The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, 2016 Edition
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
Macabre meetings, sinister excursions, and deadly relationships; uncanny encounters; a classic ghost story featuring an American god; a historical murderer revived in a frightening new iteration; innovative Lovecraftian turns; shadowy fairy tales and weird myths; strange children, the unexpected, the supernatural, the surreal, and the all-too real . . . tales of the dark. Such stories have always fascinated us, and modern authors carry on the disquieting traditions of the past while inventing imaginative new ways to unsettle us. Chosen from a wide variety of venues, these stories are as eclectic and varied as shadows. This volume of 2015's best dark fantasy and horror offers more than five hundred pages of tales from some of today's finest writers of the fantastique―sure to delight as well as disturb.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This collection, thematically dark though it is, contains multitudes that stretch the breadth of the fantasy and horror genres, from dark historical pieces of fantasy (Angela Slatter's "Ripper," which follows a young woman in male disguise as she investigates the Jack the Ripper murders in a delicately magical historical London) to the eerie and terrible (Kaaron Warren's "The Body Finder," in which a man is murdered as he searches for corpses to set their spirits free). Caitlin R. Kiernan's "The Cripple and the Starfish" meanders without ever really finding its way, and Kai Ashante Wilson's "Kaiju Maximus" by explores a very interesting world but does not quite resolve itself. By contrast, Gemma Files's "Hairwork," which chronicles a woman's horrible revenge against the family line of the man who enslaved her, provides consistent chills and a strong finish. This anthology is best approached with a pick-and-choose attitude by readers who are willing to sift through the hefty volume to find the best shivers.
