Screams from the Dark: 29 Tales of Monsters and the Monstrousby Ellen Datlow

​Warning: this behemoth of an anthology is a screamer. Took me a while to get through, but what a collection. Datlow is one of the best editors in business with decades of experience, accolades and awards, and this is a Datlow collection through and through, meaning terrific, heavy in tone and volume, featuring a veritable roster of who’s who in literary scares and thrills.
In a way, writing horrific tales like these is very much like going to a dark place and screaming from it, informing the readers what the world is like out there. So I appreciated the title and a reader and as an author.
The stories of monstrous and monsters are indeed just that, although the theme is broad enough to accommodate a wide variety of interpretations. From nightmares to fairy tales, from motherhood to mayhem (though the two are not dissimilar), from humorous to stygian bleakness, these stories certainly do a great job of giving the readers a tour of the darkest place imaginable.
Most of the individual entries are on the longer side, so you get a good serving each time you come to this table. Makes it for a book collection to dip in and out of, which may be a more appropriate approach that binging it, though it seems I’ve done both.
Anyway, a strong note to finish the reading year on. Goodbye, 2022. Thanks Netgalley.