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The Best Horror of the Year Volume 4 (The Best Horror of the Year #4)

3.79 of 5 stars 3.79 · rating details · 89 ratings · 24 reviews

The first three volumes of The Best Horror of the Year have been widely praised for their quality, variety, and comprehensiveness.

With tales from Laird Barron, Stephen King, John Langan, Peter Straubb, and many others, and featuring Datlow’s comprehensive overview of the year in horror, now, more than ever, The Best Horror of the Year provides the petrifying horror fiction...more

Paperback, 400 pages

Published May 8th 2012 by Night Shade Books (first published May 1st 2012)

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Mar 24, 2013 Sam Fleming rated it 3 of 5 stars

Datlow is something of a doyenne when it comes to horror anthologies, and I felt this would be just the pick-me-up I needed to counter-act an affliction of genre apathy. It certainly did the trick, but more as a result of a couple of real stand-out stories than an overall trend of excellence.

The anthology opens with a Stephen King story about a man possessed by a pain demon, and the sceptical nurse who doesn't believe such things exist. It's tempting to ascribe this story to King's own experienc...more

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Oct 03, 2012 Jonathan Briggs rated it 4 of 5 stars

Ellen Datlow accused me of being overly snarky the last time I reviewed one of these things, so this year, I'm starting off by saying something nice: It's good to see that Datlow's back. Small presses have a reputation for unsteadiness, and last year, there were ominous Internet rumblings and grumblings about Night Shade Books. But Night Shade is still publishing, the books are still rolling out, and Datlow is still performing her invaluable service to horror fans. Though my notion of "best" may...more Ellen Datlow accused me of being overly snarky the last time I reviewed one of these things, so this year, I'm starting off by saying something nice: It's good to see that Datlow's back. Small presses have a reputation for unsteadiness, and last year, there were ominous Internet rumblings and grumblings about Night Shade Books. But Night Shade is still publishing, the books are still rolling out, and Datlow is still performing her invaluable service to horror fans. Though my notion of "best" may run contrary to hers at times, Datlow captures a snapshot every year of where the genre is at and where it might be headed, making her annuals required reading for those in their fright minds.

Datlow went big name hunting in 2011 and bagged two titans for her bookends. Volume 4 kicks off with horror's most popular author and ends with arguably its best.

As bad as he can be, Stephen King is a difficult author to consign to the Dean Koontz Memorial Slagheap of Authors I Used to Give a Crap About. Despite his flirtations with lazy, going-through-the-motions hackery, King has left himself open to an inspiration that strikes less often these days, but when it does, he becomes fully engaged and tackles that idea like the pre-jillionaire hungry young author who became such a phenomenon. That's why I keep buying Stephen King books: That young man is still lurking somewhere in the shadows of the brand name, and he's the one I come to see. The inspiration for "The Little Green God of Agony," King's first "Best Horror" entry, may have come from his personal experiences with a broken body and knitting bones. The sixth-richest man in the world is looking for a shortcut through the pain of physical rehab to recovery from a plane crash that left him shattered. He summons the Rev. Rideout (think Tom Noonan) to his bedside. Rideout is no mere faith healer. He doesn't heal, "I expel." He casts out the demon god that feeds on hurt. And on a dark and stormy night (natch), the Rev. Rideout sets about a rather unique exorcism. "The Little Green God of Agony" isn't likely to ever make the Classic Top 10 Stephen King Short Stories, but it's a refreshingly concise, lightly comic flexing of muscles King doesn't always use anymore.

At the opposite end of the book and in contrast to King's sturdy simplicity is Peter Straub's intricate puzzler "The Ballad of Ballard and Sandrine." A pair of decadent lovers cruise languidly along the Amazon on a yacht of impossible dimensions, moving forward and back through different decades, tended to by an invisible crew of pygmies who speak in birdsong. Since Straub started hanging around those New Weird delinquents, his short fiction has taken a turn for the peculiar, the dream-like. "The Ballad of Ballard and Sandrine" is as likely to inspire consternation as admiration. Honestly, I'm not sure what to make of it myself. But few authors can offer readers a sensory experience equal to the luxury of sinking into Straub's plush prose. So I'm happy to go along if he wants to indulge his inner Aikman (or maybe, as the title might indicate, he's channeling J.G. Ballard). I was three or four pages short of the ending of "The Ballad" when I had to report to work, but Straub had me so ensnared in the tangles of his nefariously strange story that I kept sneaking a paragraph here and there throughout my shift until I finished.

