Still plugging away at the YEAR’S BEST HORROR STORIES, and each seems to be getting longer than the one prior. But not better. As he combed through numerous sources (including many zines with extremely limited distribution, many of which I actually collected) to select what he deemed to be “the best,” Karl Edward Wagner was really stretching the boundaries of the horror story. In both style and format. And in the process (in my opinion), speeding up the entropy of this series.
From YBHS #17, I liked "Works of Art" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman, "She's a Young Thing and Cannot Leave Her Mother" by Harlan Ellison, "What Dreams May Come" by Brad Strickland, "Regression" by R. Chetwynd-Hayes, "Souvenirs from a Damnation" by Don Webb (an instance in which the unusual format - unfolding a story around descriptions of random items that lead up to a diabolical ceremony - is ingenious), and "Nobody's Perfect" by Thomas F. Monteleone (almost a perfect story but with something akin to a deus ex machina ending). Honorable mention goes to "Recrudescence" by Leonard Carpenter. This book features more poetry (this time by Robert Frazier) and stories about Screamin' Lord Sutch and Sawney Beane (that's the aforementioned Ellison), plus a lot of terrible stuff by the usual suspects (you know the names) and a few newbies giving those a run for their money, like M. John Harrison (with a WTF tale possibly even worse than his "Egnaro"), Nicholas Royle and Wayne Allen Sallee (offering a meta chronicle that incorporates his previous three stories published in YBHS, albeit this go-round with an actual plot).
From YBHS #18, the Good: "Meeting the Author" (one of the half-dozen or so RC works I’ve liked), "Buckets" by F. Paul Wilson (I’d already encountered this potentially polarizing story in OCTOBER DREAMS), "Mr. Sandman" by Scott D. Yost, “On the Dark Road” by Ian McDowell, “Nights in the City” by Jessica Amanda Salmonson, and “The Motivation” by David Langford (this one really got under my skin). Honorable mention goes to "Renaissance" by A. F. Kidd. Many were Bad, but the Truly Egregious were from t. Winter-Damon, W. H. Pugmire (taking over the top spot for shortest tale in the series at less than a page), M. John Harrison (another indescribable outing, culled from an anthology on tarot cards!), and Wayne Allen Sallee (who returns to his usual theme, the pointless documenting of a violent incident). There were back-to-back stories about scary clergymen (one supernatural, one not), plus three poems, one that marks the second appearance here by Sallee. Finally, David J. Schow's "Jerry's Kids Meet Wormboy" (which I had previously encountered in the zombie collection BOOK OF THE DEAD) captures the trophy for best title in the series, although what it promises doesn’t quite match what it offers up (MDA children were nowhere to be found). I suppose it’s accurate to accuse Schow of employing relentlessly and gruesomely purple prose when he writes. Yet what makes this story’s inclusion (and others lately) particularly weird is that something so gleefully gross contradicts what Wagner keeps claiming in his intros this series is supposed to be the antidote for, namely “mindless special-effects junkfood with exploding heads, eviscerated victims, and rotting zombies,” as well as “stalk-and-slash splatterfilms.”
Anyway, two more down, only four more YBHS to go.
From YBHS #17, I liked "Works of Art" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman, "She's a Young Thing and Cannot Leave Her Mother" by Harlan Ellison, "What Dreams May Come" by Brad Strickland, "Regression" by R. Chetwynd-Hayes, "Souvenirs from a Damnation" by Don Webb (an instance in which the unusual format - unfolding a story around descriptions of random items that lead up to a diabolical ceremony - is ingenious), and "Nobody's Perfect" by Thomas F. Monteleone (almost a perfect story but with something akin to a deus ex machina ending). Honorable mention goes to "Recrudescence" by Leonard Carpenter. This book features more poetry (this time by Robert Frazier) and stories about Screamin' Lord Sutch and Sawney Beane (that's the aforementioned Ellison), plus a lot of terrible stuff by the usual suspects (you know the names) and a few newbies giving those a run for their money, like M. John Harrison (with a WTF tale possibly even worse than his "Egnaro"), Nicholas Royle and Wayne Allen Sallee (offering a meta chronicle that incorporates his previous three stories published in YBHS, albeit this go-round with an actual plot).
From YBHS #18, the Good: "Meeting the Author" (one of the half-dozen or so RC works I’ve liked), "Buckets" by F. Paul Wilson (I’d already encountered this potentially polarizing story in OCTOBER DREAMS), "Mr. Sandman" by Scott D. Yost, “On the Dark Road” by Ian McDowell, “Nights in the City” by Jessica Amanda Salmonson, and “The Motivation” by David Langford (this one really got under my skin). Honorable mention goes to "Renaissance" by A. F. Kidd. Many were Bad, but the Truly Egregious were from t. Winter-Damon, W. H. Pugmire (taking over the top spot for shortest tale in the series at less than a page), M. John Harrison (another indescribable outing, culled from an anthology on tarot cards!), and Wayne Allen Sallee (who returns to his usual theme, the pointless documenting of a violent incident). There were back-to-back stories about scary clergymen (one supernatural, one not), plus three poems, one that marks the second appearance here by Sallee. Finally, David J. Schow's "Jerry's Kids Meet Wormboy" (which I had previously encountered in the zombie collection BOOK OF THE DEAD) captures the trophy for best title in the series, although what it promises doesn’t quite match what it offers up (MDA children were nowhere to be found). I suppose it’s accurate to accuse Schow of employing relentlessly and gruesomely purple prose when he writes. Yet what makes this story’s inclusion (and others lately) particularly weird is that something so gleefully gross contradicts what Wagner keeps claiming in his intros this series is supposed to be the antidote for, namely “mindless special-effects junkfood with exploding heads, eviscerated victims, and rotting zombies,” as well as “stalk-and-slash splatterfilms.”
Anyway, two more down, only four more YBHS to go.
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