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The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror #23
Best New Horror 23
This new anthology represents the most outstanding new short stories and novellas by both contemporary masters of horror and exciting newcomers. The award-winning series offers a chilling overview of this year in horror.
589 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2012
27 people are currently reading
326 people want to read
About the author
Stephen Jones
277 books344 followersStephen Jones is an eighteen-time winner of the British Fantasy Award.
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Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
June 26, 2015
I’ll review each story as I come to it...
Holding the Light by Ramsey Campbell
Two young boys explore a purportedly haunted tunnel. It may initially feel a hackneyed set-up (and the way the teenagers speak does a feel a bit like a pensioner imagining teenagers speak), but Campbell proves again why he is scare-master supreme on these isles. A brilliantly chilling tale.
Lantern Jack by Christopher Fowler
A chatty tale of a Halloween curse in a South London boozer. You can almost smell the spit and sawdust. I loved it!
Rag and Bone by Paul Kane
A gripping opening line (“When Ted opened his eyes, he realised he was hanging in a room, surrounded by corpses”), but an over-heated tale which manages to bring in family betrayal, a woman scorned, serial killings and ancient curses. It could do with being a bit less busy.
Some Kind of Light Shines From Your Face by Gemma Files
Steinbeck meets Greek myth with a sharp twist of horror. For the first few paragraphs I rebelled a bit against the folksiness of this tale, but soon fell into the rhythms and pace. This is an incredibly evocative chiller, which builds up to an undoubtedly strange but still somewhat inevitable conclusion.
Midnight Flight by Joel Lane
An amnesiac tries to track down an anthology of weird fiction. It’s an interesting premise, but the tale itself manages to be ordinary even when it strains to be extraordinary. Although the story isn’t helped by an English provincial setting which just seems painted in shades of grey.
Trick of the Light by Tim Lebbon
This is an understated but beautifully creepy ghost story, which manages to heart wrenchingly cover loss and the end of love.
But None Shall Sing For Me by Gregory Nicoll
A Caribbean set voodoo tale which really captures the setting. I only wish it wasn’t so content to just languidly sit back and take in the sights.
About the Dark by Alison Littlewood
A darkness lurks in a cave and a rebellious adolescent refuses to heed warnings and goes into investigate. This is a story which does what it does well, but one I couldn’t help feeling I’d read many times before – not least in ‘Holding the Light’ at the beginning of this volume. Clearly it’s a type of tale which strikes a big, fat chord with Stephen Jones (I’m sure I read at least one of them in each year’s volume). And of course in horror there’s nothing wrong with exploiting the fear of the dark – indeed, us horror fans slavishly demand it. But placing two quite similar stories in close proximity, does mean that one of them will suffer the sigh of familiarity.
The Photographer’s Tale by Daniel Mills
There’s something about the formal Victorian/Edwardian way of English which adds a crisp scariness to any ghost story. Maybe it’s a shared cultural memory of M.R.James or W.W.Jacobs. Perhaps it’s thinking of Sherlock Holmes pursuing supernatural hounds in the West Country, or even further back to Dickens’s ghostly visions. Whatever the reason, there are few ghostly tales which couldn’t be made that little be spookier by the right setting and idiom.
In this story the Providence setting is no doubt a nod to Lovecraft, but the whiff of M.R.James, as well as ‘The Portrait of Dorian Gray’, is unmistakable. A photographer receives a camera which allows him to see into the souls of his subjects. The world closes around him, and his own guilt for some past crime is left hanging.
Truly an excellent tale! Possibly the best of this collection so far.
The Tower by Mark Samuels
The set-up, which recalls the great and much missed J.G.Ballard, sees a man sick of corporate London and world capitalism have a spectral tower fill his view. Undoubtedly The Shard was an inspiration, but this tower is more a reaction to and rebellion against all The Shard embodies. Sadly the set-up is the best part of this rather hectoring and po-faced tale.
Dancing Like We’re Dumb by Peter Atkins
A hard-boiled lesbian P.I. in Los Angeles, devil worship, kidnapping and a supposedly cursed vinyl 45. What’s not to love? Atkins conjures a gleefully vivid first person narration in an incredible short space. There are apparently other Kitty Donnelly stories. I fully intend to seek them out.
An Indelible Stain Upon The Sky by Simon Strantzas
An accident, a ghostly town, an idyllic love affair now gone – these are undoubtedly ingredients for a good spooky tale, but some stories are just too ponderous for their own good.
Hair by Joan Aiken
It’s always fantastic how much an expert scare-meister can wring from the little things. Whether it’s the unexpected way something looks, or the emotionless response to news that should be shocking, chills can be conjured and drawn out from just the smallest details even in a commonplace world.
A widower takes his young wife’s hair as a gift to her mother. Joan Aiken creates a disturbingly surreal, yet understated, tale.
Miri by Steve Rasnic Tem
A man is haunted by a tragic, long lost university girlfriend. It’s a story which sets itself up with the classic ghost story tropes: her form appears to him at family occasions, she haunts him in his dreams and in blank moments he draws her face almost in a haze. She even looks like a ghost, being a pale skinned, dark haired, goth girl. And yet this isn’t a ghost story, more a story of loss. A tale of a man lost in extreme dissatisfaction, disorientation and disconnection from his own life. ‘Miri’ isn’t going to make any reader smile, but there’s a great deal of depth and pain here.
Corbeaux Bay by Geeta Roopnarine
A slight tale which has a sinister beach complimented by sinister turkeys. The author does all she can with the sinister turkeys, but let’s be honest – no matter how sinister you try to paint them – they’re still just turkeys.
Sad, Dark Thing by Michael Marshall Smith
Something I definitely liked about this tale, was the introduction. A meditation on the word ‘aimless’ that deserves to be read out with the creepy notes of ‘The Twilight Zone’ played under it. One can hear the voice of Rod Sterling intone it, conjuring a spookiness into every repetition of the word ‘aimless’. It’s a great opening, one which taps into the cultural memory of horror fans of a certain age (or younger, I suppose. ‘The Twilight Zone’ was originally broadcasting fifteen years before I was born). It gave me prickles and I was salivating like a pale and eager puppy as I turned to the story itself.
Unfortunately the tale itself is less riveting. A divorced unhappy businessman drives around aimlessly until he find something spooky. About mid-way through it did take a twist that I wasn’t expecting, but it ended up back on the well-worn road before long. It’s well written and never dull, but also more than a tad predictable.
Smithers and the Ghosts of The Thar by Robert Silverberg
A horror tale set in colonial India cannot help but be a critique of imperial times. And here we have some intrepid Victorian types entering a mystic idyll and trying to bring it up to speed with some steam powered inventions. There’s something humorous about a man encountering a never aging paradise and trying to improve it, and yet it feels so true to its age. This is a distinctive H. Ryder Haggard-esque tale, one which follows a well worn path, but does it expertly.
Quieta non Movere by Reggie Oliver
When M.R. James was writing those ghost stories for his friends, was he aware of the effect they would have? Did he imagine that they would achieve a far greater standing than his scholarly work? Could he possibly have conceived that years after his death there would be the term: ‘Jamesian’? Surely it would have astounded him to think that in the early twenty-first century people would still be writing loving pastiches of his work.
Reggie Oliver’s ‘Quieta non Movere’ (I’m no Latin scholar, but Google tells me that translates as ‘not to disturb quiet things’) clicks all the boxes. It has the Victorian country setting, the emotionally reserved central character and a statue/tomb which really should never have been touched. It’s a nifty ghost story in a Cathedral, and although the tale is – like its setting – a bit cold, it will raise a few chilly hairs on the back of the neck.
The Crawling Sky by Joe Lansdale
A Lovecroft western, one which has its Sergio Leone influences blazoned on its sleeve and so was somewhat reminiscent of The Dark Tower series. I know there’s a temptation to read something you like and see it everywhere (I did it myself with The Dark Tower and P.G. Wodehouse a month or so back), but here it’s unmistakable. I think it’s more cinematic than King’s opus though, which after seven volumes is impossibly unwieldy. This is just one avenging angel of a man out in the desert. Yes, very Clint Eastwood.
In a western wasteland a preacher comes across an unholy monster. This is a hugely impressive tale. Tense, scary and that rare thing – a short story which feels epic.
Wait by Conrad Williams
I really do hope that Stephen Jones is a happy and well-adjusted man, honestly I do. But if he should happen to be seeing a psychiatrist, that shrink could keep those sessions going for years and years by looking at the themes which crop again and again in ‘The Best New Horror’ series. Reading these books really lets you get to grips with Stephen Jones’s favourite horrible things, Here we have three familiar tropes, three themes and aspects which clearly grip and frighten Jones like few others – the grieving partner, the monster which is not far removed from man and the dark cave. It’s not a bad story, although inevitably I feel as if I’ve read it all before.
