The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Fifteenth Annual Collection [Hardcover]

Terri Windling (Editor), Ellen Datlow (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Year's Best Fantasy and Horror | Publication Date: August 24, 2002

For more than a decade, readers have turned to The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror to find the most rewarding fantastic short stories. Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling continue their critically acclaimed and award-winning tradition with another stunning collection of stories. The fiction and poetry here is culled from an exhaustive survey of the field, nearly four dozen stories ranging from fairy tales to gothic horror, from magical realism to dark tales in the Grand Guignol style. Rounding out the volume are the editors' invaluable overviews of the year in fantasy and horror, a new Year's Best section, on comics, by Charles Vess, and on anime and manga, by Joan D. Vinge, and a long list of Honorable Mentions, making this an indispensable reference as well as the best reading available in fantasy and horror.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"Best" is a subjective judgment, but there's no question that for each of the past 15 years Datlow and Windling have assembled an excellent anthology of richly rewarding imaginative literature. Their harvest of horror and fantasy for 2001 is a bumper crop of 49 stories and poems, many from sources that won't be familiar to the average reader and some from newcomers whose promise bodes well for the future of both genres. As in years past, certain themes cut across genre boundaries and explode notions of horror and fantasy as separate literary forms. Shapeshifters are present in Charles de Lint's upbeat "Trading Hearts at the Half Kaffe Cafe," where they teach a lesson about trust in a romantic relationship, and in Susan Palwick's haunting "Gestella," where they crystallize the sense of estrangement in a deteriorating marriage. Ursula K. LeGuin's "The Bones of the Earth," written in the classic high-fantasy style, and S.P. Somtow's "The Bird Catcher," which features a legendary serial killer, are both moving coming-of-age parables. Intimations of realities beyond comprehension dominate Anthony Doerr's "The Hunter's Wife," a transcendent meditation on the consolations of mortality, and Caitl!n Kiernan's "Onion," which brilliantly suggests a universe of chaotic cosmic horrors through the dysfunctional lives of people who have seen but not understood them. Enhancing the mix are top-flight tales by Steve Rasnic Tem, Kelly Link, Elizabeth Hand and Gregory Maguire, and Michael Chabon's "The Dark God of Laughter," a metaphysical mystery that ranks as one of the year's most refreshingly uncategorizable stories. Without question, this book is mandatory reading for lovers of weird and fanciful fiction.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Hemon follows his galvanizing debut, The Question of Bruno (2000), a set of interlocking stories, with his first novel, which continues the story of the phoenixlike Jozef Pronek. As suggested by its evocative title, this episodic tale combines a tender musicality and somewhat sardonic affection for humanity with piercing insights into the sorrows of displacement and alienation. Hemon, himself an inadvertent Bosnian refugee, conjures his lost city of Sarajevo in vivid depictions of Jozef's Sarajevan youth, during which he copes with the longings and bewilderment of adolescence by forming a Beatles cover band. Jozef's passion for music brings him to the U.S. just as war breaks out in Yugoslavia, and he finds himself marooned in Chicago. As he has his stubborn hero struggle to find common ground with his father at home, then with oblivious Americans as he takes odds jobs, including canvasing for Greenpeace in Chicago's insular suburbs, where his accent attracts more interest than environmental concerns, Hemon, who possesses a diabolical sense of humor and a wickedly visceral sensibility, and who handles English as though it were nitroglycerine, considers the precariousness of existence, the continual revision of identity and dreams that immigrant life demands, and the ever-present shadow of death. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 672 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin; 1st edition (August 24, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312290675
• ISBN-13: 978-0312290672
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,991,605 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I've been an editor for over thirty years, first in book publishing, but mostly editing short stories for OMNI Magazine and webzine, EVENT HORIZON, a webzine, and SCIFICTION, the fiction area of SCIFI.COM. I now edit original and reprint anthologies. Born and bred New Yorker, although I travel a lot.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Satisfying Entry In The Series, February 6, 2006

By 

mantra ben-ya'akova "lazulistocking" (el cerrito, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Fifteenth Annual Collection (Year's Best Fantasy & Horror) (No.15) (Paperback)

I collect this series hungrily. There are always at least 10 stories that excite and amaze me, and I do feel they can honestly be called "the best" of each year. I also buy stacks of other genre anthologies, none of which demonstrate such consistent quality. How there came to be a gap on my shelf where this volume ought to be I'm not sure, but I did find out while shopping for its replacement what others have discovered: it is frustratingly difficult to get an accurate report of the contents of each of these volumes. Of the several well-written and helpful reader reviews, one refers to the 11th edition, another, while begging Amazon to represent it faithfully, nevertheless is clearly misfiled, describing the contents of the 14th. To be sure, even as I snarl and curse my way through the tangle of confusion I salute each reviewer's insights; I only wish their efforts could be properly represented. To help other benighted seekers, I'm suggesting a visit to this site, an extremely valuable and meticulously maintained resource.
locusmag.com/index/2002

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Something for everyone, September 29, 2002

By 

Scanningtext2002 (Alabama) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Fifteenth Annual Collection (Hardcover)

Overall, I enjoyed many of the stories in this anthology. I normally skip the poetry, so I don't have any real comments on them. Many of the stories did seem to slant toward the literary side of the spectrum, with the fantastic elements only subtley present. Still plenty of good stuff here for almost any taste.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 15/2001: The bar is high and some stories are exceptional. Recommended 14/2000: Too many blatant stories. Not recommended, April 22, 2009

By 

Juushika (Oregon, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Fifteenth Annual Collection (Year's Best Fantasy & Horror) (No.15) (Paperback)

(Because Amazon lumps all of these volumes together, this review is split in halves: Fifteen/2001 and Fourteen/2000.)

