THE BEST HORROR OF THE YEAR:

THE BEST HORROR OF THE YEAR, Vol. 1, ed. by Ellen Datlow. Night Shade Books (www.nightshadebooks.com), 2009, 321 pp., $15.95. ISBN 978-1-59780-161-4

Editor Ellen Datlow does not miss a beat in providing readers with a first-rate collection of the most frightening stories, and this retrospective gives us plenty.

In “Cargo,” author E. Michael Lewis gives us Tech Sergeant Davis in the cargo hold of a Star Lifter C-141 military transport plane. Loadmaster Davis has to manage a cargo of coffins bearing the bodies of children, victims of cyanide-laced Kool Aid poisoning from the Jonestown suicide-massacre in the late 1970s. The transport leaves Timehri Airport outside Georgetown, Guyana, bound for Dover, Delaware.

The anticipated uneventful flight is handled by Davis as routinely as brushing his teeth – except in the case when violent death precedes a most unquiet haunting. Especially by children.

In “The Clay Party” by Steve Duffy, Jefferson Clay leads pioneers on a perilous and deadly trek to the California coast during the Gold Rush years of the 1800s. This is an accounting of grueling experiences in the wilderness, ultimately resulting in death and agony for many on the journey.

William Browning Spencer’s “Penguins of the Apocalypse” brings us Sam Silvers, an on-again, off-again recovering (or recovery avoidance) alcoholic who keeps encountering a man by the name of Derrick Thorn. Thorn kidnaps Sam’s son, Danny. Thorn then demands that Sam find a way to release the penguins at the zoo. Release the what? Yes, penguins, Thorn insists. Who – or what – is Thorn? Could he be the haunting spirit of an alcoholic, a POOKA?

“The Hodag” by Trent Hergenrader gives us a tale of childhood in Oswego, a tiny lake town in northern Wisconsin. The tale recounts the plight of the dog Maggie and her survival after being almost killed by a woods-demon called a “hodag,” a mythical creature of the Wisconsin north woods.

“Legends say the beast rose from the ashes of a lumberjack’s ox, whose body had been burned for seven years to cleanse it of the profanity the loggers had hurled at it.” (p. 133). What happens to the people of the town at war with the mythical beast?

Urban legends take on a reality of their own in Euan Harvey’s “Harry and the Monkey.” When young Harry is witness to the black van (the “rot jap dek”) – one that supposedly captures children in the streets of Bangkok – life gets terrifying.

In “Loup-garou” by R. B. Russell, the small independent film, “Loup-garou,” is the center of one man’s obsession. It closely follows his life – with narration and story that is way too close for comfort. Only the moment when the memory of the character’s wife fails to match the film character’s do things really get interesting.

The services of a private eye are needed by a golem accused of murdering (butchering, actually) a girl in Graham Edwards’ “Girl In Pieces.” The golem desperately needs the dick’s help. The only recourse the PI has – a woman turned into a spider (sort of). This zany, whacked-out tale is memorable for an over-the-top seriousness and narrative pragmatism seldom seen in detective stories.

A seaport drug-runner and his crewmates have been captured and submersed in sand up to their heads on a deserted island in “Beach Head” by Daniel LeMoal. Rescue may only be wishful thinking, until a boy comes along – only to ignore them and, more often, torture them. How to escape death by dehydration and drowning or – worse yet – by the psychopathic beach boy? And why did they end up stranded on the island anyway – for what purpose?

In “The Narrows” by Simon Bestwick, a teacher in Manchester – as well as everybody else in the town – fights to survive after a nuclear conflagration. They escape to underground coal mines called the Delph, wherein lies endless small caves called the narrows. Perhaps they can protect themselves from the dangerous topside radiation with shelter in the narrows -- but there is more evil on top of the dangers of radiation exposure – the dangers of what exactly the narrows ARE.

No doubt, these selections in THE BEST HORROR OF THE YEAR provide an unpredictable, eclectic mix of some of the best horror you won’t find anywhere else.

TESSERACTS THIRTEEN:

TESSERACTS THIRTEEN, ed. by Nancy Kilpatrick and David Morrell. Edge (www.edgewebsite.com), 2009, 317 pp., $16.95. ISBN 978-1-894063-25-8

Tesseracts Number 13 may be so aptly named because the anthology concentrates on horror, featuring some of the best Canadian short fiction.

Rebecca Bradley’s “Kids These Days” features Moira, who has to deal with her own children affected by the deadly mind and soul-robbing prion of Bainbridge’s Disease. Moira believes that as long as victims have life, there is hope for a cure – even though society steadily devolves around her and husband Jeff.

Like her mother, Mabel is forced to endure a demon of a dad – a molesting father who cannot protect them in Suzanne Church’s “The Tear Closet.” Until one day when Mabel’s mother shows her a secret room where her tears are stored. The tears are not only solace but protection.

A woman’s ex-husband, who apparently died in an accident at home, returns to haunt her in “Dead to Me” by Kelley Armstrong. Even a divorce doesn’t get rid of an obsessive soul. But exactly how “dead” is he?

A clerk in Ottowa refuses to relocate to a southern protective clime during an encroaching ice age in Alison Baird’s “End in Ice.” The ice age, a result of the Phenomenon, continues to eat up Canada. The clerk observes the end of civilization as the ice moves faster than anyone could have imagined. What are the realities a displaced people will feel from the assault of horrors caused by nature?

