Best New Horror 16

The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror #16

by Stephen Jones (Editor)

The latest edition of the world's foremost annual showcase of horror and dark fantasy fiction. Here are some of the very best short stories and novellas by today's finest exponents of horror fiction - including Kim Newman, Neil Gaiman, China Mieville, Paul McAuley, Glen Hirshberg, Ramsey Campbell and Tanith Lee. The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 16 also contains the most comprehensive overview of horror around the world during the year, lists of useful contact addresses and a fascinating necrology. It is the one book that is required reading for every fan of macabre fiction.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Anthologies, Fiction

610 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2012

About the author

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

Reviews

[Shawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

(*Addendum* - was able to purchase "This Is Now" by Michael Marshall Smith from this collection for Pseudopod. The episode is here:

"This Is Now" by Michael Marshall Smith)


So, here's another one...

The "Year In..." starter continues to be both worthwhile and depressing - such a glut of mediocre material (and, seeing as it just keeps coming, such a glut of people accepting of mediocre material - oh, I know "subjectivity / objectivity", yadda, yadda, yadda...) - I guess I'm also sorry that Jones didn't like GARTH MARENGHI'S DARKPLACE. But humor, as they say, is a funny thing. Not funny, and always sobering, was the usual collections of death in the Necrology - good rest to all those fine people. And now, the stories.

A few clunkers here, a bit more solid but flawed, and a fairly respectable selection of good stories. Only two really outstanding tales, alas. While I try to be pretty open-minded about "horror" as a very flexible genre, a good proportion of the offerings here fell into some of the niches I'm not particularly fond of or, at least, only want to read stellar examples of (dark fantasy with "horror" trappings, uneven horror-lit, urban fantasy in general).

Clunkers - "The Mutable Borders of Love" by Leslie What uses ghosts in a strictly metaphorical sense and, thus, not my cup of tea ("light" dark fantasy earl grey). Eh. A friend accompanies an old acquaintance on an archeological dig that uncovers the actual 'City of the Dead' in "Remnants" by Tim Lebbon - it's too long (and on occasion, overwritten) for what is essentially an interesting concept of the afterlife with no strong plot behind it (albeit, some promising characterization). "The Devil of Delerey Street" by Poppy Z. Brite is a well written tale of a girl suffering poltergeist/demonic activity. The ethnic religious and family details are nice, but it didn't strike me as a horror story, barely even dark fantasy, in fact. More like a lit story with some slight fantastic element. Not what I want out of BEST NEW HORROR, though.

There were quite a few good but somewhat flawed stories. I'm not really a reader of the HOTTER BLOOD anthology series, and erotic horror is (generally) not my thing, so Christa Faust's "Tighter" is not really my bag. Still, this tale of a Las Vegas escape artist with a thing for ever-increasing levels of bondage, and her run-in with the man of her dreams, is solid, so the flaw really belongs to me on this one. I'm a bit more conflicted over "The Growlimb" by Michael Shea - while the language may get the tiniest smidge *purple* at times, there's some interesting characters and psychology, and some nicely sketched visuals. Unfortunately, this is also one of those story-types that a veteran anthology reader occasionally runs across - stories that read more like the first third of a novel or the first half of a novella. A *lot* of time is spent sketching in the character of a Vietnam vet turned solitary social worker. This is all in service of the reader understanding the depths of his strange obsession (revealed in a flashback that's probably the best part of the story - atmospheric and powerful) and how it changed his life and philosophy. And what this character desires eventually happens - in horrific form. End of story. Much less time is spent on the female character who bookends the narrative, but her parts feel slimmed down (there's also a strong portrayal of a minor character - an old woman with cancer - that's very well done). Even the central concept is interesting - a man's accidental brush with usually hidden, godlike forces, and his attempts to pursue a recreation, and extension, of that moment - and the thing manifesting in a somewhat accidental collage of discarded trash and roadkill artfully tweaked by our main character (in a fruitful act of chaos magic, for lack of a better term) - all this is good. But, honestly, for all that time spent the actual plot is minimal (or perhaps just too compressed) and thus the ending is unsatisfying. Should have been longer (and so, probably would not have appeared here).

