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The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All ~ Laird Barron
Featuring two of the finest contemporary hunting stories I’ve read, Barron’s third collection is best consumed near a healthy fire and filtered through a decent scotch. I’m convinced there is a tsunami of readers that have yet to discover Barron. “More Dark� could be the most misunderstood story this year. With teeth, it plants Laird’s flag at the summit, and in deft contrasting brush strokes, succeeds in paying tribute whilst offering challenge to writers and readers alike. It doesn’t get better than this.

The Wide Carnivorous Sky & Other Monstrous Geographies ~ John Langan
Barron’s arm wrestling partner is the master of reinventing overused horror tropes (zombies, werewolves and vampires). Langan’s tale, “The Revel� is IMHO the greatest werewolf story put to print. John is simply the most entertaining horror writer working today. One of my reading highlights of 2013, was to re-read Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death�, down a glass of Jameson and consume “Technicolor� in all its insidious glory. Langan is a true heavyweight. I ran out and bought his previous collection, “Mr. Gaunt�. And yes, it is fantastic.

At Fear’s Altar ~ Richard Gavin
Canadian Richard Gavin is a true original. His stories are simply magical and contain a strange psychedelic otherness that is hard to pinpoint. “The Abject� would make a beautiful short film; its eclipse vista is one of the prevailing images painted on my mind after a healthy year of reading. “The Eldritch Faith� is a monumental work. I immediately bought Gavin’s other collections: “Omens� and “Charnel Wine�. “The Darkly Splendid Realm� remains on my hunting list; it is out-of-print and one can only hope 2014 provides a scent trail.

The Grimscribe’s Puppets ~ edited by Joseph S. Pulver Sr.
“The Secrets of the Universe� by Michael Cisco contains enough brilliant ideas to fuel a novel. Stories by Livia Llewellyn, Cody Goodfellow, Richard Gavin, John Langan and (the late) Joel Lane are worth the modest price of admission. Pulver, a fantastic writer himself, has collected a wonderful tribute to Ligotti. I can only wonder though, in a meta-conspiracy-rumour fugue, whether Laird Barron’s “More Dark� was submitted. Shame on me.

The Best Horror of the Year Vol. 5 ~ edited by Ellen Datlow
As both a writer and a reader, I owe a debt of gratitude to Ellen Datlow. Her 2007 non-themed anthology “Inferno� introduced me to the renaissance in today’s horror field. Her yearly summation will get you caught up on what you missed and she consistently draws my attention to stories I might otherwise have ignored. Stories by: Nathan Ballingrud, Terri Dowling, Lucy A. Snyder and the aforementioned Richard Gavin and Laird Barron are all standouts.

You, again! :)

Must beat the drum ;)

Oh wow, deja-vu :)

Thank you for the recommendations, Paul.
I second the motion on that new Barron.

Yeah, Paul, thanks. These single author collections look especially good.

Bryan and Gregor - no worries. 2013 was a great year for collections. I'm hearing great things about Nathan Ballingrud's

That one's already on my list, apparently. I'd forgotten that I'd added it though. Thanks for the reminder.

Paul, obviously you like the short fiction. You should give Jeffrey Ford's collections a try, if you've not already done so. Start with either The Fantasy Writer's Assistant and Other Stories or The Empire of Ice Cream.

Will do Gregor. I've read and enjoyed Ford. WIll look into one of his collections.

Ford's stories are excellent. He's a writer I always look forward to reading.

The Nathan Ballingrud book is not just one of the best collections from 2013. It's one of the best collections I have ever read. I have a review on the Amazon page that I wrote before I had finished the book, I was so taken by it. :-)

The Barron is brilliant. The Grimscribe's Puppets is an anthology of major note, dealing with themes inherent in the work of Thomas Ligotti.

The rest are hopefully being ordered in the next month or so.

Paul wrote: "Will do Gregor. I've read and enjoyed Ford. WIll look into one of his collections."

He's one of those rare writers who's as good (if not better) with short stories as he is with novels.

If anyone is interested, I did a list of the favourite individual stories I read in 2013 on my site:



(They weren't all necessarily published in 2013.)

On the topic of short stories, Livia Llewellyn wrote my favourite collection of 2012 - Engines of Desire: Tales of Love & other Horrors - probably the sexiest horror collection in recent memory - Llewellyn is bloody fantastic.

James wrote: "If anyone is interested, I did a list of the favourite individual stories I read in 2013 on my site:


..."

James, cool list, thanks for that. Check out Richard Gavin. Based on your 2013 list - I think you would love him.

Hmmmm, that name rings a bell but can't think why...

From reads & recommendations so far, I think my 2014 list is going to be a lot longer than the 2013 one!