As I say I hope Stephen Jones is a happy and well-adjusted man, as I like this series and I don’t know what it would mean to these books if he was cured of all his fears.
The Ocean Grand, North West Coast by Simon Kurt Unsworth
The notion of paintings moving and having a life of their own is one of the great horror tropes. It appeals to authors as it’s about creating art that actually becomes alive, while it appears to readers because – haven’t you ever had the uncomfortable feeling that a painting is actually watching you?
Three experts enter an abandoned English hotel of the art deco style to see how much renovation it needs. A hell of a story, which is so full of detail and real touches, that it truly immerses you in its world and makes every scare feel like an ultra-powerful jolt.
They That Have Wings by Evangeline Walton
For whatever reason, World War One tends to be the more traditional war in which to set a ghost story. (I don’t why, maybe it’s some cultural memory of Arthur Machen.) As such this World War Two horror is something of a refreshing change. And in the opening pages of the three desperate and lost soldiers I could really picture the square jaws and three day stubble of our Allied heroes, as if I was looking at an old Commando comic. Swiftly it turns into one of those tales where travellers stumble across what looks like hospitality, but is actually something more sinister and terrible than they can possibly conceive. Told in diary entries, this is for the most part a tense and gripping tale. However while that one person perspective may up the fear stakes, it means that the narrator is outside the conflict which ultimately resolves everything – and the ending feels forced and as if from nowhere.
White Roses, Bloody Silk by Thana Niveau
One should never be so foolish as to flirt with the devil. That’s the point of so many tales of tarot cards and Ouija boards and dabbling in the occult. If you are so wayward as to peer through the gates of hell, then you should no complaint with the consequences. A lot of the modern tales of occult flirtation seem to involve teenage girls (no doubt there is something prurient at work). ‘ White Roses, Bloody Silk’ goes in a whole other direction, instead focussing a society hostess and her delightfully amused companions. She invites a scandalous and sinister gentleman to supper and soon regrets it.
I adored this story. The Victorian setting makes one think of the great horror tales of that age, but what really came to mind for me was how perfect this tale would be for Roger Corman to direct with his Edgar Allen Poe hat on. I can just see Vincent Price smiling at the bleeding red....
The Music of Bengt Karlsson, Murderer by John Ajvide Lindqvist
A set of terrifying musical notes is an effective trick to hang a short story around. Even though we can’t possibly hear the notes, our imagination is more than capable of running riot with a combination of quavers and semi-tones which are terrifying for us. We’ve all seen ‘Jaws’, we’ve all seen ‘Halloween’, we know what terrifying music sounds like and we’d all come away with our own different but equally scary versions. (Although if there is a flaw, and this may be in the translation rather than anything else, when the music is transcribed into words such as “dum-dum-di-dum” I for one couldn’t help thinking of Beethoven’s Fifth.)
We’re in ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ territory here with a killer reaching out beyond the grave, although given this is Swedish horror there’s a lot more brooding angst and fewer beds exploding into fountains of blood. A recently widowed father (that old Stephen Jones favourite) moves himself and his son out to a remote cottage. Things take a strange turn when the son starts to play piano.
For the most part this is a gripping chiller, and although the father’s actions escalate to horror in a rushed way which suggests this could have been a longer short story, the gore and gruesomeness at the end does feel properly built up to.
Passing Through Peacehaven by Ramsey Campbell
In the village my parents now call home, there is a train station which is the epitome of lonely. It’s a neglected place without a ticket office, an information board or any real sign of civilisation. I’ve never been caught there after dark by myself, but the set up of Ramsey Campbell’s ‘Passing Through Peacehaven’ most definitely struck a chord.
I like that Campbell sometimes centres stories around older and more curmudgeonly geezers than are often found in horror fiction. Although, as is most definitely the case here, it can lead him to be a little knee-jerk reactionary when it comes to the young and the modern world.
Victor Meldrew in a ghost story.
Holiday Home by David Buchan
A slight, inconsequential doodle, not a short story at all. I really don’t care to write anymore as I don’t want to create a review that’s longer than the tale itself.
And so we come to the end.
I’m not sure the quality of these volumes alters substantially year on year. Of course some are going to be of a finer vintage than others, but the change is going to be incremental rather than seismic. A project like this, with the best will in the world, is not going to manage to get twenty five absolutely stonking horror tales each and every year. (It would be far more possible to get twenty five absolutely terrible horror tales, but who on earth would want to publish that?) And since this is the first year I’ve gone to the trouble of writing a review for each and every tale, I can’t honestly say whether this book is slightly better or slightly worse than last year’s volume. I will say, however, that I enjoyed dipping into it between my reading of actual novels, and I have always opened the cover with anticipation rather than dread. Reading it and setting down my options has given me a clearer sense as to what Stephen Jones likes though, and just maybe what’s going on inside his head. And I look forward to continuing to psycho-analyse our esteemed editor at a remove over the coming year.
As look, what’s that falling through my letterbox, why it’s volume 24. Off we go again...
Holding the Light by Ramsey Campbell
Two young boys explore a purportedly haunted tunnel. It may initially feel a hackneyed set-up (and the way the teenagers speak does a feel a bit like a pensioner imagining teenagers speak), but Campbell proves again why he is scare-master supreme on these isles. A brilliantly chilling tale.
Lantern Jack by Christopher Fowler
A chatty tale of a Halloween curse in a South London boozer. You can almost smell the spit and sawdust. I loved it!
Rag and Bone by Paul Kane
A gripping opening line (“When Ted opened his eyes, he realised he was hanging in a room, surrounded by corpses”), but an over-heated tale which manages to bring in family betrayal, a woman scorned, serial killings and ancient curses. It could do with being a bit less busy.
Some Kind of Light Shines From Your Face by Gemma Files
Steinbeck meets Greek myth with a sharp twist of horror. For the first few paragraphs I rebelled a bit against the folksiness of this tale, but soon fell into the rhythms and pace. This is an incredibly evocative chiller, which builds up to an undoubtedly strange but still somewhat inevitable conclusion.
Midnight Flight by Joel Lane
An amnesiac tries to track down an anthology of weird fiction. It’s an interesting premise, but the tale itself manages to be ordinary even when it strains to be extraordinary. Although the story isn’t helped by an English provincial setting which just seems painted in shades of grey.
Trick of the Light by Tim Lebbon
This is an understated but beautifully creepy ghost story, which manages to heart wrenchingly cover loss and the end of love.
But None Shall Sing For Me by Gregory Nicoll
A Caribbean set voodoo tale which really captures the setting. I only wish it wasn’t so content to just languidly sit back and take in the sights.
About the Dark by Alison Littlewood
A darkness lurks in a cave and a rebellious adolescent refuses to heed warnings and goes into investigate. This is a story which does what it does well, but one I couldn’t help feeling I’d read many times before – not least in ‘Holding the Light’ at the beginning of this volume. Clearly it’s a type of tale which strikes a big, fat chord with Stephen Jones (I’m sure I read at least one of them in each year’s volume). And of course in horror there’s nothing wrong with exploiting the fear of the dark – indeed, us horror fans slavishly demand it. But placing two quite similar stories in close proximity, does mean that one of them will suffer the sigh of familiarity.
The Photographer’s Tale by Daniel Mills
There’s something about the formal Victorian/Edwardian way of English which adds a crisp scariness to any ghost story. Maybe it’s a shared cultural memory of M.R.James or W.W.Jacobs. Perhaps it’s thinking of Sherlock Holmes pursuing supernatural hounds in the West Country, or even further back to Dickens’s ghostly visions. Whatever the reason, there are few ghostly tales which couldn’t be made that little be spookier by the right setting and idiom.
In this story the Providence setting is no doubt a nod to Lovecraft, but the whiff of M.R.James, as well as ‘The Portrait of Dorian Gray’, is unmistakable. A photographer receives a camera which allows him to see into the souls of his subjects. The world closes around him, and his own guilt for some past crime is left hanging.
Truly an excellent tale! Possibly the best of this collection so far.
The Tower by Mark Samuels
The set-up, which recalls the great and much missed J.G.Ballard, sees a man sick of corporate London and world capitalism have a spectral tower fill his view. Undoubtedly The Shard was an inspiration, but this tower is more a reaction to and rebellion against all The Shard embodies. Sadly the set-up is the best part of this rather hectoring and po-faced tale.
Dancing Like We’re Dumb by Peter Atkins
A hard-boiled lesbian P.I. in Los Angeles, devil worship, kidnapping and a supposedly cursed vinyl 45. What’s not to love? Atkins conjures a gleefully vivid first person narration in an incredible short space. There are apparently other Kitty Donnelly stories. I fully intend to seek them out.
An Indelible Stain Upon The Sky by Simon Strantzas
An accident, a ghostly town, an idyllic love affair now gone – these are undoubtedly ingredients for a good spooky tale, but some stories are just too ponderous for their own good.