Glen Hirshberg's "Safety Clowns" has a similar problem. It spends its time setting up an intriguing scenario (job applicant discovers popular ice-cream truck franchise is cover for drug-dealing) and a realistic moral dilemma (are you ethical enough to turn down a profitable job offer and remain unemployed?). I really liked this set-up but felt let down by the familiar horror ending. It's not bad, but like the Poppy Brite piece noted earlier, it almost felt more like a lit piece with a horror aspect grafted on as an afterthought. On the flip side of the lit-horror coin, there's Kelly Link's "Stone Animals", in which an upscale, yuppy New York City family moves to a country home and finds that things slowly become very... odd. The story does a good job of building encroaching, ominous suspense in an indirect way, through accumulation of small, strange details. On the other hand, Link's conversational, quippy style (and knowing use of non sequitur) is a bit... precious? twee? And the distracting third person omniscient narration (or whatever person and tense this is in, since it seems to slide around on a whim) that makes cute observations about the goings-on was just as annoying. "Apocalypse Now, Voyager" by Jay Russell reads like what I imagine a lot of "urban fantasy" is like - again, not my thing (so, like "Tighter", the flaw's more in me than the author) but certainly kept me vaguely entertained if not enthralled. There's lots of pop-cult references, lots of name-dropping, an uncommitted, blase, po-mo voice for the main character roughly built from the trappings of world-weary noir. Lots of quasi-mythological symbolism, dark fantasy and adult fairy-tale tropes thrown around (it's basically your "magical quest with a motley assortment of oddball characters"). Seemed to be lacking actual horror. Eh. "Spells For Halloween: An Acrostic" is a slight piece of flash - well done, I guess, but one of those flash pieces that reads like a half-formed seedbed for stories the author (in this case Dale Bailey) doesn't seem to want to write (or which can't actually be shaped into satisfying stories) but still wants to share with you.

While I run hot and cold with Neil Gaiman, both of his offerings here are solid work. "Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Nameless House of the Night of Dread Desire" is more of a satire than an actual horror story, but its inverted Gothic parody is a cute idea well-told. On the other end of the spectrum (and the book), Gaiman's "The Problem of Susan" wrestles with one of those great unsatisfying and problematic details of children's literature, specifically C.S. Lewis' disposition of a main character from his Narnia series (I know for a fact that this irksome point greatly bothered my sister when she read the books as a child - sharing the character's name probably just exacerbated it). Gaiman does a superb job intimating a take on the situation (integrating the religious symbolism of The Whore Of Babylon astride the lion and tying it to the clash of childhood innocent fantasy and adult, real-world sexuality) without being too specific. It may be more dark fantasy than horror, but I'm happy I read it. "Breaking Up" by Ramsey Campbell charts a woman's journey through a snow-bound town at night, pestered over her new cell phone by an old flame that she's recently left. The winter landscape becomes more ominous as she feels she's being stalked - there's a nice building of mood and atmosphere here, along with Campbell's traditional, slightly odd approach to dialogue. Worthwhile. "'The King', in: Yellow" by Brian Keene combines Robert W. Chambers infamous, insanity-inducing text with the concept of a theatrical "rock opera" starring famous music figures (so the oddly punctuated title might make a little more sense now). On the one hand it's an enjoyable read (probably helped by my familiarity with the locale it is set in). On the other hand, I didn't think the "famous musical figures" aspect was as fruitfully exploited as it could have been, and it kind of reads like a story where the title came before the actual plotting. Still, an enjoyable read.

