Customer Reviews

The Year's Best Fantasy: First Annual Collection

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This is the first volume in what became Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, now in its fourteenth year.

Perhaps the best thing about these books is the introduction, containing overviews of publications in the fantasy (and now horror) industry and brief reviews as well as industry news. I found the stories to be a very mixed bag. The standout in this volume is Le Guin's striking, unsentimental, Native American mythology-inspired "Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out Tonight". Shephard's "Delta Sly Honey" was a beautifully written, evocative Vietnam War story, though it weakened toward the conclusion. "Lake George in High August" and "The Maid on the Shore" also stood out. Too many of the other stories, as in other volumes, are pedestrian, silly, or devoid of plot structure. I didn't find any of the poetry to be worthwhile. Overall, I'd give the stories mentioned a 4, but the others perhaps a 2. This uneven quality plagues every volume in this series.