Hair by Joan Aiken
It’s always fantastic how much an expert scare-meister can wring from the little things. Whether it’s the unexpected way something looks, or the emotionless response to news that should be shocking, chills can be conjured and drawn out from just the smallest details even in a commonplace world.
A widower takes his young wife’s hair as a gift to her mother. Joan Aiken creates a disturbingly surreal, yet understated, tale.
Miri by Steve Rasnic Tem
A man is haunted by a tragic, long lost university girlfriend. It’s a story which sets itself up with the classic ghost story tropes: her form appears to him at family occasions, she haunts him in his dreams and in blank moments he draws her face almost in a haze. She even looks like a ghost, being a pale skinned, dark haired, goth girl. And yet this isn’t a ghost story, more a story of loss. A tale of a man lost in extreme dissatisfaction, disorientation and disconnection from his own life. ‘Miri’ isn’t going to make any reader smile, but there’s a great deal of depth and pain here.
Corbeaux Bay by Geeta Roopnarine
A slight tale which has a sinister beach complimented by sinister turkeys. The author does all she can with the sinister turkeys, but let’s be honest – no matter how sinister you try to paint them – they’re still just turkeys.
Sad, Dark Thing by Michael Marshall Smith
Something I definitely liked about this tale, was the introduction. A meditation on the word ‘aimless’ that deserves to be read out with the creepy notes of ‘The Twilight Zone’ played under it. One can hear the voice of Rod Sterling intone it, conjuring a spookiness into every repetition of the word ‘aimless’. It’s a great opening, one which taps into the cultural memory of horror fans of a certain age (or younger, I suppose. ‘The Twilight Zone’ was originally broadcasting fifteen years before I was born). It gave me prickles and I was salivating like a pale and eager puppy as I turned to the story itself.
Unfortunately the tale itself is less riveting. A divorced unhappy businessman drives around aimlessly until he find something spooky. About mid-way through it did take a twist that I wasn’t expecting, but it ended up back on the well-worn road before long. It’s well written and never dull, but also more than a tad predictable.
Smithers and the Ghosts of The Thar by Robert Silverberg
A horror tale set in colonial India cannot help but be a critique of imperial times. And here we have some intrepid Victorian types entering a mystic idyll and trying to bring it up to speed with some steam powered inventions. There’s something humorous about a man encountering a never aging paradise and trying to improve it, and yet it feels so true to its age. This is a distinctive H. Ryder Haggard-esque tale, one which follows a well worn path, but does it expertly.
Quieta non Movere by Reggie Oliver
When M.R. James was writing those ghost stories for his friends, was he aware of the effect they would have? Did he imagine that they would achieve a far greater standing than his scholarly work? Could he possibly have conceived that years after his death there would be the term: ‘Jamesian’? Surely it would have astounded him to think that in the early twenty-first century people would still be writing loving pastiches of his work.
Reggie Oliver’s ‘Quieta non Movere’ (I’m no Latin scholar, but Google tells me that translates as ‘not to disturb quiet things’) clicks all the boxes. It has the Victorian country setting, the emotionally reserved central character and a statue/tomb which really should never have been touched. It’s a nifty ghost story in a Cathedral, and although the tale is – like its setting – a bit cold, it will raise a few chilly hairs on the back of the neck.
The Crawling Sky by Joe Lansdale
A Lovecroft western, one which has its Sergio Leone influences blazoned on its sleeve and so was somewhat reminiscent of The Dark Tower series. I know there’s a temptation to read something you like and see it everywhere (I did it myself with The Dark Tower and P.G. Wodehouse a month or so back), but here it’s unmistakable. I think it’s more cinematic than King’s opus though, which after seven volumes is impossibly unwieldy. This is just one avenging angel of a man out in the desert. Yes, very Clint Eastwood.
In a western wasteland a preacher comes across an unholy monster. This is a hugely impressive tale. Tense, scary and that rare thing – a short story which feels epic.
Wait by Conrad Williams
I really do hope that Stephen Jones is a happy and well-adjusted man, honestly I do. But if he should happen to be seeing a psychiatrist, that shrink could keep those sessions going for years and years by looking at the themes which crop again and again in ‘The Best New Horror’ series. Reading these books really lets you get to grips with Stephen Jones’s favourite horrible things, Here we have three familiar tropes, three themes and aspects which clearly grip and frighten Jones like few others – the grieving partner, the monster which is not far removed from man and the dark cave. It’s not a bad story, although inevitably I feel as if I’ve read it all before.
As I say I hope Stephen Jones is a happy and well-adjusted man, as I like this series and I don’t know what it would mean to these books if he was cured of all his fears.
The Ocean Grand, North West Coast by Simon Kurt Unsworth
The notion of paintings moving and having a life of their own is one of the great horror tropes. It appeals to authors as it’s about creating art that actually becomes alive, while it appears to readers because – haven’t you ever had the uncomfortable feeling that a painting is actually watching you?
Three experts enter an abandoned English hotel of the art deco style to see how much renovation it needs. A hell of a story, which is so full of detail and real touches, that it truly immerses you in its world and makes every scare feel like an ultra-powerful jolt.
They That Have Wings by Evangeline Walton
For whatever reason, World War One tends to be the more traditional war in which to set a ghost story. (I don’t why, maybe it’s some cultural memory of Arthur Machen.) As such this World War Two horror is something of a refreshing change. And in the opening pages of the three desperate and lost soldiers I could really picture the square jaws and three day stubble of our Allied heroes, as if I was looking at an old Commando comic. Swiftly it turns into one of those tales where travellers stumble across what looks like hospitality, but is actually something more sinister and terrible than they can possibly conceive. Told in diary entries, this is for the most part a tense and gripping tale. However while that one person perspective may up the fear stakes, it means that the narrator is outside the conflict which ultimately resolves everything – and the ending feels forced and as if from nowhere.
White Roses, Bloody Silk by Thana Niveau
One should never be so foolish as to flirt with the devil. That’s the point of so many tales of tarot cards and Ouija boards and dabbling in the occult. If you are so wayward as to peer through the gates of hell, then you should no complaint with the consequences. A lot of the modern tales of occult flirtation seem to involve teenage girls (no doubt there is something prurient at work). ‘ White Roses, Bloody Silk’ goes in a whole other direction, instead focussing a society hostess and her delightfully amused companions. She invites a scandalous and sinister gentleman to supper and soon regrets it.
I adored this story. The Victorian setting makes one think of the great horror tales of that age, but what really came to mind for me was how perfect this tale would be for Roger Corman to direct with his Edgar Allen Poe hat on. I can just see Vincent Price smiling at the bleeding red....
The Music of Bengt Karlsson, Murderer by John Ajvide Lindqvist
A set of terrifying musical notes is an effective trick to hang a short story around. Even though we can’t possibly hear the notes, our imagination is more than capable of running riot with a combination of quavers and semi-tones which are terrifying for us. We’ve all seen ‘Jaws’, we’ve all seen ‘Halloween’, we know what terrifying music sounds like and we’d all come away with our own different but equally scary versions. (Although if there is a flaw, and this may be in the translation rather than anything else, when the music is transcribed into words such as “dum-dum-di-dum” I for one couldn’t help thinking of Beethoven’s Fifth.)
We’re in ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’ territory here with a killer reaching out beyond the grave, although given this is Swedish horror there’s a lot more brooding angst and fewer beds exploding into fountains of blood. A recently widowed father (that old Stephen Jones favourite) moves himself and his son out to a remote cottage. Things take a strange turn when the son starts to play piano.
For the most part this is a gripping chiller, and although the father’s actions escalate to horror in a rushed way which suggests this could have been a longer short story, the gore and gruesomeness at the end does feel properly built up to.
Passing Through Peacehaven by Ramsey Campbell
In the village my parents now call home, there is a train station which is the epitome of lonely. It’s a neglected place without a ticket office, an information board or any real sign of civilisation. I’ve never been caught there after dark by myself, but the set up of Ramsey Campbell’s ‘Passing Through Peacehaven’ most definitely struck a chord.
I like that Campbell sometimes centres stories around older and more curmudgeonly geezers than are often found in horror fiction. Although, as is most definitely the case here, it can lead him to be a little knee-jerk reactionary when it comes to the young and the modern world.
Victor Meldrew in a ghost story.
Holiday Home by David Buchan
A slight, inconsequential doodle, not a short story at all. I really don’t care to write anymore as I don’t want to create a review that’s longer than the tale itself.
And so we come to the end.
