I've read three of the anthologies in this series now and what's surprising to me is the consistency. I've rated all three volumes 4 stars, arriving at that figure by rating the individual stories and then calculating an overall average as the standing rating for the book as a whole. I'm beginning to wonder if this is fair: in each of the last two anthologies, there was one story each that I dnf'ed and gave 1 star for. In this anthology, some of the 5-stars really stood out and it seemed to me t...

At the Riding School by Cody GoodfellowAwakened by a late night phone call a veterinarian is called in to a local private boarding/riding school to deal with an emergency. She has dealt with emergencies there before, off the books, as it seems that the headmistress has some sort of dirt on her. Goodfellow does a wondrous job at casting an air of anticipatory dread. Goodfellow has our lead lay out the fairly mundane details behind the history of the riding school and its headmistress in a fairly

Datlow has returned with her annual collection, and as usual, those who share similar tastes will be pleased. I personally don't feel this volume was as strong as the two previous, but there are several very strong tales here that literary horror fans shouldn't miss. There's quite a bit of overlap with Stephen Jones's Mammoth book this year, which is unfortunate. I'll do a brief rundown of each story herein:"At the Riding School" by Cody Goodfellow: I felt this was a weak beginning to the collec...

Datlow is a great editor and this is my favorite horror anthology series. I've read most of the volumes and plan to continue buying it until I have the complete collection.

Some Good Thrills! 🙀A lot of the authors of this collection are very good at writing short stories. So this horror collection is full of stories that have all the ingredients that are needed to give you the best scares you desire.If you love reading about werewolves, ghosts, demons and all manner of monstrosities, check out the stories of this horror collection. You won’t be disappointed.

So, onwards with the plan to retroactively catch up on this series while not letting the new releases outpace me (most recent volume to be read very soon) - helped by the fact that 6 of these stories already appeared in Best New Horror 22 and were read and reviewed by me there (and so the reviews are re-purposed here). And, as usual, keeping an eye out for potential Pseudopod episodes... and, as usual, being a year-encompassing "best of", these tend to be somewhat long reviews as I try to give e...

Another phenomenal collection with a wide variety of different sub-genres represented (with a particular lean into apocalypse fiction & apocalyptic events). 2010 was clearly an excellent year for short horror fiction! See my reading updates for mini-reviews on individual stories, but my particular favorites were: Cody Goodfellow’s At the Riding School, Norman Partridge’s Lesser Demons, The Fear by Richard Harland, The Obscure Bird by Nicholas Royle, Transfiguration by Richard Christian Matheson,...

If I have to give this book a number rating, I'd probably give it 2.5 stars. I have to say that I was somewhat disappointed -- after the big improvement from Volume One to Volume Two, I had expected that the trend would continue with Volume Three. It didn't. On the back-cover blurb it says the following:"What causes that delicious shiver of fear to travel the length of our spines?...Every year the bar is raised; the screw is tightened. Ellen Datlow knows what scares us..."Well, the bar has not b...

Finished reading "The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Three" last night, edited by Ellen Datlow and really enjoyed it.I read a great of deal of short horror stories from multiple periodicals and web sites, much of which is drek. It's wonderful to sit down and peruse this collection, in which every story is so well written, unique, and truly a "best of." Some of the stories I read before, but they helped set the mood for other authors I was not familiar with. The horror tales in this anthology ar...

In picking up an older anthology, one runs the risk of already having encountered some of the stories. Unfortunately, I was familiar with about a third of these (among which are great tales by Laird Barron, Glen Hirschberg, Norman Partridge, and Joe Lansdale), but I picked it up for $1.99 on Kindle, so what the hey. The good news is, most of the new (to me) stories blew me away. The collection opens with Cody Goodfellow's brilliant and utterly perverse "At the Riding School," of which the less s...

I am going to be completely honest, I have never really enjoyed collections of stories when they are gathered by various authors. I have always found that they have been to many of them that come out at the same time and just figured there was no point in getting involved with something that I found tedious. Now let me tell you that my mind set has been completely changed. Editor Ellen Datlow’s selection of short horror fiction in this book actually kept me entertained. I actually found my self

Another great anthology of horror stories. I really am enjoying these books a lot.

This is a pretty good collection of horror stories. Most were well told and appropriately creepy. A few were kind of pointless and went overboard with the gore and senseless violence. Also, most of the stories were set either in New England or on the British Isles, which I found a little odd. At the Riding School by Cody Goodfellow: A widowed/divorced veterinarian secretly provides care to a Greek woman's "horses" which turn out to be beastly half-men. The women who train and care for these beas...

I feel that the writing for most of these stories was very high quality, but I admit there were a few I didn't like at all, because of the content. However, this makes for a good horror collection. You will get your money's worth, most likely. Favorite stories by Cody Goodfellow, Joe R. Lansdale, Catherynne M. Valente, and Norman Partridge.Reviewed for Bitten by Books.com. http://bittenbybooks.com.

Not as strong as the previous 2 volumes. The stories themselves were good, but that is pretty much where they maintained. This volume unfortunately lacks some of the punch I came to expect from the two solid entries that came before.

I almost didn't pick this up, because I had already read about a third of the stories elsewhere. The good news is that all of those stories are well worth reading again. As an entry in an ongoing series, I feel (so far) that this is Datlow's strongest effort yet. The overall quality is terrific, so much so that Datlow had the luxury (I feel) of story placement, kinds of stories, etc. In other words, Volume 3 is a superior collection of horror, every bit as good if not better as Jones' annual eff...

Another collection of The Best Mediocre Horror of the Year and probably the last one I am going to bother with. Most of the stories here are uninteresting and forgettable. The exceptions come (not surprisingly) from Brian Hodge, Nicholas Royle and Tanith Lee. In order:"Just Outside Our Windows, Deep Inside Our Walls": A girl with a terrible secret befriends a boy with a terrible power who lives next door."The Obscure Bird": An amateur ornithologist becomes a little too involved with his work."Bl...

The first thing I notice is that Night Shade Books has recycled some of its back cover copy word for word from last year's volume -- right down to the story count. Seventeen scaaaarry stories, the cover promises, but that contrary Table of Contents lists 21. And I thought we cleared up this "legendary editor Ellen Datlow" business last year. "Legendary" is an adjective best reserved for chupacabras. A legendary editor would've paid more attention to the galleys. But I'm griping about cosmetic, s...

Your mileage may vary. This collection contained mostly good stories. Some, like the "The Riding School" have stuck vividly with me over the last week. Others were not to my style, nor as memorable to me, but there is certainly a wide breadth of horror! From gore-heavy horror to creeping mental suspense/despair, this book is a really good sampler. I've noted down a few authors from it to look up on their own!

A collection of horror stories. Not all are your standard horror that's published in America. There's a very European feel to many of them; more introspective and moody - sometimes you have to reflect on what you read for a minute to realize the horror of the piece.I think one of my favorites piece was about 3/4 of the way through. It was called: The Days of Flaming MotorcyclesIt's a very different take on the zombie apocalypse. very creative. The good stories in this collection are like that; d...