It's no surprise that one of the best stories in the book is by Laird Barron. The testosterone runs thick in "Blackwood's Baby," a Hemingwayesque horror that gathers a group of hunters (including a redneck Texan named Briggs!) in a lodge in Washington state. The men, predators all and dangerous to more than game animals, have come to hunt a mythical stag, "the king of the wood." As horror readers know from experience, the dark legends are true, the woods are cursed and there's something out there on cloven foot that's a lot more threatening than a deer. It's a story of classic campfire chills and another success for Barron in an extensive winning streak that many authors would sacrifice their right typing finger to have.

Brian Hodge's "Roots and All" begins in an autumn glow of nostalgia, accumulating note-perfect details of a bittersweet return to a childhood homestead. The softly melancholic tone works with the expertly evoked bucolic setting to leave the reader that much more vulnerable when the story starts taking nasty twists. A combat veteran witnesses the effects of meth and strip mining on the community he once loved and learns the fate of his sister who vanished eight years before. I think Hodge and Laird Barron must have gone camping in the same woods together.

One of the secondary purposes of Datlow's annuals is to spotlight a lot of new names, some of whom could have used a little more time on the vine, and others who bear further investigation. Simon Bestwick had a pretty good story called "The Narrows" in a previous volume, and he scores two slots this year. "The Moraine" has a feuding couple lost on a mountain in a whiteout fog with a monster. It couldn't get much more basic than that, but Bestwick tells his well-worn tale with an enthusiasm that's infectious, energetically mixing bits from "Tremors," "The Ruins" and "The Mist." Originality is great, but sometimes you just want an old-fashioned, suspenseful, gory monster stomp. Bestwick's second serving, "Dermot," is about an odd, unsettling little man (named Dermot, oddly enough) and a special police unit whose members dread his calling. I'll be picking up more of Bestwick's fiction. Also soon to join my to-read pile is David Nickle on the basis of "Looker," his tale of multi-eyed voyeurism.

In A.C. Wise's "Final Girl Theory," "'Kaleidoscope' isn't a movie, it's an infection, whispered from mouth to mouth in the dark." This is the third "Best Horror" volume in a row to feature a story about an evil cult film. The mini-trend started with Gemma Files' "each thing i show you is a piece of my death," and it probably shouldn't continue until someone writes a story that tops, or at least equals, that. "Final Girl Theory" isn't bad, but it feels like a slight variation on an overly familiar rerun.

"The angry expression has vanished. But there are tears." Those tears make their first appearance on the second page, the fifth paragraph of "You Become the Neighborhood" by Glen Hirshberg, horror's very own Eeyore. This triggers the urge to weep on Page 3. Followed by a teeth-rattling moaning fit on Pages 6 and 7. A full-fledged crying jag erupts on Page 9. "Then you started crying. ... And you cried some more. And I started crying." Glen Hirshberg is fully in his element: supernatural soap opera in which there's rarely much scaring but always plenty of sobbing. Hirshberg is capable of some fine writing ("Her long-fingered hands have curled up at her sides like smacked daddy longlegs." "Her husband ... was pretty much just a pool to pour morphine in."), but it gets difficult to pick out the good bits because he insists on slathering Natalie Portman-level histrionics all over everything like great undigestible gobs of lugubrious peanut butter. And the thing is, Hirshberg's stories just aren't that sad. He tells us they're sad by going blub-blub-blub every other paragraph. But that's not sad. That's just maudlin and tiresome. "My tears surprise me. I'm not even sure what they're for." It's as if Hirshberg's own character is speaking to him from the page, telling him to go blow his nose and man up.

