Inferno: New Tales of Terror and the Supernatural

by Ellen Datlow

Book Overview

As stated in her introduction to Inferno, Ellen Datlow asked her favorite authors for stories that would provide the reader with a frisson of shock, or a moment of dread so powerful it might cause the reader outright physical discomfort; or a sensation of fear so palpable that the reader feels compelled to turn on the bright lights and play music or seek the company of others to dispel the fear.

Mission accomplished. Datlow has produced...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0765315599
• ISBN13: 9780765315595
• Release Date: March 2009
• Publisher: Tor Books
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.9" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Borders on perfect.....

I love anthologies that don't have a single emphasis; zombies or aliens, etc. With this exceptional anthology you don't know what the next story will present. And, as usual, Ellen Datlow has selected from the top writers of todays speculative fictions. You have a coming of age high school story with a very demonic twist, stories about parents realizing horrifying truths about their children. One or two of the stories are somewhat mediocre, but overall the quality of the writing is sterling. Even Joyce Carol Oates manages to toss in a nugget of short, pure terror. I am getting to the point that if I see the editor of ANY group of stories was edited by Ellen Datlow, I order it without question. I have yet to be disappointed with anything she has put together. Buy this book!

More, Please.

I particularly like "Bethany's Wood" by Paul Finch, "Stilled Life" by Pat Cadigan, and "An Apiary of White Bees" by Lee Thomas. Oh, that stories like these have made it into YBFH 2008. I read the Datlow-chosen stories in YBFH 2007 right after reading Inferno and was disappointed; the story by Oates, in particular, seemed misplaced: I'm a fan of the bizarre, and this one seemed pointlessly grotesque instead. But Inferno is everything I look for in modern horror! I think it's Ellen's best book so far.

Chilling

Inferno is the kind of anthology a reader waits and hopes for. It's filled with disturbing tales from some of the best horror/dark fantasy authors, and these tales leave chilling, lasting impressions. The deepest impression on me came from P.D. Cacek's "The Keeper." Simple, heartbreaking, and powerful. Ellen Datlow has compiled another incredible collection here. She's the best editor in the field. Highly recommended!

An excellent anthology in every way

In Stephen King's Danse Macabre, King compared Ramsey Campbell's prose to a low level acid trip. I was thinking of that description many times throughout this anthology, were most of the stories take place in this world but something's not right. NOt just the horror portion of the stories but everything about these characters and their world is off-kilter in some way or fashion. Take for example "Riding Bitch" by K.W. Jeter where the protagonist is a loser biker who takes corpses to the funeral home to pick up extra money. By this time we've all seen the tropes from the tough biker to the seedy bar, but add in a dead girlfriend who won't quite stay dead or is dead but he hears it - you can never tell - and it's a story that won't let you go. Similarly "Monsters of Heaven" being reminiscent of Marquez's "Man with Wings" (sic?) doesn't just let the characters get by with ignoring the angels. Even as they are embroiled in a lost child tragedy, they still have time to do some truly horrific things to each other and finally an innocent. Not all of the stories work, but the stories that don't work for me are the ones that appear to be trying too hard like Laird Barron's "THe Forest" or Lee Thomas's "An Apiary of WHite Bees." They are strange but I never get the sense of being taken along for a ride. More like I'm being told about someone's acid trip laden vacation. Ultimately these stories are disturbing because human beings are disturbing. Vampires, werewolves and ghosts have nothing on Basra militias or Serbian death squads. These stories reflect the evil that humans do to each other on a constant basis and they are much more powerful for that.

An excellent assortment of dark tales guaranteed to make the reader shudder

I recently finished reading INFERNO, edited by Ellen Datlow, and must remark that this 2007 original horror anthology is one of the best to come down the pike in a long time. Comprising an assortment of dark themes, INFERNO offers readers an outstanding variety of twenty tales ranging from psychological and ghostly to monstrous and downright weird, if whimsical, the latter in reference to Jeffrey Ford's "The Bedroom Light," a conundrum of creepy and whimsical that left me chuckling while goose flesh crept up and down my arms. Clever. The following is a list of my favorite stories, in order of the toc: "The Forest" by Laird Barron: old acquaintances are revisited while the Old Ones feed. "The Monsters of Heaven" by Nathan Ballingrud: a disturbing tale of loss, grief, and sacrifice. (This one was hard for me to shake off, haunted me for days.) ""Lives" by John Grant: the-cat-with-nine-lives meets a nasty demise, with uncomfortable implications. "Ghorla" by Mark Samuels: repulsive retribution for the careless. "An Apiary of White Bees" by Lee Thomas: oh, just let me say that the visceral-rating is high in this tale of bizarre horror. "Stilled Life" by Pat Cadigan: a disturbing riff on the Pygmalion theme in reverse. Finishing out this excellent anthology are "Riding Bitch" by K. W. Jeter--a tale of ghostly disaffection in Las Vegas; "Misadventure" by Stephen Gallagher--an engrossing tale of "haunts"; "Inelastic Collisions" by Elizabeth Bear--beware of the singles-bar in this one; "The Uninvited" by Christopher Fowler--a tale of unsavory reminiscence that made my spine creep with recollection; "13 O'Clock" by Mike O'Driscoll--a tragic and inescapable haunting; "Face" by Joyce Carol Oates--an ambiguous curse with psychological underpinnings; "The Keeper" by P. D. Cacek--a disturbing reminder that we must never forget; "Bethany's Wood" by Paul Finch--a tale about the very last person on earth who should go mad; "The Ease with Which We Freed the Beast" by Lucius Shepard--fantastic and gruesome delusions therein, this tale is a "must read" for the horror story die-hard; "Hushabye" by Simon Bestwick--on the track of someone or something feeding on innocence; "Perhaps the Last" by Conrad Williams--while a killer stalks the city, a mall guard obsesses about an unavailable woman; "The Janus Tree" by Glen Hirshberg--a disturbing coming-of-age tale set against the backdrop of a decaying Montana mining town; "The Bedroom Light" by Jeffrey Ford--ghosts and a strange birthing that for some reason had me thinking of the cult film classic "Eraserhead" (I shiver); and last but not least, "The Suits at Auderlene" by Terry Dowling--a tale about arcane armor and generational revenge. Ellen Datlow dedicated this book to the late and great Charles L. Grant. Need I say more? Highly recommended reading! JLR

Publishers Weekly starred review

This is the entire starred Publishers Weekly review: Inferno Edited by Ellen Datlow. Tor, $25.95 (384p) ISBN 978-0-7653-1558-8 Datlow (The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror) makes a solid claim to being the premiere horror editor of her generation with this state-of-the-art anthology of 20 new stories by some of horror fiction's best and brightest. Several outstanding selections feature imperiled children and explore the horrific potential of childhood fears, among them Glen Hirshberg's "The Janus Tree," which gives a creepy supernatural spin to a poignant memoir of adolescent angst and alienation, and Stephen Gallagher's "Misadventure," in which a young man's near-death experience as a child endows him as an adult with consoling insight into the afterlife. The compilation's variety of approaches and moods is exemplary, ranging from the natural supernaturalism of Laird Barron's cosmic horror tale "The Forest," to the unsettling psychological horror of Lucius Shepard's "The Ease with Which We Freed the Beast"; the metaphysical terrors of Conrad Williams's "Perhaps the Last"; and the slapstick grotesquerie of K.W. Jeter's black comedy "Riding Bitch." If this book can be taken as a gauge of the vitality of imagination in contemporary horror fiction, then the genre is very healthy indeed. (Dec.) And chosen by PW as one of the best sf/f titles of the year.