ELEMENTAL FORCES - Mark Morris, editor


 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:

Introduction - Mark Morris
"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.

3-1/2 stars

* * * * * *

Elemental Forces

editor: Mark Morris

publisher: Flame Tree Press

ISBN: 9781787588653

paperback, 304 pages

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