A Great Anthology

[joysilence]

The best horror anthology I've read this year has to be The Dark, edited by the renowned genre connoisseur Ellen Datlow (the linked page is a decently-written review from the Dark Echo website.) The collection is an attractively designed and well-produced showcase for some stars of modern supernatural fiction (all of the works included are pure ghost stories, no gore or serial killers here.) Highlights for me were One Thing About The Night by Terry Dowling (a mysterious introduction to the fascinating world of the psychomantium and its attendant delights and dangers), The Ghost Of The Clock by Tanith Lee (an understated eerie tale written with the skill of an H Russell Wakefield), and Limbo by Lucius Shepard. This last is a real tour de force blend of hard-boiled noir, supernatural and spiritual horror concerning a jaded old gangster who goes into hiding in a remote lakeside village, only to find himself seduced by a pale beauty who leads him on a baffling journey. The way Shepard skips effortlessly between our world and the bizarre wastelands of the afterlife is dizzying, and his characters all spring off the page. This was the first Shephard story I'd read, and it's made me +extremely+ keen to check out his other stuff. And to avoid dying unless it's absolutely necessary.

Though 80% of the material is good or even great, there are some let-downs. I was especially disappointed by Joyce Carol Oates' Subway, a pedestrian tale about a lonely young woman's tussles with a procession of Mr Wrongs on a big city subway system. I like much of Oates' work, but this story displayed all her faults, especially her tendency to portray single young women as pathetic victims who spend their entire lives pining for lurve and being torn apart by big bad men. A couple of the stories are convoluted to an irritating degree, as well as being depressing instead of frightening (Dancing Men by Glen Hirschberg being one such downer.) Still, my advice is to buy this book at once if you can! It's widely available in bookshops and only costs around a tenner. And not a hackneyed King/Koontz rip-off in sight!