The Best Horror of the Year by Ellen Datlow

Lansdale and “The Butcher’s Table” by Nathan Ballingrud. It’s not scary, but it’s very original, and very good.īest Thrill Rides: “The Senior Girls Bayonet Drill Team” by Joe R. Remember all the jokes you heard growing up concerning an Englishman, a Scotsman, and an Irishman? This turns those joke personalities into actual people who live on a different plane of existence, and get summoned from time to time to perform the jokes we all know. Most Unusual: “I Say (I Say I Say)” by Robert Shearman.

This is the one to keep you awake at night when you hear the house creak. Little people, human sacrifices, body parts… they all contribute to the terror. It has the classic cabin in the woods, but this is beyond any other one you have read.

The best in the book for true fear is “My Name is Ellie” by Sam Rebelein. Like “The Hope Chest”, it piles on the scare factor at the end. The second is a wonderfully chilling story of a rental room that may have access to another dimension. The first one is a bizarre story of a dead grandmother returning (sort of) through a dress form. Scariest: “The Hope Chest” by Sarah Read and “The Puppet Motel” by Gemma Files are both winners that get genuinely creepy right towards the end. Let’s take a look at some of the best ones: Readers who prefer third person narratives in the past tense may not find what they’re looking for, but everyone else will probably find something here to enjoy. This book is best suited for those who like variety, both in story ideas and writing style. Of the stories written in the third person, many of them are written in the present tense. The majority of the stories are written from a first person point of view.

It is an almost even mix of excellent, decent, and forgettable stories: out of the 22 stories, seven are outstanding, seven are skippable, and the other eight are satisfactory, middle-of-the-road stories. The Best Horror of the Year anthologizes short stories by a variety of writers, previously published during 2019, chosen by well-known editor Ellen Datlow. The Best Horror of the Year, Volume 12, edited by Ellen Datlow

The Best Horror of the Year by Ellen Datlow