I’m not sure the quality of these volumes alters substantially year on year. Of course some are going to be of a finer vintage than others, but the change is going to be incremental rather than seismic. A project like this, with the best will in the world, is not going to manage to get twenty five absolutely stonking horror tales each and every year. (It would be far more possible to get twenty five absolutely terrible horror tales, but who on earth would want to publish that?) And since this is the first year I’ve gone to the trouble of writing a review for each and every tale, I can’t honestly say whether this book is slightly better or slightly worse than last year’s volume. I will say, however, that I enjoyed dipping into it between my reading of actual novels, and I have always opened the cover with anticipation rather than dread. Reading it and setting down my options has given me a clearer sense as to what Stephen Jones likes though, and just maybe what’s going on inside his head. And I look forward to continuing to psycho-analyse our esteemed editor at a remove over the coming year.
As look, what’s that falling through my letterbox, why it’s volume 24. Off we go again...
October 10, 2021
Alrighty, then, around we go yet again...
The "Horror In 2011" is the usual stuff but, as I've said before, nobody takes the time to do something like this and I find it worthwhile to comb over and pull out the few plums. Jones' little soapbox moment at the end this year mentions that he's been asked by his publishers to cut this and the Necrology, which I hope won't happen or, if it does, that the effort gets replicated into some digital online format. The review of audio horror each year is indispensable. And MBOBNH is now the longest running "Year's Best" anthology horror series. Other than that, it's the usual endless flood of (mostly) tired novels, overpriced and limited runs of classic and rare materials, author compilations and new publishers launching while older ones succumb. And so the wheel turns...
Two stories here didn't work for me at all: "Rag And Bone" by Paul Kane is a very predictable "supernatural force takes revenge" story, in this case dressed in the malignant form of the titular British street seller and operating as some kind of folkloric avenger against transgressions. Yawn. David Buchan's "Holiday Home", on the other hand, finishes off the book with a piece of flash fiction that barely qualifies as a story and seems more like a page filler.
Next up are the just "okay" stories: Christopher Fowler's "Lantern Jack" is a by-the-numbers monologue about the history of a haunted pub and the patch of land it sits on. The ending is just as by-the-numbers. "Dancing Like We're Dumb" by Peter Atkins is a noir-styled piece of urban fantasy. It's not horror at all really, all attitude and spooky props pitting a smart-mouthed lesbian detective against a satanic Hollywood star. A story that isn't so much a story as an extended character sketch with a flat, perfunctory ending. Well-written lingo, though, I'll give him that. I guess I should take "Corbeaux Bay" as a short bit of atmosphere, a tone poem more than a story - but I like that form and Geeta Roopnarine's piece didn't really measure up for me. It's not bad - a man ignores omens during his walk on the beach - but strikes me as profoundly thin compared to similar works (like "A Revelation of Cormorants" by Mark Valentine). John Ajvide Lindqvist, famed author of LET THE RIGHT ONE ONE, fails to impress with his story "The Music Of Bengt Karlsson, Murderer". It's a story about a recently widowed father and his son, piano lessons, and the dark secrets their new home holds in its past. It's okay, I guess, fairly typical of these things (ghostly apparitions of a hanged man and dead children, noises in the night, a mysterious piece of unfinished music that must be completed). It struck me less as a competent piece of short fiction and instead 3/4 of the ideas for a novel, or perhaps a condensed novella, with lots of gruesome events piling on in the end to wrap everything up quickly. Neither bad nor particularly good, just familiar and I can't help but wonder if it was chosen more for the author's current cache. I also wonder if the translation or the original material is to blame for some of the clunky, ungraceful writing and a seeming mistake in the murderer's name as it appears in the title.
Next up are the "good but flawed" stories. Ramsey Campbell's "Holding The Light" follows his usual approach of mostly character study and atmospherics, which is not for everyone, and in this case makes for a perfectly serviceable (if a bit old hat) tale of two boys daring each other to walk through an old tunnel. Unless I'm mistaken (and I could be, although there's occasions here where the writing is unclear) the story also contains a plot hole (the flashlight is smashed, then the boy has a functioning flashlight again). An aging man tries to recover memories of a horror anthology he read as a child in "Midnight Flight" by Joel Lane. It's an interesting story with a solid concept and the conclusion is poetic and effective, while also kind of easy and unsatisfying. Tim Lebbon's "Trick Of The Light" was an oddly ponderous story to get through. The author sets himself the difficult task of featuring a complicated dynamic - already in the past - between a disgruntled husband (now missing) and his near-agoraphobic wife (our main character), now moving into a towered home in the country. It's a good character study and well-written, but not as compelling as I wanted and kind of gloomily dreary in its repetition - not bad but enervating, a very "internal" story. "The Tower" by Mark Samuels is a monologue by an obsessive/depressive type who perceives a tower in the skyline of London where none existed before. Very "Thomas Ligotti" in a way but perhaps a bit more subtlety during the screeds and a stronger ending might have made this more of a winner for me.
Meanwhile, "An Indelible Stain Upon The Sky" may be the the closest, so far, that Simon Strantzas has come to writing something I like. This story has a good set-up, with a man returning to a coastal town destroyed by an oil spill - a town he last visited a decade ago with his lady love - and was a good read although kind of clunky in the imagery deployment. I fear I just may never click with Strantzas' writing style. Old hand Steve Rasnic Tem gives us the promising and disturbing story "Miri", in which a man haunted by his college relationship with a profoundly damaged, psychic-sinkhole of a woman finds he's incapable of escaping her influence. It's let down only by its ending which needn't provide a resolution to the scenario, obviously, but could have tried a little harder not to end on the same note and imagery the entire story had already trafficked in. Another old hand, Robert Silverberg, gives us his tribute to an even older hand (Rudyard Kipling) in "Smithers And The Ghosts Of The Thar". It's an effective tribute in setting, if not exactly in tone (but then, I'm no Kipling scholar) in which British soldiers during the time of the Raj try to track down a legend of an eternal city in the desert. There's a nice subtle theme about the soldier's dedication to his duty, despite the personal destruction it may wreck, but even with all the set-up and historical detail, "Smithers" is basically a re-setting of Lost Horizon in India - which first of all makes it dark fantasy and not "horror" (and at this point I must just concede that Jones' obviously likes Dark Fantasy as a genre and doesn't worry about the difference) and secondly, the ending is almost note for note the climax of James Hilton's book.
A man survives a horrific car accident that kills his wife, only to be haunted by her memory. His crisis in dealing with this corresponds with a trip down a local cavern in "Wait" by Conrad Williams, a psychologically introspective and ruminative tale that's pretty light on the actual "scary" (despite the subterranean setting). There's two "rescued" works in this collection, tales by authors now dead which were rediscovered and published. The weaker of the two is "They That Have Wings" by Evangeline Walton (who's novel Witch House I reviewed awhile back), although that may be down to the fact that Walton was writing at "per word" pay for the pulps, so overwrought prose was the norm. The story involves three soldiers fleeing the Nazis in Greece who hole-up with two very strange ladies in a little home on a mountainside. Not great, not bad, just a well-written, old school style pulp yarn.
Finally, rounding out the "good but flawed" stories is the problematic "White Roses, Bloody Silk" by Thana Niveau. I was intrigued by the author's stated intention to try to "write a giallo", by which I assumed she did not mean a story in the style of the Edgar Wallace-inspired yellow-covered crime novels that lent the Italian film genre its name, but instead meant an actual attempt to capture the style of the films in prose, like a feedback loop. What would that be like, I wondered? I imagined a pumped-up Wallace-baroque mystery crossed with the absurd and malignant universe of Cornell Woolrich, laced with sudden splashes of hyper-violence and featuring a protagonist caught up in a series of murders they don't understand which eventually have an "explanation" rooted in the deep, mysterious and damaged unconscious of a mentally unstable person that is inexplicable to anyone but the killer themselves. It should also feature staccato pacing that favored ultra-suspenseful transitions between the hunt for clues, the violence, and moments with quirky characters that all culminate in a bloody and obtuse crescendo. Quite a tall order! Sadly, Ms. Niveau followed this statement of intent by adding terms like "Gothic", "Decadent" and "Victorian" and I began to feel doubt... "White Roses, Bloody Silk" is an interesting story - closest (in relation to all those previously slung terms) to a Decadent work, but lacking that form's social commentary (outside of some obvious class stuff) and psychological underpinnings. There are flashes of the other intentions as well. A wealthy family throws a party and one of the guests is a notorious doctor from Germany whose appearance is presaged by sinister rumors and gossip. Cholera and knitting needles, as well as the titular flowers, figure into the bloody and over-the-top ending in which little is "explained" - to little good effect. I guess, much like the giallos, the shocking scenes of violence are intended to be as beautiful as they are sudden, but some things that work on the screen do not work the same way in print. Horror does not always need explanations but by including certain details here (the cholera, for example) this story sets a certain presumption in the reader which it consciously fails to deliver. An interesting exercise - I'd like to see another attempt, maybe not written as a period piece (which seemed a little bit of over-icing the cake).
