Publisher Description
The first three volumes of The Best Horror of the Year have been widely praised for their quality, variety, and comprehensiveness. Editor Ellen Datlow has now explored the entirety of the diverse horror market, distilling it into the fourth anthology in the series and providing an overview of the year in terror.
Fear is the oldest human emotion, the most primal. We like to think we're civilized. We tell ourselves we're not afraid. And every year, we skim our fingers across nightmares, desperately pitting our courage against shivering dread.
In one story, a paraplegic millionaire hires a priest to exorcise his pain; in another, a failing marriage is put to the ultimate test. In other stories hunters become the hunted as a small group of men ventures deep into a forest; a psychic struggles for her life on national television; a soldier strikes a grisly bargain with his sister's killer; ravens answer a child's wish for magic; two mercenaries accept a strangely simplistic assignment; and a desperate woman in an occupied land makes a terrible choice.
What scares you? Horror wears new faces in these carefully selected stories. The details may change, but the fear remains. With tales from Laird Barron, Stephen King, John Langan, Peter Straub, and many others, The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Four provides the petrifying horror fans of the genre have come to expect—and enjoy.
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About Ellen Datlow
Ellen Datlow has been editing sci-fi, fantasy, and horror short fiction for more than thirty years. She was fiction editor of Omni magazine and Scifiction and has edited more than fifty anthologies. She won the Bram Stoker Award in 2020 and has won nine World Fantasy Awards, plus multiple Locus, Hugo, Stoker, International Horror Guild, and Shirley Jackson Awards. She was the recipient of the 2007 Karl Edward Wagner Award, given at the British Fantasy Convention for outstanding contribution to the genre, and was honored with the Life Achievement Award given by the Horror Writers Association, in acknowledgment of superior achievement over an entire career.
About the Narrators
Neil Hellegers grew up in New Jersey and attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned a BA in theater arts and a minor in psychology before getting an MFA in acting from the Trinity Rep Conservatory in Providence, Rhode Island. He moved to New York City in 2003 and, since then, has made a career of theatrical performance, percussion, theater education, and audiobook narration. He currently lives in Brooklyn with his wife and son.
Meredith Mitchell is an actress who has performed in such films as Mona Lisa Smile and The Reunion, on stage with Shakespeare & Company and the New Repertory Theatre, and on television on Good Morning America. She received her BA in psychology from Emory University and her MFA in acting from Brandeis University.
Rebecca Mitchell is a performance artist and classically trained vocalist, as well as a professional host, emcee, and personality. Her natural flair for the dramatic, coupled with her love of being in the studio, brought her to the world of narrating in 2013.
Michael Healy has appeared off Broadway and on
national television, most notably on Saturday Night Live for
three years, as well as in several national commercials. He continues to hone
his craft in Rhode Island, where he has won awards for acting. His audiobook
recordings include Mr. Midshipman Easy by Frederick
Marryat, The Collector of Lost Things by Jeremy Page,
and The Valley of Fear by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Stephen R. Thorne, winner of multiple AudioFile Earphones Awards for narration, is a professional actor and member of the resident acting company at Providence’s esteemed Trinity Repertory Company, where he has played Hamlet, Henry V, and Tom Joad.
Charlie Thurston is an actor and Earphones Award–winning narrator. He holds an MFA in acting from Brown University / Trinity Rep and has appeared on stages across the country with Trinity Repertory Company, Chautauqua Theater Company, Creede Rep, and at Riverside Theatre and Redmoon Theater, among others. His favorite roles include Edgar in The Completely Fictional—Utterly True—Final Strange Tale of Edgar Allan Poe, Stephen in The Long Christmas Ride Home, Tuzenbach in The Three Sisters, and Tony in You Can’t Take It with You.
Lindy Nettleton is a professional actress and a registered nurse who was born in England and lived in Hong Kong, Singapore, Scotland, and various places in England before coming to the United States. Apart from acting and narrating audiobooks, she runs her own wellness business. She is now a US citizen and is happy to make Newport, Rhode Island, her home.
Charles Carroll is an actor and voice-over artist residing in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. He is an avid film buff and stays active in the local film community.
Shaun Grindell, actor and Earphones Award–winning narrator, was born and raised in Southampton, England. His training includes the Calland School of Speech and Drama and the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute in London. He has been seen on stage in London and Las Vegas.
Angela Brazil is an AudioFile Earphones Award–winning narrator and a professional actor who is proud to be a long-standing member of the Resident Acting Company at Trinity Repertory Company. She also teaches at the Brown/Trinity Conservatory.
Fred Sullivan is an actor and an AudioFile Earphones Award-winning narrator. He has played over one hundred roles as an award-winning resident actor at Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, Rhode Island. He is resident director at Gamm Theatre and teaches acting at the Rhode Island School of Design.