Customer Reviews

The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror : Thirteenth Annual Collection

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If you`ve read too much minimalist academic fiction, you`re in for a treat. These stories, both dark and light, and infused with magic and poetry, have been culled from sources as diverse as the New Yorker, the Iowa Review, and some very obscure zines. Established masters of their craft such as Ursula Leguin and N. Scott Momaday rub shoulders with intruiguing newcomers such as Linnet Taylor and Mary Sharratt. Kelly Link`s fabulous story "The Girl Detective" is not to be missed.

Every year the annual Year's Best Fantasy and Horror Collection keeps my eyes glued to a book. The Stories and magical and entertaining, written by some of today's best fantasy and horror writers. The stories range from Tolkienesque tales with magical creatures to more serious fiction stories. Many sparked my imagination And of course, quite a few frightened me to a point where I left nail prints in the binding. I recommend this book to fans of fantasy and/or horror or simply anybody looking for a good read.

What a beautiful, fabulous anthology. Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling have turned out another of their elegant and amazing collections.

This anthology starts off fast with another of Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea stories, but it's the second one, Ian MacLeod's 'The Chop Girl' that starts the anthology off with a bang. MacLeod's story is creepy, eerie, spooky, and thoroughly delightful. The anthology never loses steam. Nearly every story is wonderful.

Excellent stories by Charles de Lint, Gemma Files, Jeffrey Ford (be sure to check out his books here on Amazon. They're fabulous!), Tim Lebbon, Steven Millhauser, Paul McAuley, Michael Marshall Smith, Kim Newman, and on and on.

What makes this anthology so special is the breadth of sources that Datlow and Windling draw from. They have a few stories from the usual suspects, F&SF, Realms of Fantasy, Asimov's and so on, but the amount of stories, really good stories, that they grab from tiny obscure publications that probably less than 3,000 people read is astounding. In my mind this makes this series of anthologies infinitely more valuable than their SF counterparts.

I highly recommend this volume.

A good collection, as always, of fantasy, horror, and "interstitial" works -- though the 1999 offerings seemed to me a little threadbare. The standouts this year: Steve Rasnic Tem's "Heat" and Elizabeth Birmingham's "Falling Away". Excellent stories, both. Low points: "Welcome", by Michael Marshall Smith -- well meaning, but awkwardly written; "The Pathos of the Genre", by Douglas E Winter -- a rather condescending essay about the state of horror writing and publishing, aimed at writers; and, "The Beast" and "The Hedge" by Bill Lewis [poetry is always Datlow and Windling's weakest point.. though this is probably a reflection of the state of poetry in general]. Terri Windling's Recommended Top 20 books in fantasy is an indespensable guide, as always.

Complete listing of included authors and works: "Darkrose and Diamond" - Ursula K LeGuin; "The Chop Girl" - Ian R MacLeod; "The Girl Detective" - Kelly Link; "The Transformation" - N Scott Momaday; "Carabosse" - Delia Sherman; "Harlequin Valentine" - Neil Gaiman; "Toad" - Patricia A McKillip; "Washed in the River" - Beckian Fritz Goldberg; "The Dinner Party" - Robert Girardi; "Heat" - Steve Rasnic Tem; "The Wedding at Esperanza" - Linnet Taylor; "Redescending" - Ursula K LeGuin; "You Don't Have to Be Mad..." - Kim Newman; "The Paper-thin Garden" - Thomas Wharton; "The Anatomy of a Mermaid" - Mary Sharratt; "The Grammarian's Five Daughters" - Eleanor Arnason; "The Tree is My Hat" - Gene Wolfe; "Welcome" - Michael Marshall Smith; "The Pathos of the Genre" - Douglas E Winter; "Shatsi" - Peter Crowther; "Keepsakes and Treasures: A Love Story" - Neil Gaiman; "What You Make It" - Michael Marshall Smith; "The Parwat Ruby" - Delia Sherman; "Odysseus Old" - Geoffrey Brock; "The Smell of Deer" - Kent Meyers; "Chorion and the Pleiades"; "Crosley" - Elizabeth Engstrom; "Naming the Dead" - Paul J McAuley; "The Stork-men" - Juan Goytisolo; "The Disappearance of Elaine Coleman" - Steven Millhauser; "White" - Tim Lebbon; "Dear Floods of her Hair" - James Sallis; "Mrs. Santa Decides to Move to Florida" - April Selley; "Tanuki" - Jan Hodgman; "At Reparata" - Jeffrey Ford; "Skin So Green and Fine" - Wendy Wheeler; "Old Merlin Dancing on the Sands of Time" - Jane Yolen; "Sailing the Painted Ocean" - Denise Lee; "Grandmother" - Laurence Snydal; "Small Song" - Gary A Braunbeck; "The Emperor's Old Bones" - Gemma Files; "The Duke of Wellington Misplaces His Horse" - Susanna Clarke; "Halloween Street" - Steve Rasnic Tem; "The Kiss" - Tia V Travis; "The Beast" - Bill Lewis; "The Hedge" - Bill Lewis; "Pixel Pixies" - Charles deLint; "Falling Away" - Elizabeth Birmingham.

