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

by Ellen Datlow (Editor), Terri Windling (Editor), Angela Carter (Contributor)

This acclaimed series, winner of numerous World Fantasy Awards, continues its tradition of excellence with scores of short stories from such writers as Michael Bishop, Edward Bryant, Angela Carter, Terry Lamsley, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, A.R. Morlan, Robert Silverberg, Michael Swanwick, Jane Yolen, and many others. Supplementing the stories are the editors' invaluable overviews of the year in fantastic fiction, Edward Bryant's witty roundup of the year's fantasy films, and a long list of Honorable Mentions-all of which adds up to an invaluable reference source, and a font of fabulous reading.

Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Short Stories, Anthologies, Fiction, Short Story Collection, Speculative Fiction

624 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Ellen Datlow has been editing science fiction, fantasy, and horror short fiction for forty years as fiction editor of OMNI Magazine and editor of Event Horizon and SCIFICTION. She currently acquires short stories and novellas for Tor.com. In addition, she has edited about one hundred science fiction, fantasy, and horror anthologies, including the annual The Best Horror of the Year series, The Doll Collection, Mad Hatters and March Hares, The Devil and the Deep: Horror Stories of the Sea, Echoes: The Saga Anthology of Ghost Stories, Edited By, and Final Cuts: New Tales of Hollywood Horror and Other Spectacles.
She's won multiple World Fantasy Awards, Locus Awards, Hugo Awards, Bram Stoker Awards, International Horror Guild Awards, Shirley Jackson Awards, and the 2012 Il Posto Nero Black Spot Award for Excellence as Best Foreign Editor. Datlow was named recipient of the 2007 Karl Edward Wagner Award, given at the British Fantasy Convention for "outstanding contribution to the genre," was honored with the Life Achievement Award by the Horror Writers Association, in acknowledgment of superior achievement over an entire career, and honored with the World Fantasy Life Achievement Award at the 2014 World Fantasy Convention.

Reviews

[Danielle The Book Huntress]

This collection is pretty uneven. There are some really good stories and some not so good.

The one that stands out in my mind is the Graham Masterson story, "The Seven Secret Senses" (I think that's the title). The protagonist is a young chef of Asian descent (yay) who gets approached by a strange, elusive millionaire to prepare recipes from a forbidden recipe book, forbidden because the recipes are made from human flesh. My ick alarm went off immediately. I cannot handle cannibalism. I just can't. Well I had to keep reading because I wanted to see where this story would go. Also because it was strangely non-gratuitous, and I liked the protagonist. He reads the book and is fascinated. He's a chef, so the culinary aspects are irresistible to him. He agrees to the job. Well like anything, there is a catch. The supposed food source is a beautiful young girl named Xanthippe, who is the lover of the millionaire paying for the meal. From there it gets pretty interesting as the chef starts to fall in love with the girl he will end up serving for dinner. This is one of the first erotic horror stories I've read. I liked it because it wasn't for shock value or gross-out factor, despite the subject matter.

I got bored with the next stories and put this down, but I will finish it someday.

[Gwen]

I read this a few years ago, but I'm leaving a note, now that I've found a list of contents, to remind myself of what my top 5 favorites were:


Never Seen by Waking Eyes by Stephen Dedman

The Phantom Church by Ana Blandiana (god, this was a creepy/awesome ghost story!)

The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clarke

The Reason for Not Going to the Ball by Tanith Lee

The Snow Pavilion by Angela Carter

I really need to seek out more by Stephen Dedman, because his story about how Alice Liddell was a vampire who befriended Lewis Carroll was really fracking awesome. I will also eventually get around to reading Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, but the 1K+ page count is intimidating.

[Spike Anderson]

A mixed bag but some delightful gems. The a stories: Lilly's whisper, among the handlers, the phantom church, the secret of shih tan, o rate and most exquisite , never seen by waking eyes, walking the dog, the Phoenix, angel, Even the b stories in this book are written well and in general the quality in this compillation is quite high

[bluetyson]

The Year's Best Fantasy And Horror: Tenth Annual Collection. by Ellen (& Terri Windling, eds.) Datlow (1997)

[Jesse]

Some great stories in here....some are only so so.

[Misty]

These short stories are fantastic. Only a couple so far that haven't blown my mind and I'm 400 pages in.

[Megan]

The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Tenth Annual Collection (Year's Best Fantasy and Horror) (1997)

[Adriana Johnston]

I think this book has some amazing, great stories, but some others are a bit plain... Overall it's good, though.

[Emily]

The Gaiman story in this is awful. The Tanith Lee is lovely.

[Jaimie]

1996/1997 was just before I was making my way towards the fantasy books that would define my early teen years and subsequent genre obsession, so this collection of the year’s best fantasy and horror was full of authors who I would be discovering shortly after this anthology was initially published - giving me an instantly nostalgic feeling when I picked up this chonk of a collection. Contained herein are gems from soon to be favourites such as Jane Yolen, Patricia C. Wrede, Charles de Lint, and Neil Gaiman, so there was a decent amount of quality content amongst the stories. Unfortunately, there’s also quite a bit of drivel, which ended up tainting my reading of the stories by the time I got halfway through. Being from the 1990s, there’s still far too much casual sexism and the horror content had some decidedly uncomfortable thematic vibes, so there were quite a few stories that I had to walk away from. Thankfully, there was enough redeeming content that made it fun to revisit favourite authors and rediscover their talents at a more concise writing medium than I’m used to reading them write. Could I have done without the plethora of dull stories? Of course, but I do have to remind myself that it’s worth delving into these massive collections in the hope of possibly finding some new literary gem or author’s backlog to explore anew.

[Cheyenne]

I really enjoyed this fantasy and horror collection a lot. It's the first in this series of anthologies I've read, and it won't be the last. Most of the stories in this collection fell around the four-star mark for me, but there were many that I rated the full 5 and some that rated as low as 2. My absolute favorites included:

- The Secret Shih Tan by Graham Masterton
- The Phoenix by Isobelle Carmody
- Crow Girls by Charles de Lint
- Beckoning Nightframe by Terry Dowling
- Angel by Philip Graham
- Not Waving by Michael Marshall Smith
- The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Suzannah Clarke
- Radio Waves by Michael Swanwick

[Vince Darcangelo]

Faves:
Tanith Lee, "The Reason for Not Going to the Ball"
Angela Carter, "The Snow Pavilion"
Edward Bryant, "Disillusion"
Thomas Ligotti, "Teatro Grottesco"
Graham Masterton, "The Secret Shih Tan"
Charles de Lint, "Crow Girls"
Dennis Etchison, "The Dead Cop"
Shara McCallum, "Persephone Sets the Record Straight"

[Greg]

Some were 5 star and others were 3 star so average of 4 stars.

[Jo]

Lily's Whisper, Jay Russell
Disillusion, Edward Bryant
The Secret of Shih Tan, Graham Masterson
The Phoenix, Isobelle Carmody
Crow Girls, Charles de Lint
Little Beauty's Wedding, Chang Hwang
Angel, Philip Graham
Not Waving, Michael Marshall Smith
Cruel Sister, Patricia C. Wrede

[Danielle McNamara]

I purchased this book because Neil Gaiman had a story in it. I have yet to read it.