Next, and finally, are the solidly "good" stories (sad to say, I found no stories in this year's crop to be undeniably "excellent", although the final story discussed here was pretty damned close). Gemma Files "Some Kind Of Light Shines From Your Face" is a good story, well-written but undeniably "dark fantasy" as nothing intended as scary (or even creepy) happens in this tale. Set in a depression-era carnival, it uses the figure of Medusa to interesting effect, but the one "victim" in the story is thoroughly unlikeable, so... no threat. "But None Shall Sing For Me" is similarly "dark fantasy" - a well-thought out, traditional Vodun-styled zombie story (you even get some effective Loa action!) and Gregory Nicoll does an excellent job with putting you in the place and culture. Alison Littlewood's "About The Dark" is a solid little spooker while also functioning as a character study of a ne'er-do-well teenager and his two cronies and what happens when they ditch school to hang out in a local cavern, and discover a deeper darkness inside than they expected. An enjoyable read. Meanwhile, a turn-of-the-century photographer in Providence, RI, starts seeing horrifying things through a new camera lens in "The Photographer's Tale" by Daniel Mills - another entertaining story, with a surprising turn into brutal fisticuffs near the end - we presented a free reading on PSEUDOPOD, here. Our second "posthumously recovered" tale is Joan Aiken's bit of grotesquery entitled "Hair" which features a grieving newlywed (and newly widowed) husband returning to his wife's birthplace to deliver a present to her mother, only to get a glimpse into his dead wife's troubling home life. Good stuff. "Sad, Dark Thing" breaks no new ground but, regardless, is a fine, subtle, psychologically honest story in which a recently divorced businessman finds himself at loose ends and winds up making a strange discovery on a lonely California back-road. Well done work by Michael Marshall Smith.
"The Crawling Sky" by Joe R. Lansdale is a straight-up, Old West monster story starring Lansdale's serial character, the Reverend Jebediah Mercer. There's some good stuff here (you gotta love the Reverend's rather ambivalent feelings about the "Good" Lord) and it reads like a Robert E. Howard action vehicle with touches of period detail, sort of a cowboy version of THE EVIL DEAD, where a shape-shifting abominations haunts a cabin in the scrub. Simon Kurt Unsworth's "The Ocean Grand, North West Coast" proved a problematic but, ultimately, fun read for me. A rehab crew is sent into a mammoth, crumbling resort hotel by the ocean, home to some famous and notorious WWI-era artwork and design detail, but they run afoul of a strange presence in the abandoned building. I was along for the ride most of the way during the slow-burn buildup, but also felt the monsterific ending seemed slightly out of synch with the atmospheric tone preceding. The locale is sketched extremely well, however - I just felt the focus on evocative artwork was promising more.... Ramsey Campbell's second story in the collection, "Passing Through Peacehaven" is in many ways an overly familiar Campbell tale - you've probably read variations on it a dozen times before. I'm sure younger genre fans, feeling their critical oats, will gripe about "predictability", not having yet reached an age where they've grasped that, as genre fans, they are in an endless battle between creative invention, familiarity, and mere novelty. Regardless - a elderly man steps off a train at the wrong station, a very strange and sinister station, but perhaps it was the right station all along... An interesting read for long-time Campbell fans as he seems to have been developing a deliberate stylistic "choppiness" (for lack of a better word) in his writing recently, a calculated "clipping" from moment to moment, running roughshod over the ending of a previous thought, leaving the reader disorientated at the start of the next. Interesting and familiar, which is not too much to expect from an established writer.
My favorite story in this year's collection was "Quieta Non Movere", a deliberate M.R. James pastiche from Reggie Oliver. The fact that it's so knowingly a pastiche keeps it, in my abstruse calculations of critical rankings, from being a fully "excellent" story, but... man, this is how you do a James tribute! Oliver creates the rural British town setting and time period, sets out the obligatory ecclesiastical framework, peoples it with a small cast of characters, give us an antiquarian mystery and atmosphere (I loved all the low sunsets and the morbid, yet key, figure of an unearthed, putrefying corpse), and then teases up little unnerving details that accrue until the appearance of the malignant revenant. True, the imagery is a little stronger than (and a little more direct than) James would have allowed himself, and the ending's tie-in to preceding details could have been handled a little more subtly, but I still enjoyed reading it very much.
So, in summation, a fairly average installment of this perennial favorite. I could do with less dark fantasy, honestly. Now, will Shawn be able to read a retroactive volume in this series before the NEW volume is released, or is he doomed forever to always be behind? Stay tuned!
The "Horror In 2011" is the usual stuff but, as I've said before, nobody takes the time to do something like this and I find it worthwhile to comb over and pull out the few plums. Jones' little soapbox moment at the end this year mentions that he's been asked by his publishers to cut this and the Necrology, which I hope won't happen or, if it does, that the effort gets replicated into some digital online format. The review of audio horror each year is indispensable. And MBOBNH is now the longest running "Year's Best" anthology horror series. Other than that, it's the usual endless flood of (mostly) tired novels, overpriced and limited runs of classic and rare materials, author compilations and new publishers launching while older ones succumb. And so the wheel turns...
Two stories here didn't work for me at all: "Rag And Bone" by Paul Kane is a very predictable "supernatural force takes revenge" story, in this case dressed in the malignant form of the titular British street seller and operating as some kind of folkloric avenger against transgressions. Yawn. David Buchan's "Holiday Home", on the other hand, finishes off the book with a piece of flash fiction that barely qualifies as a story and seems more like a page filler.
Next up are the just "okay" stories: Christopher Fowler's "Lantern Jack" is a by-the-numbers monologue about the history of a haunted pub and the patch of land it sits on. The ending is just as by-the-numbers. "Dancing Like We're Dumb" by Peter Atkins is a noir-styled piece of urban fantasy. It's not horror at all really, all attitude and spooky props pitting a smart-mouthed lesbian detective against a satanic Hollywood star. A story that isn't so much a story as an extended character sketch with a flat, perfunctory ending. Well-written lingo, though, I'll give him that. I guess I should take "Corbeaux Bay" as a short bit of atmosphere, a tone poem more than a story - but I like that form and Geeta Roopnarine's piece didn't really measure up for me. It's not bad - a man ignores omens during his walk on the beach - but strikes me as profoundly thin compared to similar works (like "A Revelation of Cormorants" by Mark Valentine). John Ajvide Lindqvist, famed author of LET THE RIGHT ONE ONE, fails to impress with his story "The Music Of Bengt Karlsson, Murderer". It's a story about a recently widowed father and his son, piano lessons, and the dark secrets their new home holds in its past. It's okay, I guess, fairly typical of these things (ghostly apparitions of a hanged man and dead children, noises in the night, a mysterious piece of unfinished music that must be completed). It struck me less as a competent piece of short fiction and instead 3/4 of the ideas for a novel, or perhaps a condensed novella, with lots of gruesome events piling on in the end to wrap everything up quickly. Neither bad nor particularly good, just familiar and I can't help but wonder if it was chosen more for the author's current cache. I also wonder if the translation or the original material is to blame for some of the clunky, ungraceful writing and a seeming mistake in the murderer's name as it appears in the title.
Next up are the "good but flawed" stories. Ramsey Campbell's "Holding The Light" follows his usual approach of mostly character study and atmospherics, which is not for everyone, and in this case makes for a perfectly serviceable (if a bit old hat) tale of two boys daring each other to walk through an old tunnel. Unless I'm mistaken (and I could be, although there's occasions here where the writing is unclear) the story also contains a plot hole (the flashlight is smashed, then the boy has a functioning flashlight again). An aging man tries to recover memories of a horror anthology he read as a child in "Midnight Flight" by Joel Lane. It's an interesting story with a solid concept and the conclusion is poetic and effective, while also kind of easy and unsatisfying. Tim Lebbon's "Trick Of The Light" was an oddly ponderous story to get through. The author sets himself the difficult task of featuring a complicated dynamic - already in the past - between a disgruntled husband (now missing) and his near-agoraphobic wife (our main character), now moving into a towered home in the country. It's a good character study and well-written, but not as compelling as I wanted and kind of gloomily dreary in its repetition - not bad but enervating, a very "internal" story. "The Tower" by Mark Samuels is a monologue by an obsessive/depressive type who perceives a tower in the skyline of London where none existed before. Very "Thomas Ligotti" in a way but perhaps a bit more subtlety during the screeds and a stronger ending might have made this more of a winner for me.
