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

Overview

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, new Year's Best sections 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. The critically acclaimed and award-winning tradition continues with another stunning collection, including stories by Kelly Link o Kim Newman o Corey Marks o Eric Schaller o M. Shayne Bell o Helga M. Novak o Terry Dowling o Michael Libling o Zoran Zivkovic o Bentley Little o Carlton Mellick III o Brian Hodge o Conrad Williams o Tom Disch o Melissa Hardy o Joel Lane o Nicholas Royle o Tracina Jackson-Adams o Karen Joy Fowler o Jackie Bartley o Peter Dickerman o Ramsey Campbell o Adam Roberts o Robert Phillips o Jay Russell o Luis Alberto Urrea o Margaret Lloyd o Stephen Gallagher o Robin McKinley o Haruki Murakami o Theodora Goss o Kathy Koja o Lucy Taylor o Elizabeth Hand o Kevin Brickmeier o Sharon McCartney o Susan Power o Don Tumasonis o Nan Fry. Rounding out the volume are the editors' invaluable overviews of the year in fantasy and horror, Year's Best sections on comics, byCharles 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

A highlight of any year's fantastic fiction yield is Datlow and Windling's picks of the previous year's top tales. This 16th incarnation of their award-winning anthology series shows fantasy and horror fiction alive, well and accessible in an impressively broad array of venues ranging from literary journals to genre publications, on-line markets and even a rock music tour book. The 49 selections (which also include poetry and an essay) are as refreshingly impossible to pigeonhole as their sources. Melissa Hardy's "Aquer," a wry behind-the-scenes look at a saint's canonization, is a perfect balance of supernatural mystery and dubious demystification. Conrad Williams's "The Machine," whose characters are caught up in the inexorable natural processes of its seaside setting, is one of several stories whose surreal symbolism blurs the boundaries between horror and fantasy. "The Least Trumps" by Elizabeth Hand, centered on a female tattoo artist's shaky grip on reality, translates the iconography of tarot cards and the reader's relationship to the written word into a luminous fantasy on the interpenetration of life and art. Don Tumasonis's "The Prospect Cards" is a brilliant narrative puzzle, related as a fragmented travel diary written on the backs of old postcards, in which the missing passages cleverly suggest a horror that defies description. Five writers are represented by two selections apiece; that might have given the impression of a dwindling talent pool were the contents not so delectably varied in theme and approach, and divided judiciously between well-known writers and new names.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Author Information

Bio of Terri Windling

Terri Windling won the Mythopoeic Award for her first adult novel,The Wood Wife. She has edited numerous books and anthologies, including The Essential Bordertown and Black Heart, Ivory Bones, the most recent in a series of contemporary fairy-tale anthologies edited with Ellen Datlow. She has been honored five times with the World Fantasy Award. She divides her time between Devon, England, and Tuscon, Arizona.

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Additional Info

Imprint

St. Martin's Press

Filesize

3.71 MB

Number of Pages

672

eBook ISBN

9781429982474