Fantasy, & Horror" since many of the stories contain no elements of either fantasy or horror, but may be called dark. Though I define genres broadly and have a very liberal view on what could be considered fantasy or horror, some of these stories really had none of that, even by a stretch. Some were hardly even dark.Catherynne M. Valente is the best in this book. Having no context, with a few pages left in her story I figured out exactl...
I really expected to enjoy this a lot more than I actually did. I had hoped it would be a throwback to the now defunct "Year's Best Fantasy and Horror" that we all used to know and love... but honestly there were so many selections in here that made no sense that I cannot say that there is very much similarity in quality.I've read other Guran-edited volumes that were a lot more cohesive and engaging than this one, so I will not give up on her by any means. I thought "New Cthulhu: The Recent Weir...
I’ve read a couple of these collections, and they are always mixed. There’s not a huge amount of actual horror here, mostly just weird and unsettling stories. There are the usual Cthulhu stories, of course, and overall I only found a few that I skipped all together.
The first book in this series, these are not the rivers of blood and piles of hacked up body parts found in your standard horror stories. These are much better... sleep with the lights on kind of scary.
I love big beefy anthologies, acknowledging that the stories are going to be hit-and-miss as far as taste, enjoyment, etc. This one was very hit-and-miss, and the misses were way way out there.
This anthology is a smorgasbord of naughty, delicious delectables. And just like a feast, there are some dishes more to one's taste than others. There is some absolutely jaw-dropping writing here, most notably Lucius Shepard's novella, "Halloween Town", so full of lush prose, truth, insight, and weirdness that I am left shaking my head in wonder.Other high points include:"Copping Squid" by Michael Shea, a brilliantly creepy Lovecraftian tale."Frost Mountain Picnic Massacre" by Seth Fried, a stun...
There was some stuff in here that was really creative, but some of the stories just went on and on and never got anywhere. Hey, I know writing short stories take some skill and work. I finally had to quit when I was in the middle of a story reading about a former writing professor who said that he taught his students not to write complexity for its own sake, but the story just kept adding more complexity and never resolved.
This book is not titled correctly. The first half of the book consists of stories that the editor included just because she liked them, as her annoying and dumb remarks at the conclusion of each story attest. The latter half of the collection is better, but still not up to par with other similar collections such as The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror (any edition).