The anthologies edited by Ellen Datlow have always been, to me, an essential read, but when I saw the theme of her latest book – Christmas and Other Horrors: An Anthology of Solstice Horror – for the first time I felt a slight waver of enthusiasm. This was due to my (admittedly flawed) assumption that the contributions would likely be a collection of variations on a similar theme – stories set around the Westernised version or Christmas, or folk horror tales featuring Krampus. I’m pleased to say that my expectations were proved hopelessly wrong – I should have had better faith in Ms Datlow’s skill as an editor – because the stories in Christmas and Other Horrors do not fall into a traditional style and, as such, deliver a superb breath of scope in terms of tone and theme. There are even a couple of tales from Australian writers so even the wintry elements are mixed up with the summer feel of how those in the Southern Hemisphere experience it. To a reader from the UK this adds a surreal aspect to the story.

As with any anthology, what I find as a favourite will not necessarily match up with your choices, yet as an overall book of short stories, the breadth and scope is huge. There was only one or two that I didn’t really enjoy. The contributors do a fine job of illustrating the darker aspects of the winter solstice, picking up on the tradition of ghost stories told over a flickering fire, something that goes back as far as humans have existed. After each story is a short piece by the respective author, giving an illuminating insight into their own experiences and memories of Christmas, and what it means to them.

Return to Bear Creek Lodge by Tananarive Due is wonderful familial tale of (in the author’s own words) “intergenerational trauma”, a loose sequel to her previously-published story Incident at Bear Creek Lodge. Richard Kadrey’s The Ghost of Christmases Past offers a sinister alternative to child-eater Krampus in Gryla, an Icelandic witch whose supernatural counterparts have terrorised Laura since she was ten years old. The Visitation by Jeffrey Ford is a brief story, but none the more disturbing by its brevity, about the Angels of Accord who call at a house for assistance over the Christmas period, almost as a moral test. Australian Terry Dowling’s twist on the theme is refreshing and sinister, in The Mawkin Field, as our narrator comes across a refrigerator standing in a field in the middle of a backwater New South Wales town. This was one I was still thinking about weeks later. The always reliable John Langan’s After Words is a rather erotic tale of black magic and sex, told via a series of dialogues between a post-coital couple. Kaaron Warren’s Grave of Small Birds is one of the longer tales, about a gathering on an island for the Twelve Feast days of Christmas, a celebration of food and wine, but where ancient traditions still hold fast. Our Recent Unpleasantness by Stephen Graham Jones is a surreal tale in which a voyeuristic dog-walker sees something unsettling through one of his neighbours’ windows. Benjamin Percy’s heartbreaking yet unsettling The One He Takes is vividly told, featuring a grieving couple in snowy Minnesota who wake one morning to a Christmas miracle. But their joy is short-lived as they hear the approach of something dark and sinister…

Christmas and Other Horrors is yet another of Ellen Datlow’s original anthologies that mark her out as one of the best editors working today. The fact that she has had such a remarkable career over such a long time period is testament to her skill and hard work, and this latest collection of short stories comes highly recommended.