Tina Rath's "A Trick of the Dark" is a nice, quiet little tale of an invalid young lady who realizes the same man passes below her window every day after sunset. It has a Bradburyesque charm in its effective simplicity. "Restraint" by Stephen Gallagher is a suspenseful yarn involving a woman's desperate night-time flight in her family car, children in tow, to dispose of the body of her abusive but accidentally killed husband - and how she's plagued at every turn by a mysterious pursuing vehicle. Reminiscent, in a taut, good way, of Richard Matheson's "Duel". Tanith Lee presents a charming little piece of dark fantasy set in 19th century Paris in "Israbel"; a classy, old-school vampire story about artists and infatuation that turns on the old detail of the problem the undead have with mirrors. Reliable, as I've generally found Lee to be. "This Is Now" is a little vague, perhaps, but also evocative, as Michael Marshall Smith tells us about aging friends who attempt, one drunken night, to recreate an eerie, significant event from their youth when they sneaked onto a government protected area and saw something they shouldn't have seen. Good use of ambiguity.

Lisa Tuttle's "My Death", in which an author seeks out the elderly woman who influenced her artistic life through participation in a forgotten scandal, is... good. The characters and events are very well-sketched (mid-life crises, the milieu of art and book dealers, an old woman's memories), even if I felt the ending coming (although it's still a bit confusing) - yet another story, though, that makes me feel like Jones' predilections run more towards dark fantasy than outright horror.

And then we reach the usual placeholder spot for whatever novella Kim Newman has written this year. It's another installment of his "Diogenes Club" series, integrating characters from all over, and outside, the "Newman-verse" in a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen type, multi-generational organization of occult investigators. I've talked, in previous MAMMOTH BOOK OF BEST NEW HORROR reviews about my ambivalent feelings about this series. On the one hand Newman is a good writer and the stories (if you accept them for what they are) are cracking good examples of the pulp form, generally. On the other hand, horror doesn't really do well in serials, and the complicated histories (and pop-cult referencing) of the stories themselves are sometime off-putting. All that having been said, "Soho Golem" is an enjoyable read. This one is set in the 70s of British crime shows and the strip/nudie/porno parlors and palaces of Soho, and attempts to recapture the sleazy vibe of that place and time, suffused with slang-heavy criminals, coppers, moral majority-types, drug-dealers, sexy working girls and wankers. `I approve of attempts like this - as the world becomes more homogenized and culture flattens out into the easiest delivery system for the few corporations who run everything, perhaps one of the few truly valid goals left for fiction is in the capturing of moments in time "as lived". "Soho Golem" comes off as an extra-sleazy, Brit episode of KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER as standard copper Fred Regent and Diogenes representative, 60's psychedelic dandy (and Jason-King lookalike) Jeperson (Newman's preferred psychic investigator), look into a strange death and are then eyewitness to a brutal beat-down perpetrated by a muck-giant construct that can manifest and disappear into thin air. Old secrets are uncovered and you get some colorful descriptions of the place and people (not the least of which is Jeperson's lovingly described, stylish outfit - Newman almost seems to be re-introducing a little touch of Théophile Gautier to the fantastique with this predilection). I liked this more than "Cold Snap", and about equal to "The Man Who Got Off The Ghost Train" - it helped that this is a pretty straightforward stand-alone story, (like the latter), and not a Newman-verse mega-mashup (like the former). My only complaint is that the wrap-up is a little easy - the heroes arrive mid-conflict and have everything explained to them. Still, it's a fun romp.

And so we reach the two excellent stories here. "Lilies" by Iain Rowan is a beautiful story of a young man temporarily relived from duty at the front, working in a war-shocked city where the custom is that the dead be allowed to walk for a week after their burial. It features some stunning, moving writing and that's all I'll say. "Flour White and Spindle Thin" by L.H. Maynard and M.P.N. Sims may not have any incredible concept at its core, it may not be heavy with symbolic import or artistic resonances. But what this simple tale (of a childless couple who move to a remote desolate marshland, only to encounter strange, pale, feral children) has is powerful atmosphere and execution. In a way, very sedate and old-school, I found its creepy charm and strong visual sense got under my skin. An excellent read.

