The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Five

Horror, I think, is my favorite genre, but it's not often done right. I have started many horror novels only to be disappointed quickly. In this collection, edited by Ellen Datlow, there are some of those stories that are just so overloaded with literary aspiration that they don't generate any chills, but overall I found most of the work very worthwhile.

Datlow has been the pre-eminent editor of horror and fantasy fiction for decades now (and, full disclosure, a former colleague of mine). She notes in her introduction that she has included three zombie stories, almost apologetically, but that they are told in unique ways. I agree. Two of them are about zombies who have been cured (somewhat) and are back in society. The better of these is "Magdala Amygdala," by Lucy A. Snyder, which is also the most gruesome of the stories, and provides a detailed description of a zombie slurping up someone's brain--while they are still alive (and a willing donor).

Other standard categories of horror are included. We get a first-rate ghost story in "The House on Ashley Avenue," which seems rushed at the end, as if it were a sketch for a longer novel. "The Crying Child," by Bruce McAllister, gives the weird Satanic rite in a village story, this time set in Italy. For werewolf fanciers, there's "Wild Acre," which instead of focusing on the werewolf focuses on the guilt of the man who survived an attack that killed his friends. The ingenious "Final Exam," by Megan Armstrong, tells a story of Lovecraftian monsters, but as the title suggests, in a multiple choice quiz.

Some of the stories I found fairly incomprehensible, such as "Pig Thing," by Adam L.G. Nevill, "Bajazzle," by Margo Lanegan, and "The Pike," by Conrad Williams. But these are more than made up for by the excellent "Mariners' Round," by Terry Dowling (which is more fantasy than horror) and "Frontier Death Song," by Laird Barron, which uncovers a legend I hadn't heard of, the Wild Hunt.

But the story I liked the most, and I found the most chilling, was "Some Pictures in an Album," by Gary McMahon, in which a man describes seventeen photos he finds in a box after his father's death. The photos depict some sort of inhuman demon, and foretell the man's horrible fate. I still get a little goose-pimply thinking about it: "Again, we have the black door. It's half open, and this time a thin, pale hand can be seen gripping its edge. The fingers are too long, and there are only three of them but with too many joints. The knuckle bones jut out unnaturally. The skin is a sickly yellowy shade of cream." I'm leaving the lights on tonight.