The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Fifteen

by Ellen Datlow (Editor), Tananarive Due, Jeffrey Ford

From Ellen Datlow— “the venerable queen of horror anthologies” per the New York Times —comes a new entry in the series that has brought you thrilling stories from Stephen King and Neil Gaiman, the best horror stories available.

For more than four decades, Ellen Datlow has been at the center of horror. Bringing you the most frightening and terrifying stories, Datlow always has her finger on the pulse of what horror readers crave. Now, with the fifteenth volume of the series, Datlow is back again to bring you the stories that will keep you up at night. Encompassed in the pages of The Best Horror of the Year have been such illustrious writers Neil Gaiman, Stephen King, Stephen Graham Jones, Joyce Carol Oates, Laird Barron, Mira Grant, and many others.

With each passing year, science, technology, and the march of time shine light into the craggy corners of the universe, making the fears of an earlier generation seem quaint. But this light creates its own shadows. The Best Horror of the Year chronicles these shifting shadows. It is a catalog of terror, fear, and unpleasantness as articulated by today’s most challenging and exciting writers.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Anthologies, Fiction, Fantasy

428 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2024

About the author

Ellen Datlow has been editing science fiction, fantasy, and horror short fiction for forty years as fiction editor of OMNI Magazine and editor of Event Horizon and SCIFICTION. She currently acquires short stories and novellas for Tor.com. In addition, she has edited about one hundred science fiction, fantasy, and horror anthologies, including the annual The Best Horror of the Year series, The Doll Collection, Mad Hatters and March Hares, The Devil and the Deep: Horror Stories of the Sea, Echoes: The Saga Anthology of Ghost Stories, Edited By, and Final Cuts: New Tales of Hollywood Horror and Other Spectacles.
She's won multiple World Fantasy Awards, Locus Awards, Hugo Awards, Bram Stoker Awards, International Horror Guild Awards, Shirley Jackson Awards, and the 2012 Il Posto Nero Black Spot Award for Excellence as Best Foreign Editor. Datlow was named recipient of the 2007 Karl Edward Wagner Award, given at the British Fantasy Convention for "outstanding contribution to the genre," was honored with the Life Achievement Award by the Horror Writers Association, in acknowledgment of superior achievement over an entire career, and honored with the World Fantasy Life Achievement Award at the 2014 World Fantasy Convention.

Reviews

[inciminci]

Of course one can never know the hardships of curating and editing a horror anthology as iconic as Datlow's Best Horror of the Year, there may be reasons beyond our knowledge why some stories don't make it there and why others do, but I'm pretty sure that 2022-2023 was an exceptionally good time for horror short stories. Unfortunately I don't see that reflected in this book and in consequence, this year is one of those years in which the Datlow Best of Anthology does not quite strike my fancy. It happens.

It is worth noticing that this year many selected writings are bordering on noir or crime fiction – for instance The Zoo by Gemma Amor which features a medium investigating in an outrageous case where all animals in a zoo have been replaced by human corpses positioned to represent the respective animal or The Collection by Charlie Hughes in which police investigations focus on some tapes and abnormal occurrences taking place in a church. It's interesting to contemplate what scares people in certain times, and a need for solving of mysteries or the tying of loose ends seems to strike a chord nowadays.

Well, as usual, I have favorites and highlights, some of which I had already read in the respective anthologies they were originally published in;

Incident at Bear Creek Lodge by Tananarive Due is the story of a young boy who is sent to spend a few days with his grandma who used to work as an actress, but she's very scary and there's a reason for it.
In my childhood I had one grandma I adored above all, and one I was frightened of, so the use of the fear of the grandma is something I can understand to certain degree but it's not my favorite trope. I like that here, through the grandma's own seemingly glamorous past and of course her Blackness, there are many additional layers of horror laid upon each other combined with a winter setting which is always claustrophobic for me. Love this story.

The Last Box by Luigi Musolino was already one of my favorite stories in his collection A Different Darkness, so I can only approve its presence among the best of the year. Who isn't fascinated by circus life and performances? The unique skill of Musolino's protagonist coupled with the author's delicate writing style makes this story all the more fascinating.

New Fox Smell by Livia Llewellyn is probably one of the strangest things I have ever read. Following the car ride of a young girl with her friend's mother to their summer residence pulls you gradually but firmly into a solid nightmare from which there's no escape, little foxes.

