My favorite of the collection: Word Doll by Jeffrey Ford 5*

A writer living in farm country notices an old sign under some brambles. "Word Doll Museum Open 10-5" He decides to stop by and meets a woman who is the last keeper of the knowledge of Word Dolls. Historically, a doll maker visited field-hand children and gave them a mental character to escape into when the work got too hard. They would keep working but their mind could escape.

This story is available on Nightmare Magazine.com http://www.nightmare-magazine.com/fiction/word-doll/
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-- Skin and Bone by Tim Lebbon 2*
Two friends on expedition in the South Pole. At campsite after settling in one finds dead mannequin-looking bodies. Upon second inspection as his friend is having a nightmare they looked like they moved. Upon 3rd inspection they are standing and one looks like his friend the other like him. They end up looking like the dead mannequins.

-- Heroes and Villains by Stephen Gallagher 2*
A town wants to feature some heroes along with the villains in a celebration. They have the mannequin of a man who died in a fire while trying to save some children. A man answers the ad and when he puts on the "dummy" it behaves as if it is alive and knows all the events of the fire. Some "vent" rules about not using a dead man's dummy.

-- The Doll-Master by Joyce Carol Oates 2*
A boy whose father took away his baby doll becomes a serial killer. His brain is warped and he considers the people he kidnapped and killed are dolls.

-- Gaze by Gemma Files DNF
I messed up by even starting because I told myself previously not to bother with this author.

-- Goodness and Kindness by Carrie Vaughn 2*
A reporter looking for his big break follows a lead after a fire in some booths at Cooney Island. He finds the woman who owns the booths and part of the company that supplies the prizes, Kewpie dolls. I don't know what else to say. The woman claims they are all goodness and look only for goodness in other people. The story ends with his whole apartment filled with Kewpie dolls after failing to sell any stories.

-- Ambitious Boys Like You by Richard Kadrey (author of Sandman Slim) 3*
Gory horror, not for the weak. The writing was good and kept me engaged but the story matter wasn't high interest. Cousins break into an old house look for items to sell. The house was avoided by one cousin (townie) his whole life because it was so creepy. Dolls hanging from the fences, house debilitated, etc... His cousin convinces him to break in. Soon we learn the house is heavily booby trapped. Somehow the dolls and the owner are connected because the owner knew what they were up to and could see them coming from miles away. The townie is witness to what happens to his cousin which is the old man, guts him and then peels off his old skin and enters him. The ultimate puppet master. The townie gets turned into one of the creepy dolls.

-- Homemade Monsters by John Langan DNF
The writing was good but I couldn't appreciate the subject matter. Godzilla. MC was the oldest of 6 kids I think he said. They lived in a house that had "nowhere to be alone". (I like that statement, been there) ( )

What I was hoping for was a collection of eerie, unsettling tales and this collection did not disappoint. "Handmade Monsters" was my favorite. The story was wonderful and the author made some pop-culture references that I could relate to: Godzilla v the Smog Monster and G. I. Joe with kung-fu grip! ( )

Dolls... cute, serene, deadly!!!
A very wonderful collection of killer doll stories. ( )

Another high-quality collection of tales of horror from Ellen Datlow; unquestionably the best editor working in the genre.
As the title indicates, "dolls" are the theme. The one stipulation here was that the contributing authors avoid the frequently-used trope of the 'evil doll.' The dolls here might not be evil, but some of them are damn well spooky!

**** Skin and Bone - Tim Lebbon
Hallucination meets madness - and possibly something more eldritch - in this tale of two modern Antarctic explorers on an ill-fated expedition.
I'm not sure how well this piece fits in with the theme of the collection, but it's an excellent story.

**** Heroes and Villains - Stephen Gallagher
Ventriloquist's dummies (excuse me, 'dolls' or 'figures') are pretty much automatically creepy. However, this story brings both a wealth of authentic detail and a new twist to the old horror trope. A town has had the idea of hiring a ventriloquist to animate an old doll found in the museum's archives for a local festival. But the interview with a ventriloquist doesn't quite go how the curator expected.

**** The Doll-Master - Joyce Carol Oates
While, in general, I don't think that there's anything wrong with little boys playing with dolls, there's certainly something quite, quite wrong with this specific boy playing with dolls.

**** Gaze - Gemma Files
Slightly reminiscent of a 'Friday the 13th' episode (the TV show, not the movie series, of course). I love the 'haunted antique' trope, and it's done well here. When a dealer is contacted by a stranger asking if she might be interested in a matching item to one of her pieces, she's intrigued. Miniatures featuring only an eye are rare, and her new contact has a fascinating and extensive provenance for his item. But answering his e-mail has opened the door to far more than she could have expected.