John Langan has made it into almost every volume of "Best Horror." (Last year, he got in twice.) His stories have been interesting and ambitious but somewhat flawed in one way or another. He pretty much nails it in "In Paris, in the Mouth of Kronos." Two disgraced former soldiers have a reunion with a truly spooky spook they first encountered doing wetwork in a bloodstained underground prison in Afghanistan. Now, in the City of Light, there's a certain hotel corridor that remains stubbornly in the darkness. I've enjoyed watching Langan develop and improve as a writer over the past three years. I'll have to start actively seeking out his name in anthologies.

Of the four volumes of "Best Horror," this is the best yet. 2011 was apparently a good year for the genre, and Volume 4 offers fiction that's scary, transgressive and pulsing with an energy that was missing from some of the earlier annuals. Some stories are boldly experimental; others are traditional without being stale. Even the odd clunker here and there isn't unreadably bad. But now that the praise is over with, I've got to end on a slightly nastier note. Night Shade Books may have smoothed out the bumps on its production side, but it needs to address some serious deficiencies in its editing. NSB either needs to invest in more copy editors or reduce the number of titles it publishes to lessen the burden on the editor(s) it already has. I understand that no editor is perfect. There's a good chance there's a mistake lurking somewhere in this review that I won't notice til after it's published. But sections of this book are positively swarming with errors, many of which are softball pitches to the alert proofreader: dropped words, misused words, sentence fragments, clumsy phrasing ("The categories are broken down into thirteen categories."), free-floating clauses ("Too stunned to scream, Pippa did it for him." "Sickened by this small, crushed life, her headache was suddenly much worse.") and various other impediments to readability. A character named Harris becomes Harrison a few paragraphs later. Another character vacillates from sentence to sentence between Jaime and Jamie. The mistakes continue right up through the ads at the back of the book for other Night Shade titles. Why is this sloppiness endemic to the horror genre? Are horror readers and writers so much less literate than those in other genres or the mainstream? I'm sure some critics think so; why give them the typos to reinforce their prejudices? And why insult the readers who demand better? Typo-free text isn't likely to automatically win the horror genre critical respect, but it would be a sign of self-respect, and that's where it all has to start. (less)

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Aug 26, 2012 Laurie rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is as good a collection of horror as you’re going to get. The book starts with Stephen King and ends with Peter Straub, and the authors in between are no slouches, either. There was only one story I didn’t like (Straub’s ‘The Ballad of Ballard and Sandrine’) and that’s not because it’s a bad story; it’s just not a style I care for.

The stories are all over the map in terms of style; Margo Lanagan’s ‘Mulberry Boys’ is set in a sort of alternate world, a sort of fantasy/horror cross; Littlewo...more

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Apr 25, 2012 Sharon rated it 4 of 5 stars

An interesting cacophony of short horror stories everywhere from the “I don’t understand” weird kind to the “I don’t want to go to sleep” terrifying kind. Examples of some of the stories that stood out to me are: The Moraine by Simon Bestwick, two hikers confront a fatal mist, The Show by Priya Sharma, a television medium who realizes her skills are not what she thought they were, Final Girl Theory by A.C. Wise, a fan who meets a starlet from a notorious horror B film that makes you rethink what...more

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Jul 20, 2012 Bryce rated it 3 of 5 stars

I love anthologies. They're excellent resources for new authors, new styles of narrative and even glimpses at new cultures. And even the most poorly assembled anthology generally has one or two gems, that makes the read worth it.

Luckily, Ellen Datlow is a pro at anthologies, mixing the right amount of established and new authors and traditional and experimental writing styles. You can pick up anything she's edited with total confidence.

Now on to the stories themselves... some were good, some w...more

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Mar 25, 2013 Nancy Oakes rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: horror

You can feel free to disagree, but while I've been kind of disappointed with this series as a whole, I did see marked improvement between Volume Three and Volume Four of this series. I have a longer discussion of this book here on the horror/sci-fi/fantasy/etc page of my online reading journal; if you'd like the short form keep reading.