Lifelike by Gary McMahon is set in a home for older people and that is totally up my alley as it revolves around lovely older women, who witness something quite … I don't really have words for what happens, as weird and strange aren't sufficient to describe what happens. Read for yourself. There's a creepy puppet involved in any case.

[Curtis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading an Ellen Datlow anthology is like being the star of one of those reality TV dating shows my stepmom watches. Twenty or so sexy stories all vying to seduce your attention span. Unfortunately, not all the players had game. If this book was a collection of Tinder profiles, the following names are who I would swipe right on: Jeffrey Ford, Gary Kilworth, Livia Llewellyn, Alison Littlewood, Gemma Files, Gary McMahon, Gemma Amor, Charlie Hughes, Jacob Steven Mohr, and John Langan. If your name was not listed, you have thirty seconds to get off Horror Bachelor property before I call the cops.

[Gyalten Lekden · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great collection, as expected. It included 19 short stories/novelettes, one poem, and one novella, of which I had already read a few, but most were new to me,. And I wasn’t disappointed. More than half of the stories were very good or better, and I had a great time just living with the collection as I made my way through it. Datlow curates a wonderful and diverse collection, encompassing all sorts of subgenres, from uncomfortable and bloody body horror to existential horror and stories that just leave you in a state of great psychological distress with a whole lot of stops along the way. As I review the table of contents, the stories by Tanarive Due, Andy Davidson, Gemma Files, Gemma Amor, Charlie Hughes, Liva Llewellyn, Jeffrey Ford, and Luigi Musolino all jump out at me as having really been top notch, but I enjoyed the whole collection. I don’t think any were particularly bad, though they didn’t all work for me equally, and that’s fine. For example, I really enjoy John Langan, and his inclusion was the only novella in the collection, and while I enjoyed the overall story, including how it unveiled its characters and revealed the story’s secret, it was maybe a little longer than it needed to be. But it was still a lot of fun to read, so even there there nothing to complain about.

Something else that I think is really worth noting is that Datlow opens the collection by giving a rundown of the stats of what stories were included, and a “summation of the year 2022” that is nearly 50 pages long, where she notes notable novels, novellas, magazines and journals, and all sorts of other media from the year, not only listing titles but saying a few words about each, basically offering a lot of fodder for your TBR. She ends with a list of honorable mentions, short stories that almost were included, as well as where they were published. Just the whole package shows a real dedication to horror and to the artists that play in that sandbox. None of this was necessary, it doesn’t change the stories in the collection, but it does make the book stronger, and only increases my appreciation and admiration for Datlow (which is already unreasonably high).

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

more bangers here, but overall I enjoyed Volume 12 more. however, luckily, in this volume there is no gratuitous use of CSA for shock value (everyone clap) so it gets major points for that. this volume contained stories from many of the same wonderful and acclaimed authors as the previous one I read, but also many who had not been published in this series before. my favorite stories in this volume were:

Gate 9 by Jeffrey Ford
On the Hills, the Knitters by Steve Toase
New Fox Smell by Livia Llewellyn
The Loneliness of the Long-Distantce Reporter by Daniela Tomova
In the Wabe by Alison Littlewood
Bb Minor, or The Suicide Choir: An Oral History by Gemma Files
The Zoo by Gemma Amor

[Sucre · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. A decent collection of horror short stories with only a couple I felt the need to skim. I really appreciate the breakdown of recent horror releases as well as honorary mentions in the back, they gave me a lot of books to check out in the future!

Fave stories were New Fox Smell by Livia Llewellyn (a teen girl is forced to spend summer vacation with an old friend but the location isn't anything she could have expected), Incident at Bear Creek Lodge by Tananarive Due (set in the 1970s, a teen boy is visiting his grandmother for the first time and learns about her acting past as well as why her children are so frightened of her) , In the Wabe by Alison Littlewood (a young girl disappears from a park under mysterious and fantastical circumsatances), Lifelike by Gary McMahon (an elderly mom tells her son about a curious visitor her and her friends received), Tell-Tale Tit by Margo Lanagan (in an alternate England, women are punished in a savage way for speaking out against men), 1855 by Jacob Steven Mohr (a man writes to his doctor friend about a recent group of orphans he is tasked to take care of, and one in particular that speaks to a false mother he builds out of pillows and blankets. this one actually managed to scare me a bit!).

For the most part the stories that aren't listed here were also good, just not as good as the others. The worst of the bunch were 'The Collection' by Charlie Hughes and 'Enough For Hunger and Enough for Hate' by John Langan. I had to skim both of these, and was extremely disappointed to see that the latter uses a "monster" that the white, non-Indigenous author has no right to be employing in his works.

