 The life of a horror book reviewer can be a strange one… Who in their right mind begins reading a seventeen story Christmas themed anthology in April? Only a reviewer, and although I was not full of the joys of Christmas I quickly found myself warming to the twisted humour in this collection. I guarantee this particular Christmas stocking has some real gems lurking amongst the holly and mistletoe. The presents easily outweigh the turkeys, and I particularly enjoyed the darker inclusions which skewered the jolliness and clichés connected to the festive season. Christopher Golden edited the anthology and I wonder how he went about obtaining his contributions? Were they written to order? Was he a Santa carefully filling his sack with literary gifts? Did the enigmatic Josh Malerman pull his twisted tale out of the family chimney or did he write it specifically for this collection? We’ll probably never know. Perhaps many of these very talented authors just happened to have an appropriately ‘themed’ story tucked away in the recesses of their laptop for a project just like this? It would not surprise me at all. There are too many stories for me to mention all by name, so I’m going to concentrate on my favourites. Sarah Pinborough brings the curtain down on the book on a real high note and with the longest story by some distance, the rather excellent “The Hangman’s Bride”. This is not strictly a Christmas story, but is loaded with good old-fashioned seasonable spirit. It’s more a tale, in the style of MR James, to be told around the fireplace as was common in the Victorian and Edwardian days and is ultimately a clever ghost story with a sly nod to a very famous Japanese horror film. In this chilly, story within a story, a little orphaned boy is sent to a large house to clean the chimneys, his master has also told him he must also locate things to steal. But soon he feels a presence in the house and is sucked into a tragic supernatural mystery which is full of brooding atmosphere and family secrets. I’m a huge fan of Pinborough’s horror and YA fiction, “The Death House” being one of the finest YA novels of the last decade. It’s time to forget adult thrillers and return to YA Sarah! Scott Smith’s “Christmas in Barcelona” starts out as a painfully funny tale but concludes with a genuinely shocking ending which will have you drawing breath in shock. An American couple visit Barcelona for Christmas with their young baby, hoping to rekindle the magic of the carefree travelling they did earlier in their relationship. Once they arrive everything goes wrong and if you’ve travelled with small kids you’ll find it excruciatingly realistic. All the shops are closed, the hotel is rubbish and they begin to wish they stayed at home. However, when the man is out trying to locate food he buys a toy from a street seller, which you just know he is going to regret. Superb stuff. Sarah Lotz’s “Not Just For Christmas” was another wickedly funny entry which led to some sniggering and had me thinking about a toy craze a few years back. My wife and I were amongst the many suckers who spent £100+ on buying their kid an owl-like ‘Furby’ which can be connected to your phone and various online apps. In this story, extremely, lifelike robots (and way more expensive than my Furby) called ‘Gens’ are given as presents and used as pets and friends to bored kids. They also cost a small fortune. However, before long the toys begin to glitch and their software gets hacked, and there are funny scenes when the toy user taps into the buyer’s internet history, filthy porn, and all. A hoot and scarily realistic with the way technology is currently heading. You’d be better sticking to Furbys. Thomas E. Sniegoski’s “Love Me” was another entertaining entry with particularly foul little creatures which are very difficult to ditch once they get their hooks (quite literally) into you. You may well think of Joe Dante’s classic “Gremlins” when reading this unpleasant little tale, but without the humour, as the critters in this tale are pretty yucky. Having your other half coo “love me” will never be the same after reading this story. And where would Christmas be without a cult to keep us all entertained? Josh Malerman’s back-catalogue of short stories continues to impress with “Tenets” the tale of a Christmas party where a guest brings an ex-member of a cult along to liven proceedings up a little. It would have been safer to bring a bottle. Another of my personal favourites was “Good Deeds” by Jeff Strand who provides us with a bizarre take on the famous tune “Christmas Shoes” which was also very funny in a way which nastily reverses the traditional festive spirit. The morale of the story is if you’re ever overcome by holiday spirit DO NOT write a song about it. The guy in this tale is inspired to do so after helping a poor kid buy shoes for his dying mother. He calls the song “A Precious Young Child’s Wish For His Terminally Ill Mother to Have New Shoes to Die In, and How I Granted That Wish One Magical Christmas Eve” which has to be the dumbest name for a song ever. Before long the story is connected to all sorts of unsavoury stuff including suicides and murder. That’s the Christmas spirit you’re after! Bing Crosby eat your heart out. There are many other jolly entries in the collection, a few of which I will mention briefly. Christopher Golden’s “It’s a Wonderful Knife” has a stab at the most famous of all Christmas films, about the stabbing on set, and the curse that follows. James Moore provides us all with a cautionary tale “Mistletoe and Holly” in which there is serious blowback for firstly stealing a sister’s boyfriend and then marrying him. Finally, there is John McIlveen’s “Yankee Swap” which has more than a whiff of the horror franchise “Saw” about it. It’s an unpleasant tale of a group of individuals who end up in a room and are forced to do nasty things to each other. Sound familiar? But it’s fun and darkly unpleasant with a dude dressed up as an elf instead of Jigsaw. The remainder of the gifts to be unwrapped are “Absinthe and Angels” (Kelley Armstrong), “Fresh as the Fallen Snow” (Seanan McGuire), “Snake’s Tail” (Sarah Langan), “The Second Floor of the Christmas Hotel” (Joe Lansdale), “Farrow Street” (Elizabeth Hand), “Doctor Velocity” (Jonathan Maberry), “Honor Thy Mother” (Angela Slatter), “Home” (Tim Lebbon) and “Hiking Through” (Michael Koryta). As you can see there is a massive range of stories on offer, from some of the biggest and respected names in horror. I’m sure many will find their own personal favourite amongst this bunch, even if I did not. There are so many anthologies, many of which are themed, around these days it is very difficult to either keep track of them all or get excited about them. However, “Hark! The Herald Angels Scream!” is full of delicious and off-colour presents which are well worth unwrapping, or gifting to a horror loving friend. It’s also one if those books which is probably best enjoyed by dipping in and out of, over the Christmas period of course, rather than being read from beginning to end. Just don’t read it in April. Tony Jones  
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