Overall, there were a few stories in this installment that I felt were beyond good. There are 18 total; out of those I've starred five that I thought were very...more

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Jun 11, 2012 Bibliotropic rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: netgalley

I'll be honest. I nearly gave up on this book. I nearly stopped reading it and gave it up as a lost cause. Why? Because the introduction takes up over 10% of the book, and is mostly a rundown of the best horror novels published during the past year. I actually had to look at outside descriptions of this book to remind myself that yes, there are actual stories in here, and that it's not just a book about other books. While having that listing certainly is nice, having it right at the beginning wa...more I'll be honest. I nearly gave up on this book. I nearly stopped reading it and gave it up as a lost cause. Why? Because the introduction takes up over 10% of the book, and is mostly a rundown of the best horror novels published during the past year. I actually had to look at outside descriptions of this book to remind myself that yes, there are actual stories in here, and that it's not just a book about other books. While having that listing certainly is nice, having it right at the beginning was a bit of a pain, especially when reading it on the Kindle, so it's not like I could just flip a few pages and quickly discover that I can get to the stories that make up the bulk of the book.

But once I found that out, and spent five minutes pressing the "forward" button on my Kindle over and over, I can say with certainty that I was glad I did.

There's some serious talent contained within this compilation, stories written by some big names and some who were -- to me, at least -- completely unheard of. Stephen King gets the honour of getting the ball rolling, and the only downside to that is that it sets a precedent that some of the other stories have a hard time living up to.

And if King sets a high standard to live up to in the first story, the final story, written by Peter Straub, was a big bust. Most everything in between was great, and very entertaining to read, but Straub's story was something that I couldn't get into no matter how hard I tried. The timeline jumped about all over the place, making it hard to follow and appreciate, and aside from a couple of legitimately creepy moments (and they were just moments, mind you), I couldn't even tell half the time where the story was going, or what the point to it was. Perhaps it's just that Straub isn't to my taste. But I do feel compelled to say that as much as the collection ended on a low note, it was far better than beginning on such a low note. Had this story been the first one, I might not have found much of a reason to keep reading.

But looking at the stories individually, and trying not to compare them to what came before or after, ultimately this collection lives up to its name. It was a great collection of horror stories, some that make you shiver, others that make you feel a bit queasy, and others still that make you struggle to wrap your mind around what's going on. A very good set that makes me want to keep my eyes open for next year's compilation! In spite of a couple of low notes, this collection is definitely worth checking out, especially for horror fans and for those who want to have their spines tingled and their minds expanded.(less)

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Apr 10, 2012 Samantha rated it 4 of 5 stars

When a horror collection begins with Stephen King and ends with Peter Straub, you can bet you're going to be in for quite a ride. I enjoy reading short story collections because I think it takes great writing skill to be able to completely tell a tale and capture a reader in such a limited space. This collection was no disappointment. The writer's craft shows through and I still find myself thinking about a number of the stories. Reactions as I read ran from chuckling to goosebumps to downright...more

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Dec 17, 2012 Charles Dee Mitchell rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: horror

This may be the only "Best Of" anthology I have ever read. That it is a mixed bag comes as no surprise. None of the stories are really bad, but many are quite ordinary. And the suffer in comparison with the best of the best.

This volume both gave me my first exposure to Margo Lanagan and got me finally around to reading something by Peter Straub. Thank You, Ms. Datlow, for both introductions. Lanagan's and Straub's stories are visceral, surrealist tinged fictions that take the read someplace you...more

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May 08, 2012 Crusader rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012-read, ebooks

The Best Horror of the Year Volume Four offers a great collection of stories which are bound to please any horror fan. The themes explored are varied and thought-provoking, especially those that show that humanity itself is often far worse than the monsters hiding in the shadows. While some stories are more effective than others you are guaranteed to find at least one which will send shivers down your spine. It might be best not to read this one alone in the dark. Recommended! Read the full revi ...more

