Best Horror of the Year, Vol. 1 [Paperback]

Ellen Datlow (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 15, 2009 | Series: Best Horror of the Year (Book 1)

An Air Force Loadmaster is menaced by strange sounds within his cargo; a man is asked to track down a childhood friend... who died years earlier; doomed pioneers forge a path westward as a young mother discovers her true nature; an alcoholic strikes a dangerous bargain with a gregarious stranger; urban explorers delve into a ruined book depository, finding more than they anticipated; residents of a rural Wisconsin town defend against a legendary monster; a woman wracked by survivor's guilt is haunted by the ghosts of a tragic crash; a detective strives to solve the mystery of a dismembered girl; an orphan returns to a wicked witch's candy house; a group of smugglers find themselves buried to the necks in sand; an unanticipated guest brings doom to a high-class party; a teacher attempts to lead his students to safety as the world comes to an end around them...

What frightens us, what unnerves us? What causes that delicious shiver of fear to travel the lengths of our spines? It seems the answer changes every year. Every year the bar is raised; the screw is tightened. Ellen Datlow knows what scares us; the twenty-one stories and poems included in this anthology were chosen from magazines, webzines, anthologies, literary journals, and single author collections to represent the best horror of the year.

Legendary editor Ellen Datlow (Poe: New Tales Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe), winner of multiple Hugo, Bram Stoker, and World Fantasy awards, joins Night Shade Books in presenting The Best Horror of the Year, Volume One.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. After 22 years of pulling the horror content for the now-discontinued Year's Best Fantasy and Horror series, Datlow (Lovecraft Unbound) goes solo with this stellar start to a new best of annual. As in the past, her picks confirm that horror is a storytelling approach with endlessly inventive possibilities. In E. Michael Lewis's Cargo, a haunting Twilight Zone–type tale, an airplane picks up something otherworldly as part of its latest transport. Euan Harvey's creepy Harry and the Monkey turns an urban legend into reality. R.B. Russell's Loup-garou is a highly original shape-shifter story with a subtle psychological twist, and Daniel LeMoal's Beach Head a bracing conte cruel with a Lord of the Flies cast. In addition to the richly varied stories, Datlow provides her usual comprehensive coverage of the year in horror in an introduction that's indispensable reading for horror aficionados. (Dec.)
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From Booklist

During a prolific editorial career, Datlow has published many colorful thematic collections of horror. Until now, though, she has never put her stamp on a best-of-the-year horror anthology. True to her expansive vision, this inaugural volume of a projected annual series casts a wide net over the genre’s many outlets, from magazines and single-author collections to webzines and literary journals. It opens with Datlow’s own comprehensive overview of genre highlights and trends, then offers a smorgasbord of creative voices in 21 tales and poems. E. Michael Lewis’ unsettling “Cargo” eavesdrops on the duties of a military cargo plane’s loadmaster as he chaperones the restless coffins being shipped from Jonestown after the infamous mass suicide. Steve Duffy’s “The Clay Party” provides outstanding period detail in a pioneer woman’s account of a werewolf-plagued wagon train in 1846. There are stories about strange finds in a book depository, a Wisconsin town besieged by a legendary monster, and a grown-up Hansel returning to the witch’s house. Datlow delivers the gold again with a first rate compilation. --Carl Hays

Product Details

• Paperback: 350 pages
• Publisher: Night Shade Books; First Edition edition (October 15, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1597801615
• ISBN-13: 978-1597801614
• Product Dimensions: 5.9 x 1.1 x 8.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #880,652 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Horror Goes Solo October 30, 2009

By Aaron Polson

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This is the third year I've picked up Ellen Datlow's Best of the Year--the first year in which the book is solely dedicated to dark fiction (and soley edited by Datlow--previous incarnations split 50/50 fantasy and horror). As with any anthology, some pieces didn't work for me. I didn't finish "If Angels Fight" by Richard Bowes. Not my style, a little slow. But there is variety in this collection, truly a "year's best" with no outright clunkers.