Well, there you go. I'm probably going to try to read 2011's volume just as it comes out, then work my way backwards from there (I was able to luck into a copy of the very first volume in a used book store recently.) Always more to read...

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a review reconstructed from mainly brief diary entries made on each of the stories as I read them in 2006. While I recall some of the stories better than others, I avoid embellishing the information extracted from my diary as my recollections are not fresh enough some eight years after reading the book to be reliable enough.

Regrettably, in a couple of cases, I only recorded that I had begun to read - or that I had read part of - a particular story. These are ‘Lilies’ by Iain Rowan and ‘The Growlimb’ by the late Michel Shea. I don’t recall the former but I remember liking the strangeness of ‘The Growlimb’, which might be worth a re-read. As for Christa Faust's story, 'Tighter', I recorded nothing about it at all, although I presumably read it. The same goes for Stephen Gallagher's story, 'Restraint', and Michael Marshall Smith's 'This is now'.

I found the first of two Neil Gaiman stories in this anthology, ‘Forbidden brides of the faceless slaves in the nameless house of the night of dread desire’, to be a mildly amusing tongue-in-cheek ‘Gothic’ tale, but the second, ‘The problem of Susan’, I dismissed as ‘another unsatisfactory story’ with no further elaboration.

While I recall very much enjoying Brian Keene’s tale, ‘“The King”, in: Yellow’, I didn’t record at the time what I thought of it. Neverthless, I was moved to draft an email to the editor of the now-defunct Dungeon magazine suggesting this story as an additional resource for anyone wanting to extend Matthew Hope’s Dungeons & Dragons scenario, ‘And madness followed’ (in Dungeon, no. 134), into a campaign involving Robert W. Chambers’s character, the King in Yellow. The email was never published.

Ramsey Campbell’s ‘Breaking up’ was a little better than usual. Although Campbell’s Cthulhu-based stories tend to be enjoyable, his brief stories in Stephen Jones’s anthologies are not, in my view, his best work. I feel that they tend to be published on the strength of Campbell’s name than for the merits of the story.

Tina Roth’s ‘A trick of the dark’ and Leslie What’s ‘The mutable borders of love’ were both rather cryptic and lacking in what I considered to be horror. However, L. H. Maynard & M. P. N. Sims’s ‘Flour white and spindle’, which immediately followed, was a better story, yet it had ‘an unnecessary red herring in it’. ‘Isabel’ by Tanith Lee was ‘rather good’ but I didn’t elaborate here either.

I had much more to say about Tim Lebbon’s ‘Remnants’. In some ways, I liked the story because the secondary protagonist was an archaeologist (I have a degree in archaeology) who travelled the world looking for a fabled City of the Dead, which he located eventually in Ogaden, a disputed area between Ethiopia and Somalia. But the exploration of the city by the protagonist and his friend, the archaeologist, was rather dull, I thought, and the ending a little disappointing. There were some good ideas and a good start but the story was a little long and ultimately unrewarding. At the time I read this I wondered if I was just getting harder to please as I got older but perhaps I was merely disappointed that my high expectations for the story due to its archaeological theme were not met!

While I didn’t think ‘Safety Clowns’ by Glen Hirshberg was great horror, I thought it was interesting for the way it centred on the thinking of a slightly jumpy twenty-year-old man. At the time I read the story, I was very enthusiastic about skateboarding and had a lot of fun with a G&S longboard. I was therefore very approving of Hirshberg’s incidental references to young urban skateboarders and one or two aspects of skateboarding culture. The story made me feel nostalgic for a childhood and adolescence I didn’t have – growing up and skateboarding in the suburbs (most of my youth was a rural one, although school at least was in town) and having a sense of what it must be like to belong to a bigger community – a neighbourhood – and a multi-age one at that.

Poppy Z. Brite’s Louisiana-based story, ‘The Devil of Delery Street’, was a rather tame one of a poltergeist or possession. I expected something better from Brite at the time.

