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Best New Horror Vol. 18

post #1 of 5
3/25/08 at 11:24pm
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I have said before that I am a big fan of horror short stories, and have been for years. One of my absolute favorite things ver was discovering Carroll & Graf Publishing's "Mammoth Books of. . . ." series. every time I see one of these in a store, I scap it up toot fucking sweet. They are massive volumes, and very cheap for the number of pages, and usually contain very good horror indeed. They've put out a legion of one shots ("The Mammoth Books of: Vampires, Zombies, Short Horror Novels, Terror, Frankenstein, Werewolves", etc), but have been putting out a "Mammoth Book of Best New Horror for the last 18 yrs. I picked up on them around vol. 12, I think, and have gotten every one since. This year's entry, Volume 18, is especially good, I think, and worthy of mention. I highly recommend checking it out.

Particularly good were "Devil's Smile", by Glenn Hirschberg, "Houses Under the Sea" by Caitlin R. Kiernan (kind of Lovecraftian), "Obsequy" by David J. Schow (a very unusual zombie tale), and a very short but delightfully nasty ditty called "Making Cabinets" by Richard C. Matheson. Most miraculous of all, perhaps, is that there is a Ramsey Campbell story in here that I actually kinda liked (he's in every Goddam one of these,and I fail to see what's so fucking great about him). NEVER thought I'd see that happen.

This also reminds me: At the same time I picked this up, I also bought the "Mammoth Bok of Monsters". I haven't read that one yet, but am looking forward to it. I figure some of you *Cough! Darkmite! Cough!* might dig this one as well.
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post #2 of 5
3/25/08 at 11:37pm
Haven't gotten the latest one, but yeah, these are absolutely amazing books. Nothing but quality throughout them. The lists of books published really is a help when you find an author you really dig. Stephen Jones is a really cool guy, too.
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post #3 of 5
3/27/08 at 8:29am
I like these, but I think "The Years Best Fantasy and Horror" edited by Ellen Datlow is step up from the Mammoth books in terms of overall literary quality. As expected, roughly 1/2 of the stories are horror, but there's a bit of cross over when it comes to some of the fantastic tales. I'd say it, coupled with Gardner Dozois's "Years Best Science Fiction", mark my favorite "Years Best..." anthology collections. I just picked up Datlow's "Inferno", which is a new all Horror Anthology which hopefully mirrors the same sensibility. If so, I'll report back once I get into it.

Other good one shot Anthology collections I recently read are Del Howison and Jeff Gelb's "Dark Delicacies" and "Dark Delicacies II", based on the renowned same titled horror book store. Not quite as nasty good as Gelb's "Hot Blood" series, but some genuinely entertaining stories are to be found therein.
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post #4 of 5
4/2/08 at 1:23am
Greg Bear. 'Nuff Said.
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post #5 of 5
4/30/08 at 2:09pm
Finished up Datlow's anthology "Inferno", and it's right on par with the more cerebral selections she chooses for "The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror". Alas, No splatter punk to be found, but instead great literate atmospheric stories that really reside on the border of dark fantasy and horror. What I considered to be the best story, "The Janus Tree", didn't actually actually reveal itself to be a supernatural horror tale at all until the last few paragraphs of it's 30 some odd hardcover pages, and it would have worked equally well without doing so. Really accomplished stuff.
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