Year's Best Fantasy 8 (No. 8) [Paperback]

David G. Hartwell (Editor), Kathryn Cramer (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Year's Best Fantasy | Publication Date: June 1, 2008

Continuing to showcase the most compelling new fiction of the genre, the anticipated eighth installment to this annual compendium presents an impressive lineup of bestselling authors and rising stars of fantasy. Collecting the essential fantasy stories of 2007, this engaging volume will excite fans and serve as a reference guide for those looking to sample the top writers in the genre. This year's contributors include international bestseller Neil Gaiman, influential heroic fantasy writer Michael Moorcock, historical fantasy novelist Kage Baker, classic genre wordsmiths Garth Nix and Tad Williams, and many others.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Time counts in this year’s edition of Hartwell and Cramer’s annual. The most sword-and-sorcery-ish selections pall quickly or fizzle at the end, though two with a similar ambience, Theodora Goss’ fairy tale “Princess Lucinda and the Hound of the Moon” and Tad Williams’ “The Stranger’s Hands,” are plenty colorful and engaging. From such medieval-Renaissance trappings it’s a long jump to two fine, literarily allusive nineteenth-century-set pieces, Chris Roberson’s “And Such Small Deer,” which references classic Dutch as well as English stories, and Andy Duncan’s “A Diorama of the Infernal Regions,” whose teen heroine falls into a California that feels like a dark Oz. The other outstanding pieces here unfold from the 1960s on or occur in a world in which familiar historical materials come together rather differently (Kage Baker’s “The Ruby Incomparable”). Don Webb’s terminally creepy “The Great White Bed,” Neil Gaiman’s tale of a little boy raised by ghosts, Elizabeth Hand’s story of an ecological avenger, Laird Barron’s neo-Lovecraftian “The Forest,” and T. A. Pratt’s sorcerous noir caper are all just, uh, fantastic. --Ray Olson

Review

"This volume is essential reading for any fantasy aficionado."  —Publishers Weekly

"Constitute[s] a who's-who-and-cool in contemporary fantasy."  —Booklist

"A truly diverse and exciting anthology. Hartwell's selection emphasizes, more than any recent anthology that I've come across, the rich imaginative potential of fantasy fiction."  —January Magazine

"[The] Year's Best Fantasy series is rapidly becoming a welcome shelfmate to the current grandfather of 'year's best' series, the Windling/Datlow Year's Best Fantasy and Horror."  —Green Man Review

"Await[s] hammock loungers and beach-goers."  —The Columbus Dispatch

"Terrific material from the likes of Fred Chappell, Holly Black, Don Webb, Garth Nix, and a host of other notables."  —The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Tachyon Publications (June 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1892391767
• ISBN-13: 978-1892391766
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,507,904 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Bruce McAllister is known primarily for his literary fiction and fantasy, science fiction and thriller fiction, which he's been publishing professionally since he was sixteen. He was born in 1946 in Baltimore, MD, to a peripatetic Navy family with an Annapolis-graduate father who served with NATO during the Cold War and an underdog-championing anthropologist/archeologist mother whose specialties were Early Man and Native American studies. As children, he and his brother Jack lived in Florida, Washington D.C., California and Italy. From l974 to l997 he taught at the University of Redlands in southern California, where he helped establish and direct writing programs. Since l998 he has worked as a writing coach and book and screenplay consultant. His short fiction has appeared in literary quarterlies, national magazines, original anthologies, "year's best" anthologies and college readers; won awards from Glimmer Train magazine and the National Endowment for the Arts; and been a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula and New Letters awards. His non-fiction articles on sports, popular science and writing have appeared in a variety of magazines and newspapers. He has three wonderful children--Annie, Ben and Elizabeth--and lives in Costa Mesa, California, with his wife, choreographer Amelie Hunter.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Unreadable, physically unreadable..., October 4, 2008

By 

Keith Blodgett "Hawk" (Palm Bay, Florida USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Year's Best Fantasy 8 (No. 8) (Paperback)

I really can't comment on the stories in this book, some of the authors are familiar and I know they're quite good. I could NOT read this book. Physically it was impossible for me to read this. The font chosen to save space and paper is SO small that just minutes of trying to read the anthology brought on horrible headaches, eye strain and very nearly nausea. This is printed in what appears to be 5 or 6 point type, it's horrible. Luckily I was able to get this from my local library and didn't have to purchase to find out I could not read it. Tachyon Publications, you should be ashamed of yourselves.