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Best American Fantasy #2
Best American Fantasy 2
A prestigious new anthology series, Best American Fantasy is guest edited by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer, with Matthew Cheney serving as the series editor. This second volume showcases the best North American fantasy short fiction from the preceding year.
400 pages, Paperback
Published August 2, 2008
About the author
Jeff Vandermeer
244 books17.4k followersNYT bestselling writer Jeff VanderMeer has been called “the weird Thoreau” by the New Yorker for his engagement with ecological issues. His most recent novel, the national bestseller Borne, received wide-spread critical acclaim and his prior novels include the Southern Reach trilogy (Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance). Annihilation won the Nebula and Shirley Jackson Awards, has been translated into 35 languages, and was made into a film from Paramount Pictures directed by Alex Garland. His nonfiction has appeared in New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Atlantic, Slate, Salon, and the Washington Post. He has coedited several iconic anthologies with his wife, the Hugo Award winning editor. Other titles include Wonderbook, the world’s first fully illustrated creative writing guide. VanderMeer served as the 2016-2017 Trias Writer in Residence at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. He has spoken at the Guggenheim, the Library of Congress, and the Arthur C. Clarke Center for the Human Imagination.
VanderMeer was born in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, but spent much of his childhood in the Fiji Islands, where his parents worked for the Peace Corps. This experience, and the resulting trip back to the United States through Asia, Africa, and Europe, deeply influenced him.
Jeff is married to Ann VanderMeer, who is currently an acquiring editor at Tor.com and has won the Hugo Award and World Fantasy Award for her editing of magazines and anthologies. They live in Tallahassee, Florida, with two cats and thousands of books.
VanderMeer was born in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, but spent much of his childhood in the Fiji Islands, where his parents worked for the Peace Corps. This experience, and the resulting trip back to the United States through Asia, Africa, and Europe, deeply influenced him.
Jeff is married to Ann VanderMeer, who is currently an acquiring editor at Tor.com and has won the Hugo Award and World Fantasy Award for her editing of magazines and anthologies. They live in Tallahassee, Florida, with two cats and thousands of books.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 6, 2014
A collection of short pieces of writing, some of which could be termed "fantasy" and a few of which could be termed "stories." Very few are worth reading. The stories by Baker and Swirsky are by far the best, but it's hard to choose what was worst, because there are so many terrible ones to choose from.
As I read each story, I recorded my reaction. Here they are:
Eric Amudsen, "Bufo Rex." The tale of a toad who is tormented by humans. I like the rhythm of the words.
Bruce Holland Rogers, "The Seven Deadly Hotels." Various hotels torment various travelers with each of the seven sins. Clever conceit, but something about the writing annoyed me. The characters are just puppets moved through motions, and they all give in to temptation. I guess I wanted just one that saw through the hotel's obvious manipulations.
Miranda Mellis, "The Revisionist." Surrealist and terrible. Loopy and wacky for no reason I could discern. A nuclear bomb goes off and various random stuff happens. Nonsense is so avant garde!
Kage Baker, "The Ruby Incomparable." The Master of the Mountain (a dark lord who commands armies of demons and ogres) and the Saint of the World (who quite resembled her name) fell in love, married, and had children. One of them was Svnae, whose unquenchable love of power and learning led her into many adventures. A wonderful story about family and individuality.
Aimee Bender, "Interval." An orphan signs up for a sculpting class, but the teacher tells him to sculpt out of sound instead of clay. He falls in love with the sculpter's model, who eventually gives birth to clay sculptures of twelve of his dead relatives. But then! It was all in his head! Yet more surreal run-on sentences trying to be meaningful; I don't like it.
"Memoir of a Deer Woman" by M Rickert. A woman sees a deer killed, and rapidly becomes a deer. It's that style where something completely strange and unexplained happens, and everyone reacts to it as though it's completely normal, even though it clearly isn't. I hate that style and I hated this. The characters have no names or personalities or motives; there is not plot; it's all just an excuse for the author to write lines like "She is finally able to write that there is no sorrow greater than regret, no rapture more complete than despair, no beauty more divine than words, but before writing it, she understands, standing there, amidst the cars and shopping bags, watching all the words spin away, as though she had already died, and no longer owned language, that ordinary, every day, exquisite blessing on which lives are both built, and destroyed."
