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The last twenty years have offered plenty of excellent short horror fiction, so it doesn't come as a surprise that the two major anthologists in the field, Stephen Jones in the UK and Ellen Datlow in USA, have endeavoured to collect the short stories they liked better, among the ones they chose for either Best New Horror (Jones) or the horror section of Year's Best Fantasy and Horror (Datlow).

As a matter of fact both editors in their Introductions to The Mammoth Book of the Best of Best New Horror and Darkness: Two Decades of Modern Horror hasten to deny that their selections represent the actual "best" among the horror stories that appeared in print during the last two decades, but it's plain to see that this is exactly the meaning of the two volumes they have been editing.

While Jones sticks strictly to his own twenty Best New Horror anthologies and singles out one story from each annual volume (so we have twenty "best" stories), Datlow includes a total of twenty-five stories and is more eclectic in her selection, even though many of her favourite pieces had already appeared in her Year's Best books.

Now, to comment in detail about the merits of the various tales assembled in the two volumes would be time-consuming, boring and also a bit unfair. Suffice to say that both books certainly provide a good summation of what contemporary short story writers have produced in the horror area. This should especially benefit the newcomers to the genre, whereas the long-time fans of horror fiction will hardly find anything there that they haven't already read sometimes during the years.

Another important point is that a good number of horror writers are included in both anthologies, proving they are true masters of the genre. This is the case with Ramsey Campbell, Michael Marshall Smith, Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman, Peter Straub, Elizabeth Hand, Joe Hill, Glen Hirshberg and, naturally enough, Stephen King.

Interestingly, however, neither Jones nor Datlow have chosen the same story by the same author, which emphasizes how personal taste plays a pivotal role also in the editorial practices of two famous anthologists.

If we take into consideration prolific writers, the lack of overlapping in the choice of the story is understandable. For example, from Ramsey Campbell's huge body of work the editors have selected two really excellent stories: the classical "The Same in Any Language" (Jones) and the more recent "No Strings" (Datlow). The same applies to Stephen King, whose comparatively old "Chattering Teeths" is reprinted in the Datlow anthology and the recent "THE NEW YORK TIMES at Special Bargain Rates" is Jones' choice.

On the other hand Neil Gaiman is included in both anthologies with two unmemorable poems ("Queen of Knives" in The Mammoth Book of the Best of Best New Horror and "Eaten" in Darkness: Two Decades of Modern Horror) Go figure.

Joe Hill's equally remarkable "20th Century Ghost" (Jones) and "My Father's Mask" (Datlow) are both taken from the author's outstanding debut collection.

Among Peter Straub's short fiction, the dark "The Juniper Tree" is Datlow's favourite, while Jones's pick is the questionable "Mr Chubb and Mr Cuff."

Both editors complain that due to space limitations they were unable to include some excellent stories. That explains, perhaps, why Jones has selected stories by Christopher Fowler, Terry Lamsley, Mark Samuels (all of them British…) but Datlow hasn't. By contrast she included pieces by Dan Simmons, Joe Lansdale, Dennis Etchison, Thomas Ligotti (all of them Americans…), but Jones ignored them all.

In short, if you want to get a complete overview of some of the best horror stories published in the last twenty years, I'm afraid you have no choice: you have to buy both books…

Mario Guslandi lives in Milan, Italy, and is a long-time fan of dark fiction. His book reviews have appeared on a number of genre websites such as The Alien Online, Infinity Plus, Necropsy, The Agony Column and Horrorwold.