Some of my favorites include:

"Beach Head" by Daniel LeMoal--the first piece since god-knows-when that inspired a physical fear response from page one. The set up: three smugglers with hands tied are buried to their neck on a sandy beach. It only goes creepier from there. While the prose isn't always razor sharp, the effect is. I felt like I was suffocating while I read.

"The Hodag" by Trent Hergenrader affected me in a different, more nostalgic way. It is a tale that spans decades, and the narrator's chilling realization in the final paragraphs is more frightening than the Hodag itself. "The Hodag" is the kind of story I would write if I could write better. It's a goal.

"The Lagerstatte" by Laird Barron...man, I hope to write 1/10th as well as Mr. Barron some day. The premise of "The Lagerstatte" is a little familiar, but his skill with language paints said premise with a deftness rivaling any short fiction author today.

As a reader, this is the type of horror literature I like to see: high quality, thoughtful prose, solid character development, and dark without leaning on schlock and gore. As a fledgling author, the stories in this book provide a model, a goal for my own work. "Here's how you do it." Best Horror of the Year is smart writing, regardless of genre.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A fine and varied collection that is, of course, not for everyone March 16, 2010

By Brendan Moody VINE™ VOICE

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It's important to start with what this volume is not. It's not a collection of a particular type of horror story; Datlow's taste, while tending toward the subtle over the blatant, is wide-ranging, and includes stories traditional and modern (to the extent that these labels are useful), long and short, serious and comic. Some are closer to dark fantasy than "horror" as some readers narrowly define it. This book is also not necessarily cued to your specific tastes. Datlow has not magically reached into your head and selected nineteen stories and two poems that you are guaranteed to love. Cover copy notwithstanding, Ellen Datlow does not know what scares you personally. To say that a book is "not for everyone" is often a form of back-handed criticism, but here it's just a fact.

With that out of the way, I can say what this book is: a collection of fine stories displaying the scope of the modern horror story. I can't say that I unreservedly admired all of the stories here, but I respected each one's craft. A new anthology edited by Datlow is a guaranteed purchase for me, and the reason I keep coming back is that I never find a story whose appeal utterly baffles me. Sometimes I don't find them as successful as they might be, but I never think "What the heck was ~that~ doing in this book?"

I'll highlight a few stories I particularly admired. Margaret Ronald's "When the Gentlemen Go By" is a brief, chilling story about a small town and the price it pays for its happiness. Again, traditional-sounding stuff, but the story's structure allows it to build to maximum effect, and there are a number of chilling moments along the way. It's also an interesting contrast with "The Hodag," a very different but equally effective small-town horror story elsewhere in the volume. "The Rising River," by Daniel Kaysen, is a sharply-styled, twisty little story about a girl who can talk to ghosts, or can she? Graham Edwards' "Girl in Pieces" is a mystery/science fiction/fantasy/horror hybrid. It's also a comedy. It sounds too busy to work, but in fact the noir-derived prose style makes it all fit together nicely.

In addition to the stories and poems, the volume also includes Datlow's summation of the year in horror publishing, an eminently useful list of novels, collections, anthologies, magazines, and other outlets for horror prose. With a genre that's so dependent on small presses, this essay is a much-needed annual resource for finding works you may have missed.

This is the kind of book you might want to look over before buying if you're not familiar with the editor's taste. Horror is (and should be) a broad church, so it's worth looking at some of the stories, and the editor's recommendations of other books in the summation, to get a sense of whether it's right for you. If it is, you're in for some excellent tales.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Assorted Nightmares January 28, 2010

By Marc Laidlaw

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I admit, I was someone who picked through Datlow's long-running Year's Best Fantasy & Horror and tried to single out the horror stories, so this collection, with its bias toward pure horror, was made for me. This is an excellent collection, full of fine stories by a surprisingly unconventional list of authors--in fact some of my favorites were by authors new to me. Don't let the lack of familiar names stop you for a minute. There's a strong streak of surreal stories that are nightmares from start to finish, but they are balanced by stories completely grounded in the quotidian, where the horror comes as an eruption or an infestation overtaking normalcy. In short, it is a well balanced anthology, and the cumulative effect is powerful. I'm looking forward to volume 2.