I really liked Jay Russell’s ‘Apocalypse now, voyager’ for its nice mixture of the strange and the familiar and for its wry sense of humour. Again, there was a skateboarding element – a group of young teen and pre-teen skaters that form a kind of quasi-feral gang feature at one point in the story (pp. 351-6). I thought that the incidental appearance of skateboarders in both Hirshberg’s and Russell’s stories helped place them into a modern-day context and wondered if a horror story could be written featuring a skateboarder as the protagonist.

Kelly Link’s ‘Stone animals’ was a ‘cock-tease story’ in that lots of tension was built up towards a rather twee ending – very anti-climactic! The author had commented that when she ‘was writing this story, [she] couldn’t figure out if the ending was terrifying or profoundly silly, but hopefully it’s both of these things’. I thought this was wishful thinking at the time!

As with previous Kim Newman stories (in earlier anthologies edited by Stephen Jones), his ‘Soho golem’ was quite enjoyable, although it was a little heavy on the scene-setting use of 1970s jargon in the first few pages (indicating the author’s degree of geekery for going into this level of detail).

‘Spells for Halloween: an acrostic’ by Dale Bailey was a very short (3-page) contribution but it wasn’t a story. Rather, it is a series of encyclopaedia-like entries based on words beginning with a letter that makes up ‘HALLOWEEN’ and had originally been serialised in a newspaper on a letter-by-letter (entry-by-entry) basis. It’s a nice concept but I thought it was out of place in an anthology of short fiction.

Lisa Tuttle’s novella, ‘My death’, is barely horror, being an oblique take on Robert Graves’ The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth , but I enjoyed it all the same. This was because the story was mainly about a fiction writer who, in need of income a year after her husband’s death, decided to return to writing non-fiction. This was a biography of a little-known artist and writer of the 1920s/1930s whose work had made such an impression on the biographer in her undergraduate years. Tuttle’s observations about motivation (on p. 507) were subtle and amusing, the biographer being unable to face housework on her return home following an exciting day and a meeting with her agent but when she read an email from the agent about the things she’d need to do for the biography she was embarking on, suddenly she could face the housework! I also liked the description of the biographee’s notebook used to write text on one side of each page, the other for lists, second thoughts, etc. These were familiar things to me as someone who also writes, which helped me to identify with the story’s protagonist. I was also working on a Ph.D. thesis at the time (it was aborted two years later) so the protagonist’s research project added further interest to the story.

Overall, I found the stories by Brian Keene and Jay Russell to be the best but I also very much liked those by Glen Hirshberg, Tanith Lee, Kim Newman, Lisa Tuttle and, to a lesser extent, Tim Lebbon. I also enjoyed browsing through the editor’s mass of horror-related news in the ‘Introduction: Horror in 2004’; the concluding necrology for 2004 compiled by Jones and Newman being also of interest. These are features of each annual anthology I look forward to reading.

[Kelsey · Rating 2 out of 5]

None of the stories really hit the mark for me. A couple were mildly enjoyable but none were creepy enough to warrant the title of 'horror'

#sorrynotsorry

[Donald · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is quite a collection of thinking and writing. I have gathered some more names of writers to keep an eye out for. Neil Gaiman is included and I usually like his stuff. Michael Marshall Smith, Tim Lebbon, Poppy Z. Brite and Glen Hirshberg are a few other names. If you get this collection, thumb right to Jay Russell's Apocalypse Now, Voyager. I like journeys and this one's pretty out there...

[Skjam! · Rating 3 out of 5]

Let’s go back to 2004 for what at least one editor considered excellent short horror fiction.

As with the later volume I have reviewed, there’s a lot of ancillary material. It opens with an extended look at horror and horror-adjacent works that came out in 2004. The most unusual bit was Anne Rice’s public meltdown in response to a review on Amazon (not quite the juggernaut it is now.) At the end, there’s a list of people in the field who passed away; the one that caught my eye was Richard Lancelyn Green, a Sherlock Holmes scholar who was either murdered or committed suicide in a bizarre manner designed to raise suspicions of murder. Also, the then current addresses of publishers for those looking to break into the horror field.

