As a rather huge fan of Ellen Datlow, I have to say, all in all, I was disappointed in this collection. While I understand that short stories are often hit or miss, and that horror has a different definition in the eyes of each reader, too many of these seemed unfinished, half-conceptualized, or in the wrong genre. This was the first time in a long time that I've had to stop reading for days at a time simply because too many of the stories contained within were, in my opinion, just plain difficu...

The Nathan Ballingrud alone is worth the price of admission here. Phenomenal. Other stand-outs for me were by Sarah Read, Diana Peterfreund, Ray Cluley, Sam Hicks, Sam Rebelein, and Stephen Graham Jones.

Top 5:1. The Butcher's Table - Nathan Ballingrud2. The Senior Girls Bayonet Drill Team - Joe R. Lansdale3. My Name is Ellie - Sam Rebelein4. Adrenaline Junkies - Ray Cluley5. Birds of Passage - Gordon B. White

Like any collection, there’s a range of quality here, but considering that I’ve tried Datlow’s annual collections a few times and never finished one up until this one showcases a higher quality than usual.I won’t discuss each story, but mention a few that I found exceptional:Paul Tremblay’s “Haunted House Tour: 1 Per Person” - A man stumbles upon a drawing that causes him to reflect upon a visit to a haunted house when he was younger. Classic Tremblay. If you’ve read any of his novels, you know

Another year, another Datlow collection. As always, she favors the weird and the eerie over the shocking and gory. Ups and downs (as always), but more of the former than the latter:I̶c̶e̶ ̶C̶o̶l̶d̶ ̶L̶e̶m̶o̶n̶a̶d̶e̶ ̶2̶5̶ȼ̶̶ Haunted House Tour: 1 Per Person (Paul Tremblay) Paul reflects on his lonely childhood in the 80s, when he stole someone else’s creepy ghost. Oops - not only is it a memento mori, it's also a memento-lost-pieces-of-yourself. Very nice.A Song for Wounded Mouths (Kristi DeMees...

A selection box of bloody treats. Datlow's taste in horror is close to my own, so her anthologies tend to resonate well with me. I buy her themed collections, as well as her 'Best of the Year' books, which is why I got that sinking feeling I sometimes get with anthologies when I read the first story. 'Oh shit, I've already read this collection.'So I did a quick check, and everything is OK. The confusion arose because the first story in the book, Paul Tremblay's haunted house ghost story, is also...

This actually 2.9 out of 5 but I'm taking off a star due to the large amount of child abuse stories in here and one particularly abusive-pedo type story that was really fucked up. Don't get me wrong, there are a few excellent stories here, but I'm quite disappointed with too many of them. Datlow can do better than this.

This collection certainly includes a lot of different types of horror. The most transgressive story was Catriona Ward's Slipper. I was impressed on how she managed to instill utter revulsion while being completely sparing on any details--the horror goes on in the reader's head. The most darkly funny story was Joe Lansdale's The Senior Girls Bayonet Drill Team. He took a twisted idea and applied it consistently and masterfully. The one that drew me in most was Nathan Balingrud's The Butcher's Tab...

Last year's selection was far superior to this, but there's still some quality scares to be had here. Before proceeding to the stories, the editor presents a survey of the horror scene in 2019. It suggests some promising reads. As with most anthologies, there are gems scattered among ponderous bores. I noticed that the choicest morsels can be found in the middle portion, after one slogs through some uninspiring appetizers. It finishes on a soaring note though. Like last year's volume, the most i...

It was a horrible year.Between plague panic, protests and the cyclical exercise in partisan self-delusion, IQs plummeted and insane blew off the charts. I've been trapped alone in my own company for too long with nobody but the TV to talk to.Then I watched HBO's "Chernobyl."Can a look back at 2019's fictional horrors even hope to be anything more than quaint? Well, I appreciate that editor Ellen Datlow and her crew tried, even if it's only to offer an escape for a while. I hope they're all healt...

Ellen Datlow knows a good short story when she sees it, and she has enjoyed a long and distinguished career putting together anthologies containing the very best speculative fiction being written.This edition is the 12th in its present incarnation, containing 22 stories published the previous year. It features dark fiction and horror from established names in the genre, alongside emerging writers and lesser known authors. But you can be assured that the quality of writing, across the array of st...

