Darker Terrors

Dark Terrors

by Stephen Jones (Editor), David A. Sutton (Editor), Stephen Baxter

Between 1995 and 2002, Dark Terrors: The Gollancz Book of Horror was Britain's premier non-themed anthology of original horror stories.

Over six volumes, it published some of the biggest names in the field as well as many newcomers who have gone on to forge impressive careers in the genre.

Edited by the World Fantasy Award-winning team of Stephen Jones and David A. Sutton, Dark Terrors established itself as a cutting-edge market for some of the most literary and disturbing fiction being produced on both sides of the Atlantic, winning the British Fantasy Award and the International Horror Guild Award in the process.

Now Darker Terrors collects together nineteen of the most memorable stories from the original books in a new volume, which also includes reminiscences by both the editors plus an exclusive Index detailing the authors and their work that were included in the legendary anthology series. For fans of superior horror fiction, things just got Darker...

Genres: Horror, Anthologies

303 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 1, 2016

About the author

Stephen Jones is an eighteen-time winner of the British Fantasy Award.

Reviews

[Arun Divakar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yet another curate’s egg. A few of the stories are exceptional while others are lukewarm or even bland. What is best about these stories is that there is no overarching theme for them. They collect terror from everywhere and present it to the reader.

The really good ones :

•A Really Game Boy by Brian Lumley

•To This Water (Johnstown, Pennsylvania 1889) by Caitlín R. Kiernan

•The Museum on Cyclops Avenue by Harlan Ellison

•Free Dirt by Ray Bradbury

•Self-Made Man by Poppy Z. Brite

•The Wedding Present by Neil Gaiman

•Barking Sands by Richard Christian Matheson (Not as brilliant as the others in the list but still a good one)

Worth a read.

[Holger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice collection of horror stories, although at the moment I could not say which one I liked best. The one by Lisa Tuttle is certainly memorable, a name I had not heard of before. The inclusion of the likes of Ray Bradbury or Ramsey Campbell is of course a no-brainer.

[Blogul · Rating 2 out of 5]

Strong names, weak stories. I only liked one, found a few ok, a few unreadable, most utterly forgettable. I was amazed NOT to like stories from authors I usually love, like Gaiman, Baxter or Ellison.

[Bill Borre]

"More Tomorrow" by Michael Marshall Smith - A computer tech browses an erotica newsgroup and discovers pictures of a girl that he works with. The progression of the photos becomes more disturbing and he worries that her boyfriend might be getting kicks from beating the girl and uploading the photos to the internet. He tracks down an address in an attempt to help her only to discover the boyfriend's computer. What he discovers on the hard disk realizes his worst fear as the next photo is going to be published on the tasteless newsgroup.

"The Wedding Present" by Neil Gaiman - Gordon and Belinda receive a brown paper envelope with a cream colored sheet inside describing the events of their wedding day pleasantly. After some time passes and the paper is read again the words describe negative events.

"Family History" by Stephen Baxter - Valler is lured into a temple to Mithras in Northumberland by the sight of a young girl but when he hears footsteps approaching him in the crypt they sound more like those of a bull.

"Destroyer of Worlds" by Gwyneth Jones - A mother's sanity is fractured from the grief of losing her seven year old son to a kidnapper.