Product Description

Here is the latest edition of the world's premier annual showcase of horror and dark fantasy fiction. It features some of the very best short stories and novellas by today's masters of the macabre - including Neil Gaiman, Brian Keene, Elizabeth Massie, Glen Hirshberg, Peter Atkins and Tanith Lee. "The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror" also features the most comprehensive yearly overview of horror around the world, lists of useful contact addresses and a fascinating necrology. It is the one book that is required reading for every fan of macabre fiction.Praise for the series: 'Well-crafted celebration of a continuously inventive genre' - "SFX Magazine". 'The must-have annual anthology for horror fans' - "Time Out". 'An essential volume for horror readers' - "Locus". 'In an age where genre fiction is often just reheated pastiche, the "Best New Horror" series continues to break from the herd, consistently raising the bar of quality and ingenuity' - Rue Morgue. 'Brilliantly edited and most instructively introduced by legendary anthologist Stephen Jones' - "Realms of Fantasy". 'One of horror's best' - "Publishers Weekly".

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #71068 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-16
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 512 pages

Review
Doesn't disappoint
--Flux Magazine

About the Author
Stephen Jones is one of Britain's most acclaimed horror anthologists. His other books include the entire nineteen previous annual Horror anthologies, The Mammoth Book of Monsters, The Mammoth Book of Terror and The Mammoth Book of Vampires.

Customer Reviews

The biggest and best yet!
Last year's volume recently won the British Fantasy Society Award for Best Anthology of the Year, and deservedly so -

- but what about this year's Volume 19, which is one of the longest in the series, a total - from cover to cover - of 640 pages?

It contains not a single weak story, its 26 tales ranging from the 'merely' very good to the excellent. Simply put, these are the best short stories you'll read this year, period. In ANY genre. And that isn't hyperbole: every year I read Jonathan Strahan's The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year together with Heidi Pitlor's The Best American Short Stories - but Best New Horror 19 trumps them all, not only in the quality of the writing, but in the daring of the imagination on show, with Christopher Fowler providing a tale worthy of vintage Ray Bradbury, while Caitlín R. Kiernan's tour de force, "The Ape's Wife", riffs on the various 'what ifs' of Ann Darrow's life following the death of King Kong, and the heir to the grand tradition of the weird tale, Mark Samuels, treks to Mexico where we discover H.P. Lovecraft is alive and still writing. Newcomers Simon Kurt Unsworth, Gary McMahan and Simon Strantzas ably hold their own against such genre masters as Ramsey Campbell, Kim Newman and Neil Gaiman, with small press stalwarts Mike O'Driscoll, Joel Lane and Conrad Williams not only at the height of their powers but happily growing better and better with each passing year.

And, once again, the incomparable Glen Hirshberg proves why he is now my favourite short story writer.

Together with superb tales from Stephen King's son Joe Hill, the delightful Terror from Texas hisownself Joe R. Lansdale, bestselling crime author Michael Marshall and bestselling fantasy author Steven Erikson - what are you waiting for?!

(This review comes from an advance copy bought at the FantasyCon, Nottingham England book launch on September 20th, 2008. Twelve of the contributors were on hand to sign the book. Only 50 advance copies were made available for the launch.)

If you haven't already done so, I urge you to seek out Volume 18, for not only is it itself an award-winning book, but so are three of the stories inside: Elizabeth Hand, Gene Wolfe and Geoff Ryman. Also included in last year's volume are brilliantly blazing stories by Glen Hirshberg, David Morrell, Al Sarrantonio (editor of the massive 999 anthology a few years back), Richard C. Matheson and an 88 page novella by the always consistently dependable Kim Newman!

Worth reading
A mix of short stories, all of which are worth are interesting and well written. One of the best compilations.

average
I found a lot of the tales in this anthology quite boring and formulaic... shame really.