Ellen Datlow’s career as the doyen of “year’s best” editors began with
The Year’s Best Fantasy: First Annual Collection in 1988 (with co-editor Terri Windling), and the series was renamed The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror with the third annual collection. After 21 volumes, the series ended, but Datlow continued with 2009’s
The Best Horror of the Year Volume One. We’ve now arrived at the 12th entry. If you combine the two series, only the late Gardner Dozois and his The Year’s Best Science Fiction series has (with 35 volumes) a longer history. Datlow unfailingly presents notable scary tales and – since her choices come from an immense variety of sources – even avid readers are unlikely to have encountered them all. This year is no different; she offers 22 stories and novelettes and one novella first published in 2019. Datlow also includes an annual “summation” of the year in horror and a list of “honorable mentions.”
(click image for details) Early access to every magazine we put out (PDF, EPUB, MOBI), including the entire backlog! Early access to ALL audio stories, and exclusive author interviews. Access to Best-Story voting and to the full-length digital Crypt edition. Patreon exclusive access to the weekly Cosmic Sermon! You can even have the issues synced to your Kindle!
(click image for details) .Contains a suite of tales that are tender, dangerous, and beguiling. Braum trades in fantastical imagery, yet his words are ever relatable to the human experience in all its splendor and melancholy. Laird Barron
(click to purchase) A gritty 1920s detective story that spirals into the realms of Lovecraftian Horror, The Gathering of Shadows will delight fans of the genre as they travel with Glennison from the stolid certainty of 1920s England to a world of lost temples, ancient gods, whispered chants and terrifying visitations.