Catch Best New Horror 22 (The Mammoth Book Of Best New Horror, #22) Scripted By Stephen Jones Presented As File
Jones clearly works to a VERY broad definition of 'horror', That being said, all the stories in this book are at least good, and some of them where excellent, This is a book with a lot of short horror stories compiled together, The
stories were good but the issue I have is they were not really that scary, I understand that they are suppose to be short stories but they seemed a little to short and a bit confusing.
This collection of short stories did not impress me, Here is another serving of quality horror fare, featuring stories written in, The term "best" is of course subjective, but some of them do deserve to be classed as such,
I found some worthy recommendations from the understandably overlong Introduction, While helpful, it's a bit of a trying affair so I don't know if I'd have the fortitude to read those in subsequent volumes.
There are more misses here compared to the last one that I read, but I still liked it.
I found the following stories especially entertaining:
Out Back suffering from writer's block, an author secludes himself in an isolated cottage in a village that's afflicted by a spate of disappearances
Fort Clay, Louisiana: A Tragical History the two strange weeks of disease, drownings, and beheadings in a nowcondemned military fort hide a dark secret that comes to the fore in the structure's immortalization
Just Outside Our Windows, Deep Inside Our Walls how to make someone special an irrevocable part of you
The Pier a rickety pier exhibits some Iagolike memorial plaques, whispering of sweet murder and release
We All Fall Down about the thinness of memory and an obsession that never lets go
I'm rating this/orout of.
Fun book of short horror Stories, I like the Stephen Jones line a lot, These things are so big that by the time I've finished I can't remember the stories in the beginning, Anyway, some better than others, as always, and the year in horror overview is always entertainingand ends with a hopeful note that the romantic vampire genre would die soon so that we can go reclaim the cool guys.
Like any anthology, The Mammoth Book of Best New Horroris a mixed bag with aboutper cent hits andper cent misses.
It's somewhat disappointing when a book with the word "best" in the title leaves you wondering what the editor in this case the wellrespected Stephen Jones considers an engaging read but we all have different tastes.
Much like Jones, many of the writers included here come from across the pond which is nice as there are some who aren't widely known this side of the Atlantic.
Worth reading Absolutely.
However, anyone cracking this spine should go in expecting some of the "best" to be less than good, All of the stories in this anthology were at least somewhat entertaining, I do have to admit though, that I wasn't really wowed by any of them, I didn't find anything in this particular edition that stood out or will be remembered for very long, The year's best, and darkest, tales of terror, showcasing the most outstanding new short stories and novellas by both contemporary masters of the macabre and exciting newcomers.
As ever, this acclaimed anthology also offers the most comprehensive annual overview of horror around the world in all its incarnations a comprehensive necrology of famous names and a list of indispensable contact addresses for the dedicated horror fan and writer alike.
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror remains the world's leading annual anthology dedicated solely to presenting the best in contemporary horror fiction.
There are some good stories in here, but there are some down right boring ones too, I've been reading this series for a few years and will eventually post other reviews as well, but for now, here's my thoughts on this.
I guess one of my biggest issues as of late with the Mammoth series has been that the editor, Stephen Jones, seems to be picking stories solely based on people in his little circle than choosing great stories.
Maybe it can soon be named The Mammoth book of My Best Friends New Horror, I can't be the only one who sees the exact same names volume after volume after volume, Don't call it a best of if you only want your bros in here,
As for the stories, yes, there are some good ones, a few amazing ones, but more than half lost me in the first few pages.
Being who I am, I kept on reading, hoping to be pulled into the story, but alas, not so much.
Lucky me, I have the next three volumes here at home to read, Hope they're better. One of the stronger anthologies in this series, The stories explore different horror themes, I especially liked the stories by Cowdrey, Morris, Unsworth, Slatter, McDermott, Partridge and Campbell, This book leaves me looking forward toand hoping that the series continues for many years, Horror fiction would be my guilty pleasure if I thought there were anything in it to feel guilty about, which I don't, so it isn't! Sometimes these books are terrible, usually pretty good, and this one was awesome.