Meanwhile, "An Indelible Stain Upon The Sky" may be the the closest, so far, that Simon Strantzas has come to writing something I like. This story has a good set-up, with a man returning to a coastal town destroyed by an oil spill - a town he last visited a decade ago with his lady love - and was a good read although kind of clunky in the imagery deployment. I fear I just may never click with Strantzas' writing style. Old hand Steve Rasnic Tem gives us the promising and disturbing story "Miri", in which a man haunted by his college relationship with a profoundly damaged, psychic-sinkhole of a woman finds he's incapable of escaping her influence. It's let down only by its ending which needn't provide a resolution to the scenario, obviously, but could have tried a little harder not to end on the same note and imagery the entire story had already trafficked in. Another old hand, Robert Silverberg, gives us his tribute to an even older hand (Rudyard Kipling) in "Smithers And The Ghosts Of The Thar". It's an effective tribute in setting, if not exactly in tone (but then, I'm no Kipling scholar) in which British soldiers during the time of the Raj try to track down a legend of an eternal city in the desert. There's a nice subtle theme about the soldier's dedication to his duty, despite the personal destruction it may wreck, but even with all the set-up and historical detail, "Smithers" is basically a re-setting of Lost Horizon in India - which first of all makes it dark fantasy and not "horror" (and at this point I must just concede that Jones' obviously likes Dark Fantasy as a genre and doesn't worry about the difference) and secondly, the ending is almost note for note the climax of James Hilton's book.
A man survives a horrific car accident that kills his wife, only to be haunted by her memory. His crisis in dealing with this corresponds with a trip down a local cavern in "Wait" by Conrad Williams, a psychologically introspective and ruminative tale that's pretty light on the actual "scary" (despite the subterranean setting). There's two "rescued" works in this collection, tales by authors now dead which were rediscovered and published. The weaker of the two is "They That Have Wings" by Evangeline Walton (who's novel Witch House I reviewed awhile back), although that may be down to the fact that Walton was writing at "per word" pay for the pulps, so overwrought prose was the norm. The story involves three soldiers fleeing the Nazis in Greece who hole-up with two very strange ladies in a little home on a mountainside. Not great, not bad, just a well-written, old school style pulp yarn.
Finally, rounding out the "good but flawed" stories is the problematic "White Roses, Bloody Silk" by Thana Niveau. I was intrigued by the author's stated intention to try to "write a giallo", by which I assumed she did not mean a story in the style of the Edgar Wallace-inspired yellow-covered crime novels that lent the Italian film genre its name, but instead meant an actual attempt to capture the style of the films in prose, like a feedback loop. What would that be like, I wondered? I imagined a pumped-up Wallace-baroque mystery crossed with the absurd and malignant universe of Cornell Woolrich, laced with sudden splashes of hyper-violence and featuring a protagonist caught up in a series of murders they don't understand which eventually have an "explanation" rooted in the deep, mysterious and damaged unconscious of a mentally unstable person that is inexplicable to anyone but the killer themselves. It should also feature staccato pacing that favored ultra-suspenseful transitions between the hunt for clues, the violence, and moments with quirky characters that all culminate in a bloody and obtuse crescendo. Quite a tall order! Sadly, Ms. Niveau followed this statement of intent by adding terms like "Gothic", "Decadent" and "Victorian" and I began to feel doubt... "White Roses, Bloody Silk" is an interesting story - closest (in relation to all those previously slung terms) to a Decadent work, but lacking that form's social commentary (outside of some obvious class stuff) and psychological underpinnings. There are flashes of the other intentions as well. A wealthy family throws a party and one of the guests is a notorious doctor from Germany whose appearance is presaged by sinister rumors and gossip. Cholera and knitting needles, as well as the titular flowers, figure into the bloody and over-the-top ending in which little is "explained" - to little good effect. I guess, much like the giallos, the shocking scenes of violence are intended to be as beautiful as they are sudden, but some things that work on the screen do not work the same way in print. Horror does not always need explanations but by including certain details here (the cholera, for example) this story sets a certain presumption in the reader which it consciously fails to deliver. An interesting exercise - I'd like to see another attempt, maybe not written as a period piece (which seemed a little bit of over-icing the cake).
Next, and finally, are the solidly "good" stories (sad to say, I found no stories in this year's crop to be undeniably "excellent", although the final story discussed here was pretty damned close). Gemma Files "Some Kind Of Light Shines From Your Face" is a good story, well-written but undeniably "dark fantasy" as nothing intended as scary (or even creepy) happens in this tale. Set in a depression-era carnival, it uses the figure of Medusa to interesting effect, but the one "victim" in the story is thoroughly unlikeable, so... no threat. "But None Shall Sing For Me" is similarly "dark fantasy" - a well-thought out, traditional Vodun-styled zombie story (you even get some effective Loa action!) and Gregory Nicoll does an excellent job with putting you in the place and culture. Alison Littlewood's "About The Dark" is a solid little spooker while also functioning as a character study of a ne'er-do-well teenager and his two cronies and what happens when they ditch school to hang out in a local cavern, and discover a deeper darkness inside than they expected. An enjoyable read. Meanwhile, a turn-of-the-century photographer in Providence, RI, starts seeing horrifying things through a new camera lens in "The Photographer's Tale" by Daniel Mills - another entertaining story, with a surprising turn into brutal fisticuffs near the end - we presented a free reading on PSEUDOPOD, here. Our second "posthumously recovered" tale is Joan Aiken's bit of grotesquery entitled "Hair" which features a grieving newlywed (and newly widowed) husband returning to his wife's birthplace to deliver a present to her mother, only to get a glimpse into his dead wife's troubling home life. Good stuff. "Sad, Dark Thing" breaks no new ground but, regardless, is a fine, subtle, psychologically honest story in which a recently divorced businessman finds himself at loose ends and winds up making a strange discovery on a lonely California back-road. Well done work by Michael Marshall Smith.
"The Crawling Sky" by Joe R. Lansdale is a straight-up, Old West monster story starring Lansdale's serial character, the Reverend Jebediah Mercer. There's some good stuff here (you gotta love the Reverend's rather ambivalent feelings about the "Good" Lord) and it reads like a Robert E. Howard action vehicle with touches of period detail, sort of a cowboy version of THE EVIL DEAD, where a shape-shifting abominations haunts a cabin in the scrub. Simon Kurt Unsworth's "The Ocean Grand, North West Coast" proved a problematic but, ultimately, fun read for me. A rehab crew is sent into a mammoth, crumbling resort hotel by the ocean, home to some famous and notorious WWI-era artwork and design detail, but they run afoul of a strange presence in the abandoned building. I was along for the ride most of the way during the slow-burn buildup, but also felt the monsterific ending seemed slightly out of synch with the atmospheric tone preceding. The locale is sketched extremely well, however - I just felt the focus on evocative artwork was promising more.... Ramsey Campbell's second story in the collection, "Passing Through Peacehaven" is in many ways an overly familiar Campbell tale - you've probably read variations on it a dozen times before. I'm sure younger genre fans, feeling their critical oats, will gripe about "predictability", not having yet reached an age where they've grasped that, as genre fans, they are in an endless battle between creative invention, familiarity, and mere novelty. Regardless - a elderly man steps off a train at the wrong station, a very strange and sinister station, but perhaps it was the right station all along... An interesting read for long-time Campbell fans as he seems to have been developing a deliberate stylistic "choppiness" (for lack of a better word) in his writing recently, a calculated "clipping" from moment to moment, running roughshod over the ending of a previous thought, leaving the reader disorientated at the start of the next. Interesting and familiar, which is not too much to expect from an established writer.
My favorite story in this year's collection was "Quieta Non Movere", a deliberate M.R. James pastiche from Reggie Oliver. The fact that it's so knowingly a pastiche keeps it, in my abstruse calculations of critical rankings, from being a fully "excellent" story, but... man, this is how you do a James tribute! Oliver creates the rural British town setting and time period, sets out the obligatory ecclesiastical framework, peoples it with a small cast of characters, give us an antiquarian mystery and atmosphere (I loved all the low sunsets and the morbid, yet key, figure of an unearthed, putrefying corpse), and then teases up little unnerving details that accrue until the appearance of the malignant revenant. True, the imagery is a little stronger than (and a little more direct than) James would have allowed himself, and the ending's tie-in to preceding details could have been handled a little more subtly, but I still enjoyed reading it very much.
So, in summation, a fairly average installment of this perennial favorite. I could do with less dark fantasy, honestly. Now, will Shawn be able to read a retroactive volume in this series before the NEW volume is released, or is he doomed forever to always be behind? Stay tuned!
May 14, 2024
Putin dezamagita - povestioarele sunt bunicele, insa doar cateva mi-au atras atentia si mi-au placut in mod deosebit.
December 31, 2014
This is one that I finished months ago, and just realized was still on my "currently reading" shelf.
I love Stephen Jones' MAMMOTH BOOK OF BEST NEW HORROR series, and make sure to get a copy of every years. These are the books I take with me to appointments, etc.,--where you know you'll have some time to read, but not HOW MUCH. I didn't take notes on the stories themselves, but "marked" several that particularly peaked my interest. The commentary of the year's highlights is something that I also enjoy reading through, and have found several different magazines/publishers this way.