The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Thirteenth Annual Collection won the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Anthology. The award was given in Seattle, May 26th, 2001.

I bought this volume because I love fantasy, horror and short stories. I had read the previous volume and enjoyed it very much, and I couldn't wait to get started on another. Among other things, I love to read fantasy anthologies because each new story presents a new moral, and a new universe where anything can happen. Still, there was something about the first one that had bothered me a little, and in this latest one it has escalated to all-out irritating. It's simply this: the book does not represent, as far as I can tell or believe, a true, broad sampling of the year's best short fantasy and horror. The vast majority of the stories are linked thematically. Right now I'm a little more than halfway through the book, and it's gotten to the point where I had to comment on it... just when I start to believe it's a coincidence, along comes another story in the same vein. I'm considering abandoning the book entirely, which is unheard-of for me. A large number of the stories, as I said, reflect a specific and common theme, that of feminism. Now, before anyone thinks for even an instant that that's what I have a problem with: no, that's not it. Obviously I have no problem with this in itself... I'll explain the problem in a moment, just trust me. Anyway, the stories for the most part revolve around strong female characters coming into their own and rejecting a patriarchal world and so on and so on. This is perfectly fine... the stories are all very good! The problem is, this is not what I bought the book to read. There is of course nothing wrong with the theme, it's a very interesting one and like any theme can belong to stories both good and bad. Most of these are frankly excellent. The book, though, is called "The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror." There is no mention of feminist fiction, tales of strong women, anything like that... Simply, it purports to be a volume which will present to the reader a sampling of the very best short stories of the year, when in reality what it contains is not strictly that. I believed it was coincidence at first, thinking that perhaps it was simply a popular theme, as it likely is, but when it recurred in story after story the connection seemed too obvious to deny. I can only assume that this is a theme which greatly appeals to the editors. So be it, that's wonderful, and no-one can hope to avoid their own preferences when compiling a list of favorites! I think, though, that it would be more helpful and more honest to let the reader know what to expect within, so that he or she can choose whether it's something they want to experience. Enjoying these stories though I am, I would not have picked out this book had I known. It's too political... I prefer stories that treat the genders as equal, that make a person's gender a complete non-issue, to those which make it their focus. It's interesting, sure, but it's not strictly storytelling for the sake of the story; it's a medium for putting forth gender issues. Fascinating and worthwhile, certainly, but not something I want to read for five hundred pages. Frankly, I think that to inject any sort of modern political or social opinion into fantasy is to mar the beauty of this purest form of story. Fantasy should be above contemporary social conflict. Which isn't to say these stories aren't good; they'd be wonderful if they were scattered amongst stories of other themes! The book isn't that way, though, it's just tale after tale of the same message. It's redundant, plodding and feels slightly condescending to the reader. Honestly, I feel that none of the stories are done justice by being compiled together like this, as each new tale reduces the impact of its predecessors and successors. In summary, this is not a book of pure collected fantasy, no matter as what it may be put forth. So far, nearly halfway through, seven out of sixteen stories have shared this theme. No, it's not quite half, but at the same time "nearly half" is a vast number of stories to share the same theme in an allegedly impartial book. It's certainly enough to eclipse the themes of the other stories, no two of which, it is worth noting, share a common theme. Every non-feminist story is different in theme to every other, further indicating that the feminist stories were chosen based on preference. This is a book mainly of a very specific type of story, and may not be for everyone. The stories are excellent, as I've said, but if you're looking for a true sampling of the year's best fantasy and horror, I can't help but feel you would be well advised to look elsewhere.

I really can't be bothered doing my usual story-by-story review, since most of the stories stunk. I'm not a big Fantasy fan, so my distaste for the Fantasy side of the book shouldn't be a big surprise. I'll just reiterate my usual complaint about Fantasy Editor Terri Windling's half (More like 2/3rd's..) of the book: Waaaaayyy too much Fantasy, to the point where the Horror stories get short shrift. Ellen Datlow's Horror selections also leave a lot to be desired, as the truly distinctive voices of modern Horror fiction, like Bentley Little, Jack Ketchum, Edward Lee, Richard Laymon, et al, continue to not be represented, while told-by-rote Victorian-era wannabes dominate the book.

(My original review was much longer, and I did single out particular stories/Authors for praise, and recommended some of the individual anthologies, but the review-censorship gang at Amazon saw fit to chop off four whole paragraphs of my review! Thanks, @ssholes!)