Ellen Datlow: The Best Horror of the Year. Volume 6

Dark Moon Digest , edited by Stan Swanson, is a quarterly, which, in addition to regular issues, also published a special YA issue in 2013. There were notable stories by Steve Scott, Joe McKinney, and P. B. Kane.

Three-Lobed Burning Eye , edited by Andrew S. Fuller, has been publishing dark and weird fiction since 1999 and is currently trying to bring out two issues a year. There was a notable story by Lawrence Conquest in #23, but #24 was published too late for me to cover it.

Postscripts to Darkness , edited by Sean Moreland, calls itself an anthology, but, with interviews and a twice yearly schedule, it seems more like a magazine. One notable story by Ralph Robert Moore.

Shock Totem , edited by K. Allen Wood, had two issues out in 2013 with notable fiction by P. K. Gardner and M. Bennardo.

The Horror Zine , edited by Jeani Rector, is a monthly e-zine that has been publishing fiction, poetry, art, small press book reviews, and independent film reviews since 2009. There was an excellent poem by Joe R. Lansdale published on the site in 2013.

Aurealis , edited by Dirk Strasser, Stephen Higgins, and Michael Pryor, is one of only a few long-running Australian genre magazines. It went to a monthly online schedule in 2011. During 2013, there was strong horror by James Bradley, Jason Franks, O. J. Cade, and C. S. McMullen.

On Spec is Canada’s premiere genre magazine and has been published quarterly by the Copper Pig Writers’ Society, a revolving committee of volunteers, for a very long time. They always publish an interesting mix of sf/f/h fiction and poetry with good, dark stories in 2013 by J. D. DeLuzio, Kevin Cockle, Tyrell Johnson, and David Gordon Buresh. There are also profiles and nonfiction articles.

The Journal of Unlikely Entomology , edited by Bernie Mojzes and A. C. Wise, is self-described as “an online magazine of fiction that delves into the world of things that creep and crawl and explores the limits of what it means to be human.” The Journal publishes biannually in May and November with an additional roving mini-issue some time during the year. In 2013, that special issue was The Journal of Unlikely Architecture (#6), which was weirder than dark. The art is always topnotch, the fiction a mixed bag, with stories told from the point of view of insects usually less successfully than those not. There were notable dark stories by Nicole Cipri, Maria Dahvana Headley, Nghi Vo, and Nicole Belte.

Electric Velocipede , edited by John Klima, announced that it would cease publication with its twenty-seventh issue, published December 2013. That issue and the previous one had strong dark fiction by Jamie Killen, Sam J. Miller, Lisa L. Hannett, and Brooke Juliet Wonders.

Bourbon Penn , edited by Erik Secker, is published out of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and has some interesting fiction of different types. In 2013, there were notable dark stories by Sean Doolittle, Rebecca Schwarz, Jessica Hilt, and Will Kaufman. Kzine , edited by Graeme Hurry, is published three times a year and includes horror, sf, fantasy, and crime fiction. There were notable stories in 2013 by Donald McCarthy, Nicole Tanquary, and Gregory Marlow.

Mythic Delirium , edited by Mike Allen, has been featuring notable sf/f/h prose and poetry since 1998. Although Allen started moving the magazine to online publication in 2013, he continued to publish a separate print issue through 2013. Throughout the year, there was notable dark poetry by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam, S. Brackett Robertson, Alexandra Seidel, Liz Bourke, Georgina Bruce, C. S. Cooney, and Jennifer Crow.

Apex Magazine is a monthly science fiction, fantasy, horror webzine edited by Lynn M. Thomas that had notable dark fiction and poetry by Emily Jiang, Tang Fei, Sarah Monette, Shira Lipkin, and Rachel Swirsky and two very good non-horror stories by E. Lily Yu and Maria Dahvana Headley.

Ideomancer is a quarterly webzine edited by Leah Bobet that publishes a mix of sf/f/f. There were good, dark stories in 2013 by Sunny Moraine and Michael Matheson.

The BFS Journal is edited by Sarah Newton, Stuart Douglas, and Ian Hunter and available to all members of the British Fantasy Society for free. There were notable stories by Clare Le May, Aliya Whiteley, and Joel Lord.

Albedo One , edited by Frank Ludlow, David Murphy, and Robert Neilson, is the only genre magazine I’m aware of that’s published in Ireland. It runs sf, fantasy, and horror and regularly includes interviews and book reviews. There were two issues published in 2013 with notable dark stories by Kevin Brown and David Siddall.

Crimewave: Hurts , edited by Andy Cox, has been missed. Issue #12, out late in 2013, was the first issue of this excellent crime/mystery magazine published in three years. The stories are rarely horror, but they’re usually dark and always readable. My favorites in the new issue are by Steven J. Dines, James Cooper, Melanie Tem, Stephen Bacon, Joel Lane, Tim Lees, and Antony Mann.

Shimmer , edited by E. Catherine Tobler, had two issues out in 2013 with notable stories by Cate Gardner, Dennis Y. Ginoza, William Jablonsky, Alex Dally MacFarlane, Sunny Moraine, and Christie Yant.

Interzone , edited by Andy Cox, is the sf/f sister to Black Static , but occasionally some quite dark pieces slip into Interzone . During 2013, there were notable dark stories by Greg Kurzawa, Damien Walters Grintalis, and Melanie Tem.

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction , edited by Gordon Van Gelder, is a bi-monthly magazine that publishes sf/f/h in addition to columns, book and movie reviews, and a cartoon. During 2013, there was notable dark fiction by David Gerrold, Joe Haldeman, M. K. Hobson, Ken Liu, Bruce McAllister, Chen Qiufan (translated by Ken Liu), Michael Reaves, Dale Bailey, Harry Campion, Albert E. Cowdrey, Brendon Dubois, and KJ Kabza. The Kabza is reprinted herein.

Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine is a monthly magazine edited by Sheila Williams and, in addition to sf/f (and the occasional horror story), also includes columns and reviews. During 2013, there were notable dark stories by Gregory Frost, Garrett Ashley, Jack Dann, Nancy Kress, Kit Reed, and Leah Thomas.

Black Candies: See Through is the 2013 edition of an annual “literary horror” journal published by So Say We All Press. Many of the stories are interesting but only a few are dark. The best of those were by Adrian Van Young, C. A. Schaefer, and Julia Evans.

Phantom Drift: A Journal of New Fabulism , edited by David Memmott, Martha Bayliss, Leslie What, and Matt Schumacher, is an annual published in the fall. The 2013 issue has excellent dark fiction and poetry by Zoltán Komor, Julia Patt, and Jeannine Hall Gailey. The Gailey is reprinted herein.

McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern , edited by Will Georgantas, often has darker material within its pages.

Issue 45: Hitchcock and Bradbury Fist Fight in Heaven was especially rich with classic reprints by Ray Bradbury, Roald Dahl, and Frederic Brown and new dark stories by Brian Evenson and China Miéville.

Chilling Tales: In Words, Alas, Drown I , edited by Michael Kelly (Edge), is the second volume of new, non-theme horror stories in what I hope will be a series. There are some excellent stories among the twenty, including those by David Nickle, Sandra Kasturi, Catherine MacLeod, Ian Rogers, Derek Künsken, Helen Marshall, Simon Strantzas, Daniel LeMoal, and Michael Matheson. The Künsken is reprinted herein.