The twenty-one stories are bookended by Neil Gaiman works. “Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Nameless House of the Night of Dread Desire” is a delightfully silly piece about a writer in a gothic horror world who wants to tell a story in a hyper-realistic fashion but keeps falling into parody. Perhaps writing fantasy about burnt toast might help? “The Problem of Susan” is better-known and widely anthologized–it riffs on the missing protagonist in the final Narnia book and twists that series’ iconography. I like the first story better, but “Problem” is more powerful.

Some other stories that caught my attention:

“‘The King’ in: Yellow” by Brian Keene works with a performance of the forbidden play, but this time as a musical apparently starring actors impersonating famous dead musicians. Or are they just actors? The audience may not live long enough to find out.

“Tighter” by Christa Faust is about an escape artist who’s into bondage. Her fetish isn’t really the horror bit, though it does leave her vulnerable.

“Israbel” by Tanith Lee is set in Paris, and has a nifty twist on the notion that vampires have no reflections. An artist is commissioned to paint a picture, but his asking price may be too high.

“Soho Golem” by Kim Newman is set in the 1970s, in London’s red light district. A psychic investigator and his Scotland Yard contact investigate the horrific death of a corrupt police officer turned pornographer and blackmailer. A very vivid portrait of the time and place, with actual historical details mixed in. A ‘mature readers” piece, though not explicit, and I liked it quite a bit.

“Spells for Halloween: An Acrostic” by Dale Bailey is most notable for its format. Nine short paragraphs spelling out “Halloween” while trying to avoid the most obvious choices.

“My Death” by Lisa Tuttle is a long piece about an author deciding to write a biography of one of her great inspirations…who turns out to be still alive. This one spends a lot of time on atmosphere, leaving the reader guessing just where the horror aspect is going to come in. It pays off well.

A story I was less impressed by was “Stone Animals” by Kelly Link. A family buys a nice house in the country, but there’s something wrong with either it or them, as there is haunting going on. I found it a sodden mess that couldn’t quite commit to a storyline.

Content note: Since this is a horror anthology, most if not all of the standard horror nastiness is in one or another of the stories. Check the tags and proceed with caution.

Overall: A decent enough collection of stories, heavy on the Anglo-American authors. The lasting value is in the support material; a handy reference.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has a pretty pretentious title for its content. It should include the best new short stories of the horror genre, but unfortunately only a few of them are good, and only half of them are truly scary.
I guess the purpose of the book is to introduce us with the work of not-so-famous writers like Poppy Z. Brite, Christa Faust, Brian Keene and Lisa Tuttle. I was pleasantly surprised by them and equally disappointed by some well-known names such as Neil Gaiman.
The stories I liked are:
My Death by Lisa Tuttle - It's the longest story of all and meet us with a writer who wants to write a biography of a long forgotten woman. In order to do this, she has to do a lot of research into the mysterious woman's past which reveals many secrets and one of them will change her live forever;

Spells for Halloween: An Acrostic by Dale Bailey -It's not much of a story but it still feels good to read it;

Stone Animals by Kelly Link - This is my favorite story of all. There is almost everything a good horror story should include - black humor, an old haunted house and bunnies.

The Devil of Delery Street by Poppy Z. Brite - Scary story about a sick little girl who can't go out of her house and the creepy stranger who she sees through her window every night across the street;

Restraint by Stephen Gallagher - A single mother with her two children is chased by an unknown car on the night roads.

Tighter by Christa Faust - The story reveals the dark world of BDSM and the unusual love between man and woman. How far they will go in their sick games and who will be the first to fall?