“Out of the Barrens” by Robert Knowlton examines the history of Canadian horror literature from its earliest to latest incarnation.

TAILS OF WONDER AND IMAGINATION:

TAILS OF WONDER AND IMAGINATION, ed. by Ellen Datlow. Night Shade Books (www.nightshadebooks.com), 2010, 464 pp., $15.95. ISBN 978-1-59780-170-6

I was reluctant to read TAILS OF WONDER AND IMAGINATION, for a lot of reasons. I mean, how many “cat anthologies” have been published before? But an anthology by Datlow is almost never disappointing. Datlow could do a “bored readers” anthology and I would cave to it.

A photographer is drawn to the work of Hobart Gurney, long known for his beautiful renditions of cats on the side of barns, or barn murals, which lovingly depict the cats he loved in “No Heaven Will Not Ever Heaven Be . . .” by A. R. Morlan. Gurney painted cats for commercial reasons – for Katz’s Chewing Tobacco Company – and the photographer shows him an album with a mural of Gurney’s Little Girls – and gives Gurney the album (a copy) to keep. Gurney is very thankful for the kindness – and we learn how endearing the memorabilia is, especially to an old man living in a retirement home.

In “The Price” by Neil Gaiman, to the writer’s house arrives the wounded and needy black cat, which of course is taken in and healed. But why does the cat keep venturing out and coming back all scarred? The mystery is quite fantastic to say the least.

In Michael Marshall Smith’s “Not Waving,” a graphic artist meets a woman who mystifies him – at the same time dealing with his wife’s bulimia. He believes he is at a crossroads – should he end the marriage, or the affair? But the woman he is having the affair with shows him so much more.

A member of an experimental cat species is rescued by a man in “Pride” by Mary A. Turzillo. The man later discovers the cat is no ordinary feline, but a saber tooth – a Smilodon – genetically resurrected somehow. The cat, in his life, is not only a cat, but a beast that needs to be protected.

Jack Ketchum’s “Returns” features a man who was killed after being struck by a city cab. The man returns to his apartment, where his alcoholic wife is ready to send their cat to the humane society – where it will be killed. Why did he return – to save the cat?

In Stephen King’s “The Night of the Tiger,” a traveling circus, Farnum & Williams All-American 3-Ring Circus and Side Show, sets down in Wildwood Green, Okla., where a battle for control rages between a were-cat and a feline from Hades.

In John Kessel’s “Every Angel is Terrifying,” a man named Railroad stops in a new town, hiding like an escapee from his murderous past. But Railroad’s secret is hard to keep, and even though folks are kind to him, and offer him work, and he gets a new cat – well, cats can serve as a conscience sometimes.

A man meets the woman of his dreams in “Candia” by Graham Joyce. On a Greek island, he meets her in an out-of-the way nightclub and finds her feral charm disarming and very haunting.

“Nine Lives to Live” by Sharyn McCrumb gives us Philip Danby, business partner to Giles Eskeridge, murdered by his partner. A belief in reincarnation has Danby returning as a cat, which ends up back at the Eskeridge household. Surly cats as revenge killers – who would have thought?

“Healing Benjamin” by Dennis Danvers gives us one cat lover who doesn’t want to see his cat die. So with a healing hug, the cat lives to age 46 (human years, or hundreds of cat years) and beyond. Love certainly endures.

GASLIGHT GROTESQUE:

GASLIGHT GROTESQUE: Nightmare Tales of Sherlock Holmes, ed. by J.R. Campbell and Charles Prepolec. Edge (www.edgewebsite.com), 2009, 311 pp., $14.95. ISBN 978-1-894063-31-9

The truly memorable tale from this collection of “Sherlock Holmes horror stories” is “The Death Lantern” by Lawrence C. Connolly. Holmes investigates the apparent murder of the Great Calibri, a magician, who is captured with what appears to be a deception, on one of the early moving picture machines. Is it trickery or something very intentional? And what new challenges will a new crime-solving technology bring?

Elementary, dear Watson. Technology can either help or hinder, in any age.

WINGS OF FIRE:

WINGS OF FIRE, ed. by Jonathan Strahan and Marianne S. Jablon. Night Shade Books (www.nightshadebooks.com), 2010, 499 pp., $15.95. ISBN 978-1-59780-187-4

Of all these classic tales in the WINGS OF FIRE anthology, it was certainly a lot of fun to read “The Dragon on the Bookshelf” by Harlan Ellison and Robert Silverberg. Also, it was a pleasure to look over and read again many of these classic tales, collected as a treasury of the best dragon fiction of our era.

THE ARK:

THE ARK, by Boyd Morrison. Touchstone/Fireside/Simon and Schuster (www.simonandschuster.com), 2010, 420 pp., $24.99. ISBN 978-1-4391-8179-9
An archeologist’s father may have found Noah’s Ark, but is missing, with the only clue about his whereabouts coming from a man who dies at Los Angeles Airport – and the quest to find the truth begins.

NEVERLAND:

NEVERLAND by Douglas Clegg. Vanguard Press (www.vanguardpressbooks.com), 2010, 288 pp., $15.95. ISBN 1-59315-541-4
A woodland shack on an island off the southern U.S. coast becomes a forbidden place, a key to an age-old mystery. Kids, of course, find it and are caught up in its mysterious past.