Darkness: Two Decades of Modern Horror (Datlow 2010)

[pbsplatter]

23 • Jacqueline Ess: Her Will and Testament • (1984) • novelette by Clive Barker

59 • Dancing Chickens • (1984) • short story by Edward Bryant

69 • The Greater Festival of Masks • (1985) • short story by Thomas Ligotti

77 • The Pear-Shaped Man • (1987) • novelette by George R. R. Martin

107 • The Juniper Tree • [Blue Rose (Peter Straub)] • (1988) • novelette by Peter Straub

137 • Two Minutes Forty-Five Seconds • (1988) • short story by Dan Simmons

145 • The Power and the Passion • (1989) • short story by Pat Cadigan

159 • The Phone Woman • (1991) • short story by Joe R. Lansdale

173 • Teratisms • (1991) • short story by Kathe Koja

183 • Chattery Teeth • (1992) • novelette by Stephen King

215 • A Little Night Music • (1992) • short story by Lucius Shepard

231 • Calcutta, Lord of Nerves • (1992) • short story by Poppy Z. Brite

245 • The Erl-King • (1993) • novelette by Elizabeth Hand

283 • The Dog Park • (1993) • short story by Dennis Etchison

297 • Rain Falls • (1994) • short story by Michael Marshall Smith

309 • Refrigerator Heaven • (1995) • short story by David J. Schow

321 • █████ (1995) • short story by Joyce Carol Oates

335 • Eaten (Scenes from a Moving Picture) • (1996) • poem by Neil Gaiman

343 • The Specialist's Hat • (1998) • short story by Kelly Link

357 • The Tree Is My Hat • (1999) • novelette by Gene Wolfe

383 • Heat • (1999) • short story by Steve Rasnic Tem

393 • No Strings • (2000) • short story by Ramsey Campbell

403 • Stitch • (2002) • short story by Terry Dowling

417 • Dancing Men • (2003) • novelette by Glen Hirshberg

451 • My Father's Mask • (2005) • novelette by Joe Hill

This is a great collection of "modern" horror (what some people called the "new horror" maybe?) through its heyday of the mid-80s until the mid 00s. 

Most will probably already have a few of these stories in one collection or another but this is an almost uniformly excellent (and actually scary!) anthology that covers a great breadth of horror (and a real eye-opener for me, who only knew about George RR Martin as a fantasy author). 

[enoch]

Thank you so much for posting this.  I've been trying to locate that Oates story for years but couldn't remember in which anthology I'd read it (it wasn't this one).  I'm going to buy this book for that story alone, and if the others in it are even half as good as that one, this will be a great read.

[pbsplatter]

Jan 12, 2023 3:31:37 GMT enoch said:

Thank you so much for posting this.  I've been trying to locate that Oates story for years but couldn't remember in which anthology I'd read it (it wasn't this one).  I'm going to buy this book for that story alone, and if the others in it are even half as good as that one, this will be a great read.

Delighted to help!

That Oates story is one of her best, and I can see how it would be hard to track it down given the title…

As for the rest of the anthology, you’re in for a treat. Looking over this, a lot of the stories in here actually *scared* me (rather than just being exciting or pleasingly macabre etc) I think the pick of the litter is the George RR Martin story—wonderfully creepy and well written.

But just about every story in there is good. There are a few that I recall not caring for, but even those stories were well written and accomplished what they set out to do; it was more a question of my taste.