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Post by dem bones on Jan 30, 2008 8:54:13 GMT
Karl E. Wagner (ed.) - Years Best Horror Stories XIV (DAW, 1986)  Cover art by Michael Whelan
Charles L. Grant - Penny Daye
David B. Silva - Dwindling
Phillip C. Heath - Dead Men's Fingers
Leonard Carpenter - Dead Week
Ramsey Campbell - The Sneering
David J. Schow - Bunny Didn't Tell Us
Tanith Lee - Pinewood
Michael Reeves - The Night People
William F. Nolan - Ceremony
Dennis Etchison - The Woman In Black
Simon Clark - ... Beside The Seaside, Beside The Sea ...
Stephen T. Wilcox - Mother's Day
Vincent McHardy - Lava Tears
Wayne Allen Sallee - Rapid Transit
John Alfred Taylor - The Weight Of Zero
Christopher Burns - John's Return To Liverpool
Paul M. Sammon - In Late December, Before The Storm
David Garnett - Red Christmas
Steve Sneyd - Too Far Behind GradinaIncludes: Charles L. Grant - Penny Daye. A lonely young girl spends a night at Stonehenge and deliberately allows herself to freeze to death as a vengeance on the world. The narrator, holidaying in England, sees the girl's ghost, and soon finds himself taking her place. "... hearing the aged voices that clung to the air, filled with angry tears and angry questions I have seen myself shed and heard myself ask whenever I turn on my light and there is no-one home but me ... a woman to love me fleetingly, to cherish me briefly, dream of me just once in a large, empty bed". Truly heart-breaking. Phillip C. Heath - Dead Men's Fingers. The whaler Jezebel comes upon the slowly sinking derelict The Reaper in the Pacific, and Captain Seabury gives the order to board. In the hold they discover 2500 barrels of whale oil, worth a fortune back in London, and the picked clean skeletons of the crew. Seabury returns to his own ship, taking with him the Reaper's logbook and, while his men transfer the oil, he reads of the terrible events that befell the other ship in June 1846 when she took aboard a barnacle-encrusted Whale carcass ... David Garnett - Red Christmas. Richard Franks is trying to track a killer who has struck eight times in the eight day run up to Christmas. On the night of the 24th it suddenly strikes him just who the murderers are - just as his wife unbolts the door to allow in ... Ramsey Campbell - The Sneering. A retired, childless middle-class couple can only watch in frustration as first a council estate and then a busy main road are built next to the house on which they spent their life-savings. Their lives take another bad turn when Emily distractedly wanders into the road and a young motorist is killed when he swerves to avoid her. She remembers little of the tragedy at first, but Jack can't forget the look of hatred on the driver's face as he bore down on the old dear. Now his ghost is looking for revenge ... Christopher Burns - John's Return To Liverpool. The flesh and blood ghost of John Lennon stays at the flat of one of the Beatles' earliest fans until death reclaims him. Dorothy can only watch helplessly as the life is slowly drained from him a second time. Grim. Wayne Allen Sallee - Rapid Transit. First, and probably best of the Dennis Cassady trilogy. Cassady witnesses the slaughter of a young woman Jack the Ripper style, and is tortured near to breaking point by his guilt at not having intervened to save her - though it's doubtful that he could have prevented the murder. Tanith Lee - Pinewood. Quieter - but no less effective - horror of the everyday variety, as Pamela refuses to come to terms with the fact that her beloved David is dead.
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Post by Johnlprobert on May 1, 2009 18:15:29 GMT
I'm not a huge fan of 'American Gothic' but having recently acquired a stack of these volumes here begins my attempts to get seriously stuck into American short horror fiction. I appreciate that there are quite a few UK writers represented in this series but nevertheless there's a distinct American 'feel' to the books. So here we go! Charles L Grant - Penny Daye. As Mr D says above, this is a truly heartbreaking tale. Or it's the story of someone who never had the guts to pull himself together at the most important moment of his life. Probably both, actually, depending on if you're sympathetic Demonik or rather less sympathetic JLP. There's no denying this is beautifully written, however, and fits both the description of Grant's work I have heard as being 'quiet horror' and also to something I remember Ramsey Campbell saying once about how the more experienced you get as an author the less plot matters until eventually what you write is almost about nothing at all. I'm not a big fan of 'quiet nothing horror' but I'd recommend this tale to anyone. Really very good. Dwindling - David B Silva: A boy's family literally disappears around him as he realises his mother has wished that she had never had a family in the first place. One of those stories that starts with 'In the summer,just after school let out, the pastures were still green and there was a freshness in the air that wouldn't die until the raw August temperatures broiled it from memory. The wind was tender and breezy then. During the day the sky was a faint blue. But near sundown it would open its throat and the blue would turn purple, thick and rich and friendly etc etc etc.' I suspect it's just me but this is just the sort of thing that turns me off a story. For an opening sentence of a horror story I have to say I really really don't care what the weather was like. I might do if I know what the story is going to be about but until then, and unless the author gets to something approaching a point for all this pretty soon he's going to lose me. I know - I'm a Philistine  |
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Post by dem bones on May 1, 2009 21:40:25 GMT
I adore Karl E. Wagner's enthusiastic, sharp as nails editorials, but when it came to deciding each years 'best' offerings, he was nothing if not eclectic, so, depending on your viewpoint, you're going to find some 'great' stories mixing it with some absolute tripe (see also Stephen Jones' Mammoth Years Best Horrors. Having said that, Vol XIV is one of my favourites from the series for the trad horrors of Philip C. Heath and David Garnett (Red Christmas is very Black Book of Horror), plus the rather more "challenging" efforts of Grant, Sallee and Campbell. Wish i'd commented on them all at the time as i'm pretty sure Simon Clark is another fellow on good form ....
