protean depravity

Of course one can never know the hardships of curating and editing a horror anthology as iconic as Datlow's Best Horror of the Year and there may be reasons beyond our knowledge why some stories don't make it there and why others do. I'm pretty sure that 2022-2023 was an exceptionally good time for horror short stories, but unfortunately I don't see that reflected in this book. In consequence, this year is one of those years in which the Datlow Best of Anthology does not quite strike my fancy. It happens.

Screams from the Dark: 29 Tales of Monsters and the Monstrous ed. by Ellen Datlow Reviewing any one of Ellen Datlow’s excellent horror anthologies is always a pleasure as they unanimously feature stories of high-quality writing and are a kind of go-to place for us horror readers who want to discover fresh blood. So I was lusting for her latest themed anthology, the massive Screams from the Dark: 29 Tales of Monsters and the Monstrous anthology ever since the announcement of its publication in the summer and gifted it to myself as a birthday treat in the fall, intending to read a story a day in October, which I did.

Unfortunately, in my various horror book clubs, reading groups and monthly reads it is perpetually difficult to enforce the nomination and selection of books written by women. Yes, we have come a long way already and more and more women authors dare to write horror. But it is a sad truth that women are seriously underrepresented in the genre, as it is the case in speculative fiction in general. To even out this disadvantage each February we celebrate women in horror month and you can read the whole story of the initiative here . So, for this occasion I have decided to present my top 10 women horror authors here and my favorite book by them. Maybe and hopefully one of these books catches your eye and you may want to try and read it. Happy women in horror month!

The Best Horror of the Year Volume Thirteen was to be my final book of 2021, the perfect closure of my reading year… Or so I thought. What actually happened is that it didn’t even make it to the first book of 2022 because it starts so damn slow! My initial impression of the first few stories is such a poor one that I seriously wondered if this really can be the best horror of any year at all! I was wrong, though, a slow start does not necessarily mean a bad anthology. And as we all know anthologies usually are a mixed bag – it’s next to impossible to find consistently awesome ones and even if they were filled with only good stories we’d start petty bickering and comparing them to each other. Even though I was a little disappointed of the weak start (and honestly thought it would all go downhill from there because anthologies usually start really strong to get you hooked), I was very pleasantly surprised by the middle streak of genuinely scary and/or original stories which basically ...

High were the hopes for 2021 - after a disastrous pandemic year, tons of confusion, losses, sickness, bush fires, earthquakes and other catastrophes the world was going to enter a new, better era in 2021 with vaccination for all, freedom days everywhere, return to normality... It didn't turn out that way. Having reached the end of this year, having seen that the worst was yet to come, that those vaccines don't really work, 2021 actually feels like an extension of the most unpopular year 2020. The good things about the collective state that we are in can be counted on the fingers of one hand and one of them is certainly that there is much more time for reading compared to the old normal. So much did I read this year that it was seriously difficult to choose the winners for the Protean Depravity Best Books of 2021, but finally here they are!

Editor Ellen Datlow's new collection of short stories inspired by the infamous Shirley Jackson is simply SUBLIME. Believe me, I'm saying this as someone who isn't even an overly great fan of Jackson: each story in this book is magic! In her introduction, Datlow explains the essence of a Shirley Jackson story as "filled with hauntings, dysfunctional families, and domestic pain; simmering rage, loneliness, suspicion of outsiders; sibling rivalry and women trapped psychologically and/or by the supernatural", adding that Jackson embodies the "dark undercurrent of suburban life". And indeed, in each and every one of the 18 stories in this collection there is a piece of good old Shirley - haunted houses bring about madness, poisoning women in abundance, evil mothers, collective guilt, small-town horror... As I already mentioned above, I am not the biggest Jackson-fan but it was a great pleasure to recognize traces of say, "The Lottery" or Haunting o...