IMG_0023All as before, this is the fifth volume of the best horror stories as selected by Ellen Datlow for the year 2012; my review of the previous volume is here.

I found this collection a little more difficult to get into than volume 4 (my thoughts on that are here), and really questioned whether some of the stories were actually horror but I may just have a very traditional, some would say old-fashioned) view of the genre.

For me the stories that stuck with me were:

  • Frontier Death Song by Laird Barron – a modern twist on the ancient tales of The Hunt
  • Magdala Amygdala by Lucy A Snyder – looks like it’s going to be zombies (again) oh, but what’s this?
  • Final Exam by Megan Arkenberg – really liked the structure of this one
  • Some Pictures in an Album by Gary McMahon – very dark
  • The House on Ashley Avenue – nice twist on a haunted house story

So not quite as satisfying as the previous volume but still worth a read.

A contribution to the 2014 Horror Reading Challenge.horrorbutton2014