Screams from the Dark

February 28, 2022
“What is a monster?” Datlow (the Best Horror of the Year series, editor) asks in her introduction to this excellent anthology, which brings together a tremendous variety of answers from the leading voices in horror. Indrapramit Das depicts a home invasion in the searing “Here Comes Your Man,” while Stephen Graham Jones delivers a twisty Bigfoot hunt in “Children of the Night.” Siobhan Carroll’s haunting “Siolaigh” explores an Outer Hebrides island, and Priya Sharma’s beautiful “The Ghost of a Flea” travels the murderous streets of London. The great outdoors provides the terror in Glen Hirshberg’s “Devil,” while A.C. Wise’s unforgettable “Click Clack Rattle Tap” delves into the slippery interior horror of postpartum psychosis. Other standouts include Gemma Files’s visceral “Wet Red Grin,” Daryl Gregory’s sweet “The Virgin Jimmy Peck,” and Caitlín R. Kiernan’s achingly lonely “Strandling.” Unfortunately, some of the older titans of horror suffer for being placed next to their younger, more inventive colleagues; neither Joyce Carol Oates nor Jeffrey Ford manage to stick the landing. But even the weaker pieces are connected to the whole by a resonant common thread: whatever the monster, it’s always created, encouraged, or worsened by the actions of humans. Any horror fan will be glad to check this out.

April 1, 2022

Much as she did for the ghost story in the award-winning anthology Echoes, Datlow here turns her focus to monsters, collecting original stories from 29 authors, including best sellers Stephen Graham Jones and Joyce Carol Oates as well as emerging voices like Chikodili Emelumadu and Priya Sharma. The result is a book that redefines this classic and much-beloved subgenre for a 21st-century audience with stories that actively explore the monsters that surround us, both supernatural and human. With so many talented authors represented, there is also a satisfyingly wide arc of writing styles, settings, types of monster, and range of fear induced, from psychological dread to visceral terror to darkly humorous, with all stops in between. Two stories that stand out are Kaaron Warren's "The Smell of Waiting," a compelling and creepy tale of a young girl with a gift (or is it a curse?), and John Langan's mesmerizing "Bloedzuiger," a tale that is both innocuously mundane and terrifyingly disturbing. VERDICT This epic volume, with its impressive table of contents, will satisfy the hordes of readers looking for new takes on the monster trope. It pairs nicely with the Bram Stoker-nominated collection Miscreations: Gods, Monstrosities, and Other Horrors, edited by Doug Murano and Michael Bailey.--Becky Spratford

Copyright 2022 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 22, 2022
Award-winning editor Datlow follows Body Shocks (2021) with an anthology exploring the question of who is more monstrous, the monster or the human. Gemma Files' ""Wet Red Grim"" follows a young staff member at a COVID-wracked nursing home who must face off with a body-jumping monster in order to save the residents. In Daryl Gregory's ""The Virgin Jimmy Peck,"" a lonely 7-Eleven employee chosen as host for a Lovecraftian monster has an unexpected reaction to his assigned role. A serial killer and an ancient cannibal of the dead find romance in ""What Is Love but the Quiet Moments after Dinner"" by Richard Kadrey. A new mother struggles with sleepless nights while desperately trying to convince herself she is a good mother in A. C. Wise's ""Crick Crack Rattle Trap,"" and a hunter's daughter turns the tables on the townspeople who trussed her up as their annual sacrifice to a vicious beast in ""Widow-Light"" by Margo Lanagan. John Langan caps off the compilation with ""Bloedzuiger,"" an expressive tale of a simple ice-fishing trip gone monstrously wrong. This is a treat for horror fans.

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