There was only one story I actively disliked, the very first one, a tooserious dramatic zombie story, But since it was out of the way quickly, the rest of the book just flew by, Here's a run down of what's in the rest of the book,
The second story was had a chick who looks hot from behind but hideous from the front, and her neighbor sees her through the window eating raw meat in her living room.
I know I just ruined the ending, but you shouldn't have read a review with the spoilers alert thingy on.
Then there was a kind of short, funny one about a dude who right before dies trapped up on a cliff with evil black birds finally decides the perfect way to describe them in the book he'll never write.
A writer trying to get away to write something ends up with a pretty evil medieval monster in the woods behind his house.
An American Civil War story with a gross old supernatural man who collects heads story was next,
Something straight out of the Twilight Zone, with a kid who can draw things and make them real, with a very cool ending.
A kind of bullied kid's ghost gets a kind of revenge or something deep down in a mine shaftyears later.
This one seemed kind of confusing, I'm not sure who the ghost was or why he was trying to kill everyone, but the ending was horrifying.
Random pieces of fruit start popping up in this lady's pool when she's sleeping, then hunks of meat, then strange sea creatures.
. .
A surreal, dark story about a pier that has dead people talking to you through plaques put up all over the place, and THEY HATE THE LIVING!!!
A freaky story about a couple trapped in a car wreck with evil, carnivorous angelks flapping around outside.
A kind of crime story that I didn't really get, maybe about a ghost in a tree Maybe the only other really weak point of the book, really easy to forget about.
in addition to the first zombie story,
A kind of bizarre fantasy about the ghost of a dead brother scaring everyone,
I have to call out Joe R Lansdale by name with his "Christmas for the Dead," because this dude never ever ever fails to deliver, like David Schow, who unfortunately isn't in this book.
"Christmas for the Dead" is typical Lansdale, totally decrepit, extreme, and funny, I'm sick to death of zombies, but this one had a kickass zombiefighting dog, and there was some hilarious Christmas stuff at the end.
A couple of lesbians crash a car and spend the night in a creepy house, twist ending,
A couple of punks stuck in a dreary seaside town the Morrissey song "Everyday is Like Sunday" is actually mentioned in the story want to get out, and one of them ALMOST does.
An angry alcoholic couldhavebeen kills a dude and then takes a train, . . to a circular hell!!
"Lesser Demons" by Norman Partridge, new guy to me, was like a zombie story, but with demons, which I liked much more.
They file their teeth into sharp points and have all kinds of monsters on their side to boot,
Steve Rasnic Tem, who in a previous volume of this series had two stories which were just fucking cheesey awful, wrote the scariest story in this book, "Telling.
" It made me mad to realize it was the same guy I had written off a couple of years ago, because I really like to nurse my literary dislikes.
Caitlin Kiernan, as usual, writes a pretty dark, atmospheric story, but really, she needs to cheer the fuck up.
Ramsey Campbell, who once was so fantastic but really should have stopped writingyears ago, has his almost obligatory place in this collection, with a hohum story that I had hoped would be about giant killer spiders but wasn't.
A weird POEM that doesn't take itself seriously at all, but actually has some pretty gruesome imagery in it, like the brain of a hillbilly wizard that popped out of its grave like a mole and was bouncing around in the weeds with the brainstem trailing behind it like a tail.
A story about ghouls, which I personally feel are kind of overlooked, It relies a lot on Lovecraft, which is fine by me, but the subplot about the cheating girlfriend took a little too much of the center stage.
But great story, great ending, And the Smithereens are mentioned, Like three times.
What I had thought was going to be another fucking zombie story turned out to be kind of interesting, if a little too serious: what the world would be like if the zombies won, and there were no more people to eat.
Really man, why the FUCK are zombies so popular I'm sick of them!!!,