[Stephen Bacon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another superb annual 'best-of' from multi award-winning editor Ellen Datlow, this one highlighting the cream of the crop from dark fiction published in 2022.

These anthologies are a delight. I consider myself quite well-read when it comes to contemporary horror fiction, but I'm always astonished by the breadth of stories, and regularly discover something I otherwise would have missed.

This edition is no exception. Favourites were by Steve Duffy, Alison Littlewood and Luigi Musolino, but honestly there isn't anything less than fantastic in the contents. The summations and honorable mentions are a much appreciated bonus (at least by this reader). This comes highly recommended.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid but unspectacular collection for me. No out-and-out duds, but little that truly excited me. Some favorites include "Solivagant," an involving vampire story by Angela Slatter, a scary giant-monster-on-an-island tale called "Flaming Teeth" by Garry Kilworth, and a few other gems by Steve Duffy, Tananarive Due, and David Surface. My favorite of all is Gary Mahon's "Lifelike," a creepily unsettling tale of a strange puppet show in an elderly care facility that proves to have lingering after effects.

[Eloise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solivagant – 4.5
Gate 9 – 3
Flaming Teeth – 3
On the Hills, the Knitters – 4
New Fox Smell – 3.5
The Harvester of Ladslove – 4
Incident at Bear Creek Lodge – 4
The Myth of Pasiphaë – 3
The Loneliness of the Long-Distant Reporter – 3.5
In the Wabe – 5
New Meat(™) – 3.5
Eyes Like Small Black Stones – 4.5
Bb Minor, or The Suicide Choir: An Oral History – 5
Lifelike – 4
The Zoo – 3.5
Dinner Plans With Baba Yaga – 3
The Collection – 4
Tell-Tale Tit – 4
The Last Box – 4
1855 – 5
Enough For Hunger and Enough For Hate – 4.5

[m 🎬genXstasy🕶️ · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are very few gems in here from Jeffrey Ford, Livia Llewellyn (my fave!!), John Langan, Tananarive Due, Gemma Amor (my second fave!!), and Margo Lanagan. Otherwise, I was bored, and expecially disappointed with the Gemma Files offering. Hope you like this book more than I. Datlow usually does better, so I won't stop buying her books

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am skipping the yearly summations in these volumes now, they have become insufferable and truly endless over the years. The standout stories this year are Bb MINOR OR THE SUICIDE CHOIR: AN ORAL HISTORY by Gemma Files, and ENOUGH FOR HUNGER AND ENOUGH FOR HATE by John Langan.

[Sleepy Boy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Middling overall, arguably one of my least favorite of this series.

[Zeke Gonzalez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great collection of highly varied horror fiction assembled by Ellen Datlow from many great authors. Whether it’s emotional tales of families fraught with horror, the terrors of war and love manifesting as a monsters, or slow burning tales of unease, this collection has it all!

My favorites from this collection include “On the Hills, the Knitters” by Steve Toase, “The Harvester of Ladslove” by Steve Duffy, “Incident at Bear Creek Lodge” by Tananarive Due, “Bb Minor, or the Suicide Choir: An Oral History” by Gemma Files, “The Zoo” by Gemma Amor, “The Collection” by Charlie Hughes, “The Last Box” by Luigi Musolino, and “1855” by Jacob Steven Mohr. I realize that’s almost half the stories, but the collection is really just excellent.

[derya · Rating 4 out of 5]

overall, this was a great collection of stories! my favorites, in no particular order, include:
incident at bear creek lodge - tananarive due
in the wabe - alison littlewood
Bb minor, or the suicide choir: an oral history - gemma files
the last box - luigi musolino
1855 - jacob steven mohr
enough for hunger and enough for hate - john langan

[Richard Thornley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some great stories in a multitude of styles.

[Bill Borre]

"Gate 9" by Jeffrey Ford - Steve loses his daughter to kidnappers at an airport restroom.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another year, another collection of solid work. Highlights include:

"The Myth of Pasiphae" by Andy Davidson, a noir with the same blood as Cormac McCarthy.

"The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Reporter" by Daniela Tomova. A bizarre, dystopian sport that goes further than you think.

"BFlat Minor, or the Su1cide Choir: An Oral History" by Gemma Files. Making a terrible noise.

"The Tell-Tale Tit" by Margo Lanagan. A brief moment of bitter disquiet.