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Dec 07, 2012 M Griffin rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is Ellen Datlow's fourth time editing Best Horror of the Year for Night Shade Books. This edition is the best so far, combining potent, ambitious longer works by genre stars with a varied sampler ofup and coming names. Eighteenstories (including several novellas) follow Datlow's lengthy introduction, a wide-ranging summary of the genre year touching on noteworthy novels, anthologies, collections, periodicals, awards and events.If the tasting menu of the year's finest short fiction weren't e...more This is Ellen Datlow's fourth time editing Best Horror of the Year for Night Shade Books. This edition is the best so far, combining potent, ambitious longer works by genre stars with a varied sampler of up and coming names. Eighteen stories (including several novellas) follow Datlow's lengthy introduction, a wide-ranging summary of the genre year touching on noteworthy novels, anthologies, collections, periodicals, awards and events. If the tasting menu of the year's finest short fiction weren't enough to make the volume an essential overview of all things noteworthy in the horror genre, this overview tips the balance. This makes an excellent introduction to talented new writers, as well as others more established who may yet be unfamiliar to a given reader.

For example, I knew David Nickel and Brian Hodge by name, but hadn't read their works, which turned out to constitute pleasant revelations. In Nickle's "Looker," a drunk man at a party finds a woman whose qualities go beyond the merely eye-pleasing. In "Roots and All," Hodge's character revisits a town where important childhood events occurred, some of which still echo in the present. Both stories exemplify Datlow's preference for character-driven horror, more haunting mood and troubling memory than blood and shrieking monsters. There are several more standouts:

"Blackwood's Baby," like many Laird Barron stories, takes place in rural Washington state, and expands upon Barron's personal, regional mythos. This novella tracks a 1930s expedition of diverse hunters seeking a beast of legend more dangerous than any of them anticipate. It's as powerful as any previous work by Barron, who lately can be counted upon to contribute at least one rich and potent tale to each year's best.

In Livia Llewellyn's "Omphalos," a girl caught in terrible surroundings must fight complex factors keeping her in place. Llewellyn specializes in the dark, raw-edge and harrowing. Her writing pulses with blood and seethes with emotion. Her "Engines of Desire" is among the best weird/dark collections of recent years, certainly one of the top debuts.

In John Langan's "In Paris, in the Mouth of Kronos," two fallen former agents try to claw their way back to gainful employment. They're hired to grab a "Mr. White," who may be a very different order of being from what they expect. Dark yet breezily entertaining, merging the grittiness of noir and spy thriller intrigue with a Lovecraftian hint of ancient forces lurking beneath the everyday world's seeming normalcy. Langan's a skilled writer, whose work Datlow often features. At times I've thought his work needed more of an edge. This has it.

"The Ballad of Ballard and Sandrine" by Peter Straub is a tour-de-force of tender yet bitter codependent romance conveyed in a disorienting balance of straight realism and twisted surrealism. In a series of encounters separated by wide gaps of time, the title characters (the much older Ballard is a mysterious "fixer" type employed by Sandrine's father) journey down the Amazon River on boats with ever-changing names. The couple, caught up in unfathomable events, exhibit a muted curiosity about their circumstances. At times they make experimental gestures seeking to understand the odd nature of the boat or its invisible crew. What knowledge they gain always seems to be lost, forgotten or clouded by the next interlude. The effect is weirdly disorienting, yet familiar. Don't we all forget lessons we've learned, ignore warning signs, and often repeat our mistakes? The growing surreality of Ballard and Sandrine's circumstances finally unfolds at least partially. Horrific and seemingly occult aspects are revealed, yet mystery remains. Straub may be the most cerebral of horror writers, and this is one of his best, boldest works.(less)

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Jul 08, 2012 Caitlin rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012

Ellen Datlow has edited lots of wonderful anthologies over the year. Her influence in the areas of fantasy and horror know no bounds. She's smart, a good reader, and she chooses well - all great qualities in an editor.

I'm sort of back and forth with horror. I love it in so many ways, yet it's so difficult to find horror that's worth reading (or horror movies worth seeing, frankly). Everything's gotten so obvious and much has descended to the level of torture porn and that just doesn't draw me in...more Ellen Datlow has edited lots of wonderful anthologies over the year. Her influence in the areas of fantasy and horror know no bounds. She's smart, a good reader, and she chooses well - all great qualities in an editor.

