The best darker stories were by Sharon Shinn and Laurie R. King. Cone Zero: Nemonymous 8 edited by D. F. Lewis (Megazanthus Press) is the editor's continuing experiment in oddly structured anthologies. This one seems to require contributors to use the term "cone zero" somewhere in their story. Four are simply titled "Cone Zero" and two use that phrase in addition to other words. There's not even an introduction to explain the meaning or purpose of Lewis's little game. For this issue, instead of holding the contributor's names back from readers until the next issue of the series, the editor supplies all the names but doesn't reveal who wrote which story. Five of the fourteen stories are both dark and notable. They're by Dominy Clements, A. J. Kirby, Sean Parker, Eric Schaller, and S. D. Tullis. Voices edited by Mark S. Deniz and Amanda Pillar (Morrigan Books) focuses on the history of a hotel's rooms from 1928-2008 and contains original stories by Robert Hood, Gary McMahon, Martin Livings, and others. Better off Undead edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Daniel M. Hoyt (DAW) contains original stories about vampires, haunts, zombies, and mummies but the tone is unusually light. Despite this, there were notable darker stories by Jay Lake, Kate Paulk, and Devon Monk. Alembical: A Distillation of Four Novellas edited by Lawrence M. Schoen and Arthur Dorrance (Paper Golem) features four speculative fiction novellas, including a powerful nightmarish future America envisioned by Jay Lake and a moving ghost story by James Van Pelt. Dreaming Again edited by Jack Dann (HarperVoyager, Australia / Eos, US) follows up Dann's previous non-theme anthology showcase of Australian voices (co-edited with Janeen Webb) the World Fantasy Award-winning Dreaming Down-Under. The second volume is hefty, and there are good darker stories by Trent Jamieson, Lee Battersby, Simon Brown, Sara Douglass, and Terry Dowling. Writers for Relief edited by Davey Beauchamp (Dragon Moon) does something I've never seen a publisher do before: It misspelled one of the two big name contributors' names every place it appears, including on the Table of Contents and under the title of his story.