"The Last Box" by Luigi Musolino (translated by James D. Jenkins) Sadness at the circus.

"1855" by Jacob Steven Mohr. VERY good. A small boy and the love he needs.

"Enough for Hunger and Enough for Hate" by John Langan. The jewel of the collection. Langan's horrific villains are always too human, too real.

[Tzu-Mainn Chen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I used to read comic books, and the comfort of having a new issue to look forward every month was honestly quite soothing. But eventually comic books grew stagnant, and I put them behind me. I say all of this because I recently realized that I look forward to each yearly installment of “The Best Horror of the Year” in a similar way (well, yearly instead of monthly, and with more existential terror and less super heroes). The anthology is comforting, yes… but maybe also starting to feel a little stagnant.

That thought was in the back of my mind when I started “The Best Horror of the Year, Volume 15”. And I admit I finished many of the stories with a feeling of dissatisfaction. The premises were original, and haunting, and written well… and yet they weren’t really *horrifying* in the way I remember being terrified as a child. I know that part of the reason is because I don’t get as scared as easily as I did when I was a kid (and that’s probably a good thing). But there’s another reason, one which I only identified halfway through the book.

A lot of the horror stories in the anthology feel like they’re trying to make a greater point beyond the scares. I’m not talking about Twilight Zone morality lessons; I’m talking about deep insights and claims into the depths of the human condition. I don’t necessarily hate that - when the examination feels like it runs cleanly parallel to the horror. But it often felt like it ran orthogonally instead, and ended up detracting from the scares as a result.

Thinking back, many of the most memorable horror stories I’ve read over the years have been simple and direct; all they want to do is make you think twice about turning out the lights before going to bed. I feel like that should be the primary goal of a horror story, and something some of these stories may have lost sight of. That being said, the joy of an anthology is that every story is different; and there were a couple of stories that chilled me to the bone. And really, those bites of deep pleasure are enough to keep me looking forward to this anthology year after year after year.

[Joel Hacker · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's not much to say about Datlow's work as an anthologist at this point. This fifteenth installment of year's best horror is a solid selection of short fiction (one poem, one maybe novella) by mostly firmly established if not universally well known authors working in the field. While a few of the selections are not to my taste, and a few though dark I would question the veracity of labeling horror, there's certainly nothing to complain about here. That's sort of the point of these after all. Grab one, have a broad, representational selection of good horror from folks you may or may not have heard of but are all good at their craft. I'll put a few of my favorites below, but otherwise, you know what you're getting picking up one of these.
There's a good, fun, vampire story opener with Angela Slater's 'Solivagent'. Followed up with the strange, actiony but dream like 'Gate 9' by Jeffrey Ford and a couple entries later the equally strange and probably among my favorites here Steve Toase's post-apocalyptic 'On the Hills, The Knitters.' 'New Fox Smell' felt more like the start of a story I'd be excited to read, rather than a story in and of itself.
'The Harvester of Ladslove' by Steve Duffy and 'The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Reporter' by Daniela Tomova rank up there with 'Knitters' as among my favorites for very different reasons. Harvester gives us a lot of World War 1 trauma and drawing room conversation and social mores while Long-Distance Reporter makes you think you've got a bit of a zombie story before becoming deeply, deeply, strange.
My own honorable mention to an expectedly excellent Gemma Files story about music because I'm a sucker for such ever since I read Erick Zahn as a kid and watched RahXephon years later.

[Cheyenne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall Rating - 4.2 stars
Favorite Story -In the Wabe by Alison Littlewood

Solivagant by Angela Slatter - 4
Gate 9 by Jeffrey Ford - 4
Flaming Teeth by Garry Kilworth - 3
On the Hills, the Knitters by Steve Toase - 4
New Fox Smell by Livia Llewellyn - 4
The Harvester of Ladslove by Steve Duffy - 4
Incident at Bear Creek Lodge by Tananarive Due - 4
The Myth of Paciphae by Andy Davidson - 4
The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Reporter by Daniela Tomova - 4
In the Wabe by Alison Littlewood - 5
New Meat by Jordan Shiveley - 4
Eyes Like Small Black Stones by David Surface - 5
Bb Minor, or: The Suicide Choir, An Oral History by Gemma Files - 4
Lifelike by Gary McMahon - 5
The Zoo by Gemma Amor - 5
Dinner Plans with Baba Yaga by Stephanie M Wytovich - 4
The Collection by Charlie Hughs - 5
Tell-Tale Tit by Margo Lanagan - 4
The Last Box by Luigi Musolino - 4
1855 by Jacob Steven Mohr - 4
Enough for Hunger and Enough for Hate by John Langan - 4

