2024 the best horror 2023 review
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From Ellen Datlow (“the venerable queen of horror anthologies” (New York Times) comes a new entry in the series that has brought you stories from Stephen King and Neil Gaiman comes thrilling stories, the best horror stories available.
For more than four decades, Ellen Datlow has been at the center of horror. Bringing you the most frightening and terrifying stories, Datlow always has her finger on the pulse of what horror readers crave. Now, with the thirteenth volume of the series, Datlow is back again to bring you the stories that will keep you up at night. Encompassed in the pages of The Best Horror of the Year have been such illustrious writers as: Neil Gaiman, Stephen King, Stephen Graham Jones, Joyce Carol Oates, Laird Barron, Mira Grant, and many others.
With each passing year, science, technology, and the march of time shine light into the craggy corners of the universe, making the fears of an earlier generation seem quaint. But this light creates its own shadows. The Best Horror of the Year chronicles these shifting shadows. It is a catalog of terror, fear, and unpleasantness as articulated by today’s most challenging and exciting writers.
Publisher : Night Shade (November 16, 2021)
Language : English
Paperback : 432 pages
ISBN-10 : 1949102602
ISBN-13 : 978-1949102604
Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
Dimensions : 6 x 1 x 9 inches
Reviewer: Richard Thomas
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Always a great read.
Review: I don't love every story that Ellen selects but overall her work is amazing. There is always a wide range of great horror in hereâclassical and quiet to cosmic and gothic. Here are my favorite stories from this year, the ones I taught in my workshops:⢠"Lords of the Matinee" by Stephen Graham Jonesâa favorite, always compelling, this sneaks up on you.⢠âA Deed Without a Nameâ by Jack Lothianâunsettling, with some very original moments⢠âA Hotel in Germanyâ by Catriona Wardâpossibly my favorite in the anthology, so original, visceral⢠âCleaver, Meat, and Blockâ by Maria Haskinsâreally done well, great emotion, love the ending⢠âHeath Crawlerâ by Sam Hicksâcreepy, with a cosmic bite that really resonates⢠âWe Do Like to Be Besideâ by Pete W. Suttonâlove the weird vibe, unsettling for sure⢠âTwo Truths and a Lieâ by Sarah Pinskerâanother favorite, with depth, and grand weirdness⢠âContrition (1998)â by JAW McCarthyâgreat concept, ripples out nicely at the end⢠âThe Whisper of Starsâ by Thana Niveauâgreat setting, nice arctic horror with cosmic aspects
Reviewer: Haley
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Love it
Review: Same as what I said about Vol. 11. Love the series. I hope Ellen Datlow edits the series as long as George R R Martin keeps editing the Wild Cards series.
Reviewer: lms_roberts
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Love this series
Review: I love this series, but being an annual anthology, some years are better than others. This collection starts out strong and sort of peters out-- I found myself not finishing several stories towards the end. But I am a huge horror and short story fan, so I have every volume, and find it still well worth purchasing.
Reviewer: Carrie Ann
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Scariest and best written fiction around
Review: If you haven't read them yet, I recommend any and all Ellen Datlow short story anthologies. She is a genius curator of horror, sci fi, fantasy, dystopia, and new tellings of fairy tails (both modernizing them and recasting them in light of their historically dark origins) is super fun. Much of it is literary. If you read horror stories because you love to be truly scared and check all your closets for monsters before you can sleep then Datlow is for you. Or if you just love intelligent, well written stories that you can't put down, order these anthologies.
Reviewer: jonathan briggs
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title: The Best Horror of the Year Volume Thirteen
Review: Lucky Volume Thirteen, to cover our first plague year.Though the coronavirus is largely absent from these pages. I don't know how much lead time authors require to incorporate current events in their fiction, but the epidemics here are of garden-variety rage cannibals and face-eating moppets. Several authors went on holiday. There are Arctic adventures gone wrong. There are climbing excursions gone wrong. There are days at the beach gone wrong. Other contributors understandably retreated to decades past when, as everyone of a certain age knows, everything was better. This is a slimmer than average volume, though editor Ellen Datlow repeated the word "notable" so many times in her "Summation 2020" that it must have padded the book out by a couple of pages (Editor's tip: Once you've noted something, it's redundant, if not downright maddening, to point out again and again and again that it's "notable," even if it's "especially notable.") After the Summation and a fairly forgettable opening story, I slapped my bookmark down at Catriona Ward and went to find something more interesting to read. Catriona Ward, I wondered, where have I heard that name? A quick Google didn't rattle anything loose in my memory. A day later, I got a message from my best friend in Texas asking me if I'd ever heard of Catriona Ward. His protege in El Lay had recommended her. When the universe (or at least a weird coincidence) reaches across the country from the opposite coast to tap you on the shoulder, it might pay off to pay attention. "If you leave a space you can never predict what will arrive to fill it." That's one of several catchy one-liners Ward packs into "A Hotel in Germany" like full-size American tourists stuffed into European accommodations. Yes, it's yet another vampire story, but so innovatively written, some readers might not even notice. I still can't recall where I heard Ward's name before I read this, but I think I'll remember it from now on. And I'll tell my buddy in Texas.Three of horror's oldest