The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror 2015
I always love when people actually rate each of the short stories in a short story volume so I can see what I am getting into, but with 28 stories in 2015's The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Fiction , it is really just too much to elaborate on for this poor girl so I will leave the detailed rundown for someone else who throws possible carpal tunnel syndrome to the wind. So, let me give you the condensed stats as I see them: Number of stories that I don't remember a week after finishing this anthology: 3 Number of awful stories: 0 Number of not terribly great stories: 4 Number of kick-ass stories: 3
The Screams of Dragons by Kelly Armstrong (Is the kid a changeling? Does human horror override supernatural horror?)
The Cats of River Street (1925) by Caitlin R. Kiernan (Lovecraftian monsters kept at bay by cats -- do I need to say more? Definite two thumbs up given I normally hate Lovecraftian stuff)
Running Shoes by Ken Liu (Not really horror, but really interesting tale of Chinese factory worker turned into running shoes -- I guess you sort of need to read it since reading that blurb, this sounds just awful)
Number of pretty darn good stories: 1
Namely the amazingly titled Mothers, Lock Up Your Daughters Because They Are Terrifying by Alice Sola Kim
Number of so-so stories: 12 (but at least from one of these I learned about female factories (aka penal colonies) in Australia) Number of I don't know what the f*** just happened stories: 2 (Notably: (Little Miss) Queen of Darkness and Combustion Hour) Number of I couldn't finish them stories: 2 One story that I can't figure out how to rate is Madam Damnable's Sewing Circle by Elizabeth Bear. This falls into the category of things I can't stand -- a part of a novel/longer work being schlepped out as its own story. It was interesting and well-written and did make me curious about the longer work it was taken from, but my general irritation at being sold to in this way makes me grumpy. So, I did not run the numbers, but I am thinking this should all balance out as a solid "it was good/I liked it". Three stars.