I'm sort of back and forth with horror. I love it in so many ways, yet it's so difficult to find horror that's worth reading (or horror movies worth seeing, frankly). Everything's gotten so obvious and much has descended to the level of torture porn and that just doesn't draw me in. I want something more, something different, something surprising, stuff that skitters in the night, Elder Gods, dumb decisions, and creepiness. I've most recently found more of that in horror comics than in straight horror, but when I saw this Datlow anthology, I thought it would be a good place to find some scary stories. And I was right.

Just about all the stories in this anthology are worth reading. As with all collections some stories stand out more to some readers than other stories, but these are all of high quality and introduced me to a new writer whose novel I just read and reviewed, David Nickle.

Let's talk about the short stories that really stood out for me. First there is Stephen King who has some kind of deranged genius in his head who knows how to tell a story and how to scare the crap out of you without being predictable or cliched. He's also a good writer, particularly as a writer about childhood. I love that. His story in this collection is "The Little Green God of Agony" and it is all about what you're willing to do for money, what money can and cannot buy you, and just how much you may have to sacrifice to relieve pain (real or imagined).

I also enjoyed "Stay" by Leah Bobet, an intelligent modern exploration of the Wendigo mythos. Wendigos appear in the mythology of many different Native American tribes, particularly those who speak Algonquin. Wendigos are evil cannibalistic spirits who can possess human beings turning them into evil cannibalistic people. Anyone with any knowledge of them knows that they are terrifying. "Stay" deftly leverages this mythology within a modern day town of Dene. It's fascinating, reads very real, and also scared the crap out of me.

I'd never read Laird Barron before, but now I'll be looking for him. Let me say that I am not a huge Lovecraft fan, although I do like the Lovecraft mythos. I just can't read the man himself - his writing makes me cringe. Laird Barron's story, "Blackwood's Baby" is set within a Lovecraftian mythos, but also hearkens back to old stories about rich gentlemen and their safaris - playing at hunting for trophies - and their guides. This was a wonderful, engrossing story that rang lots of literary referential bells for me and definitely made me want more of Mr. Barron's words.

Lastly, there is "Looker" by David Nickle. This is a story about a man who meets a woman who is covered in eyes - yes, literal working eyes. Romance and bad things ensue. This was a very difficult story for me to read because it was just so damned creepy and this creepy ickyness juxtaposed with its gorgeous writing made want to sleep with lights on. I was very fortunate after reading this to get an opportunity to read and review Mr. Nickles' new novel, Rasputin's Bastards, and do an author Q and A with him and I am now a big fan.

My one criticism of this book is that the first 10 percent of it is devoted to an entirely too detailed and long-winded rundown of other horror that's worth reading that didn't make the anthology or sources for horror or just lists and lists and lists. A few pages of this would have been a nice addition, but it takes up so much room at the beginning of the book that I honestly almost didn't read any of these stories and that would have been a pity.

Overall, great horror stories. I'm happy to have read them - they restore my faith in the genre.
(less)

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May 19, 2012 Katy rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: horror lovers

Recommended to Katy by: NetGalley/Night Shade Books

Shelves: ebook, galley-for-review, net-galley

Book Info: Genre: Anthology: Horror Reading Level: Adult

Disclosure: I received a free eGalley – eBook uncorrected proof/ARC – in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis: The first three volumes of The Best Horror of the Year from Nightshade books have been widely praised for their quality, variety, and comprehensiveness.

Now, for the fourth consecutive year, editor Ellen Datlow, winner of multiple Hugo, Bram Stoker, and World Fantasy awards, has explored the entirety of the diverse horror market,...more

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Dec 11, 2012 Drake rated it 4 of 5 stars

A terrific collection of short horror. It’s really difficult to go wrong with any book containing stories by Stephen King, Laird Barron, and Peter Straub. However, my favorite was Final Verse by Chet Williamson, who I was unfamiliar with before reading this. I can’t wait to read more of his stuff. Likewise, both Anna Taborska’s Little Pig and Brian Hodge’s Roots and All were stellar. A first-rate collection for any fan of horror.