"In the Middle of the Woods" by Christian Moody. I was annoyed by his author bio (no one cares that you're in a PhD program for English, gah!) but far more annoyed by the story itself, which tries to be surreal and strange and is instead senseless and silly. Maybe I just hate this would-be-literary style too much, but there's something so annoying about reading story after story about characters without names or personalities or reasons.
"Story With Advice II: Back from the Dead" by Rick Moody. Another story I wouldn't really classify as fantasy, but I liked this better than the earlier ones. An (again unnamed!) advice columnist answers problems sent to him in the afterlife. I liked the way his personality and history peek out throughout his answers, and the columnist's writing style is identifiable. Characterization! So what if there's no plot or names or fantasy, at least we're going in the right direction.
"Logorrhea" by Michelle Richmond. A woman whose incessant speech destroys her relationships meets a man covered in beautiful but sharp iridescent scales. He slowly finds ways to cover up the one thing she likes about him, in order to join society like a normal person. I quite liked this. But again with the unnamed characters!
"Ave Maria" by Micaela Morrissette. A magical bird or something? Super boring.
"Chainsaw on Hand" by Deborah Coates. Chel is annoyed that her ex-husband won't stop talking about seeing angels (or maybe fairies. or trolls. He's not sure what they are.) and that her small South Dakota town still expects her to take care of him. THIS contains some believable reactions to surreal experiences, and I really liked Chel's internal grumbling and yearning.
"The Last and Only, or, Mr. Moscowitz Becomes French" by Peter S. Beagle. An ordinary American librarian slowly turns into a Frenchman. He even loses the ability to speak English, and emigrates to France in hopes of finally being home. But there he finds that the people living in France are not French either, and goes in search of the true French. Weird, less fantasy than surreal literature, but still I liked Mrs. Moscowitz and the two presidents.
"Minus, His Heart" by Jedediah Berry. Unreadable. Yet more unnamed main characters, sentence after sentence that don't connect to each other, and a random inexplicable world.
"Abroad" by Judy Budnitz. Two unnamed (as always) tourists visit a country, and one of them rapidly turns into a native while the other watches, befuddled and confused. I am so sick of this surrealist bullshit.
"Mario's Three Lives" by Matt Bell. Super Mario, as told from the point of view of the plumber himself. Poorly written, overused concept.
"The Naming of the Islands" by David Hollander. Unnamed narrator tells us about discovering various islands. No plot, no tension, no characterization, nothing but a series of disgusting islands.
"The Drowned Life" by Jeffrey Ford. Hatch is an insurance claims worker. One day all the considerations of life grow too much for him and he metaphorically (?) drowns and finds himself in a metaphorical (?) Drowned Land where everyone else has ruined lives as well. I have no clue what happened in this story, and after slogging through so many senseless stories before it, I didn't have the patience to puzzle it out.
"Light" by Kelly Link. Lindsey doesn't conform to the stereotypes about people with two shadows: she's not a trouble maker, she's not untrustworthy. She just likes to drink and take care of iguanas. Then a hurricane hits and gives her the opportunity to leave her troublesome twin brother and depressing routine behind. I liked a lot of the writing here, like the descriptions of the incipient hurricane. Lindsey feels realistically complicated, and the world is fantastical but still grounded. Not sure what was going on in this story, though.
"How the World Became Quiet: A Post-Human Creation Myth" by Rachel Swirsky. The apocalypses of the earth, and the ways humanity survived (or didn't). Fucking fantastic.
As I read each story, I recorded my reaction. Here they are:
Eric Amudsen, "Bufo Rex." The tale of a toad who is tormented by humans. I like the rhythm of the words.
Bruce Holland Rogers, "The Seven Deadly Hotels." Various hotels torment various travelers with each of the seven sins. Clever conceit, but something about the writing annoyed me. The characters are just puppets moved through motions, and they all give in to temptation. I guess I wanted just one that saw through the hotel's obvious manipulations.
