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Post by nightreader on Mar 18, 2008 14:08:49 GMT
Cover art: Michael Whelan ‘The Year’s Best Horror Stories 8’ – Ed. by Karl Edward Wagner (DAW 1980) ‘The Dead Line’ – Dennis Etchison ‘To Wake The Dead’ – Ramsey Campbell ‘In The Fourth Year of the War’ – Harlan Ellison ‘From The Lower Deep’ – Hugh B. Cave ‘The Baby Sitter’ – Davis Grubb ‘The Well at the Half Cat’ – John Tibbetts ‘My Beautiful Darkling’ – Eddy C. Bertin ‘A Serious Call’ – George Hay ‘Sheets’ – Alan Ryan ‘Billy Wolfe’s Riding Spirit’ – Kevin A. Lyons ‘Lex Talionis’ – Russell Kirk ‘Entombed’ – Robert Keefe ‘A Fly One’ – Steve Sneyd ‘Needle Song’ – Charles L. Grant ‘All The Birds Come Home To Roost’ – Harlan Ellison ‘The Devil Behind You’ – Richard A. Moore
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Post by dem bones on Mar 18, 2008 16:40:17 GMT
Michael Whelan I've the uniform black cover editions of this and #. 10, nightie, but they look far better unadorned as it gives Michael Whelan's striking artwork space to breathe. I remember #8 as being the one that got me interested in the series, though it's been a long time .... Now I think of it, the Kevin Lyon's story is from Easyriders, so we could be talking another biker-horror crossover! Michael Whelan
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Post by dem bones on Feb 28, 2014 19:28:15 GMT
Ramsey Campbell - To Wake The Dead: Her parents think she and Wendy will be spending the evening at the cinema watching Rock Around The Clock, but their ten year old is up at the local haunted house where Richard and his teen gang are conducting a seance using a roller-skate as planchette. All is boredom until the skate goes crazy and fair whizzes around the board. The evil spirit orders all bar Wendy to leave the room, but in the ensuing scramble, it's the younger girl is locked in. The putty-like entity pleasures itself regardless.
Hugh B. Cave - From The Lower Deep: Freelance photographer Matthew Greene in a mercy dash home to the small island after an earthquake opens the slit in Bruckers' Cave. Can he get to the villagers before they are are torn apart and devoured by the frog people?
Steve Sneyd - A Fly One: Police chief Wrczynski interviews a hunchback in connection with the mutilation murder of young Elizabeth Joy Manvers. The deformed wretch, admitting to the crime, insists a sacrifice of virgin's blood was necessary to complete his transformation. The hump on his back goes throb-swell-pulsate, throb-swell-pulsate, throb-swell .....
Alan Ryan - Sheets: "Give me linen or give me death." A tedious holiday job in Macy's drives ambitious George April out of his mind.
Kevin A. Lyons - Billy Wolfe's Riding Spirit: He's been dead a year, but still the Police can't take black leather outlaw biker Billy into custody for his multitude of petty offences. Every full moon he makes the run toward Delaware and no roadblock on earth will stop a corpse on a Harley. Narrated by the big hairy guy from the Fish & Game department who earns a crust scraping roadkill deer into his truck.
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Post by dem bones on Mar 2, 2014 14:41:29 GMT
Charles L. Grant - Needle Song: "The snowmen were bigger, the snow forts more elaborate, and Eric's father came home twice with promotions and once with a car big enough to hold thousands ..... Eric discovered he had a natural talent for musical instruments, and his teacher told him in all honesty that one day he would be famous. Jackie Potter's family won a state lottery .... and there seemed nothing at all wrong in standing by the front window and listening to the piano drawing them closer ..."
When the ancient lady first moved her spartan possessions into the 'haunted' house at 138 Hawthorne Street, it seemed she brought good fortune as the entire neighbourhood prospered. It's not that way any more, and Eric and Caren realise it is all because of the vampire witch sucking them dry with her music. Let psychic battle commence! Like Philip K. Dick's The Cookie Lady rewritten by Ray Bradbury.
George Hay - A Serious Call: "A thrill sped through me. A genuine, dyed-in-the-wool fundamentalist? Here, in the grimy wastes of Potters Bar? Can such things be?" Against a backdrop of spectacular thunderstorm, the Rev. Paul Tremblett lectures local students on the existence of the Devil. It is Tremblett's belief that, by dismissing Satan as an old wives tale, we play into his horny hands. The Devil would prefer Tremblett keep this information to himself. Jamesian in that our narrator was preparing a thesis on the Ghost Stories of M. R. James at the time.
Richard A. Moore - The Devil Behind You: An eight year old boy sneaks away early from church to play in the forest - and soon wishes he hadn't when, out from behind a tree creeps the Devil! The Devil wears a ragged suit just like the men in the county prison and, he has a proposition for his new little friend: either the kid steals him the church organist's car keys, or he'll be condemned to the fiery pit!
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Post by dem bones on Mar 6, 2014 20:04:33 GMT
Eddy C. Bertin - My Beautiful Darkling: "I can taste thoughts." A sixty-two year old is taken into custody after exposing himself in public and assaulting a police officer at the fairground. His psychiatrist, Dr. Fred Hildeblink, explains how the patient came to suffer bizarre delusions after his unrequited love for a young factory worker ended in tragedy. He genuinely believes that the girl, Cathy, is a succubus, feeding off his essence, but perhaps now that he is old and used up, she will want a younger model. Robert Keefe - Entombed: An alienated seventeen year old skips school to visit his beloved Egyptian room in the local museum. This time he contrives to get himself locked in with the mummies after dark. They are pleased to see him. Harlan Ellison - All The Birds Come Home To Roost: An attorney is haunted by all the women with whom he's had a relationship. One by one they drift back into his life in the exact reverse order he met them. The bad news is, his first lover, ex-wife, Cindy, is a dangerous lunatic. As recently revived by Stephen Jones in the super Psycho-Mania!Davis Grubb - The Babysitter: Marion is sitting for the twins, Joe and Jim juniour, and baby. The boys wanna play with Dad's M-16 rifle. It's Ok - Joe knows all there is to know about the safety catch. Oops.
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Post by dem bones on Apr 18, 2015 9:35:10 GMT
Dennis Etchison - The Dead Line: Not one to do the donor recruitment drive any favours. An ever-pragmatic medical profession have realised the brain dead are ripe for asset stripping and set to coercing their relatives into believing "it's what they would have wanted." Hooked up to machines that will keep their bodies alive indefinitely, the patients are divested of blood, eyes, organs, intestine, even skin as the need arises. Our narrator, who has watched his wife gutted over a cruelly protracted period, can take no more. Don't always get on with DE's work, but this is one diabolically horrible horror story.
Harlan Ellison - In The Fourth Year of the War. Crusty Hal's Psycho ... sort of. Narrator is ordered to kill by the detested 'Jerry Olander' who has taken up residence in his brain. Victims include everyone who ever did our man wrong or even looked at him the least funny, culminating in an attack on Nancy, his much-loved ex-wife.
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Post by mattofthespurs on Apr 18, 2015 10:50:17 GMT
Volume 8 was the first volume I bought, brand new, back in the day. Over the years I ended up with about half the series and two years back decided to complete the collection. Took me far longer than it should have done but I now have them all. I also have a rather dandy hardback, signed, clam shelled book called Horry Story volume 4 which is in fact The Years Best Horror Stories Volumes X, XI, and XII. Can't remember where I got it or for how much but it's quite attractive.
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