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

The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror #17

by Ellen Datlow (Editor), Gavin J. Grant (Editor), Kelly Link (Editor)

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, Kelly Link and Gavin Grant 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 and Year's Best sections—on comics, by Charles Vess, and on anime and manga, by Joan D. Vinge and on film and television by Edward Bryant. This is an indispensable reference as well as the best reading available in fantasy and horror.

*Terry Bisson *Kevin Brockmeier *Dan Chaon *Peter Crowther *Theodora Goss *Daphne Gottlieb *Glen Hirshberg *Brian Hodge *Nina Kiriki Hoffman *Kij Johnson *Paul LaFarge *Thomas Ligotti *Sara Maitland *Maureen F. McHugh *Steve Rasnic Tem *Benjamin Rosenbaum *Michael Marshall Smith *Michael Swanwick *Karen Traviss *Megan Whalen Turner

Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Short Stories, Anthologies, Fiction, Short Story Collection, Magical Realism

672 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2004

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

[Bogdan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Such a disappointing read this has been!

I loved only one story, Swanwick`s from The Iron Dragon Universe.

But the rest...I don`t know. Maybe I wasn`t in the mood...

This is truly my last experience with this kind of "Best of" volumes...

[Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Favorite stories:
Only Partly Here, Lucius Shepard
Bedfordshire, Peter Crowther (this was horrific)
Cell Call, Marc Laidlaw
Mr. Sly Stops for a Cup of Joe, Scott Emerson Bull
The Baby in the Night Deposit Box, Megan Whalen Turner
The Brief History of the Dead, Kevin Brockmeier
Dancing Men, Glen Hirshberg
Ancestor Money, Maureen F. McHugh
Almost Home, Terry Bisson

[Mia · Rating 4 out of 5]

An amazing collection of stories, many captivating (either with wonder or horror), with a wide range of styles, both traditional and more experimental. One of my personal favorites was "The Kite of Stars" by Dean Alfar.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I confess that I didn’t read the whole book. I only read Megan Whalen Turners short story-The Baby in the Night Depository. I loved it so much that I shared it with many of my friends

[C · Rating 4 out of 5]

This edition of the series was, for me, a bit stornger than some of their other volumes. The editors did insist on including a story that, though excellent, did not fit in either category but for the most part, they stayed on topic.
Stories included in tis volume which I particularly enjoyed are:

"Old Virginia" by Laird Barron, originally published in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction

"A Study in Emerald" by Neil Gaiman, originally published in the anthology Shadows Over Baker Street

"Ash City Stomp" by Richard Butner, originally published in the anthology Trampoline

"King Dragon" by Michael Swanwick, originally published in the anthology The Dragon Quintet

"The Fishie" by Philip Raines and Harvey Welles, originally published in Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet

"Hunger: a Confession" by Dale Bailey, originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction

"Lamentation Over the Destruction of Ur" by Paul Lefarge, originally published in the anthology Politically Inspired

"At the Mythical Beast" (a poem) by Jon Woodward, originally published in his collection Mister Goodbye Easter Island

"The Fluted Girl" by Paolo Bacigalupi, originally published in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction

"Open Doors" by Michael Marshall Smith originally published in his collection More Tomorrow and Other Stories

Of these, "King Dragon" and "The Fishie" were my favorites.

[bluetyson]

The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Seventeenth Annual Collection (Year's Best Fantasy and Horror) by Ellen Datlow (2004)

[Janice]

7/18/10