I love Stephen Jones' MAMMOTH BOOK OF BEST NEW HORROR series, and make sure to get a copy of every years. These are the books I take with me to appointments, etc.,--where you know you'll have some time to read, but not HOW MUCH. I didn't take notes on the stories themselves, but "marked" several that particularly peaked my interest. The commentary of the year's highlights is something that I also enjoy reading through, and have found several different magazines/publishers this way.
August 14, 2020
This book was certainly underwhelming, especially for a collection of horror stories. With one or two exceptions, the stories themselves held very little "creepiness".
January 3, 2018
*SEE STATUS UPDATES FOR INDIVIDUAL REVIEWS #1-#22*
**Review for #23 in updates is actually for #24 whoooops
#23: Totally didn't get it, but it was sufficiently creepy. Dude was evil, but how and why I have no clue. Excellent violence rating though!
#24: See status update for #23
#25: Ah, the haunted train station. It was weird. The misheard announcements were confusing. Bit meh.
#26: Hardly a story, but definitely a shudder factor!
Overall Review:
Right so it's a book of hits and misses really! Some of these blew me away and really had me shuddering and leaving extra lights on and then others had me scratching my head wondering what just happened. There seems to be some unwritten rule that says vague endings make good horror stories but personally I like to know a little bit about how the horror works. I mean, you still need something for the imagination to work with, whereas some of these were so vague it was just a disappointing ending. But then, in others, the vague-ish ending was perfect, like #8, aka About the Dark.
I also enjoyed the well-balanced, complete stories, like #19, aka The Crawling Sky, and #24, The Music of Bengt Karlsson, Murderer. They were nice and round, with a nice horror thread the whole way through the story.
The 'departed spouse' was a common theme that got a bit tired, so those stories were disadvantaged from the start. I really enjoyed the uniquely bizarre ones, like Some Kind of Light Shines From Your Face, #4, which also drew on mythology which I love so much. I liked stories I could just become absorbed in.
The more 'real world horror' stuff wasn't particularly horrific - I much prefer the supernatural stuff and the proper loons. Fortunately this book had plenty of supernatural.
There's a ton of supplementary info in the book, which I admittedly skipped. Each story is introduced with a bit about the author and where they got the idea for their story, but I wasn't interested. There's also info on the horror genre in general and then a 'Necrology' bit at the end that was meaningless to me. Good additions for the obsessive, though, I'd think.
Overall it's got some pretty decent reads in it, and they vary in length so you can pick and choose depending how much time you have on your hands. Varying themes and types of horror, and graphic vs subtle violence. Great collection all up.
**Review for #23 in updates is actually for #24 whoooops
#23: Totally didn't get it, but it was sufficiently creepy. Dude was evil, but how and why I have no clue. Excellent violence rating though!
#24: See status update for #23
#25: Ah, the haunted train station. It was weird. The misheard announcements were confusing. Bit meh.
#26: Hardly a story, but definitely a shudder factor!
Overall Review:
Right so it's a book of hits and misses really! Some of these blew me away and really had me shuddering and leaving extra lights on and then others had me scratching my head wondering what just happened. There seems to be some unwritten rule that says vague endings make good horror stories but personally I like to know a little bit about how the horror works. I mean, you still need something for the imagination to work with, whereas some of these were so vague it was just a disappointing ending. But then, in others, the vague-ish ending was perfect, like #8, aka About the Dark.
I also enjoyed the well-balanced, complete stories, like #19, aka The Crawling Sky, and #24, The Music of Bengt Karlsson, Murderer. They were nice and round, with a nice horror thread the whole way through the story.
The 'departed spouse' was a common theme that got a bit tired, so those stories were disadvantaged from the start. I really enjoyed the uniquely bizarre ones, like Some Kind of Light Shines From Your Face, #4, which also drew on mythology which I love so much. I liked stories I could just become absorbed in.
The more 'real world horror' stuff wasn't particularly horrific - I much prefer the supernatural stuff and the proper loons. Fortunately this book had plenty of supernatural.
There's a ton of supplementary info in the book, which I admittedly skipped. Each story is introduced with a bit about the author and where they got the idea for their story, but I wasn't interested. There's also info on the horror genre in general and then a 'Necrology' bit at the end that was meaningless to me. Good additions for the obsessive, though, I'd think.
Overall it's got some pretty decent reads in it, and they vary in length so you can pick and choose depending how much time you have on your hands. Varying themes and types of horror, and graphic vs subtle violence. Great collection all up.
June 3, 2013
The first couple of stories were the best, but all in all, every story in this anthology was a good story. Some packed a bigger punch than others but this is a good selection of horror stories.
October 30, 2016
This book of short horror stories was okay. I only found about a third of them actually gave me any sense of horror. It's not bad for those times when you only have about 10 minutes or so to spare.
May 5, 2023
most of them were 1/5s and 2/5s for me, although they were not really bad, just very forgettable - and many not really horror, but just ”new weird”. There were a few 5s, though, that raised my overall impression, like those from Joel Lane, Tim Lebbon or Joe Lansdale.
Not a bad book, and still rather enjoyable as a past time, yet not at all a memorable one.
Not a bad book, and still rather enjoyable as a past time, yet not at all a memorable one.
September 11, 2024
The entire run of Stephen Jone's annual 'Best New Horror' anthologies (early volumes entitled 'The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror') offers great reading, with each of the 31 individual volumes giving a great snapshot of the state of horror fiction Internationally for that particular year. Any fan of modern horror fiction will find it well worth the effort to track down copies of these books.
October 15, 2019
Maybe not the strongest horror book, but still well worth a read and it contains a Joan Aiken story, which made me happy as she is one of my fav authors
October 22, 2019
Usual mish-mosh but a couple were really excellent.
June 26, 2020
Enjoyed every single story, highly recommended for horror fans
September 24, 2014
I can't tell you how delighted I was when this dropped on my doorstep. It's the first 'Mammoth' book I have ever read and I was not disappointed. I'm waiting anxiously for the release of book number 24 this year.
There are 14 stories in total, including short stories, flash fiction pieces and novellas. There are pieces written by well known horror writers and also some less known newcomers and sets out to showcase the best in contemporary horror. I have read 'themed' horror anthologies in the past but this isn't as restrictive and I found the variation in theme and length kept me interested and eager to continue to the next delight!
I won't go into detail on every single story as I find those type of reviews tedious but I will highlight three of my favourites.
The first one was 'The Photographers Tale' written by Daniel Mills. The short story takes you back to 1892 and has a twist on the subject of spirit photography (a subject I am deeply fascinated by). Lowell is a professional photographer who is sent a camera from his estranged apprentice. The camera of course isn't as it first appears and when Lowell looks through the lens he sees his subjects as they would look like in old age but also can see their dark secrets. This story had me gripped from the very first sentence. Mills writes in a clear, precise and atmospheric way, there isn't anything poncy or fussy about his work and I have become a big fan.
The second I thoroughly enjoyed was 'The Music of Bengt Karlsson, Murderer' by John Ajvide Lindqvist. This is Lindqvist's first published short story specifically written for the English-Language market. Lindqvist states that this was the one story he has written that scared him and kept him in a state of mild horror until the end. I share this experience with him as the story is just so beautifully dark and eerie. The widowed protagonist moves into a new house with his young son, a piano is the only possession he has left that belonged to his wife and he insists that his son learns to play. However, he soon begins to hear strange music coming from the piano (assumed to be played by his son) and also hears his son talking to some unknown entities. The realisation that a murderer had previously lived in the house complicates matters even further. Lindqvist's writing is intelligent, the reader is left wondering if there really is a supernatural element to the story or whether it is simply about a man in deep grief and despair.
Finally a particular favourite of mine was 'Smithers and the Ghosts of the Thar' by Robert Silverberg. Written in first person the narrator exposes secrets of what happened to Smithers in 1858 whilst in India. It's a good old fashioned ghost story and enjoyable to read, making you feel like you are deep in conversation with the narrator. Silverberg is a well established novelist and short story writer although usually known for his work in the science fiction and fantasy genre. I applaud his fantastic contribution to the world of horror.
Not only is this book an enjoyable read it's also informative and is a Bible for any horror buff, the introduction given by the editor Stephen Jones was absolutely fantastic, he gives an overview of the year in horror, not just in the literary world but including film, TV and radio. There is also a superb necrology and a long list of contact details for writers and fans of the genre.
There are 14 stories in total, including short stories, flash fiction pieces and novellas. There are pieces written by well known horror writers and also some less known newcomers and sets out to showcase the best in contemporary horror. I have read 'themed' horror anthologies in the past but this isn't as restrictive and I found the variation in theme and length kept me interested and eager to continue to the next delight!
I won't go into detail on every single story as I find those type of reviews tedious but I will highlight three of my favourites.
