Best Anthology Series?

[Craig Herbertson]

Pan wins over Fontana by a decent margin for me.

American horror never actually chilled me because there was always a feeling, until I was a certain age, that America was a made up place anyway JLP

For all the reasons that you stated, John and particularly the above. One of the immense attractions of Pan Horror was the sensation as a kid, that this could actually happen. You sort of knew the participants and they were almost as scary as the woman in the old house up the road or the sickly sweet shop owner.

[Johnlprobert]

The weirdest thing Craig is that I can still walk around where I grew up and shudder because of the houses, streets and corner shops that still remind me of specific Pan stories.

[Craig Herbertson]

I know that feeling exactly, John. The worst of it is that childhood was peopled with these nightmares waiting to happen.

[Chuck_G]

Oct 3, 2009 13:33:26 GMT justin said:

The DAW Horror Stories.

Mainly because of the eclectic choice of Wagner as editor. He must have read pretty much every small press publication going (no mean feat at that time) and picked out some real gems. One story was either the script, or a story expanded from a script at Wagner's suggestion, from the EC tribute comic Twisted Tales.

Decent informative introductions that act as a snap-shot of genre fiction at the time as well as providing background on the authors and their motivations.

No god-awful 'public domain' stories to pad out a low-budget.

No hint of an "old boys club" in that if the story was good in Wagner's eyes than it was in, whether you were Stephen King or published in some cruddy old zine.

The books stand the test of time in terms of their quality.

This was always my favorite too. I enjoy the Mammoth Books of Best New Horror, but they just don't have the same feel that the DAWs had.

Another great series that I loved was Night Visions. They featured three authors who got a certain amount of words to do whatever they wanted. There were some great stories in there. Robert McCammon's 'Best Friends' remains one of my favorites.

[lemming13]

The weirdest thing Craig is that I can still walk around where I grew up and shudder because of the houses, streets and corner shops that still remind me of specific Pan stories.

I walk around where I grew up and shudder, but that's because I live in Stoke-on-Trent. ANYBODY would.

[Dr Strange]

There are people who will claim I was the scariest thing walking round in our neck of the woods when we were young (and foolish) - that's even with this sort of thing cropping up every few years:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-11138122