Ellen Datlow - The Best Horror of the Year. Volume 4

Vampires: Blood Society by Jeffrey Thomas (Necro Publications) is about an undying Mafioso. An Embarrassment of Riches by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro (Tor) is the twenty-third volume in her popular Count Saint-Germain series set in seventeenth-century Bohemia. Dead Reckoning by Charlaine Harris (Ace) is the eleventh Sookie Stackhouse novel. The Fly-By-Nights by Brian Lumley (Subterranean) takes place 150 years after the world ends, with the survivors hiding by day to escape the vampire “fly-by-nights.”

Lovecraftian horror: The Damned Highway: Fear and Loathing in Arkham by Brian Keene and Nick Mamatas (Dark Horse) is an homage to/parody of Hunter Thompson. No Hero by Jonathan Wood (Night Shade Books) is a first novel about a British police detective faced with tentacular horrors. Southern Gods by John Hornor Jacobs (Night Shade Books) is a first novel about a WWII veteran hired to track down a mysterious bluesman whose music is rumored to drive live men insane and to raise the dead.

Demons: Demon by Erik Williams (Bad Moon Books) is about a CIA assassin hunting a demon that wants to destroy humanity. In I Don’t Want to Kill You , Dan Wells’ (Tor) third novel in the trilogy begun with I Am Not a Serial Killer , John Wayne Cleaver phones a demon and challenges it to a fight.

Weird Fiction: The Great Lover by Michael Cisco (Chomu) in about a strange dead guy who lives in sewers. The Orphan Palace by Joe S. Pulver, Sr. (Chomu) is about one man’s strange odyssey into his past.

Ghosts: The Ridge by Michael Koryta (Little, Brown) is a supernatural thriller about mysterious killings at an inland lighthouse.

Other Monsters: Fangtooth by Shaun Jeffrey (Dark Regions Press) about monsters from the deep terrorizing a small beach town. Dark Surge by Gina Ranalli (Dark Regions) is about a divorced mom and the terrible secret of the “other” woman who is now with her ex-husband. The Countess by Rebecca Johns (Crown) about the real life monster Elizabeth Bathory. Midnight’s Angels by Tony Richards (Dark Regions Press) about a curse and monsters who invade a Massachusetts town. Blood Born by Matthew Warner (HW Press) is about a rapist who impregnates all his victims and what happens when his progeny are born. Frankenstein: The Dead Town by Dean Koontz (Bantam) is the fifth and final book in the sf/horror series. The Raising by Laura Kasischke (Harper Perennial) is about a college student’s accidental death and the rumors that she may not really be dead. Frankenstein’s Prescription by Tim Lees (Tartarus Press) is about a group of men attempting to piece together a prescription for eternal life. Ashes by Ilsa J. Bick (Egmont) is a young adult novel about an electromagnetic pulse that causes world-wide cataclysm, including giving teenagers a taste for human flesh.

The Janus Tree and Other Stories (Subterranean Press) is Glen Hirshberg’s third collection of short fiction and it’s as good, if not better than his first two: The Two Sams and American Morons . Included are his eleven most recent stories. The title story won the Shirley Jackson award and several others were chosen for best of the year volumes. The two originals are both chilling and one “You Become the Neighborhood” is published herein. One of best collections of the year.

Engines of Desire: Tales of Love and Other Horrors by Livia Llewellyn (Lethe Press) is a powerful debut collection of ten stories published between 2005 and 2010, with one knockout original novelette, “Omphalos,” reprinted herein. Llewellyn is unflinching in creating flawed characters facing the dark in the world outside and within themselves.

Let’s Play White by Chesya Burke (Apex) is another impressive debut, with eleven dark stories delving into the African American experience, the earliest published in 2004 and five published for the first time, including a powerful novella.

Grease Monkey and Other Tales of Erotic Horror by Graham Masterton (Hard Gore Press) collects fifteen (120,000 words) of Masterton’s nastiest stories, including one selected for the Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror several years ago.

Bone Marrow Stew by Tim Curran: Collected Works Volume One (Tasmaniac Publications-The Asylum Projects) is a good introduction to the author’s short fiction. The book includes seventeen stories and novellas, two published for the first time. The art throughout is by Keith Minnion. Simon Clark provides an introduction and the author includes notes for each story.

Eldritch Evolutions by Lois Gresh (Chaosium, Inc.) is the author’s first collection and it brings together twenty-six stories published between 1993 and 2011, nine of which appear for the first time. Although best known for writing Lovecraftian pastiches, Gresh also writes science fiction and weird westerns and her best work is very good indeed, particularly the dark fairy tale “Wee Sweet Girls.”

The Tangled Muse by Wilum Pugmire (Centipede Press) is a beautiful work of art, as well as a fine (albeit expensive) introduction to this author of weird dream-like, decadent fictions. The book, intended as a retrospective of Pugmire’s work over the past two decades, includes over forty stories and prose poems, five of them published for the first time. A second collection by the author, Gathered Dust and Others (Dark Regions Press) includes eighteen stories, four new — at a more affordable price.

Mrs Midnight and Other Stories by Reggie Oliver (Tartarus Press) is an excellent fifth collection of horror and weird stories, with four of the thirteen stories published for the first time. Featuring spot illustrations by the author. One of the best of the year. In addition, Centipede Press brought out Dramas from the Depths , a 900 page retrospective of Oliver’s short fiction containing the table of contents of his first three collections and a number of drawings by the author.

Five Degrees of Latitude by Michael Reynier (Tartarus Press) is an impressive debut — the book contains five new, unsettling novellas in the realm of the uncanny.

Tartarus Press published several other collections: Kicking off their Robert Aickman series is We Are For The Dark by Robert Aickman and Elizabeth Jane Howard, originally published in 1951, with three stories by each writer, none identified as by which one at the time. Included in the book is an introduction by R. B. Russell based on a recent interview he conducted with Howard; Dark Entries by Robert Aickman, which contains the six stories from his early, first solo collection, originally published in 1964. The volume is introduced by Glen Cavaliero; Powers of Darkness by Robert Aickman contains another six stories and features an introduction by Mark Valentine; Cold Hand in Mine by Robert Aickman has eight stories and an introduction by Phil Baker; Ringstones and Other Curious Tales by Sarban was, in 1951, the author’s first published work. The new edition of five stories is accompanied by a second volume Time, a Falconer: A Study of Sarban by Mark Valentine, a biographical work that by using Sarban’s archives, traces the author’s history from his working-class roots to a distinguished diplomatic career. In addition, there’s Discovery of Heretics: Unseen Writings by Sarban, containing previously unpublished fragments and unfinished stories and poetry.

Red Gloves by Christopher Fowler (PS Publishing) is an excellent double volume of twenty-five stories celebrating the author’s 25 thanniversary writing horror. Fowler is both prolific and versatile, a winning combination. The first volume contains London stories, the second is made up of world stories. Several are original to the volume and one of them is a new Bryant and May story.