[Christopher Pate · Rating 4 out of 5]

I admit it. I'm a sucker for anthologies put together by Ellen Datlow. Not only does she provide an excellent review of happenings in horror over the last year, but she gathers stories to chill your marrow and unsettle your soul. In this case twenty-four to savor and shiver to. Some hit me as better than others, but it all comes down to personal preferences I think. There are three great stories I highly recommend: The Harvester of Ladslove by Steve Duffy, Solivagant by Angela Slatter, and The Myth of Pasiphae by Andy Davidson. The rest was good reading, but these really stood out to me. A good collection of strange tales, frightening tales, unsettling tales that might just stick with you longer than you like as you lay awake in the dark.

More at my blog: https://bookworminthedark.blogspot.com.

[Neesa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good collection of horror stories. I only really got it for John Langan's story "Enough for hunger and enough for hate" as I really loved his Fisherman novel, but I actually liked that story less than some other ones on the list.

My favourites of the collection:
"In the wabe" by Alison Littlewood - a story of a unnatural being that swaps people's minds and bodies for fun.
"Lifelike" by Gary McMahon - circus puppets and a nursing home....eerie.
"Bb minor, or the suicide choir" by Gemma Flies - the events are happening during covid in Toronto, and it's all just so unexplainable...
"The collection" by Charlie Hughes - it's like the ringu movie but instead of a video cassette this is an audio book of sorts.

Also liked these two shorter stories that just felt different:
"New Fox smell" by Livia Llewellyn
"The last box" by Luigi Musolino

[Kate L · Rating 4 out of 5]

I look forward to these anthologies every year, Ellen Datlow is unmatched putting these things together. And you don't realize how hard a job that is until you read a horror anthology full of hot, hot garbage. All of these stories are strong "The Harvester of Ladslove", "On the Hills, the Knitters", and "The Collection" are particularly strong.
"The Zoo" absolutely gives strong Hannibal-esque murder tableaus vibes and "Bb Minor or the Suicide Choir: An Oral History" scratched the cosmic horror, Lovecraft itch in a phenomenal way.
Ellen Datlow please don't stop editing these collections, thanks.

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Garry Kilworth "Flaming Teeth" and "Eyes Like Small Black Stones" by David Surface and Margo Lanagan's totally gnarly "Tell-Tale Tit" were the only three in here that grabbed me. Props to "On the Hills, the Knitters" by Stephen Toase for arguably referencing Colletto Fava. I should've known to skip The Fisherman based on how much I disliked John Langan's story in here but hey, you live, you learn, you die, you become a spooky zombie or rotting corpse or both!

[Tim Callicutt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this one, as usual. If the past couple of years had been heavy on folk horror, one relatively common theme here is cults, or cult-like activity. Here’s my top five:

1. Solivagant by Angela Slatter
2. Bb Minor, or The Suicide Choir: An Oral History by Gemma Files
3. In the Wabe by Alison Littlewood
4. Incident at Bear Creek Lodge by Tananarive Due
5. 1855 by Jacob Steven Mohr

[Scott Breslove · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately, I was not impressed with this one at all. I’m 99.9% sure that I read “In the Wabe” somewhere else, probably another horror collection. As for the rest, they were just meh. The only one that really held my attention was the last story, by John Langan about the wendigo. Otherwise, it was just something to get through, I’ve read better.

[Harry Bennett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another outstanding collection edited by Datlow. I love all the different stories that really show how rich and varied the horror genre is. Each one is a different imagining, a different flavour, and they are perfect to read during the darker months. Would recommend any of her Best Horror of the Year collections to anyone wanting for fresh and new scares!

[Daniel Facchin · Rating 4 out of 5]

There were some absolutely fantastic stories in this collection. "The Collection" by Charlie Hughes, "The Zoo" by Gemma Amor and "New Fox Smell" by Livia Llewellyn were particularly great and I would love to see a longer length of "The Incident at Bear Creek Lodge" by Tananarive Due.

[JYBoardwalk · Rating 2 out of 5]

not very impressive...

[Stephanie Twine-Haig · Rating 5 out of 5]

Many varied style excellent horror short & medium horror stories I own every volume of this anthology series and highly recommend them all. Ellen Datlow is an amazing Anthologist.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love these collections, I rarely skip a story! So, so good.