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The Best Horror of the Year Volume Five

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The Best Horror of the Year Volume Five

By: Margo Lanagan, Ellen Datlow - editor, Ramsey Campbell, Dan Chaon, Laird Barron, Lucy Taylor
Narrated by: Daniel Thomas May
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About this listen

Darkness, both literal and psychological, holds its own unique fascination. Despite our fears, or perhaps because of them, listeners have always been drawn to tales of death, terror, madness, and the supernatural, and no more so than today when a wildly imaginative new generation of dark dreamers is carrying on in the tradition of Poe and Lovecraft and King, crafting exquisitely disturbing literary nightmares that gaze without flinching into the abyss - and linger in the mind long after.

Multiple award-winning editor Ellen Datlow knows the darkest corners of fiction and poetry better than most. Once again, she has braved the haunted landscape of modern horror to seek out the most chilling new works by both legendary masters of the genre and fresh young talents. Here are twisted hungers and obsessions, human and otherwise, along with an unsettling variety of spine-tingling fears and fantasies. The cutting edge of horror has never cut deeper than in this comprehensive showcase of the very best the field has to offer. Enter at your own risk.

©2013 Ellen Datlow; 2013 Night Shade Books (P)2015 Audible Inc. Dark Fantasy Fantasy Fiction Scary Paranormal
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Most relevant
Daniel Thomas May has just the right voice for this collection: it's deep and pleasant, and he reads intelligently and without overdoing the menace. The stories are engaging: usually either creepy or clever and often both. As you'd expect, there are a couple of duff entries, but overall this is a thoroughly enjoyable and unusual listen. The first story in particular, set in the Skeleton Coast (Lucy Taylor's "Nikishi") introduces both an all-too-plausible villain and a dreadful Nemesis. As soon as I finished listening to it, I found myself wanting to read more about the region ("The Land God Made in Anger") and the mythology of the people who live there. "Pig Thing" was another story where the landscape (in this case, the Australian outback) is every bit as menacing as the monster itself. I found my mind drifting back again and again to these stories in the days after I finished reading them, imagining the events in the landscape, and, naturally, other possible outcomes or resolutions. This is a great blend of the perfect narrator and stories that beg to be read aloud.

A Marriage made in Heaven/Characters from Hell

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Stories British. Narrator American. Thinks northerners sound Irish, and everyone else like Dick van Dyke

why use an American Narrator?

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In amongst so many stories there’s sure to be some the reader feels are brilliant, most that are okay and a few that are dire. And not all readers will feel the same about all the stories.
One of my favourites was about a pair of strangers who met in a café… but do they have a connection?
One thing the story does have is an almost perfect description of how I feel about my sight loss not meaning the end of my happiness.

Be prepared to have some of the stories haunt you more than others.

Mostly brilliant

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