I was a long-time reader of DAW’s The Year’s Best Horror Stories series and I’ve been randomly looking for something similar, with more current writers and stories. I came across this collection and decided to give it a try. There are definitely some names I recognize, which is good (Christina Henry is one of my favorites!) but it also includes a lot of names that i am not familiar with and I really like finding new (to me) authors that I might want to follow.
Overall, I was slightly disappointed with this collection. Most of these stories were not at all memorable. And more than a few didn’t even feel like horror. Twice, while reading in the collection, I had to go back to my main Kindle page to make sure I was really reading from this book.
There were, however, a few standouts.
Jim Horlock’s “They Eat the Rest” was wonderfully creepy and so very, very unique. This is exactly the kind of story I’m looking for when I read a collection like this. When the end takes you by surprise (especially when it shouldn’t), I’m immediately a fan. I was not familiar with Horlock, but I’m definitely looking forward to reading more of his work.
David J. Schow is one of the few authors with whom I was familiar before going into the book. I’ve liked his work well enough previously, but he’s never been a ‘must-read’ author for me. His story here, “Red Meat Flag,” really struck a great chord for me. In this story it was the narrative voice that really appealed. Schow, through his narrator, really draws the reader into the story. And with a title like “Red Meat Flag” Schow let’s us know right from the start that this isn’t going to be too subtle. Really fun!
Only one more story had a positive impact on me. “The Daughter’s of Canaan” by Kurt Newton was absolutely tremendous. I was hooked from the very first sentence: “Everywhere Mary-Alice looked she saw dog-headed men.” Fantastic! And it only gets better.
The rest of the stories were fine, but nothing was strong enough to be recommendation-worthy.
This book contains the following:
“The Peeler” – Poppy Z. Brite
“The Entity” – Nicholas Royle
“Nobody Wants to Work Here Anymore” – Christina Henry
“The Scarecrow Festival” – Tim Major
“The Wrong Element” – Aaron Dries
“Mister Reaper” – Annie Knox
“The Call of the Deep” – Laurel Hightower
“The Plague” – Luigi Musolino
“Jack-A-Lent” – Paul Finch
“The Only Face You Ever Knew” – Gwendolyn Kiste
“They Eat the Rest” – Jim Horlock
“The Note” – Paul Tremblay
“Unmarked” – Tim Lebbon
“Red Meat Flag” – David J. Schow
“A Review of Slime Tutorial: The Musical” – P.C. Verrone
“The Doppelgänger Ballet” – Will Maclean
“Eight Days West of Plethora” – Verity Holloway
“The Daughters of Canaan” – Kurt Newton
“A House of Woe and Mystery” – Andy Davidson
“I Miss You Too Much” – Sarah Langan
Author Biographies
Looking for a good book? Elemental Forces, edited by Mark Morris is a decent collection of writing but not particularly dark or horrific. A few standouts but mostly not very noteworthy.
I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.
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Elemental Forces
editor: Mark Morris
publisher: Flame Tree Press
ISBN: 9781787588653
paperback, 304 pages
Looking For a Good Book 
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