Volume 12 beats Volume 11 all hollow. Where 11's stories had good premises, 12 has the stones to commit almost all the way through. These are stories that aren't afraid to show the cards in their hand, and are willing to content themselves with scaring the tobacco juice out of readers without straining to be "high art" - though some manage that feat just fine anyhow. 1. "Haunted House Tour - 1 Per Person" - a grand, King-esque start. Scary but fails to stick the landing. Very well-written and ma...

I can always count on Datlow to deliver a great anthology. As is typical not all the stories are to my taste, but the overall quality is high. My favorite was the final story of pirates and a journey into hell(?) with a generous dose of gore and violence. Datlow does tend to favor more abstract forms of horror, to the point where a lot of the selections were not even horror to me, for example the Joe Landale (who has written some truly disgusting tales) offering that only implied future horror,

Like a really mixed Halloween bag, but with some good candy inside. Birds of Passage was a truly beautiful dark fantasy story, 5/5 stars, worth re-reading--but definitely not what I consider horror, so I'm not sure why it was in this collection. I felt similarly about some of the other stories I liked less, including Adrenaline Junkies, As Dark as Hunger, The Pain-Eaters Daughter, all of which I firmly consider as dark fantasy or even sci-fi, not horror.Top of the charts and definitely worth re-...

Another top-quality smorgasbord of horror. This years serving feels more varied than usual - with a range of subtler tales that flirt with the edges of what horror can be - Robert Shearman, I’m looking at you a as d your crazy “I Say (I Say I Say). Standouts, for me, are Paul Tremblay’s “Haunted House Tour, 1 Per Person”, Joe Lansdale’s “The Senior Girls Bayonet Drill Team” and, way our front, Sarah Langan’s “The Night Nurse”. Great stuff as ever.

This is one of the more impressive collections Datlow has put together. Highlights include the shorts Playscape by Diana Peterfreund, My Name is Ellie by Sam Rebelein and the very short This Was Always Going to Happen by the inimitable Stephen Graham Jones. Consolation prizes to The Senior Girls Bayonet Drill Team by Joe R. Lansdale and Nathan Ballingrud for his sprawling vision contained in the length of a novella, The Butcher's Table. This volume contained no fewer misprints than previous edit...

The Butcher’s Table by Nathan Ballingrud ★★★★★ Hideous beauty, confronting and objectionable grace - everything I ever wanted from Clive Barker. The Senior Girls Bayonet Drill Team by Joe R. Lansdale ★★★★½ This is my second Lansdale short story and I am officially a fan. I like his colorful landscape, human connections, and bright unexpected violence. The story leaves you wanting a novella’s worth of backstory: How did young female gladiatorial sports become a grassroots movement on Mars? Is thi...

I always love Datlow's Best Horror books, read them every year, but this one was especially good. What's so strong about this series is that she pushes the limits of what is considered horror so you get a really expansive and diverse spread of stories, with no style dominating. My favorites in this volume were "A Song for Wounded Mouths" by Kristi DeMeester, "The Hope Chest" by Sarah Read, "Playscape" by Diana Peterfreund (which is a great example of the loose horror description), "Adrenaline Ju...

It did take me the better part of a year to finish this book, but I still don’t understand the wealth of negative reviews for it. Were there some typos that could have been easily corrected? Yes. Were there a couple of stories that were either boring or too vague? Yes.Still, I enjoyed more stories than I didn’t, and the outstanding ones were really outstanding. I’m not going to go through them all here and summarize them, as I’ve seen some people do, because I simply don’t have the patience. But...

I've read and enjoyed every single one of these Best Horror of the Year anthologies, but I think this may be the best one yet. I didn't skim or skip or stop reading a single story, because they're all good. My favorites, the ones that really blew my head off, were: "My Name is Ellie" by Sam Rebelein, about a little girl who collects sinister porcelain figures; "This Was Always Going to Happen" by Stephen Graham Jones, a very brief tale about getting a flat tire on a mountain road; and the novell...