For this latest anthology centered on "monsters," Ellen Datlow explains how the term "monster" is applied to wide range of things, from fearsome creatures, or those about which we don't fully understand, to humans who commit vile acts. As such, it seems the contributing authors were given free range to interpret "monsters" as they saw fit for their tales. Of the 29 stories, I had four distinct favorites: "The Midway" by Fran Wilde, one of the most inventive tales in the book; "Devil" by Glen Hirshberg; "Three Mothers Mountain" by Nathan Ballingrud, who never disappoints. The fourth was by far my most favorite, the longest and the best saved for last, "Bloedzuiger" by John Langan, which conjured up images of his fantastic novel, The Fisherman. There were three or four that just didn't do it for me so I didn't bother finishing them. As for the remainder of the stories, they were all well-written verbiage-wise, yet plot-wise they mostly were just OK, nothing that memorable, which was surprising considering the much higher quality of stories contained in the other recent Datlow's anthologies I have read. The four favorites I found, especially the Langan and Ballingrud contributions, made it worth reading the book, but it wasn't as good a collection as I would have expected overall. 3.5/5*

These stories were obviously excellent, it’s an Ellen Datlow anthology. High quality horror abound. That being said, it took forever to read because it is quite dense and dark and heavy. So buckle in and don’t expect to be able to read more than one story before bed.

In rating each story individually and averaging the result, this one doesn't quite hit the 4 star mark, but that kind of analysis neglects important context. So many of these stories are above average that the overall collection deserves at least four stars. As with any anthology, there are some conspicuous exceptions in which authors were too abstract or got too preachy for my taste, but these are few and far between. Similar stories seem to be grouped together in Screams, but the variety dips only temporarily and there's great range in terms of style and content throughout that keep the journey interesting for the reader. That's due in part to the size of the volume, but the selections were definitely well made and they include some of the best horror authors writing today. Fans of Datlow's past anthologies will be very satisfied, as will readers looking for fresh, fearsome monsters. The complete list of highlights for this collection is too numerous to enumerate, but these are the ones that will stay with me the most:

"The Midway" by Fran Wilde
"The Atrocity Exhibitionists" by Brian Hodge
"The Island" by Norman Partridge
“The Last Drop” by Carole Johnstone
“Three Mothers Mountain” by Nathan Ballingrud
"Sweet Potato" by Joe R. Lansdale
"Bitten by Himself" by Laird Barron
"Beautiful Dreamer" by Jeffrey Ford
"Bloedzuiger" by John Langan

A big thank you to Tor Nightfire and NetGalley for the ARC.

“No home for the faint of heart…”


Screams from the Dark dares to cross time, repeat it, and shed universes. It’s a home you don’t want to flee, until you do, and, then, it’s too late: you can’t. All one can do is make themself at home.

The stories herein will make you question reality, question yourself. Do you even know yourself? Are you even yourself? How can you be sure?

Falling just ever so slightly shy of 500 pages, this book (edited by Ellen Datlow, most exquisitely) contain galaxies, both within and beyond the grasp of our, say, common realty, our shared and for the most part understood human experiences.

There’s no shortage of masterfulness here, no shortage of brain-shocking, eye-bulging delights of horror.

Wet Red Grin by Gemma Files is a horror show of the highest order. And, I’m not saying I’m the stillest person, the kind that can just sit, and then sit some more, all calm and chill and relaxed, like I were meditating or some such. Not at all, no. I should probably have a fidget spinner for every day of the week, maybe some extras just in case, but that there is, well,

I have a tendency to lose things almost as powerful as my tendency to not be able to sit still, to always have to be moving, always be keeping my body up to speed with what all’s going on in my mind, which tends to be a whole lotta go, go, go.

Anyrate, Wet Red Grin, yeah. I’m hard pressed to think of being squirmier than I was while reading that one. Any squirmier, really, and I may have had to put the book down. Files is good at that, good at sucking you into the world in the pages, all while setting you up for immense dread. Fun dread, sure –– that’s horror –– but dread nonetheless.

Three Mothers Mountain by Nathan Ballingrud is the sort of story that, reading it, I’m just kind of generally happy to be here reading such tales, writing about them, and doing so comfortably from my room, my car, the line at the taqueria, wherever I may be reading, doing so in a safety not present for these characters.

