Book Review: The Year's Best Horror Stories Series I

Book Review: 'The Year's Best Horror Stories: Series I' edited by Richard Davis

4 / 5 Stars

'The Year's Best Horror Stories: Series I' (174 pp.) was published by DAW Books in July, 1975. The cover art is by Hans Arnold.

The lineage of these initial volumes in the 'Year's Best Horror Stories' series is complicated. They are derived from the Sphere Books (U.K.) title 'The Year's Best Horror Stories, No. 1' published in 1971. DAW issued a U.S. version of the Sphere title in July 1972, as 'The Year's Best Horror Stories: No. 1', and then, three years later, published this July, 1975 edition. 

Despite the different titles and the different covers, regardless if you get the 1971 Sphere edition, the 1972 DAW edition, or the 1975 DAW edition, the contents all are the same.

'The Year's Best Horror Stories' series was very successful for DAW, eventually reaching 22 volumes in 1994, the year the series was discontinued.

All of the contents of 'Series I' were first published during 1969 - 1971 in other anthologies, digests, and magazines. My summaries of the entries:

Double Whammy, by Robert Bloch: a carnival worker gets on the wrong side of a gypsy.

The Sister City, by Brian Lumley: a competent, if not particularly memorable, Cthulhu Mythos story.

When Morning Comes, by Elizabeth Fancett: a politician has a deep, dark secret. The premise of this story is interesting, but the story is too melodramatic and overwritten to be effective.

Prey, by Richard Matheson: some toys, aren't really toys. One of the better entries in the anthology. It first appeared in the April, 1969 issue of Playboy.

Winter, by Kit Reed: two spinsters struggle to survive a long, cold winter. Another of the standout entries in the anthology.

Lucifer, by E. C. Tubb: Frank Weston gets his hands on an alien artifact that can change his life. Maybe for the better. 

I Wonder What He Wanted, by Eddy C. Bertin: written in the form of diary entries, this is a tale of a young woman who rents a house. A house with a checkered past........

Problem Child, by Peter Oldale: what happens when an infant starts to display X-Men style powers ? Another of the better entries in the anthology.

The Scar, by Ramsey Campbell: strange goings-on confront a family in fogbound, rundown Liverpool. One of Campbell's earlier, and better, stories: less preoccupied with atmosphere and diction, and with greater attention to plot.

Warp, by Ralph Noyes: the first-person narrator decides to visit a long-lost friend at the latter's well-guarded private laboratory. We know that nothing good will come of this. An interesting tale, despite being overwritten.

The Hate, by Terri E. Pinckard: domestic life has its complications. There is a 'shock' ending.

A Quiet Game, by Celia Fremlin: single mom Hilda Meredith is having problems with apartment living.

After Nightfall, by David A. Riley: Eliot Wilderman is doing sociological research in the sad little village of Heron. Strangely, everyone in the village takes care to lock and bar their doors at night.......a neat story that was reprinted in 1985 in the UK zine Fantasy Tales:

Death's Door, by Robert McNear: traveling across a strait to the village of Nicolet Island, Wisconsin, Charley Pope is confronted by a strange apparition out on the frozen water. This story seems like a conventional ghost story but has an unexpected twist at the end, making it a great tale to close out the anthology. The story first appeared in the March, 1969 issue of Playboy. It's been included in another horror story anthology, 'Ghosts of the Heartland' (1990), but otherwise seems to be the only fiction piece ever published by author McNear.

Summing up, this venerable entrant in the 'Year's Best Horror Stories' is a solid 4-Star book, and indeed, one of the better volumes in the series. It's hard to find copies in good condition that have affordable asking prices, but if you should come across one such, it's well worth obtaining.