The first one was 'The Photographers Tale' written by Daniel Mills. The short story takes you back to 1892 and has a twist on the subject of spirit photography (a subject I am deeply fascinated by). Lowell is a professional photographer who is sent a camera from his estranged apprentice. The camera of course isn't as it first appears and when Lowell looks through the lens he sees his subjects as they would look like in old age but also can see their dark secrets. This story had me gripped from the very first sentence. Mills writes in a clear, precise and atmospheric way, there isn't anything poncy or fussy about his work and I have become a big fan.
The second I thoroughly enjoyed was 'The Music of Bengt Karlsson, Murderer' by John Ajvide Lindqvist. This is Lindqvist's first published short story specifically written for the English-Language market. Lindqvist states that this was the one story he has written that scared him and kept him in a state of mild horror until the end. I share this experience with him as the story is just so beautifully dark and eerie. The widowed protagonist moves into a new house with his young son, a piano is the only possession he has left that belonged to his wife and he insists that his son learns to play. However, he soon begins to hear strange music coming from the piano (assumed to be played by his son) and also hears his son talking to some unknown entities. The realisation that a murderer had previously lived in the house complicates matters even further. Lindqvist's writing is intelligent, the reader is left wondering if there really is a supernatural element to the story or whether it is simply about a man in deep grief and despair.
Finally a particular favourite of mine was 'Smithers and the Ghosts of the Thar' by Robert Silverberg. Written in first person the narrator exposes secrets of what happened to Smithers in 1858 whilst in India. It's a good old fashioned ghost story and enjoyable to read, making you feel like you are deep in conversation with the narrator. Silverberg is a well established novelist and short story writer although usually known for his work in the science fiction and fantasy genre. I applaud his fantastic contribution to the world of horror.
Not only is this book an enjoyable read it's also informative and is a Bible for any horror buff, the introduction given by the editor Stephen Jones was absolutely fantastic, he gives an overview of the year in horror, not just in the literary world but including film, TV and radio. There is also a superb necrology and a long list of contact details for writers and fans of the genre.
April 27, 2014
This is a really great series, and this book was up to the usual standard. Had lots of interesting stories in it. Lantern Jack by Christopher Fowler told the story of a cursed bar. There were two stories by Ramsey Campbell, who was one of my favorite British horror writers, one about a young boy who takes his cousin into the woods to a haunted tunnel to play a prank, but of course things go disastrously wrong (the ending was a little too open-ended for my taste) and another one about an elderly man who gets off on an abandoned train station, with some very weird things happening, and it was a little predictable, but I enjoyed it anyway. The Crawling Sky was one of my favorites – it was by Joe R Lansdale, and was about an old-time traveling preacher (in the past) who encounters a demon after taking up with the town "lunatic" in a rundown town. The creature climbs out of the well and he has to find a way to vanquish it. The Ocean Grand, Northwest Coast told the story of artwork that came to life in an abandoned hotel, and claims the lives of those who came to renovate it. They That Have Wings told the story of three soldiers (it's not clear whether it's World War I or World War II) who encounter something supernatural in the mountains. Another story that takes place in the past, White Roses, Bloody Silk tells the story of the Victorian dinner party that goes wildly wrong. Rag and Bone was another story that dealt with revenge, in this case, a jilted woman and her husband, who murdered her father, a rag and bone man. This is a profession I'd never heard of, but apparently dates back to the bubonic plague.
Overall, this was a really good anthology.
Overall, this was a really good anthology.
January 1, 2017
Stephen Jones is an unreliable anthologist. For every good anthology like Psychomania there is a painful reminder such as Shadows Over Innsmouth of why Jones should not be allowed to play unsupervised. When I see Jones' name on the side of a book I want to be able to trust that what I am picking up is quality, and you would think that with multiple World Fantasy awards to his name I would be insured that. You would be wrong. I recently read The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 23, edited by the aforementioned Stephen Jones, and I am going to be brutal. Constant Reader: if you find yourself in possession of this volume, don't read it. True there are some quality stories such as Joe Lansdale's The Crawling Sky or Michael Marshall Smith's Sad Dark Thing. But they are buried amongst a lot of dreck. Hmm. Ok, let's do it this way: other stories I enjoyed in this collection were: Dancing Like We're Dumb by Peter Atkins, Miri by Steve Rasnic Tem, Smithers and the Ghosts of the Thar by Robert Silverberg, Quieta Non Movere by Reggie Oliver, The Ocean Grand, Northwest Coast by Simon Kurt Unsworth, They That Have Wings by Evangeline Walton, and The Music of Bengt Karlsson, Murderer by John Ajvide Lindqvist. That's nine stories that were quality or left an impression. There are 26 stories in this volume. That is just pathetic. So even though the individual stories I listed were good overall this book still gets one star.
March 9, 2013
My favorites from the collection -
Lantern Jack, by Christopher Fowler
Midnight Flight, by Joel Lane
Trick of the Light, by Tim Lebbon
The Photographer's Tale, by Daniel Mills
The Tower, by Mark Samuels
Sad, Dark Thing, by Michael Marshall Smith
Quieta Non Movere, by Reggie Oliver
The Crawling Sky, by Joe R. Lansdale
They that have Wings, by Evangeline Walton
The Music of Bengt Karlsson, Murderer, by John Ajvide Lindqvist
And finally,
Holiday Home, by David Buchan
Lantern Jack, by Christopher Fowler
Midnight Flight, by Joel Lane
Trick of the Light, by Tim Lebbon
The Photographer's Tale, by Daniel Mills
The Tower, by Mark Samuels
Sad, Dark Thing, by Michael Marshall Smith
Quieta Non Movere, by Reggie Oliver
The Crawling Sky, by Joe R. Lansdale
They that have Wings, by Evangeline Walton
The Music of Bengt Karlsson, Murderer, by John Ajvide Lindqvist
And finally,
Holiday Home, by David Buchan
May 2, 2013
Volume 22 was one of the strongest in the series, so perhaps it was inevitable that this one would suffer a bit by comparison.
The stories by John Ajvide Lindqvist and Gregory Nicoll were absolutely first-rate. I also enjoyed the stories by Aiken, Littlewood and Unsworth very much. There were several others that I am glad that I read, but a number of stories didn't really work for me. Still, Mammoth Book of Best New Horror remains my horror anthology series of choice.
The stories by John Ajvide Lindqvist and Gregory Nicoll were absolutely first-rate. I also enjoyed the stories by Aiken, Littlewood and Unsworth very much. There were several others that I am glad that I read, but a number of stories didn't really work for me. Still, Mammoth Book of Best New Horror remains my horror anthology series of choice.
October 8, 2013
My review isn't the best, and it's not anything against Stephen Jones. The guy really knows how to work with writing. My review is more based on the selection of stories used in this book. There are some terrific ones, ones that I couldn't help but smile after reading, but there are others that I would barely classify as horror. In other words, my only complaint about this book is that not every story in it is horror, although it is classified under the horror genre.
May 30, 2016
Really enjoyed this set of short stories!
As with any collection, some appealed more than others. My particular favourites were:
Lindqvist's The Music of Bengt Karlsson, Murderer
Littlewood's About the Dark
Strantzas' An Indelible Stain Upon the Sky
Rasnic Tem's Miri
Smith's Sad, Dark Thing
Lansdale's The Crawling Sky
Williams' Wait
As with any collection, some appealed more than others. My particular favourites were:
Lindqvist's The Music of Bengt Karlsson, Murderer
Littlewood's About the Dark
Strantzas' An Indelible Stain Upon the Sky
Rasnic Tem's Miri
Smith's Sad, Dark Thing
Lansdale's The Crawling Sky
Williams' Wait
Currently reading
July 13, 2024"Dancing Like We’re Dumb" by Peter Atkins - Frankie wants to sacrifice Kitty in a cavern beneath his home to summon a demonic entity but she breaks his neck and escapes.
"Miri" by Steve Rasnic Tem - Rick is haunted by a suicidal girl he dated in college.
"Rag and Bone" by Paul Kane - wc
"An Indelible Stain Upon the Sky" by Simon Strantzas - wc
"Miri" by Steve Rasnic Tem - Rick is haunted by a suicidal girl he dated in college.
"Rag and Bone" by Paul Kane - wc
"An Indelible Stain Upon the Sky" by Simon Strantzas - wc
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 5, 2014
Adequate collection of new horror (with one exception, a newly discovered work from the '40s). The stories are well written, but none of them really scared me, some barely seemed to fit the definition at all.
June 6, 2025
Another great collection of short horror fiction. I enjoyed it immensely when I read the first time and would happily read it again but it is loo long since I read to provide a proper review. Maybe one day if I get round to reading it again.
April 15, 2014
Reasonable mix of stories. I finished it about a week ago and a couple of the stories still poke at my memory every so often, especially Joe Lansdale's The Crawling Sky
November 17, 2014
So many stories I skipped through. I usually enjoy these collections way more than this one.
November 26, 2016
Like all collections, some really good stories, some really not so good ones. Always worth a read, though, as this is how I find new authors!
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