Customer Reviews

The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 2006: 19th Annual Collection (Year's Best Fantasy & Horror)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This volume is considerably better than the year before, upping the average to 3.39.

The introduction going over fantasy and horror media is over 100 pages. The bizarre thing is that they shortened the anime/manga section, yet still have space for a music column that talks about world music? If horror, etc., where is all the metal or goth music, etc. It is fine if de Lint likes that stuff, but a complete waste of space and pretty much zero relevance to fantasy and horror fiction interest for most of it. So apart from not being relevant, it isn't even thorough and not relevant, presumably because he doesn't listen to that sort of range. Pretty sure Vinge's column that would talk about written material partly, would certainly be of more interest. It certainly was a high point last year.

In general, the horror content is rather stronger than the fantasy - in some cases it appears that all the editors liked a story, as all their initials are on the story intro. They do mention the breakdowns of horror and fantasy on their own websites - but no mention of urls or indications in tables of contents which they consider which. Is this done to keep people happy to claim one of the other story as a particular genre? Dunno. Odd. Same thing with books that are SF and Fantasy seems to happen, though, so must be some reason.

I'd probably go as far as calling this book a 4.25, perhaps.

Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 19 : Walpurgis Afternoon - Delia Sherman
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 19 : The Mushroom Duchess - Deborah Roggie
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 19 : An Incident at Agate Beach - Marly Youmans
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 19 : Among the Tombs - Reggie Oliver
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 19 : American Morons - Glen Hirshberg
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 19 : Shallaballah - Mark Samuels
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 19 : The Denial - Bruce Sterling
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 19 : Northwest Passage - Barbara Roden
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 19 : Proboscis - Laird Barron
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 19 : Kronia - Elizabeth Hand
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 19 : Follow Me Light - Elizabeth Bear
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 19 : Boatman's Holiday - Jeffrey Ford
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 19 : The Horse of a Different Color (That You Rode in On) - Howard Waldrop
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 19 : Where Angels Come In (M.R. James) - Adam L. G. Nevill
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 19 : Twilight States - Albert E. Cowdrey
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 19 : The Last Ten Years in the Life of Hero Kai - Geoff Ryman
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 19 : The Souls of Drowning Mountain - Jack Cady
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 19 : Last One - Robert Coover
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 19 : The Ball Room - China Mieville and Emma Bircham and Max Schaefer
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 19 : Vacation - Daniel Wallace
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 19 : Cruel Sistah - Nisi Shawl
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 19 : Ding-Dong Bell - Jay Russell
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 19 : Case Study of Emergency Room Procedure and Risk Management by Hospital Staff Members in the Urban Facility - Stacey Richter
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 19 : The Scribble Mind - Jeffrey Ford
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 19 : Scarecrow - Tom Brennan
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 19 : Going the Jerusalem Mile - Chaz Brenchley
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 19 : Boman - Pentti Holappa
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 19 : The Machine of a Religious Man - Ralph Robert Moore
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 19 : Hot Potting - Chuck Palahniuk
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 19 : My Father's Mask - Joe Hill
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 19 : Guggenheim Lovers - Isabel Allende
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 19 : A Statement in the Case - Theodora Goss
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 19 : Pavement Artist - Dave Hutchinson
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 19 : The Gypsies in the Wood - Kim Newman


Witchiness good for gardens.

3.5 out of 5


Fungus tea bogeywoman.

3.5 out of 5


Stone dead hubby.

3 out of 5


Potty woman's possession problem.

3.5 out of 5


Dirtwritten yankee sacrifice.

4 out of 5


Celebrity puppet hanger.

4 out of 5


We're dead, stupid.

3.5 out of 5


You don't know Jack about hills having eyes.

4 out of 5


Bounty hunter mound terror.

4 out of 5


Bike bingle backstory breakdown.

3.5 out of 5


Lawyers, and a family that is definitely fishier than they seem.

3 out of 5


Contrary to the advice of the sage Accadacca, Hell Is A Bad Place To Be. Generally. Barring sneaky loopholes.

3.5 out of 5


Vaudeville secrets.

4 out of 5


Trespassing reduction.

2.5 out of 5


Pulp pig punishment.

4 out of 5


Monky magic.

3 out of 5


Mine dead destruction.

3.5 out of 5


Toy blokes.

3 out of 5


A man walked into a bar. He hoped it wasn't full of chicken murdering maniacs.

2.5 out of 5


Mallet head wigs me out.

3 out of 5


Directing depraved relative death.

4 out of 5


Speed Princess.

3.5 out of 5


Birth pattern.

3.5 out of 5


Wrong example.

3 out of 5


Barren maze.

3 out of 5


Training humans is dull, makes you flighty.

3 out of 5


Ice crackup relative death joining moocow assist.

3 out of 5


Boiled people do smell a lot like bacon.

4 out of 5


Just forget your old man, kid.

3.5 out of 5


Museum sneak shagging security surprise.

3 out of 5


Burning the weird beasts.

2.5 out of 5


Stay away from me, cracker.

3.5 out of 5


A Diogenes Club investigation for Charles with Kate's help, into some changeling goings on and disappearances.

4 out of 5

I enjoyed the selections made in the past by Windling and Datlow, they have truly opened my eyes to many writers that I would never have considered reading and even one story that I still gives me nightmares! These compilations were always great for assisting me in locating books written by up and coming authors and their recommendations are generally dead on....however, since the series has added two new editors the quality of stories has dropped dramatically. Gone are the truly scary and wonderous stories of previous additions. I keep buying and hoping that the series improves and I can once again rely on it as a solid anthology.

I bought this book looking for the story Colorado Kid by Stephen King. When I did a search on Amazon this book came up with the desired story listed. The description did not include a complete list of stories included in the book. The Colorado Kid by Stephen King is NOT one of the included items. I am going to try to return the book.

The nineteenth annual fantasy and horror collection of forty tales is as always consists of top selections accompanied by seven essays. In the fantasy summation, Kelly Link and Gavin Grant point out that there were many fewer genre anthologies than normal, but that they still had too many strong entries to choose from. Ellen Datlow, on the other hand, felt that the horror genre had an increase in terms of magazines and anthologies to select from, insisting she could have filled three books this year with quality tales. As always the inclusions (from both genres) run the table in terms of themes and format. Fans receive a taste of what happened in 2005, especially how wide the genres have become. There are also treatises on media ("horror does better during Republican administrations"), graphic novels, anime and manga, music, and obits in a year in which superstars Andre Norton and Will Eisner, etc. passed away. Though this reviewer enjoys the articles that summarize 2005, it is once again the included tales that make this compilation from famous, almost famous and the newbies a sure shot at award nomination time as this is an excellent entry in one of the superior, if not the best, annual collections.