Darkness: Two Decades of Modern Horror by Ellen Datlow

This sophisticated, scary anthology collects the best horror fiction published between 1984 and 2005, one of horror’s most innovative eras. These exceptionally diverse stories, hand-picked by horror-expert editor Ellen Datlow, are tales of the subtly psychological, the unpredictably mischievous, and the disturbingly visceral.

Here are classics, such as horror master Stephen King’s “Chattery Teeth,” the tautly drawn account of a traveling salesman who unwisely picks up yet another hitchhiker; Peter Straub’s eerie “The Juniper Tree,” describing a man whose nostalgia for the movies of his childhood leads to his stolen innocence; and George R. R. Martin’s sinister “The Pear-Shaped Man,” in which a young woman encounters a neighbor who likes her a bit too much.

Whether you grew up on Clive Barker’s Books of Blood; Joyce Carol Oates’s “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”; Neil Gaiman’s Sandman; or are newly discovering Stephen King’s son, breakout author Joe Hill; there is something here for everyone who enjoys being more than just a little bit scared.


Introduction by Ellen Datlow
Foreword by Stefan Dziemianowicz
Jacqueline Ess: Her Will and Testament by Clive Barker
Dancing Chickens by Edward Bryant
The Greater Festival of Masks by Thomas Ligotti
The Pear-Shaped Man by George R. R. Martin
The Juniper Tree by Peter Straub
Two Minutes Forty-Five Seconds by Dan Simmons
The Power and the Passion by Pat Cadigan
The Phone Woman by Joe R. Lansdale
Teratisms by Kathe Koja
Chattery Teeth by Stephen King
A Little Night Music by Lucius Shepard
Calcutta, Lord of Nerves by Poppy Z. Brite
The Erl-King by Elizabeth Hand
The Dog Park by Dennis Etchison
Rain Falls by Michael Marshall Smith
Refrigerator Heaven by David J. Schow
XXXXX by Joyce Carol Oates
Eaten (Scenes from a Moving Picture) by Neil Gaiman
The Specialist’s Hat by Kelly Link
The Tree is My Hat by Gene Wolfe
Heat by Steve Rasnic Tem
No Strings by Ramsey Campbell
Stitch by Terry Dowling
Dancing Men by Glen Hirshberg
My Father’s Mask by Joe Hill