Sweet Potato by Joe R Lansdale is… it’s dark, yeah, and it’s delightfully so through and through. It conjures Lynch thoughts, that darkness in small towns, in suburbia, the bloody mess just under the surface, but it’s not Lynch, not at all. This is Lansdale. Pure and simple. No matter who he’s writing about, what he’s writing about, where he’s writing about, all of that, it all still comes down to him writing in his own genre: The Lansdale Genre.

Knock, Knock by Brian Evenson is as unsettling as anything he’s previously written, and is completely unputdownable. Evenson never ceases to amaze me. Never is skincrawling so pleasant and welcome.

Burial by Kristi DeMeester is so, so, so delicious in its wickedness. I wish it were longer. And, I’m not faulting it at all, the story, not faulting DeMeester either. The story, it is as long as it needs to be, perfectly so, but as I freely admit, and often, I am reading greedy. I want more. I want it all. But then, maybe it will grow bigger, run further. I can easily –– please let it be so –– see this adapted into a feature film. That day comes, I’m there, so there, ticketed up well in advance, anxiously waiting take my seat.

And then

Then there’s Children of the Night by Stephen Graham Jones. There be monsters here, yes. Monsters and horror. And laughs. Jones strikes the perfect horror balance: tension, scare, laughter release. There’s no better rollercoaster. This one, Children of the Night, it’s hands down the most delightful, thrill-smile inducing of stories in this anthology. It is, in its relatively short page count, exactly why I love horror.

There is so much more in this book, too, so many more stories. Each is a world worthy of exploration. Necessary, even. Open the door, take a leap, crawl and climb. You won’t be sorry.

I received this ARC via a link to Netgalley sent to the Horrorbound.net team.

This is a large collection of excellent stories. Honestly, it took me almost a month to read it all, but a part of me also really didn't want it to end. Every new story brought with it interesting and strange facets, and they were all worth reading. There are so many talented and freaky authors collected within this monster of a book, and it is a clear testament to Ellen Datlow's unbelievable skills as an editor who chooses only the best.

While each of these were unquestionably entertaining and special, there were a couple that I found to be total knock-outs:

"You Have What I Need" by Ian Rogers - A wicked opening story about working in an ER with vampirism being a very real issue. A monster story with more memorable humanity in it than I can bear to forget.

"Wet Red Grin" by Gemma Files - Probably my favourite one in this whole book. Just an absolutely terrifying concept borne of an old ritual of the "reddening of bones." I found myself reading all about the historical context of this ritual afterwards and was astonished by how cool it was that Gemma Files invented this terrifying story from that idea.

"The Atrocity of Exhibitionists" by Brian Hodge - As I write this, I realize that this story is competing for first place with the one from Gemma Files. I want to tell everyone about this story's concept. We are in an age of social media that includes a ravenous need for attention and likes. More frighteningly, people seem to believe everything they read online and can no longer think for themselves. Loved this one so much.

"Crick Crack Rattle Tap" by A.C. Wise - A startling tale of a new mother and her steadily darkening thoughts mixed with some disturbing folklore. "The Blair Witch" meets postpartum depression.

"The Smell of Waiting" by Kaaron Warren - This story felt like a mix of "Pet Sematary" by Stephen King and "From the Corner of His Eye" by Dean Koontz. It had dogs, a kind of chemically induced supernatural ability, and it left me with such a remarkably empty and used up feeling at the end. In a good way.

"Three Mothers Mountain" by Nathan Ballingrud - A story about witches who grant the requests of townspeople desperate enough to seek their services, and the prices paid for those 'gifts.' The imagery from this story will stay with me until I am in the ground.

"Bloedzuiger" by John Langan - This guy knows how to spin a yarn. He also seems to love writing disturbing stories about fishing that compel me to feel dread when near any bodies of water. Mixing Danish scenery with blood sucking creatures, this one is a winner.

Honourable mentions for Stephen Graham Jones' "Children of the Night" and Brian Evenson's "Knock, Knock." Just reviewing the stories I feel so excited about how great they all were and I am so pleased that I got to read this in advance. Pick it up when it comes out in June 2022!

This humourous, frightening collection of horror stories was really captivating and I will be recommending it to every horror fan I know.

This is certainly a behemoth of an anthology, and it was unsurprisingly a very mixed bag. Stephen Graham Jones' story was a delight, as almost always, and I found two new to me authors that I'm now excited to read more from (Nathan Ballingrud and Glen Hirshberg, whose folk-horror entries were true standouts). But the rest...were disappointing, to say the least. The anthology was helpful in either confirming or at least hinting that certain horror authors just aren't for me, but even some favorites delivered stories that I just couldn't get on with.

