Customer Reviews

The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: 18th Annual Collection

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

continues to provide an avenue to wonderful short stories in the fantasy and horror genre, along with excellent essays on what is going on in the field. I wish I had the time and resources to track down and read all of their recommendations. The series has not diminished with the departure of Terri Windling.

A modified editorial team created this eighteenth edition of the classic yearly anthology.

The recaps of the year's fiction and other media are still present, though a bit less inclusive than in the past. The stories that I thought were the strongest were by Gregory Maguire, Margo Lanagan, Stepan Chapman, Tanith Lee, Catherynne M. Valente, Conrad Williams and Elizabeth A. Lynn, with a particular mention for Laird Barron's creepy, poetic western "Bulldozer". The mix of new and established writers, visible in that list, adds interest. As in the past, the stories tend toward urban/modern-day settings, but a few do represent the historical and otherworld facets of the genre.

If any story in the anthology is controversial, it'll be the Chuck Palahniuk. I didn't like it -- I thought it read sort of like a grade schooler's gross-out combined with a careful reading of the Anatomy and Physiology Coloring Book -- but on the other hand, it does take something really gross to gross me out these days. And gross me out it did. Recommended for strong stomachs (heh) only.

On page 466 my story "The Elf Knight and Lady Isabelle" from the anthology CLOAKED IN SHADOW got an honorable mention.

I look forward to this collection every year, but I must admit this 18th annual collection was one of the best ever. I am a huge horror fan and usually just skip over the scifi stories, but began to read the scifi stories as well this time and to my great pleasure, really enjoyed these as well. For anyone who enjoys a good short story or good literature of any type I highly recommend this collection. Standout stories by Alice Hoffman, Joyce Carol Oates and the best short story by Peter Straub I've ever read will greatly please. Be warned though, some of these stories are not for the squeamish ("Guts" was very grotesque, but I've also never laughed so hard in my life, what a great story!) As always, I greatly enjoyed the summations at the beginning of the book - they always give me the names of new books and authors I haven't discovered yet to look into. The overall quality of the stories is far superior from any of the other "horror" collections out there today and this particular collection is not to be missed.

I've been a fan of The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror for a number of years now. I like the idea of short stories because they are quicker for me to get through. I also love fantasy and horror and The Year's Best never fails to please me with the range of stories and authors. While there may be stories I don't particularly care for, there are always more stories that I do enjoy.

This book has an amazing collection of great stories that can be read on lunch. Thank you

The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Eighteenth Annual Collection collects the best (as determined by the editors) short fiction of both genres in 2004, using wide definitions of the genres in order to build a diverse, quality collection. Introductions of middling quality summarize the year in fantasy, horror, and related media, but the bulk of the book is 44 short stories and poems which span paranormal horror to imaginary world fantasy. For a change, the horror selections are the volume's strength; some of the fantasy is quite good, but there are too many duds. All in all, a successful installment in the series, but the fantasy selections want for Windling's keener eye. Recommended.

It takes a too long for this installment to warm up: the first few selections, both fantasy and horror, are either over the top or unremarkable. Miéville's "Reports of Certain Events in London" is the tenth selection and the turning point. A unique, haunting story in its own right, the overall quality of the selections that follows is an improvement. There are still some disappointments, but a number of the stories and poems in this installment are wonderful, most of them in the second half of the volume: along with Miéville's story, Palahniuk's "Guts," Oates's "Stripping," Lanagan's "Singing My Sister Down," Eekhout's "Tales from the City of Seams," and Smith's "The Specialist" were my favorites. Unusual for the Year's Best Fantasy and Horror series (at least what I've read of it so far), many of the volume's better selections are horror. Link and Grant are competent but not exceptional editors, and their selections are likewise; the fantasy selections wants for Windling's influence. But Datlow is in top form, or perhaps it was a good year for horror: for a change, her selections are generally strong and sometimes exceptional.

Accompanying the stories are 2004 overviews in fantasy, horror, and related media. Link and Grant's opinionated overview is unremarkable, Datlow's overview is as always overlong and undiscriminating, and the media summaries are lengthy, informal, and often stray from their fantasy/horror purview. Nevertheless the volume can be a useful resource: skim the overviews, or draw author names from your favorite short stories, and you may discover new writers and new texts to read. All in all, this eighteenth volume is a fairly successful installment of The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror series. Some selections are distinct disappointments, but the overall quality is middling to high and the handful of wonderful selections make the volume worthwhile on the whole. I recommend it.

Every year I eagerly look forward to this anthology by Ellen Datlow (et al)--and this year the fiction seems even better than expected. From the dark and eerie to the purely fantastical, you will find some of the very best writing--and ideas that will stretch your brain as well. A few of my favorites include Philip Raines and Harvey Welles "The Bad Magician," Jeffrey Ford's "A Night in The Tropics," and short stories by Peter Straub, Joyce Carol Oates, Tanith Lee, John Kessel and more. Highly Recommended.

A major problem with this collection is that a lot of it is pretty dull. Definitely a few good stories, but that is not the case for a fair chunk of it, unfortunately. This is not the case with the extensive overview of the genres in all sorts of media, even anime and manga, which is an interesting surprise. That part is definitely good, and probably worth an extra 1 out of 5 at least for the book, whereas the fiction part is only around a bit under a 3 itself, but there is definitely a lot of it.