**** In Case of Zebras - Pat Cadigan
A teenager has been sentenced to community service - she's required to volunteer at the local emergency room. She throws herself into the work willingly - but when a small, intriguing doll falls out of a patient's pocket, her fascination with it seems likely to lost he co-workers' newfound trust. But is there truly something odd about this doll, that no one else seems to have seen?

**** There Is No Place for Sorrow in the Kingdom of the Cold - Seanan McGuire
Hobbyists might have many reasons for crafting their dolls. However, it's fairly certain that you won't have guessed at the one this narrator has. I loved the supernatural background here, was slightly less enthused by the domestic violence/office aspects of the plot. If you're going to take supernatural, murderous revenge on someone, you shouldn't call the police. If on the other hand, you ARE going to call the police; don't say no to the restraining order!I am so, so glad that years ago, when my beloved vinyl collection was stolen and sold to a local store, that the employees at the store were ever so much nicer to me about it than what the protagonist here experiences!
Overall, a very good story. Loved the Pinocchio tie-in!

*** Goodness and Kindness - Carrie Vaughn
New York City - maybe the 1950s? An aspiring reporter is willing to put his career before anything else in his life - but doesn't have the instincts needed for the job. And there are an awful lot of kewpie dolls.

*** Daniel’s Theory of Dolls - Stephen Graham Jones
Weird, weird fiction. The narrator tells us there's always been something... off... about his younger brother. And then he tells us about how his family handled the miscarriage of a much-anticipated infant, and how that incident scarred them all. And then things just keep getting stranger...

*** After and Back Before - Miranda Siemienowicz
This is one in the subgenre I might describe as 'Children of the Apocalypse,' where after a disaster, young survivors, expecting to die, have formed a dysfunctional kind of society. There are some 'adults' here as well, but I was still reminded in tone of Star Trek's 'Miri,' for example.
It's good, but there are a few disorienting shifts, and I don't think the 'shocking reveal' fully worked as a dramatic climax.

*** Doctor Faustus - Mary Robinette Kowal
In this genre, it's always a bad idea to mess with ancient magical symbols found in an old book you don't know much about. No, your theatrical production doesn't have to be *that* accurate. Here, some well-intentioned set design goes horribly wrong, in a brief and bloody tale.

*** Doll Court - Richard Bowes
An older man begins to have dreams where he is called to account for all his alleged misdeeds against dolls, both in the recent past and in his childhood. When these dreams start intruding into real life, there's a potential for true eeriness - but that's undercut by a thread of silliness to the whole thing.

*** Visit Lovely Cornwall on the Western Railway Line - Genevieve Valentine
A series of random travelers encounter a girl, alone with her doll, on a train en route from London to Cornwall. The writing here is beautiful, and the imagery memorable. I also like how the piece plays with the readers' preconceptions and expectations. However, I still wish that it had all been tied up a bit more conclusively.

**** Ambitious Boys Like You - Richard Kadrey
A pure horror tale; would make a great start to a late-night movie. Two lowlifes decide to burglarize the home of an old man whose eerie, doll-festooned, dilapidated house was always rumored to be haunted. The house looks like it was upper-class, once upon a time, and they suspect he's got something good stashed away. However, the 'something' in the house is more than they bargained for.

** The Permanent Collection - Veronica Schanoes
This story is clearly inspired by a visit to this now-closed business. http://www.yelp.com/biz/new-york-doll-hospital-new-york. You know, you could've just written a bad yelp review instead of this story. All I can say is, I'm sure it's true enough that the elderly proprietor may have been cantankerous, and his prices were surely high, but I actually feel like this piece is an uncalled-for slandering of the dead.

*** Homemade Monsters - John Langan
An effective description of childhood bullying - and a strange and ambiguous incident that's finally triggered when the bully decides to mess with his 'friend's' "Godzilla" figure.

**** Word Doll - Jeffrey Ford
As an archivist with a personal interest in anthropology & history-related topics, this one pushed all the right buttons for me. A man (coincidentally sharing the author's name) has his curiosity piqued by a small sign for a "Word Doll Museum." He goes to see what on earth a "Word Doll" might be, and meets a woman who tells him a fascinating (and strange) story of local history.

**** Miss Sibyl-Cassandra - Lucy Sussex
Presented as the description of an item up for auction at Sotheby's. (I have to give a bonus point for an off-hand mention of a Sotheby's employee named Althea... no, I never worked there, but I did consider applying...) The item is a fortune-telling doll, and the letters that are included as provenance tell the strange story of the fortunes that she 'told.'

Many thanks to Tor and NetGalley for the opportunity to read! As always, my opinions are solely my own. ( )

Datlow knows her stuff: this collection of creepy doll stories is exactly what it says on the tin. Contributors include Seanan McGuire, Carrie Vaughn, and Joyce Carol Oates—none of the stories particularly stood out, but none seemed to be real misfires either, because dolls are easily made creepy. ( )