For THE YEAR'S BEST FANTASY AND HORROR: FIFTEENTH ANNUAL COLLECTION (2001)
The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Fifteen Annual Collection collects the best (as determined by the editors) short fiction of both genres in 2001, using wide definitions of the genres in order to build a diverse, quality collection. Introductions survey related novels, anthologies, and media; some of these recommendations are useless, but others are a rich resource. The stories and poems themselves vary in quality, but the standard is high and some stories are a distinct success. It's no surprise that such a large anthology has its ups and downs, but Datlow and Windling achieve many of their lofty goals. This is a varied and successful collection of short fiction and a promising resource for discovering new authors. I recommend it.

Short fiction anthologies and collections are almost always a mixed bag, and this one in particular reaches farther--and is longer--than most collections, so there are plenty of opportunities for failure. But it's a surprising success: there's some underwhelming poetry and some disappointing and odd short stories, but on average the bar is high and the best stories are exceptional. Doerr's "The Hunter's Wife," Arnott's "Prussian Snowdrops," Kiernan's "Onion," Maguire's "Scarecrow," and best of all Palwick's "Gestella," the story of a rapidly-aging werewolf, were among my favorites, and while another reader may have different preferences the best part about this broad collection is that it has something to delight every sort of horror/fantasy fan, and perhaps something new for each reader.

Other than a treasure-trove of stories, The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror also serves to expose the reader to new work and new authors. The introductions are lengthy, but useful: Windling is the most succinct in picking her choices for best fantasy novels and anthologies, Datlow is more wordy and less helpful in her horror recommendations, and the surveys of related media, comics, and anime/manga are pretty much useless (and in the final case, laughably so). Still, skim the introductions and remember your favorite authors from the short story collection, and this anthology has the potential to inflate your to-be-read list in record time. All in all, this volume of The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror is not perfect, but Datlow and Windling aim high and manage to pull together a surprising amount of enjoyable fiction that includes some true gems and opens the door to finding many more. I recommend it.

For THE YEAR'S BEST FANTASY AND HORROR: FOURTEENTH ANNUAL COLLECTION (2000)
The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Fourteenth Annual Collection collects the best (as determined by the editors) short fiction of both genres in 2000, using wide definitions of the genres in order to build a diverse, quality collection. Largely useless introductions summarize the year in fantasy, horror, and related media, but the bulk of the book is 43 short stories and 11 poems which span paranormal horror to imaginary world fantasy to mythic poems. The stories are a mixed bag, but on the whole a disappointment: some break the mold, but most of these selections are so exaggerated that they lack magic or tension. This series has a laudable goal, but in this installment the editors don't quite reach it. Not recommended.

I so much enjoyed the fifteenth volume of this series that it boggles my mind that I found this fourteenth installment such a slog. Short story collections are usually composed of selection of varying quality, and an anthology this wide-reaching and long has plenty of opportunities for failure--and, unfortunately, in this volume it often does fail. The selections are a mixed bag: Some are wonderful, and Koja's "At Eventide," Grant and Link's "Ship, Sea, Mountain, Sky," Duffy's Circe and Little Red Cap, Adriázola's "Buttons," Gaiman's Instructions, and best of all Greer Gilman's "Jack Daw's Pack," a mythic and dreamlike story of the trials and tribulations of divine avatars, were my favorites. But too often, regardless of genre, these stories are often so blatant--horror exaggerated to empty violence, retold myth which is too obvious, humorous fantasy pushed over the top--that they lose all the magic and tension that can come with subtlety. Perhaps that's a personal preference, but I doubt it. Obvious, exaggerated stories smack of lazy writing, and certainly don't warrant a "best of" collection.

The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Fourteenth Annual Collection still serves a purpose: some selections, like those listed above, break the mold and are in turns understated, haunting, intelligent, or otherwise subtlety and skillfully told. And the volume also functions as a means to encounter new stories and new authors. With such a wide range, pulling from paranormal to psychological horror, from magical realism to urban fantasy, The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror is a broad cross-section of both genres and may expose a reader to all number of new writers or texts. Unfortunately, like the middling quality of the stories themselves, this volume isn't always a good resource: Windling summary of fantasy novels is concise and useful, but Daltow's summary is unnecessarily long and the summations of media and comics often lose sight of their fantasy/horror purview. All told, this fourteenth installment of The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror is well-intended but not wholly successful. Other installments prove that the premise can succeed, and such a wide goal as the year's best pulled from broad definitions of two genres is loftly and laudable. But perhaps the pickings were slim, perhaps they had a bad year--for whatever reason, Windling and Datlow don't reach their goals in this fourtheenth installment, and I don't recommend it.