New Arrival: Hark the Herald Angels Scream

We are told that the holidays are a festive time of year, one full of joyful celebrations with friends and family while also being offered a taste of childhood nostalgia. Many people have fond memories of getting up on Christmas morning, not really sleeping due to being so wired, the anticipation building until your parents finally allowed you to get up and you bolted downstairs to open what Santa brought you. But Christmas isn’t always happy and horror, as a genre, has been all about peeling back the shiny wrapping paper, the glittery veneer, to see the darkness churning underneath. That darkness and more is revealed in Hark theHerald Angels Scream, an anthology edited by Christopher Golden, which features some well-known horror writers and some fun explorations of very familiar horror tropes set against the backdrop of the holidays.

With anthologies to which many authors contributed, the quality can feel inconsistent, but there are also a lot of hidden gems that are sure to chill you, even as you roast chestnuts on an open fire. This collection has a Joe Lansdale ghost story, “The Second Floor of the Christmas Hotel,” that’s almost unrecognizable as vintage Lansdale. Rather than throwing a tidal wave of insane action and fast-talking protagonists, he offers a quiet ghost story that should remind readers of The Ring, of Mama, of basically any of the ghosts they might have seen on a movie screen. Whatever your horror preferences are, this anthology has even more solid stories to read while the wind howls outside and the snow keeps falling (or rain, if you live in the Southeast). If you like Jacobs’s “The Monkey’s Paw,” try James A. Moore’s “Mistletoe and Holly,” a tale about a grieving wife and mother whose dead husband wants to see his family and no distance or grave can hold him. If you prefer your horror less supernatural and more psychotic, there’s John McIlveen’s “Yankee Swap.” Like your horror by way of fairy tales, give “Fresh as the New-Fallen Snow” by Seanan McGuire a go. Want something cuddly? Snuggle up with Thomas E Sniegoski’s “Love Me.”

This anthology is a holiday horror buffet without the bloat afterward. Within these pages full of tinsel-strewn tales may just be your next favorite author, one that’s bound to have a bibliography that may contain your next great read. Maybe even your next favorite book. And that is a better Christmas gift than any sweater, ugly or otherwise.