Outstanding SF/F Horror of 2018

Although horror isn't our focus, we do review horror stories that turn up in our regular magazines, so in honor of Halloween, here are 30 outstanding SF/F horror stories from 2018 that were finalists for major SF/F 🏆awards, included in "year's best" SF/F 📙anthologies, or recommended by prolific 👍reviewers in short fiction (see Q&A). That's 30 out of 340+ best SF/F stories from 2018. A story's score is the sum of the +n points in it's "Recommended By" list (click the Details link to see the awards, year's best, and reviewers and the points).


Observations:
Click the links to highlight the stories discussed.

• 14 are free online (highlighted in default view), 9 have podcasts.
• 13 are Science Fiction, 14 are Fantasy, and 3 are Unknown (not reviewed by RSR but a finalist for one or more horror awards and Year's Best horror anthologies).
• Among 📚publications, the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction had the most here with 7 stories (23%).
• Among ️️✒️authors, 3 stories are by Dale Bailey, the only author with more than one story in the list.
• SF/F horror stories are 14% of SF/F 🏆awards finalists with 14 stories (of which four are Shirley Jackson or Bram Stoker award finalists) out of 101 total award-nominated stories from the 2018 Best SF/F. The story "The Only Harmless Great Thing" won two awards.
• SF/F horror stories did a bit worse (10%) among "year's best" 📙anthologies with 12 stories out of 121 total included stories from the 2018 Best SF/F. Paula Guran's anthology has 6 of the 12, followed by the Best American Science Fiction & Fantasy and Ellen Datlow's anthologies with 2 each.
• They did better (13%) among prolific 👍reviewers with 16 stories out of 123 total award-worthy stories from the 2018 Best SF/F. Jason McGregor thought 7 of the 16 were award worthy (Note: He removed his posts in September, 2019).
• As for RSR, we recommended 16 stories, was neutral on 8 stories, recommended against 3 stories, and did not review 3 stories (view by RSR rating).