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May 11, 2012 Victoria Caplinger rated it 3 of 5 stars

This was fun! Horror really is at its best in short story form. Everything from pain-causing demons being exorcised from men to subterranean monsters swimming through gravel pits eating humans (breaking up marriages that were already on the rocks….) Horror is fun, short form leaves room for more… nice collection!

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Jun 19, 2012 Alan Baxter rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: horror

A fantastic collection of horror. Not all the stories worked for me and one seemed like a very strange inclusion, very poor by comparison, but that one aside all the stories included were expert creations.

Even the ones that didn't work for me personally were obviously superbly crafted works. And most of the stories were brilliant.

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May 17, 2012 Ruth rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: anthology, short-stories, horror

Lots of good and a few great short stories in here. Loved "Dermot," "The Final Verse," "Roots and All," "Final Girl Theory," "Looker," and "The Show." Enjoyed all the rest except "Omphalos," which I really really disliked. All in all very worth reading.

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Oct 06, 2012 David Marshall rated it 4 of 5 stars

Another excellent anthology with one or two standout stories.

http://opionator.wordpress.com/2012/1...

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Oct 15, 2012 Verena rated it 2 of 5 stars

If this was the best, I'd hate to read the worst. The best one was the Stephen King story. There were perhaps two others that were pretty good, the rest were a trial to plod through.

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May 21, 2013 Fantasy Literature rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-by-terry

http://www.fantasyliterature.com/revi...

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Mar 28, 2013 Laronza Wiley-moore rated it 5 of 5 stars

AMAZING

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Jul 21, 2012 Midnight Blue rated it 4 of 5 stars

Solid horror anthology; many stories I'd never read before....I highly recommend it to horror enthusiasts.

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Dec 11, 2012 Chris Denison rated it 3 of 5 stars

not all worthwhile

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Dec 28, 2012 Brian Sammons rated it 3 of 5 stars

A good collection of horror stories, but far from the best in my oh so humble opinion. I liked a lot of what I read here, but there were a surprising number to stories that I didn't care for at all. As in, not one bit. Meh, chalk that up to personal taste I guess. Still, you can find a lot worse horror anthos out there.

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Jul 19, 2012 Caroline rated it 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed all four installments of this series. Datlow is an amazing editor with a great feel for anthology pacing. For me, the stories by Laird Barron and Peter Straub were the biggest standouts, truly superb. But almost all of the work in the volume was above average.

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May 21, 2013 Aneeqah rated it 4 of 5 stars

May 10, 2013 Legato Darksummers added it

Shelves: daddy-dark-s-baby-warrior-list

May 04, 2013 Lindsey rated it 5 of 5 stars

Apr 16, 2013 Nephrem Rah marked it as to-read

Apr 13, 2013 Isy marked it as to-read

Shelves: ghastly-business-it-is

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About Ellen Datlow

Ellen Datlow has been an award-winning editor of short science fiction, fantasy, and horror for over twentyfive years.

She is editor of the Best Horror of the Year and has edited or co-edited a large number of award-winning original anthologies. Her most recent are Supernatural Noir, Naked City, Blood and Other Cravings, The Beastly Bride, Teeth, Trolls Eye View, and After (the last three with Ter...more

More about Ellen Datlow...

Books by Ellen Datlow

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“She's one of those who goes all gooey over small furry animals. Not that it stops her eating them” — 1 person liked it

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title link	preview: The Best Horror of the Year Volume 4
avg rating	preview: The Best Horror of the Year Volume 4 Goodreads rating: 3.79 (89 ratings)
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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13511817-the-best-horror-of-the-year-volume-4?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1330962592l/13511817.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13511817-the-best-horror-of-the-year-volume-4?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]The Best Horror of the Year Volume 4 by Ellen Datlow[/url]

The Best Horror of the Year Volume 4 (The Best Horror of the Year #4)

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