A good anthology, just not as scary as I hoped it would be. ( )

I'm not real impressed with these "Best of" annual anthologies after reading a couple. A better title would be "Mammoth Book of Pretty Okay Horror." The "Horror in 2008" and the Necrology are largely dross and seem like filler to me. I found a third of the stories above average, a third average, and a third bad (by page count). This is just too much inferior material in a year that couldn't have been that lean and an anthology that only has 21 stories. Two of the longish stories are just awful, full of hackneyed tropes and devices, but then you get an Arkangel or It Runs Beneath the Surface that are excellent but are painfully short.

There is a story entitled The Overseer that is really bad and the tedious [a:Brian Lumley|20602|Brian Lumley|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1246727488p2/20602.jpg] story just confirms my opinion of Lumley's writing. M.R. James would turn over in his grave if he could read these two "ghost" stories. ( )

Typical anthology. I loved some stories and others were meh. Overall a good read. ( )