and most venerable weird sisters return in "A Deed Without a Name," summoned by Jack Lothian. I'm a big Bard buff, and although I won't risk bad luck calling it by name, Lothian expands on what's been my favorite tragedy since acting it out in high school lit class and getting slaughtered all over the blackboard. I've accumulated versions by Orson Welles, Akira Kurosawa, Roman Polanski and that longform black metal video starring Michael Fassbender, as well as a stubbornly blood-spotted souvenir T-shirt from London's Globe Theatre (and I eagerly anticipate the upcoming Coen take). Lothian's story sketches in some choice apocryphal details to add to my mini-collection. (It is a tale reviewed by an idiot.)"It can happen, I think. It did happen." The metal-shards-in-the-meals murder discovered (or imagined) in Stephen Graham Jones' "Lords of the Matinee" might be conceivable in a world where there was no such thing as product safety testing or autopsies or, you know, teeth. Not so much in any worlds where those things exist. In the story's defense, it could be a delusion, all in the narrator's mind. I can buy that. But someone, either Jones or his protagonist, didn't think this one all the way through.Like Lothian, Stephen Volk does some construction on canon in "Sicko," elaborating on the genre's most infamous shower. For a long stretch, Volk may test some readers' patience, contributing little that's new, simply rehashing events most of us should know by heart, like a condensed novelization of a movie that already has a novel attached. Then Volk veers off at the pivotal point, sending Hitchcock's heroine back to Phoenix to a fate of sexual humiliation rather than a creatively cut immortality in fatality. It's a left turn that serves little purpose other than to deliver a message about toxic masculinity, and it takes us out of horror territory altogether, raising the question: What is "Sicko" doing in these pages? It's not a badly written story, but was this offroad excursion really necessary? If Volk was so intent on sabotaging a perfectly fine psychological thriller by tacking on a ponderous sermon, he should have written in a Simon Oakland character in a clerical collar.In "Mouselode Maze," landscapers compete for a project at a refurbished hotel with a hedge maze attached. Author Christopher Harmon never manages to convey what exactly is so scary about this maze. We're just supposed to accept that it is. If yew trees make you quiver, look out. A mere mention of the leafy labyrinth can make one of the characters break out in a sweat, spill his coffee, leap from his chair or otherwise overreact just short of messing his trousers. I'm going to take a wild guess and peg Harmon for a big Ramsey Campbell fan. Both authors share a tendency toward obtuseness in their prose that dulls its impact. "Supporting the large bulk of the leathery bag, a cluster of thin limbs dancing on the spot; not exactly feet, not exactly hands thudded against the ground." That seems like it should mean something, yet I read it over and over and over, and somehow it never does. It's not Harmon's fault, but I was listening to the "Figure Eight" song on my Schoolhouse Rock CD (it has lots of good tips for aspiring horror writers), so the infinity reveal failed as well.Nathan Ballingrud writes one for those of us who can't turn loose of our physical media. Streaming's not sufficient, we need special editions of our favorite movies with bonus retrospectives, interviews and exhaustive geek detail. In "Scream Queen," a pair of movie fans score an interview for such a featurette with the star of a cult B (or worse) movie elevated by "the barn scene," an unnervingly authentic demonic possession. The actress reminisces about a production lacking in talent and money for special fx that substituted stark, screaming realism summoned from beyond.Gary McMahon's "Tethered Dogs" is slight but striking, built around a single twisted (sorry) image that's likely to linger in readers' imaginations.In Steve Duffy's "In the English Rain," two very likable teens bond over Shakespeare, cappuccino and Kate Bush. Drawn irresistibly by a neighborhood legend, they explore the abandoned house next door rumored to have been owned by John Lennon. Their unauthorized magical mystery tour uncovers the heinous deeds of an evil egg man. And yes, it's raining.Despite the adjectival refrain of the Summation, this may be the least notable volume in the "Best Horror" series. I found it difficult to come up with anything to say, positive or negative, about much of it. It's not bad. It's certainly not good. It just kind of accumulates, without so much as a chill or a shiver, until there are enough pages to put out the requisite annual edition. It feels obligatory, inconsequential and inessential. Like a placeholder while the horror community is still processing the misery and insanity of 2020. 2021 took us even further down the crapper, so it could be that the really dark stuff surfaces in Volume 14. Now that might be worth a shudder.
Reviewer: Donna Loo Who
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: These collections never disappoint. Look forward to them every year. Each story is very good.
Review: These annual collections are quite good. As a fan of horror fiction, I guess that like most things there is a wide disparity of tastes and quality available. This particular collection has never disappointed me. I own every one!
Reviewer: Munroe09
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: I LOVE these books!
Review: Truly love these best of horror anthologies. It's like eating chocolates...some are amazing, some are great, and all are good. You get to find new authors to try out and fall deeper in love with the ones you already recognize.
Reviewer: VanBrunt
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Amazing collection
Review: I was very pleasantly surprised by this anthology. Almost all of the stories had an amazing, complete story arc, none of them felt rushed or quickly ended, like I have experienced with some short stories. I was glued to this book.