Search Results for: Stories That Work

Haunted Trains and the Rock-and-Roll Afterlife: The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series X, edited by Karl Edward Wagner

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The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series X (DAW, August 1982). Cover by Michael Whelan The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series X was the tenth volume in DAW’s Year’s Best Horror Stories, copyrighted and printed in 1982. A whole decade for this anthology thus far! This was the third volume edited by horror author and editor Karl Edward Wagner (1945–1994). Michael Whelan’s (1950–) artwork appears for an eighth time in a row on the cover. This is one of his eeriest…

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Cemetery Cats and Sinister Catacombs: The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series IX, edited by Karl Edward Wagner

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The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series IX edited by Karl Edward Wagner (DAW 1981). Cover by Michael Whelan The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series IX was the ninth volume in DAW’s Year’s Best Horror Stories, copyrighted and printed in 1981. This was the second volume edited by horror author and editor Karl Edward Wagner (1945–1994). Michael Whelan’s (1950–) artwork appears for a seventh time in a row on the cover. I continue to be very impressed with Whelan’s artistic diversity…

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Westside Stories: The Gilda Carr Tiny Mystery Fantasies by W.M. Akers

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Westside, Westside Saints, and Westside Lights (Harper Voyager, 2019, 2020, and 2022). Cover designs by Owen Corrigan. First I heard of W.M. Akers’ Westside books was when Jeff Somers blurbed the first volume for the Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of May 2019 at The Barnes & Noble Sci-fi & Fantasy Blog. Here’s what he said. In an alternate 1920s Manhattan in which a heavily fortified wall running along Broadway divides the island into Eastside, where the normal laws of…

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When USA was Kicking the Major Networks’ Collective Butts!

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In the early 2000’s, for about a decade and-a-half, USA Network was cranking out quality shows. For some programming, they were a viable competitor to the big four. In those pre-streaming days, I faithfully watched each week. And in the past year, I’ve discovered a couple I didn’t watch the first time around. I decided it’s time to talk about a few of them. So here’s the first of a two-parter, looking at some of those great USA Network shows….

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One From the Bucket List: The Year’s Top Robot and AI Stories: Second Annual Collection edited by Allan Kaster

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The Year’s Top Robot and AI Stories: Second Annual Collection (Infinivox, November 21, 2021). Cover by Maurizio Manzieri I’ve been reading and writing about Year’s Best volumes for decades, and I’ve covered a lot of them, including anthologies by Terry Carr, Don Wollheim, Harry Harrison and Brian Aldiss, Gardner Dozois, Jonathan Strahan, Rich Horton, Neil Clarke, and many others. So I hope you can appreciate what a pleasure it was to receive a copy of Allan Kaster’s The Year’s Top…

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Were-Antelopes, Haunted Cabins, and the Horror of Retail: The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series VII (1979), edited by Gerald W. Page

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The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series VII (DAW, July 1979). Cover by Michael Whelan The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series VII was the seventh volume in DAW’s Year’s Best Horror Stories, published in 1979. This was the fourth and final installment edited by horror author and editor Gerald W. Page (1939–). Given the strength of his anthologies, I doubt that Page was let go; but I don’t know why this was his last. Perhaps he returned to his own writing….

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Burger Creatures and Halloween Stories: DAW’s The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series III (1975), edited by Richard Davis

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The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series III (DAW, 1975). Cover by Michael Whelan The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series III was the third volume in DAW’s Year’s Best Horror Stories, copyright 1975, printed in that same year. Like the first two, British author and anthologist Richard Davis was the editor, though he would not continue with DAW after this volume. The cover was by Michael Whelan (1950–), his first for the series. Whelan was becoming more and more ubiquitous on…

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Exorcists Take Warning: DAW’s The Year’s Best Horror Stories II (1974), edited by Richard Davis

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The Year’s Best Horror Stories Series II (DAW, July 1974). Cover by Hans Arnold The Year’s Best Horror Stories: Series II was the second volume in DAW’s Year’s Best Horror Stories. Copyright 1972, 1973, but printed in 1974. Like the first, it was edited by Richard Davis. The cover, by Swiss artist Hans Arnold (1925–2010), was much more in line with a horror themed anthology than the first one. Clearly the cover is an homage to Dr. Jekyll and Mr….

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Stories of Isolation and Lonely Death: The Dead Astronaut by Playboy Science Fiction

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The Dead Astronaut (Playboy Press, 1971). Cover by Pompeo Posar Last summer I came across an intriguing aside on the SF anthology The Dead Astronaut by Playboy Press (1971). I can’t remember the name of the blogger who had re-cracked it, but the person noted that with everyone locked down and socially distanced, these decades-old stories of isolation and lonely death, mostly written between Sputnik and the Apollo landing, felt newly relevant. I agree. While I admit I don’t have…

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Amazing Stories, November 1989: A Retro Review

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  Amazing Stories, November 1989. Cover by Janet Aulisio An unexpected issue came up during my reading of the November, 1989 Amazing Stories. In 1979 I was 10 years old, and I barely remember being 10 years old. In 1989 I was 20, and I remember being 20; maybe not 100%, but I remember enough. In fact, I remember enough to know what 20-year-old me (20YOM) would think of the stories in the November, 1989 cadre. Sometimes, 20YOM’s views conflicts…

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