As another reviewer has mentioned, overall the quality of the story is uneven, with most of them existing in that place that is neither good nor bad, just average. I couldn't get into the majority of these tales and ended up just skimming over several of them, sometimes this was due to the writing style adopted by certain authors, others, it was because so many of the stories had nautical and/or historical settings, which I'm not a fan of.

Out of the 29 stories featured in this book, I only enjoyed 5 of them, with the other 24 blending together and being deleted from my brain the second I finished reading them. However, the five tales I did like were REMARKABLE, they made the whole experience worth it, they truly were hidden diamonds and I'll be on the lookout for these authors' other works.

You Have What I Need by Ian Rogers - This was a great choice to open this collection, the only thing was that it set my expectations at a level that the majority of the other tales were not able to reach. It was a light and wholesome read, it incorporated the monsters seamlessly into the modern world, the characters were well developed and the narrative had a very satisfying ending.

Wet Red Grin by Gemma Files - This was HANDS DOWN, one of the best stories I have EVER read and also the best title featured in this collection. It's super gory, several bits made my skin crawl and my stomach churn, which I LOVED. The voice of the main character is very distinct and I lost myself in her internal monologue, the lore behind the tale was interesting and the plot was tight. I don't want to get any more details because I truly think that this works better as a "blind" read.

Crick Crack Rattle Tap by A. C. Wise- A powerful tale that deals with Postpartum depression, the expectations that a misogynistic society puts on women, more specifically, the expectations that society places on mothers. It's incredible how Wise managed to translate such complex concepts to the page through the main character, that is both the monster and the victim. This was the only story (as far as I remember), that had the true monster be intangible instead of a creature/person. Wise does a wonderful job showing us how traumatizing the burden of idealized motherhood can be.

Children of the Night by Stephen Grahan Jones - A shorter tale that goes for the comedic side of horror. Honestly, didn't like this one that much, but when compared to the other 24 I believe it deserved recognition. As I've said, it's very short and doesn't depict monsters as scary at all, I think it would've worked better in a longer format that allowed the author to better develop the characters.

Bloedzuiger by John Langan - Although I think this story should've been shorter, it was well written, had likable characters, an interesting monster, and a good plot. Let me tell you, I had no desire to fish before reading this story but now? You won't catch me near large bodies of water ever again.

A variety of short monster stories by various authors. Some are insanely good, others were not to my taste at all – but overall a great collection. If this were a class, it’d be getting an A. One of the things I like most about short story anthologies is that if there’s a story I don’t like, I can skip to the next without feeling like I’ve wasted any time.

Some of my favourites were:
- The Midway – by Fran Wilde – atmospheric, personal and lovely
- Wet Red Grin – by Gemma Files – her descriptions are to die for, the way she counters bleakness with such vividness
- The Virgin Jimmy Peck – by Daryl Gregory – I wanted more of this one. A novel. A series.
- Flaming Teeth – by Garry Kilworth – “Mystery takes mastery over pragmatism on a planet that is rapidly going to wrack and ruin through selfishness.” I’m a sucker for hidden island adventures.

(I received a free copy of this through NetGalley for the purpose of an honest review)

Fans of the frequent horror anthologies Datlow edits and compiles will be into "Screams from the Dark," which features many authors familiar to these pages like Brian Hodge, Stephen Graham Jones, Joyce Carol Oates, Richard Kadrey, Priya Sharma, Kaaron Warren, and many others. Some of the highlights in this one included the stories from Norman Partridge, Caitlin R Kiernan, and some newer authors to these pages that have long deserved far bigger spotlights, like Chịkọdịlị Emelụmadụ. Overall the quality here is good as with other Datlow anthologies.

Screams from the Dark edited by Ellen Datlow 03/13/22
A great collection of original horror short stories. Each of the 29 tales brings something different, a giant with flaming logs for teeth, a voluptuous sweet potato, and an island with a mind of its own, just to mention a few. Some well know authors take the stage along with plenty of new writers also. If you enjoy short frights, with a few laughs thrown in, you don’t want to pass this one up. Thanks to Netgalley for this forum!

I wasn’t impressed with the majority of the stories except for one or two. The quality of the writing seems very uneven, and I couldn’t get into many of them.