Breaking Up by Ramsey Campbell - Anyone who had a maniac ex-girlfriend/boyfriend will understand this story true horrors;

The other stories are barely readable and hardly worth mentioning.
2.5/5 Stars

[Richard]

Grabbed this to read the short story My Death after something in the NY Times (click through for my review of that). Then I read the Gaiman story, then the other Gaiman story, and now I think I take a look at them all. I don’t really like horror, but none are actually horrific or scary so far…

[Chuck McKenzie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The entire run of Stephen Jone's annual 'Best New Horror' anthologies (early volumes entitled 'The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror') offers great reading, with each of the 31 individual volumes giving a great snapshot of the state of horror fiction Internationally for that particular year. Any fan of modern horror fiction will find it well worth the effort to track down copies of these books.

[Simon Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

An eclectic collection of imaginative and absorbing stories that prove you should never judge a book by its cover. There are some great reads here, and not even a whiff of Hammeresque schlock (discounting the first of two contributions from Neil Gaiman, which is consciously tongue-in-cheek).

[Philip Chaston · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too much dark fantasy, not enough horror

[Annie]

Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Nameless House of the Night of Dread Desire by Neil Gaiman --- 1 star

Lilies by Iain Rowan --- 3 stars

Breaking Up by Ramsey Campbell --- 2 stars

"The King", in: Yellow by Brian Keene --- 4 stars

A Trick of the Dark by Tina Rath --- 2 stars

The Mutable Borders of Love by Leslie What --- 2 stars

Flour White and Spindle Thin by L. H. Maynard and M. P. N. Sims --- 2 stars

Tighter by Christa Faust --- 3 stars (bondage gone wrong, or right?... lol)

Restraint by Stephen Gallagher --- 2 stars (Assholes would be assholes, even in death)

Israbel by Tanith Lee --- 2 stars (it was boring)

The Growlimb by Michael Shea --- 1 star (couldn't finished it....seriously what was the point?)

This Is Now by Michael Marshall Smith --- 2 stars

Remnants by Tim Lebbon --- 1 star

Safety Clowns by Glen Hirshberg --- 1 star (something about cocaine and ice-cream... DNF'd)

The Devil of Delery Street by Poppy Z. Brite --- 4 stars

Apocalypse Now, Voyager by Jay Russell --- 3 stars

Stone Animals by Kelly Link ---

Soho Golem by Kim Newman ---

Spells for Halloween: An Acrostic by Dale Bailey ---

My Death by Lisa Tuttle ---

The Problem of Susan by Neil Gaiman ---

[Greg Kerestan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume has a more diverse tone than many, with dark humor taking up a little more of the book than usual. "Forbidden Brides," "Spells for Halloween" and "The Problem of Susan" have black comedy and a sense of dark, grisly humor at their root, while Kim Newman's "Soho Golem" sits on the border between sci-fantasy and horror. Why hasn't the BBC made a Richard Jeperson and the Diogenes Club series yet? It's the role Matt Smith was born to play!

[Shanna Wynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good collection of fairly new horror stories. Unless you've picked up any other new horror story collections, you shouldn't see any repeats. Had some really interesting stories. Good inspiration for the horror writer.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

My favorite stories from this book are: "Lilies", "King,in:Yellow", "Restraint", "Israbel", "Safety Clowns", "Apocalypse Now, Voyager" and "Soho Golem". All the stories have an element of the macabre or the weird, but only a few were really scary.

[Suvi · Rating 3 out of 5]

None of the stories really stood out for me as brilliant or even great but I enjoyed reading the anthology. Contemporary horror just doesn't scare me, I really miss being spooked by mere words.

[bluetyson]

The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 16 (Mammoth Book of Best New Horror) by Stephen Jones (2005)

[Kristine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of all of the books in this series, this one is definitely in the top five.

[Jasmiina F · Rating 2 out of 5]

A disappointing collection of stories. Some stories were good, but not great horror stories.

[Bill Borre]

"Lilies" by Iain Rowan - A soldier awaiting orders to be sent to the front helps a dead woman who is being pursued by three men who want to assault her.