Not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach, the 19 stories in this new best-of annual anthology feature episodes of graphic gore and violence-including torture, dismemberment, self-mutilation, and home abortion-that are designed to push buttons as well as boundaries…strictly for hardcore horror fans. -Publishers Weekly
…glutted with graphic scenes of torture, dismemberment, evisceration… - PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (on Volume 2)
Editors Randy Chandler and Cheryl Mullenax put the call out to horror writers and editors of extreme stories, the hardcore stuff that breaks boundaries and trashes taboos, the transgressive tales you can’t unread (as Chuck Palahniuk says). We staked out our territory and nailed this to the wall to guide us:
YEAR’S BEST HARDEST HORRORNot your mama’s best-of horror annual.This stuff comes from the edge of the abyss, stories you read at your own riskbecause you feel the abyss looking right back into youthrough the tainted lens of each twisted tale.
Some of the stories you’ll find here are loaded with very graphic descriptions of violence, sex and depravities, while others may contain only one shocking moment of brutality. In others, the hardcore aspect may be less graphic and subtler than you might expect. Some of these quieter tales offer the reader some time to recover from the more disturbing ones preceding.
Most of the stories collected here are from small and specialty press anthologies, with a few from periodicals, like the prestigious Splatterpunk Zine in the UK and Thuglit here in the US. Bizarro is also represented with a couple of tales from the unlikely anthology Blood For You: A Literary Tribute To GG Allin from Weirdpunk Books. (If you’re not familiar with the late GG Allin, you can find snippets from some of his outrageous and obscene punk shows online, which will increase your appreciation of those two tales.)
So for now, forget about that neighbor you suspect is a serial killer, don’t worry about the drunk driver that could take you out on your next trip to the store, push those troubling news stories to the back of your mind and immerse yourself in the imaginary horrors at hand.
But don’t be surprised if you sense something dark staring back at you from between the lines. That is to be expected when you enter these forbidding realms. With any luck, you may find something useful to help you survive the approaching Apocalypse.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction: The Year That Was
Worth the Having by Michael Paul Gonzalez
Awakening by Jeff Strand
Readings Off The Charts by Adam Cesare
Reborn by The Behrg
What’s Worst by David James Keaton
Dead End by Kristopher Triana
What You Wish For by Lilith Morgan
King Shits by Charles Austin Muir
Cleanup On Aisle 3 by Adam Howe
Bath Salt Fetus by Jorge Palacios
Bored With Brutality by MP Johnson
Exposed by Monica J. O'Rourke
Eleanor by Jason Parent
The Scavengers by Tony Knighton
The Most Important Miracle by Scott Emerson
Hungry For Control by Clare de Lune
Clarissa by Robert Essig & Jack Bantry
Where The Sun Don’t Shine by Pete Kahle
Blackbird Lullaby by George Cotronis
