Recommended Horror
"Never judge a book by its movie."--J.W. Eagan
The majority of these stories come from Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling's excellent Year's Best Fantasy and Horror anthologies. I'm afraid the reason is that I'm squeamish and can only deal with the genre in limited doses.
Nicholson Baker
"Subsoil" in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 8. Creepy things happen to an agricultural researcher.
Ambrose Bierce
"Moxon's Master." This questions intelligence and where it resides.
Robert Bloch
"A Toy for Juliette" in Dangerous Visions. A borderline sf tale involving a girl trained to sadism and cruelty by her caretaker, and what happens when she runs into a time-transplanted Jack the Ripper.
Ray Bradbury
"Small Assassin" in The Fantasy Hall of Fame. Have you ever wondered if babies are malicious?
John Brunner
"Moths" in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 4. Borderline fairytale with a grim subtext.
Edward Bryant
"The Cutter" in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 2. Avoid this one if you can't stand gore. The life, times, and frustrations of a movie re-editor. The story is clever in a horrible way, or perhaps horrible in a clever way.
Jonathan Carroll
"The Panic Hand" in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 2. A man on a train meets a disturbing child...but the most disturbing part is at teh end, where corruption is oh-so-delicately hinted at. A few elements reminded me of Terry Carr's story "Virra," but there's no overt violence here.
Angela Carter
"The Executioner's Beautiful Daughter." I think I found this in some sf anthology. I'm at a loss to categorize it, but horror or adult fairytale might come close.
Douglas Clegg
"White Chapel" in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 8. Set in India. Deals, among other things, with the legacies of child abuse.
John Cross
"The Doll-House" in Dangerous Visions, ed. Harlan Ellison. What might a sibyl do for a living in the modern world?
Roald Dahl
"Royal Jelly."
Dennis Etchison
"Call Home" in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 5. Little children are told not to go home with strangers. Never mind that the stranger might be perfectly well-intentioned, and that little children may have agendas of their own.
Nina Viriki Hoffman
"Coming Home" in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 4. A child who's always getting locked into a closet by her brother gets revenge--but the revenge goes much further than she intends.
Nancy Holder
"Crash Cart" in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 7. The relationship between abuser and abused, and how it may affect those sensitive to the victims.
Kathe Koja
"By the Mirror of My Youth" in The Year's Best Science Fiction 10, ed. Gardner Dozois. How cloning affects the relationship between man and wife, and how the wife's clone feels.
Thomas Ligotti
"Teatro Grottesco" in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 10. Concerns a mysterious troupe of almost nihilistic artists--or anti-artists.
H.P. Lovecraft
"The Shadow Over Innsmouth." A man exploring his heritage discovers that he is its victim. Cthulhu mythos.
"The Whisperer in Darkness." An excellent, mostly epistolary rendition of the aliens-among-us theme. Cthulhu mythos.
George R.R. Martin
"SandKings." Sf dealing with creepy aliens and a creepier man. Be careful what you buy at the pet store.
Graham Masterton
"Absence of Beast" in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 6. Deals with a woman in an abusive relationship, sort of. But it's more about the woman's son, and the woman's father, and escape from abuse.
"The Secret Shih Tan" in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 10. A horrific cooking story with a moral.
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