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

The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror #9

by Ellen Datlow (Editor), Terri Windling (Editor), Peter S. Beagle

This superb anthology is as valuable for its detailed summations of horror and fantasy in 1995 (in literature and in comics, television, movies, etc.), as for the 35 stories and 9 poems. Also useful for its exploration of the crossover genre known as "dark fantasy." Noteworthy authors include Peter S. Beagle, Ursula Le Guin, Stephen King, Lucy Taylor, Steve Rasnic Tem, Tanith Lee, A. S. Byatt, David J. Schow, and Joyce Carol Oates.

Contents:

* Summation 1995: Fantasy by Terri Windling
* Summation 1995: Horror by Ellen Datlow
* Horror and Fantasy in the Media: 1995 by Edward Bryant
* Obituaries by James Frenkel
* Home for Christmas by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
* Heartfires by Charles de Lint
* Screens by Terry Lamsley
* King of Crows by Midori Snyder
* Professor Gottesman and the Indian Rhinoceros by Peter S. Beagle
* The Hunt of the Unicorn by Ellen Kushner
* More Tomorrow by Michael Marshall Smith
* Penguins for Lunch by Scott Bradfield
* Either, OR by Ursula K. Le Guin
* Paper Lantern by Stuart Dybek
* Lunch at the Gotham Café by Stephen King
* Queen of Knives (poem) by Neil Gaiman
* Dragon-Rain by Eileen Kernaghan
* Llantos de La Llorona: Warnings from the Wailer (poem) by Pat Mora
* Too Short a Death by Peter Crowther
* The James Dean Garage Band by Rick Moody
* Because of Dust by Christopher Kenworthy
* Loop by Douglas E. Winter
* La Loma, La Luna by Sue Kepros Hartman
* Women's Stories (poem) by Jane Yolen
* Swan/Princess (poem) by Jane Yolen
* Switch by Lucy Taylor
* Scaring the Train by Terry Dowling
* Blood Knot by Steve Resnic Tem
* The Girl Who Married the Reindeer (poem) by Eilean Ni Chuilleanain
* The Otter Woman (poem) by Mary O'Malley
* Resolve and Resistance by S.N. Dyer
* La Dame by Tanith Lee
* Circe's Power (poem) by Louise Glück
* Dragon's Fin Soup by S.P. Somtow
* The Granddaughter by Vivian vande Velde
* Daphne and Laura and So Forth (poem) by Margaret Atwood
* A Lamia in the Cevennes by A.S. Byatt
* The Guilty Party by Susan Moody
* She's Not There by Pat Cadigan
* The White Road (poem) by Neil Gaiman
* Refrigerator Heaven by David J. Schow
* After the Elephant Ballet by Gary A. Braunbeck
* Henry V, Part 2 by Marcia Guthridge
* Mrs. Greasy by Robert Reed
* ############## by Joyce Carol Oates
* The Printer's Daughter by Delia Sherman
* Prayer (poem) by Nancy Willard
* Jacob and the Angel (poem) by Jane Yolen
* The Lion and the Lark by Patricia A. McKillip
* Honorable Mentions: 1995

Edited by Terry Windling and Ellen Datlow.

Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Anthologies, Short Stories, Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Poetry

624 pages, Hardcover

First published June 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

[Redsteve · Rating 3 out of 5]

On thing that I like about this series is that each collection give you a snapshot of fantasy and horror fiction from the year (in this case, 1995) - both from just reading the short stories and also from the sections at the beginning of the book that provide summations of fantasy and horror from the year. For me, the treatment of computers and urban fantasy in the stories definitely marks this as mid-90s. As with many short story collections, this book contains a range of fiction (and, in this case, poetry), some good, some not so good.

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Faves:

Home for Christmas, Nina Kiriki Hoffman
Screens, Terry Lamsley
Professor Gottesman and the Indian Rhinocerous, Peter S. Beagle
Lunch at the Gotham Cafe, Stephen King
Queen of Knives, Neil Gaiman
Too Short a Death, Peter Crowther
Switch, Lucy Taylor
The Granddaughter, Vivian Vande Velde
After the Elephant Ballet, Gary A. Braunbeck
The Printer's Daughter, Delia Sherman

[Chere · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the second YBFH collection I've read and it was as wonderful for me as the first. Datlow and Windling pick indeed the best selections, with all sorts of fantasy and different kinds of horror. There were several poignant pieces like Home For Christmas by Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Paper Lantern by Stuart Drybek, and She's Not There by Pat Cardigan. Some of the horror I found quite frightening (Screens by Terry Lamsley, Lunch at Gotham Cafe by Stephen King, and Scaring the Train by Terry Dowling), while others were very, very disturbing (More Tomorrow by Michael Marshall Smith, Loop by Douglas E. Winter, Refrigerator Heaven by David J. Schow, and [Black Rectangle] by Joyce Carol Oates). I was very much entertained by the comic Henry V, Part 2 by Marcia Guthridge, the enchanting The Printer's Daughter by Delia Sherman and the contemporary Dragon's Fin Soup by S. P. Somtow, and I fell in love with the beautiful language of La Loma, La Luna by Sue Kepros Hartman. Of course among my favorites are the poems by my favorite Neil Gaiman (Queen of Knives and The White Road), who tells the tales very effectively. Overall, the collection totally satisfied.

[Kirsten · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love these collections. I don't read much short fiction, generally -- I used to subscribe to some of the genre fiction magazines, like "Asimov's" and "Realms of Fantasy," but they had a tendency to sit there and not get read. So I like these collections because I can catch up on some of what I've missed. Plus Windling and Datlow don't just get stories from the usual genre sources, there's stuff from "The New Yorker" and literary magazines as well. Anyway, this collection, from 1996 (collection stuff from 1995) doesn't disappoint at all. Some of my favorites were the most off-beat stories: "Professor Gottesman and the Indian Rhinoceros" by Peter S. Beagle, in which a gentleman befriends a talking rhino who insists he is not a rhino at all, but a unicorn; "The James Dean Garage Band" by Rick Moody, in which James Dean is alive and well and starting a musical revolution; and "The Printer's Daughter" by Delia Sherman, which is a more classic fantasy tale but weird and wonderful nonetheless. Good stuff.

[Sir He-Man · Rating 4 out of 5]

Out of this collection, I enjoyed the most out of:

* Home for Christmas by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
* Heartfires by Charles deLint
* King of Crows by Midori Snyder
* Professor Gottesman and the Indian Rhinoceros by Peter S. Beagle
* More Tomorrow by Michael Marshall Smith
* Lunch at the Gotham Café by Stephen King
* Dragon-Rain by Eileen Kernaghan
* La Loma, La Luna by Sue Kepros Hartman
* Switch by Lucy Taylor
* Scaring the Train by Terry Dowling
* Resolve and Resistance by S.N. Dyer
* La Dame by Tanith Lee
* Dragon's Fin Soup by S.P. Somtow
* A Lamia in the Cevennes by A.S. Byatt
* Henry V, Part 2 by Marcia Guthridge
* Mrs. Greasy by Robert Reed
* The Printer's Daughter by Delia Sherman
* The Lion and the Lark by Patricia A. McKillip

The best stories out of all these would be the Hoffman, King's story, Dragon's Fin Soup, Henry V Part 2, Mrs. Greasy, and Printer's Daughter.

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good collection. You can pick an choose which authors you like. I especially liked the poetry by Neil Giaman.

[Erica Tuggle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid collection, especially love The Lark and the Lion and Lunch at Gothem Cafe

[bluetyson]

The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Ninth Annual Collection (Year's Best Fantasy and Horror) (1996)