This sophisticated, scary anthology collects the best horror fiction published between 1984 and 2005, one of horror’s most innovative eras. These exceptionally diverse stories, hand-picked by horror-expert editor Ellen Datlow, are tales of the subtly psychological, the unpredictably mischievous, and the disturbingly visceral.
Here are classics, such as horror master Stephen King’s “Chattery Teeth, ” the tautly drawn account of a traveling salesman who unwisely picks up yet another hitchhiker; Peter Straub’s eerie “The Juniper Tree, ” describing a man whose nostalgia for the movies of his childhood leads to his stolen innocence; and George R. R. Martin’s sinister “The Pear-Shaped Man, ” in which a young woman encounters a neighbor who likes her a bit too much.
Whether you grew up on Clive Barker’s Books of Blood; Joyce Carol Oates’s “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”; Neil Gaiman’s Sandman; or are newly discovering Stephen King’s son, breakout author Joe Hill; there is something here for everyone who enjoys being more than just a little bit scared.