For those who don’t know, Ellen Datlow is generally regarded as one of the greatest genre editors and anthologists of the last 45 years or more. As well as putting together story collections such as The Best Horror of the Year series, Ellen has edited many authors you may know well. So when a new collection appears with her name on for review, I find that it is generally worth a look.
Her latest collection, All Hallow’s Eve, is a collection of 18 stories and a poem (Merciless Feast by Linda D Addison), all new to this collection. What makes this collection a little unusual is that the book celebrates Halloween by not just including the stereotypical American setting, but also Halloween stories from around the world.
Ellen Datlow in her brief introduction says that “The one thing I asked of my contributors was to avoid stereotypical monsters— I wanted the weird, the unusual, and of course the very very dark.”
After that, Lisa Morton gives us a brief outline of the historical and cultural background to the festival. Although a predominantly American festival today, the USA is not the only place to celebrate, nor the first place to do so.
I’m not going to go through each story in turn, but here are the tales (and poem) that follow:
That Hannie Agnes Josh Malerman
On the Path, Bleeding Lee Murray
Good Kids Rich Larson
Treats Clay McLeod Chapman
The Levels Livia Llewellyn
Forever Again Michael Marshall Smith
The Devil’s New Year Stephen Graham Jones
Merciless Feast Linda D Addison (Poem)
Or So the Story Goes Christopher Golden
The Kuker Alma Katsu
Ankou’s Night Brian Evenson
The Hungry Grass Siobhan Carroll
Saturday Chịkọdịlị Emelụmadụ
Give Me Something Good to Eat Theresa DeLucci
Her Mother’s Business Garth Nix
The Thinning of the Veil Jeffrey Ford
Dare Me Richard Kadrey
On the Night of the Welcome Stranger Nathan Ballingrud
The Auld Woman with the Broom John Langan
As with any of these collections, I enjoyed some stories more than others.
Josh Malerman’s That Hannie Agnes is a fairly strong start, the story of a teacher at Halloween haunted by a folk story from his past.
Of authors new to me, I really liked Siobhan Carroll’s The Hungry Grass, which combined historical horrors (the Potato famine in Ireland in the 1840’s) with a rather unsettling young woman who may be more than she appears to be. Another author new to me was Theresa DeLucci, whose Give Me Something Good to Eat was more typical Halloween fare, one of those Carrie-type tales about a young outsider girl trying to fit into her new school, with unfortunate results. Livia Llewellyn’s The Levels also had that High School Halloween vibe, which appeared in more than one story. Stephen Graham Jones’s The Devil’s New Year was refreshingly blunt, written from the perspective of a young girl with attitude and relishing in it. Rich Larson’s Good Kids felt like something out of Stranger Things or any small-town in America in depicting a group of teenagers being the opposite of that title.
Continuing the historical theme, Garth Nix in Her Mother’s Business uses the cultural obsession with the occult in 1920’s England to create a rather good tale of nasty things on ancient burial grounds.
In terms of different cultures, there were also some stories that moved away from the usual American setting. Alma Katsu’s The Kuker uses a Bulgarian folk costume to provide a Halloween chill. Brian Evenson’s Ankou’s Night was a story set in Breton (France). Christopher Golden’s Or So the Story Goes was a Romanian-set tale of wolves that may be related to one of those old fairy stories. Lee Murray’s On the Path, Bleeding was an unusual story being based on a Maori folk legend, and was more memorable as a result. However, Chịkọdịlị Emelụmadụ’s Saturday did similar things, being set in Africa, but was less successful for me.
I was pleased that most of the names I knew better were up to their usual standard. Richard Kadrey’s Dare Me was up to his usual high standard, being a revenge tale centred around Halloween. By comparison, Jeffrey Ford’s The Thinning of the Veil was one of those stories told by old people on the porch, and was appropriately folky, but short. Michael Marshall Smith’s Forever Again was a story with a nice twist in the tale, as was Clay McLeod Chapman’s haunting story, Treats.
Perhaps my favourite story in the book was Nathan Ballingrud‘s On the Night of the Welcome Stranger which managed to be both shocking and amusing – shocking in its grisly matter-of-factness in depicting what ghouls do, and amusing by showing us Halloween from the perspective of a pair of its horrors – namely, two ghouls. It felt a little like a more gruesome Ray Bradbury-kind of story to me.
The final story, John Langan’s The Auld Woman with the Broom is a sort-of folk horror crime story set in Scotland. A touch of the Peaky Blinders in its depiction of gangsters there, albeit set in modern times, although I guess that it could just as easily be the ganglands of Chicago.
In summary, All Hallow’s Eve is what it should be – a solid collection of horrors, worth a read on a dark Halloween night. The book manages to do what these collections do best – provide a varied range of stories from both new authors and better-known ones that amuse, horrify and generally entertain.
© 2026 Mark Yon
Hardback | Titan Books
ALL HALLOW’S EVE Edited by Ellen Datlow
September 2026 |328 pages
ISBN: 978-1835415436
