The Best Horror of the Year Volume Twelve
Registered by 
GoryDetails
of Nashua, New Hampshire USA on 10/15/2020
This Book is Currently in the Wild!
GoryDetails of Nashua, New Hampshire USA on 10/15/2020 This Book is Currently in the Wild!
1 journaler for this copy...
I got this softcover at Toadstool Books in Nashua NH, unable to resist Reiko Murakami's cover illustration. And I do love a good horror anthology! This one contains stories from 2019; notable tales include:
"A Song for Wounded Mouths" by Kristi Demeester blends a jar of loose teeth and a haunted-house theme into a tragic and terrifying tale.
"Birds of Passage" by Gordon B. White has a man recalling a camping trip he and his father took long ago - one that resulted in their encounter with truly strange beings in a place that might not be a part of the normal world. Nice blend of father/son relationships with lost-in-the-wilderness fears, plus some extra eeriness.
"The Senior Girls Bayonet Drill Team" by Joe R. Lansdale: Lansdale's inventiveness knows no taboos, and here he turns a drill-team concept into a lethal sport - yet maintains the sense of cameraderie as well as the rivalry among the teammates.
"The Night Nurse" by Sarah Langan pits a beleaguered wife and mother against someone with baleful powers, leading to a truly desperate choice.
"Nor Cease You Never Now" by Ren Warom, about a couple whose children were drowned; the story's told in fragments, the viewpoints not always reliable, and the atmosphere unsettled and tragic.
"Playscape" by Diana Peterfreund: a child's gone missing from a local playground, tragic of course - but then the protagonist hears her own child say that there's a hole in the slide, a scary one... The story includes the pressure of guilt and recrimination surrounding a lost child as well as the all too real fears for one's own.
"Adrenaline Junkies" by Ray Cluley is about a group of friends who seek adventure - and find more than they expected when they tackle parachute runs over a cenote.
"My Name is Ellie" by Sam Reselein is a child's account of an increasingly horrific situation involving her fondness for little ceramic people - all the more awful when we learn the origin of said people!
"Slipper" by Catriona Ward is about two women facing the haunted former monastery that terrified them as children - and where one believes that Something still lives deep below, expecting sacrifices.
"This Was Always Going to Happen" by Stephen Graham Jones is a short-short that opens with a person having a blowout on a winding road and tackling the tire-changing routine with the help of a passing cyclist. Sounds benign, right? Very much some real-world fear here, and over such a small set of choices!
"The Butcher's Table" by Nathan Ballingrud is a novella about ships sailing to the afterlife seeking valuable cargo from the bodies of dead angels; a ghostly pirate captain seeks to meet his long-lost lover again; one man desperately craves to BE the sacrifice; oh, it's a very involved story with plenty of world-building, almost its own mythos though with plenty of nods to classical ones. Creepy, gruesome, atmospheric...
"A Song for Wounded Mouths" by Kristi Demeester blends a jar of loose teeth and a haunted-house theme into a tragic and terrifying tale.
"Birds of Passage" by Gordon B. White has a man recalling a camping trip he and his father took long ago - one that resulted in their encounter with truly strange beings in a place that might not be a part of the normal world. Nice blend of father/son relationships with lost-in-the-wilderness fears, plus some extra eeriness.
"The Senior Girls Bayonet Drill Team" by Joe R. Lansdale: Lansdale's inventiveness knows no taboos, and here he turns a drill-team concept into a lethal sport - yet maintains the sense of cameraderie as well as the rivalry among the teammates.
"The Night Nurse" by Sarah Langan pits a beleaguered wife and mother against someone with baleful powers, leading to a truly desperate choice.
"Nor Cease You Never Now" by Ren Warom, about a couple whose children were drowned; the story's told in fragments, the viewpoints not always reliable, and the atmosphere unsettled and tragic.
"Playscape" by Diana Peterfreund: a child's gone missing from a local playground, tragic of course - but then the protagonist hears her own child say that there's a hole in the slide, a scary one... The story includes the pressure of guilt and recrimination surrounding a lost child as well as the all too real fears for one's own.
"Adrenaline Junkies" by Ray Cluley is about a group of friends who seek adventure - and find more than they expected when they tackle parachute runs over a cenote.
"My Name is Ellie" by Sam Reselein is a child's account of an increasingly horrific situation involving her fondness for little ceramic people - all the more awful when we learn the origin of said people!
"Slipper" by Catriona Ward is about two women facing the haunted former monastery that terrified them as children - and where one believes that Something still lives deep below, expecting sacrifices.
"This Was Always Going to Happen" by Stephen Graham Jones is a short-short that opens with a person having a blowout on a winding road and tackling the tire-changing routine with the help of a passing cyclist. Sounds benign, right? Very much some real-world fear here, and over such a small set of choices!
"The Butcher's Table" by Nathan Ballingrud is a novella about ships sailing to the afterlife seeking valuable cargo from the bodies of dead angels; a ghostly pirate captain seeks to meet his long-lost lover again; one man desperately craves to BE the sacrifice; oh, it's a very involved story with plenty of world-building, almost its own mythos though with plenty of nods to classical ones. Creepy, gruesome, atmospheric...
Journal Entry 2 by GoryDetails at Little Free Library, Hartshorn Mill Rd in Amherst, New Hampshire USA on Friday, February 12, 2021
GoryDetails at Little Free Library, Hartshorn Mill Rd in Amherst, New Hampshire USA on Friday, February 12, 2021
Released 3 yrs ago (2/12/2021 UTC) at Little Free Library, Hartshorn Mill Rd in Amherst, New Hampshire USA
WILD RELEASE NOTES:
Guidelines for safely visiting and stocking Little Free Libraries during the COVID-19 pandemic, from the LFL site here.I left this book in the Little Free Library; hope someone enjoys it!
[See other recent releases in NH here.]
*** Released for the 2021 Asian Zodiac Year of the Ox challenge, for "year" and "twelve" in the title. ***
*** Released for the 2021 Great Backyard Bird Count challenge (see www.birdcount.org to join the count), for the wings on the cover. ***
*** Released for the 2021 Heads Shoulders Knees Toes challenge, for the embedded "ear" in the title. ***
