The Year's Best Fantasy 8 [Mass Market Paperback]

Arthur W. Saha (Editor, Introduction), Roger Zelazny (Collaborator), Charles de Lint (Collaborator), William Gibson & John Shirley (Collaborator), Tanith Lee, Jane Yolen Bob Leman (Collaborator), C.J. Cherryh Gillian Fitzgerald (Collaborator), Sam Wilson, Michael Bishop Lisa Tuttle (Collaborator)

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: DAW; anthology edition (October 1, 1982)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879977701
• ISBN-13: 978-0879977702
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,287,247 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Contains a few good tales, but that's about it, November 16, 2009

By 

James Higgins - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Year's Best Fantasy 8 (Mass Market Paperback)

`The Year's Best Fantasy Stories' No. 8 (1982) features tales seeing print in 1981.

The unusually cheesy cover illustration is 'Talena' by O. Berni. Fans of 'Tarnsman of Gor' will be pleased.

Perhaps because editor Arthur W. Saha felt that 1981 offered too-slim pickings in terms of quality genre fiction, this iteration of the series includes many entries that could more properly be defined as horror, or SF, tales as opposed to fantasy. The conventional sword-and-sorcery tales that got a warm reception from former editor Lin Carter are conspicuously absent here, and there is an emphasis on what is nowadays labeled as `urban' fantasy.

Despite casting a broad net in terms of story selection, Saha's anthology as a whole is rather underwhelming.

My capsule summaries of the stories:

Perennial entrants Tanith Lee and C. J. Cherryh supply `When the Clock Strikes' and `The Only Death in the City', respectively. Lee's entry is another of her limpid retellings of a classic fairy tale. Cherryh's tale is an over-written, too-hard effort to conjure up something akin to M. John Harrison's `Viriconium' stories.

Sam Wilson's 'Midas Night' is an urban fantasy. A down-and-out young man encounters otherworldly intrigue in a seedy diner.

Roger Zelazny provides `Unicorn Variation' in which a chess game takes place between a genial young man and a unicorn. A pleasant enough tale if not particularly memorable.

Michael Bishop's `The Quickening' deals with life in the aftermath of a strange cataclysm that alters the earth's population. More SF than fantasy, but one of the better stories in the anthology.

`Skirmish on Bastable Street' by Bob Leman is an urban fantasy involving some barflies, and a demon on mission to grant a final wish.

`A Pattern of Silver Strings' by Charles de Lint is fantasy at its most precious and most insipid. People are `enspelled', they travel via `roadfaring', `yearning' oak trees `keep watch' over a structure, etc. The story revolves around a heroic harpist / bard who falls afoul of a jealous tinker.

Lisa Tuttle's `A Friend in Need' is another urban fantasy entry; a woman encounters a mysterious playmate from her childhood years.

`Pooka's Bridge' by Gillian Fitzgerald uses a mythic creature from Irish folklore to underpin a tale of a widow, and her quest to retrieve a son kidnapped by fairies.

In 1981 John Shirley and William Gibson were promising young writers and the genre known as Cyberpunk was still some years away from assuming pre-eminence in SF writing. Their story, `The Belonging Kind', is less urban fantasy than understated horror. Dealing with an alienated young man and his quest to connect with the city nightlife, it's easily one of the best stories in the anthology.

Overall, 'The Year's Best Fantasy Stories: 8' is one of the weaker entries in the series. As was common to too many DAW anthologies from this era, truly innovative work from lesser-known writers tended to be ignored in favor of pedestrian entries from 'name' authors.