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Overview
Celebrities Take Refuge in a White-Walled Mansion as plague and fever sweep into Cannes; a killer finds that the living dead have no appetite for him; a television presenter stumbles upon the chilling connection between a forgotten animal act and the Whitechapel murders; a nude man unexpectedly appears in the backgrounds of film after film; mysterious lights menace the crew of a small plane; a little girl awakens to discover her nightlight-and more-missing; two sisters hunt vampire dogs in the wild hills of Fiji; lovers get more than they bargained for in a decadent discothèque; a college professor holds a classroom mesmerized as he vivisects Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death"...
What frightens us, what unnerves us? What causes that delicious shiver of fear to travel the lengths of our spines? It seems the answer changes every year. Every year the bar is raised; the screw is tightened. Ellen Datlow knows what scares us; the seventeen stories included in this anthology were chosen from magazines, webzines, anthologies, literary journals, and single author collections to represent the best horror of the year.
Legendary editor Ellen Datlow [Lovecraft Unbound, Tails of Wonder and Imagination], winner of multiple Hugo, Bram Stoker, and World Fantasy awards, joins Night Shade Books in presenting The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Two.
Synopsis
Legendary editor Ellen Datlow, winner of multiple Hugo, Bram Stoker, and World Fantasy awards, joins Night Shade Books in presenting The Best Horror of the Year Volume 2.
Publishers Weekly
Prolific anthologist Datlow continues her fine showcase series (originally part of the long-running Year's Best Fantasy and Horror) with 17 scary stories published in 2009. Perhaps the creepiest is “each thing i show you is a piece of my death,” in which Gemma Files and Stephen J. Barringer collect e-mail and other documents about a mysterious naked man who crashes the sets of movies and TV shows. Michael Marshall Smith's “What Happens When You Wake Up in the Night” is a classically creepy tale, and Stephen Graham Jones offers a twisted take on snake-oil salesmen in “Lonegan's Luck.” There are a few underwhelming choices—notably Nina Allen's weak “The Lammas Worm”—and readers of Datlow's other anthologies will see many familiar names, but overall, this is a worthy addition to the series. (June)