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Jul 26, 2012 11:49:22 GMT
Phillip C. Heath - Dead Men's Fingers. The whaler Jezebel comes upon the slowly sinking derelict The Reaper in the Pacific, and Captain Seabury gives the order to board. In the hold they discover 2500 barrels of whale oil, worth a fortune back in London, and the picked clean skeletons of the crew. Seabury returns to his own ship, taking with him the Reaper's logbook and, while his men transfer the oil, he reads of the terrible events that befell the other ship in June 1846 when she took aboard a barnacle-encrusted Whale carcass ... I enjoyed this story immensely--it's essentially Moby Dick with flesh-eating barnacles. Dwindling - David B Silva: A boy's family literally disappears around him as he realises his mother has wished that she had never had a family in the first place. One of those stories that starts with 'In the summer,just after school let out, the pastures were still green and there was a freshness in the air that wouldn't die until the raw August temperatures broiled it from memory. The wind was tender and breezy then. During the day the sky was a faint blue. But near sundown it would open its throat and the blue would turn purple, thick and rich and friendly etc etc etc.' I suspect it's just me but this is just the sort of thing that turns me off a story. For an opening sentence of a horror story I have to say I really really don't care what the weather was like. Same here. The rest of the story is OK, though I think Matheson's "Disappearing Act" still holds the title as the best story about people blinking out of existence. |
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Jul 31, 2012 1:08:23 GMT
Three more high points:
Leonard Carpenter - Dead Week
It’s the end of the semester at the University of California. Cassy is already overwhelmed from studying for her finals and working in her lab when she discovers that that she forgot to drop a class. Driven to distraction and desperate to get the requisite signature on her withdrawal paperwork, she visits the professor who’s teaching the class. He proves to be a charming, if morbid, demographer who treats her to a brief lecture on the course’s topic: the limits of population. To say more would be ruining the fun of a conclusion that brings a number of little details together into a satisfying conclusion.
As someone who’s lived his entire adult life in an academic setting, I always appreciate seeing writers get the details right. Carpenter nails them.
David J. Show – Bunny Didn’t Tell Us
Bunny, a drug lord, sends two of his henchmen to retrieve a giant diamond from the grave of his murdered rival. On digging up the grave, the henchmen make two unwelcome discoveries. The first is that the deceased chose to be buried in his Cadillac. The second is that the corpse is not exactly slumbering quietly.
Ceremony – William F. Nolan
The nameless protagonist is a hitman, traveling by bus to his latest job. His plans go awry when the bus makes an unexpected stop in the tiny, decaying village of Doour’s Mill, Rhode Island. Forced to stay for the night—Halloween night, to be specific—the hitman receives repeated invitations to “the Ceremony.” He declines, or so he thinks. Anyone familiar with the towns of Zachry, Maine, and Gatlin, Nebraska, may see where this is headed, but the journey is still enjoyable.
With XIV completed, I’ve opened up a one-book lead on JLP. ;D
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Post by Johnlprobert on Jul 6, 2013 9:41:41 GMT
It's always good to tale a break I think, but over four years since I last picked this one up is pushing it a bit. Anyway:
Phillip C. Heath - Dead Men's Fingers. Every now & then I read a story that makes me fall in love with the horror genre all over again. Such is the case with this terrific, terrifying story set on the high seas. A whaler comes across a derelict boat built for the same purpose floating adrift. There's lots of lovely whale oil in the hold and a desiccated skeleton on a bunk with a bullet hole in its skull. Will the captain be able to read the journal and find out what happened? Or will those dodgy-looking barnacles creep up on him before he can? Read it the full light of day, this one actually had me looking up every now and then to make sure there weren't horrible creepy molluscs slithering across the floor to get me. Some superb scenes of horror and a lovingly detailed description of the flesh-eating monsters, I love Philip C Heath, whoever he may be.
Leonard Carpenter - Dead Week. A complete change of pace which, of course, is what's needed. Favourite bit for me was the professor's theories on how humans create their own ways of limiting the population when it gets out of control.
Ramsey Campbell - The Sneering. A ghostly tale of revenge told the way only Mr Campbell can. Properly moving descriptions of a woman's descent into dementia while her husband can do very little but look on. Of course that's what the story is about, but the ghost angle does allow for the story to end with a satisfying smack.
David J. Schow - Bunny Didn't Tell Us. Gangland killings and undead revenge in Schow's usual style (which I love, by the way).
Tanith Lee - Pinewood. This one surprised me, not because of the denouement, which you can see coming, but because you can see it coming and it doesn't render the story any less tragic. A day in the life of a wife who plans to meet her husband for lunch and then realises he's made other arrangements, waits for him at home, buys him a new book because he's been stuck on the one on his bedside table unread for at least a month now. We can all guess what's happened but this is still a great little story.
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Post by dem bones on Jul 6, 2013 17:41:26 GMT
Lovely to hear from you, your worship! This really is one of the very best YBH's. Not quite up there with Dead Man's Fingers, perhaps, but still bloody good is:
Simon Clark - ... Beside The Seaside, Beside The Sea ...: A strange girl washes up on the beach, wanders into town, investigates the bars. Everywhere she goes, she attracts comment from the usual boorish drunks on account of her striking appearance (she wears her hair like Sadako in Ring). The charmless Shillies and his mate take her for a retard and lead her round back of a fish & chip shop for some non-consensual slap and tickle. She's not in the mood. There are plenty more fish in the sea, but safe to say our our would-be rapists will not be trying it on with any one of them in foreseeable future.
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