Year's Best F&H 18 : The Oakthing - Gregory Maguire
Year's Best F&H 18 : Rite of Spring - Margo Lanagan
Year's Best F&H 18 : A Hazy Shade of Winter - Simon Bestwick
Year's Best F&H 18 : The Skin of the World - Douglas Clegg
Year's Best F&H 18 : Zora and the Zombie - Andy Duncan
Year's Best F&H 18 : The Revenge of the Calico Cat - Stepan Chapman
Year's Best F&H 18 : Frozen Charlottes - Lucy Sussex
Year's Best F&H 18 : Reports of Certain Events in London - China Miéville
Year's Best F&H 18 : Restraint - Stephen Gallagher
Year's Best F&H 18 : The Baum Plan for Financial Independence - John Kessel
Year's Best F&H 18 : Dancing on Air - Frances Oliver
Year's Best F&H 18 : Cold Fires - M. Rickert
Year's Best F&H 18 : And the Sea Shall Give Up Uts Dead [Jew if by Sea] - Richard Mueller
Year's Best F&H 18 : A Trick of the Dark - Tina Rath
Year's Best F&H 18 : The Bad Magician - Philip Raines and Harvey Welles
Year's Best F&H 18 : Speir-Bhan - Tanith Lee
Year's Best F&H 18 : Hunting Meth Zombies in the Great Nebraskan Wasteland - John Farris
Year's Best F&H 18 : Guts - Chuck Palahniuk
Year's Best F&H 18 : Water Babies - Simon Brown
Year's Best F&H 18 : Mr Aickman's Air Rifle - Peter Straub
Year's Best F&H 18 : We Find Things Old - Bentley Little
Year's Best F&H 18 : Wonderwall - Elizabeth Hand
Year's Best F&H 18 : Postcretaceous Era - D. Ellis Dickerson
Year's Best F&H 18 : Watch and Wake - M. T. Anderson
Year's Best F&H 18 : A Night in the Tropics - Jeffrey Ford
Year's Best F&H 18 : Clownette - Terry Dowling
Year's Best F&H 18 : Stripping - Joyce Carol Oates
Year's Best F&H 18 : Seven Feet - Christopher Fowler
Year's Best F&H 18 : Singing My Sister Down - Margo Lanagan
Year's Best F&H 18 : Bulldozer - Laird Barron
Year's Best F&H 18 : The Cajun Knot - Melanie Fazi
Year's Best F&H 18 : Tales from the City of Seams - Greg van Eekhout
Year's Best F&H 18 : The Specialist - Alison Smith
Year's Best F&H 18 : Here Is the Church - Shelley Jackson
Year's Best F&H 18 : The Witch of Truro - Alice Hoffman
Year's Best F&H 18 : Lapland or Film Noir - Peter Straub
Year's Best F&H 18 : The Owl - Conrad Williams
Year's Best F&H 18 : The Silver Dragon - Elizabeth A. Lynn


Woodman and a lot of Jerry.

2.5 out of 5



Missing the mutt.

3 out of 5


Hark, local demon bashing.

3.5 out of 5


Chop off the bad bits.

2.5 out of 5


Jealous writer's Haitian zombie chat.

3.5 out of 5


Teddy bear nightly noir.

4.5 out of 5


Wicked widow's death dolls.

3.5 out of 5


Mysterious goings on with mail, Charley.

3.5 out of 5


Kid car trouble.

2.5 out of 5


Magic money.

3 out of 5


Waltz, in Simple Minds fashion.

2.5 out of 5


Weather complaints.

1.5 out of 5


Torpedoed nazi shark slaughter solution.

4 out of 5


Packaged bloody dinner.

3 out of 5


Case of magic is for losers and skilled magicians.

3 out of 5


Faerie werefox hero longevity deal.

4 out of 5


Juju junkie junking junket.

4 out of 5


Vegie dildo date diddler overdoes it with pool pump butt gut suck.

4 out of 5


Monster likes to wash down its mini-people munchings.

4.5 out of 5


Killer clown prop roast.

3.5 out of 5


Drug digs diatribe with delusions.

3 out of 5


Dino people cross-diet dating.

3.5 out of 5


You're dead Jim: Necromancer.

3 out of 5


Crim crap and the odd serious sword.

2 out of 5


Creepy image on wall of low rent room.

3.5 out of 5


Showermania.

2.5 out of 5


Rattus rattus terminus.

3.5 out of 5


Execution by tar pit, with ceremony.

2.5 out of 5


Pinkerton man vs superhuman cancer cannibal.

3.5 out of 5


Voodoo wife and child continual shooting gets tedious.

3 out of 5


Balloon-man make more interesting creatures than mythology.

3 out of 5


Definitely need to tie a board on for this one.

3 out of 5


Milk muddle.

2 out of 5


Girl bails.

1.5 out of 5


Sin village stereotypes.

3.5 out of 5


Machete murder maybe.

3 out of 5


Dragon besieges, sneaks, serves and scarpers.

4 out of 5

This collection is at least as good as any of the others, though some of the stories seemed rather out of place (Chuck Palahniuk's infamous story "Guts," for example) or were just too strange in imagery for me to get into ("The Revenge of the Calico Cat," in an imaginary world of plushies). A few were also a bit simplistic or cliched and I was surprised that they were recognised as being the best of the year. However, most of the selected pieces were hauntingly eerie or strange or beautiful, and I have been introduced to a number of fabulous writers within the genres (Francis Oliver, John Farris, Simon Brown, and Margo Lanagan, to name a few). And once again, these stories are definitely not good for light bedtime reading...

This anthology never fails to satisfy with its eclectic blend of classic and new-style fantasy and horror.

No matter what your tastes in these genres, legendary editor Ellen Datlow (and friends), deliver a yearly treat of the best reading out there for fans of the "dark side."

Recommended!

Reviewer: Linda Painchaud-Steinman