Horror: The Best of the Year, 2006 Edition

by John Gregory Betancourt (editor), Sean Wallace (Editor), Joe R. Lansdale (Contributor)

The best stories of the year: here is a collection of the best horror prose written in 2005, by some of the genre's greatest authors, and selected by two of horror's most respected editors. In this volume you'll find stories by Joe Lansdale, Jack Cady, Holly Phillips, Nicholas Royle, Joe Hill, Caitlin Kiernan, M. Rickert, Richard Bowes, Barbara Roden, Clive Barker, Laird Barron, Jeff VanderMeer, Ramsey Campbell, Nick Mamatas, Michael Marshall Smith, Simon Owens and David Niall Wilson.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Fiction, Anthologies, Short Story Collection

320 pages, Paperback

First published April 15, 2006

About the author

John Gregory Betancourt is a writer of science fiction, fantasy and mystery novels as well as short stories. He has worked as an assistant editor at Amazing Stories and editor of Horror: The Newsmagazine of the Horror Field, the revived Weird Tales magazine, the first issue of H. P. Lovecraft's Magazine of Horror (which he subsequently hired Marvin Kaye to edit), Cat Tales magazine (which he subsequently hired George H. Scithers to edit), and Adventure Tales magazine. He worked as a Senior Editor for Byron Preiss Visual Publications (1989-1996) and iBooks. He is the writer of four Star Trek novels and the new Chronicles of Amber prequel series, as well as a dozen original novels. His essays, articles, and reviews have appeared in such diverse publications as Writer's Digest and The Washington Post.

Reviews

[Daryl Nash · Rating 4 out of 5]

Several stories I liked. The best were: The Cape, Joe Hill; La Peau Verte, Caitlin Kiernan; Haeckel’s Tale, Clive Barker; Lost, Jeff VanderMeer; Fair Exchange, Michael Marshall Smith

[Tom Mueller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Contains more than aa dozen horror short stories, from authors including Joe R. Landsale, Joe Hill, Clive Barker, Ramsey Campbell and others. All stories were originally published in 2005. John Betancourt had one heck of a job whittling his choices down for one manageable volume.

[Maria · Rating 2 out of 5]

These (IMO) were more paranormal/supernatural, dark fantasy with only about three being horror. There were 17 short stories in this book. For the most part, they were good and entertaining but again, NOT all horror. My favorite was "Northwest Passage" by Barbara Roden which definitely creeped me out. In fact, I was thinking about DNF'ing this book twice because these weren't what I was looking for but "Northwest Passage" hooked me back in. After that one, I was already more than halfway through the book so I just finished it.

[Donald · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection is very good indeed. There might have been one from which I remember looking up, wondering what the heck I just read although I couldn't remember which one now. But the rest are very entertaining, even with their endearing dated notes—like so much secret spice added from days of yore; simple things like mentioning cars from the previous century. I dig that shit.
Thanks go to Mr. Betancourt for assembling this group of stories and to the authors for penning them.

[Adrienne Yee · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm going through my library, updating my goodreads and spreadsheet and see I removed this book. I know if I like even one story in an anthology I will keep the entire book. That I removed it from my library means I didn't like any of the stories in it.

[Jess · Rating 1 out of 5]

Jere got this for me from the library because he thought I should, "try to read more modern fiction." Well, it sucked. Stupid modern fiction.

Let me give you a clue: men killing their wives (or their girlfriends, or their ex-girlfriends, or complete strangers), isn't horror, it's the evening news. And parents losing their children (or children losing their parents) and going mad? Not even newsworthy.

And please, O please, by the hoary teat of Nodens, do not namecheck or allude to Lovecraft if your pitiful prose can't possibly hope, in its most squamous/non-Euclidean/cyclopean dreams, to even measure up to his most purplest phrases.

[Bliss · Rating 5 out of 5]

Surprisingly, I really really liked this book.

Some of the stories were absolutely and utterly horrifying. Others were spooky. Some gave me the heebie-jeebies and had me listening for strange noises at night.

Wow. :-)

[Rob McMonigal · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very uneven, I was disappointed. See my review here: http://trebro.livejournal.com/259391....

[bluetyson]

Horror: The Best of the Year, 2006 Edition (Horror the Best of the Year) by Sean Wallace (2006)