Inferno [Paperback]

Ellen Datlow (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 31, 2009

As stated in her introduction to Inferno, Ellen Datlow asked her favorite authors for stories that would “provide the reader with a frisson of shock, or a moment of dread so powerful it might cause the reader outright physical discomfort; or a sensation of fear so palpable that the reader feels compelled to turn on the bright lights and play music or seek the company of others to dispel the fear.”
 
Mission accomplished. Datlow has produced a collection filled with some of the most powerful voices in the field: Pat Cadigan, Terry Dowling, Jeffrey Ford, Christopher Fowler, Glen Hirshberg, K. W. Jeter, Joyce Carol Oates, and Lucius Shepard, to name a few. Each author approaches fear in a different way, but all of the stories’ characters toil within their own hell. Winner of the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Anthology, Inferno will scare the pants off readers and further secure Ellen Datlow’s standing as a preeminent editor of modern horror.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Datlow (The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror) makes a solid claim to being the premiere horror editor of her generation with this state-of-the-art anthology of 20 new stories by some of horror fiction's best and brightest. Several outstanding selections feature imperiled children and explore the horrific potential of childhood fears, among them Glen Hirshberg's The Janus Tree, which gives a creepy supernatural spin to a poignant memoir of adolescent angst and alienation, and Stephen Gallagher's Misadventure, in which a young man's near-death experience as a child endows him as an adult with consoling insight into the afterlife. The compilation's variety of approaches and moods is exemplary, ranging from the natural supernaturalism of Laird Barron's cosmic horror tale The Forest, to the unsettling psychological horror of Lucius Shepard's The Ease with Which We Freed the Beast; the metaphysical terrors of Conrad Williams's Perhaps the Last; and the slapstick grotesquerie of K.W. Jeter's black comedy Riding Bitch. If this book can be taken as a gauge of the vitality of imagination in contemporary horror fiction, then the genre is very healthy indeed. (Dec.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Datlow makes a solid claim to being the premiere horror editor of her generation." --Publishers Weekly (starred review) on Inferno

“One good ghost story, one truly effective tale, is usually sufficient to scare the bejesus out of a person. The Dark contains sixteen tales, enough to keep fans tossing and turning and peeking under the bed for a fortnight and then some. Watch your hackles when you read this book; Ms. Datlow and her horrormongers are out to raise them.” --Dallas Morning News

"With all that being said, I can assure you that this is quite possibly the most literary of all anthologies I have ever read. Datlow brings together the very best of every type of classic horror stories. I cannot recommend this anthology highly enough and I appreciate horror being treated as fine as it has been in this anthology. Buy it, read it, share it.” --The Fantasy Times

“Fans of horror fiction owe it to themselves to pick up this creepy, stylish anthology.”--Jeff VanderMeer, SCI FI Weekly

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; First Edition edition (March 31, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765315599
• ISBN-13: 978-0765315595
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,609,886 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Publishers Weekly starred review, January 18, 2008

By 

Ellen Datlow (NYC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Inferno: New Tales of Terror and the Supernatural (Hardcover)

This is the entire starred Publishers Weekly review:

Inferno Edited by Ellen Datlow. Tor, $25.95 (384p) ISBN 978-0-7653-1558-8
Datlow (The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror) makes a solid claim to being the premiere horror editor of her generation with this state-of-the-art anthology of 20 new stories by some of horror fiction's best and brightest. Several outstanding selections feature imperiled children and explore the horrific potential of childhood fears, among them Glen Hirshberg's "The Janus Tree," which gives a creepy supernatural spin to a poignant memoir of adolescent angst and alienation, and Stephen Gallagher's "Misadventure," in which a young man's near-death experience as a child endows him as an adult with consoling insight into the afterlife. The compilation's variety of approaches and moods is exemplary, ranging from the natural supernaturalism of Laird Barron's cosmic horror tale "The Forest," to the unsettling psychological horror of Lucius Shepard's "The Ease with Which We Freed the Beast"; the metaphysical terrors of Conrad Williams's "Perhaps the Last"; and the slapstick grotesquerie of K.W. Jeter's black comedy "Riding Bitch." If this book can be taken as a gauge of the vitality of imagination in contemporary horror fiction, then the genre is very healthy indeed.
(Dec.)
And chosen by PW as one of the best sf/f titles of the year.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nice horror stew, February 13, 2010

By 

D. Walls "kcuf cancer!" (Chico, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Inferno (Paperback)

Anthologies like this are about the only place to find horror short stories these days, which is unfortunate because I think scary short stories are pretty awesome. The perfect length to read before turning off the light at night. And reading one right before bed is like dropping a little bit of mental lsd into your dreams.

Ellen Datlow has been doing the horror thing for a couple of decades now. She's edited over 50 anthologies and won a ton of awards for doing so. The point is, if you are gonna pick somebody to take you by the hand and show you what's good in horror short fiction these days, she's the one you wanna pick.

This anthology doesn't have a theme. It's 20 stories that Datlow chose "to showcase the range of subjects imagined by a number of my favorite writers inside and outside the horror field". When I looked through the contents I saw only half a dozen or so authors whose names were familiar to me.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More, Please., July 16, 2008

By 

Tubereuse - See all my reviews

This review is from: Inferno: New Tales of Terror and the Supernatural (Hardcover)

I particularly like "Bethany's Wood" by Paul Finch, "Stilled Life" by Pat Cadigan, and "An Apiary of White Bees" by Lee Thomas. Oh, that stories like these have made it into YBFH 2008. I read the Datlow-chosen stories in YBFH 2007 right after reading Inferno and was disappointed; the story by Oates, in particular, seemed misplaced: I'm a fan of the bizarre, and this one seemed pointlessly grotesque instead. But Inferno is everything I look for in modern horror! I think it's Ellen's best book so far.