The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror, vol. 4 edited by Paula Guran

PYR 2023

ISBN:  978-1645060673

Available : Paperback, Kindle edition

Buy:   Bookshop.org  |  Amazon.com

Editor Paula Guran is one of the two American women (the other one being Ellen Datlow) who keep providing every year the best short fiction that appeared in print the year before in the area of horror and dark fantasy.

The present, hefty volume includes twenty-one “best” tales. Frankly. to me 2022 doesn’t appear to have been such a great year for horror and dark fantasy, at least in the short form, because only a few among the selected stories were able to impress me and entertain me.

“Red Wet Grin” by Gemma Files, is a very dark, unsettling story where a nurse working in a care home witnesses a series of weird events.

Stephen Graham Jones contributes “Men, Women and Chainsaws” an engrossing, although a bit puzzling story, revolving around an old Camaro endowed with dangerous properties.

“The Voice of a Thousand Years” by Fawaz Al-Matrouk is a dark fable about an old man endeavoring to give life to an  automaton, while “ How Selkies are Made” by Cassandra Khaw is a splendid fairy tale featuring a beautiful, unhappy bride.

“Challawa” by Usman T. Malik  is a powerful, outstanding piece with a distinctive exotic taste, in which ancient gods take possession of an American tourist.

“The Long Way Up” by Alix E. Harrow is a disturbing allegory where a woman retrieves her dead husband in a deep chamber, and convinces him to return to the world of the living.

AC Wise provides “Sharp Things, Killing Things”, an obscure but intriguing story in which a group of youngsters have to deal with some unexpected deaths.

These are my favorite stories. Other readers could make a different selection, but these are the rules of the game and such a huge volume has plenty of material to offer.

Reviewed by Mario Guslandi