Miranda Mellis, "The Revisionist." Surrealist and terrible. Loopy and wacky for no reason I could discern. A nuclear bomb goes off and various random stuff happens. Nonsense is so avant garde!
Kage Baker, "The Ruby Incomparable." The Master of the Mountain (a dark lord who commands armies of demons and ogres) and the Saint of the World (who quite resembled her name) fell in love, married, and had children. One of them was Svnae, whose unquenchable love of power and learning led her into many adventures. A wonderful story about family and individuality.
Aimee Bender, "Interval." An orphan signs up for a sculpting class, but the teacher tells him to sculpt out of sound instead of clay. He falls in love with the sculpter's model, who eventually gives birth to clay sculptures of twelve of his dead relatives. But then! It was all in his head! Yet more surreal run-on sentences trying to be meaningful; I don't like it.
"Memoir of a Deer Woman" by M Rickert. A woman sees a deer killed, and rapidly becomes a deer. It's that style where something completely strange and unexplained happens, and everyone reacts to it as though it's completely normal, even though it clearly isn't. I hate that style and I hated this. The characters have no names or personalities or motives; there is not plot; it's all just an excuse for the author to write lines like "She is finally able to write that there is no sorrow greater than regret, no rapture more complete than despair, no beauty more divine than words, but before writing it, she understands, standing there, amidst the cars and shopping bags, watching all the words spin away, as though she had already died, and no longer owned language, that ordinary, every day, exquisite blessing on which lives are both built, and destroyed."
"In the Middle of the Woods" by Christian Moody. I was annoyed by his author bio (no one cares that you're in a PhD program for English, gah!) but far more annoyed by the story itself, which tries to be surreal and strange and is instead senseless and silly. Maybe I just hate this would-be-literary style too much, but there's something so annoying about reading story after story about characters without names or personalities or reasons.
"Story With Advice II: Back from the Dead" by Rick Moody. Another story I wouldn't really classify as fantasy, but I liked this better than the earlier ones. An (again unnamed!) advice columnist answers problems sent to him in the afterlife. I liked the way his personality and history peek out throughout his answers, and the columnist's writing style is identifiable. Characterization! So what if there's no plot or names or fantasy, at least we're going in the right direction.
"Logorrhea" by Michelle Richmond. A woman whose incessant speech destroys her relationships meets a man covered in beautiful but sharp iridescent scales. He slowly finds ways to cover up the one thing she likes about him, in order to join society like a normal person. I quite liked this. But again with the unnamed characters!
"Ave Maria" by Micaela Morrissette. A magical bird or something? Super boring.
"Chainsaw on Hand" by Deborah Coates. Chel is annoyed that her ex-husband won't stop talking about seeing angels (or maybe fairies. or trolls. He's not sure what they are.) and that her small South Dakota town still expects her to take care of him. THIS contains some believable reactions to surreal experiences, and I really liked Chel's internal grumbling and yearning.
"The Last and Only, or, Mr. Moscowitz Becomes French" by Peter S. Beagle. An ordinary American librarian slowly turns into a Frenchman. He even loses the ability to speak English, and emigrates to France in hopes of finally being home. But there he finds that the people living in France are not French either, and goes in search of the true French. Weird, less fantasy than surreal literature, but still I liked Mrs. Moscowitz and the two presidents.
"Minus, His Heart" by Jedediah Berry. Unreadable. Yet more unnamed main characters, sentence after sentence that don't connect to each other, and a random inexplicable world.
"Abroad" by Judy Budnitz. Two unnamed (as always) tourists visit a country, and one of them rapidly turns into a native while the other watches, befuddled and confused. I am so sick of this surrealist bullshit.
"Mario's Three Lives" by Matt Bell. Super Mario, as told from the point of view of the plumber himself. Poorly written, overused concept.
"The Naming of the Islands" by David Hollander. Unnamed narrator tells us about discovering various islands. No plot, no tension, no characterization, nothing but a series of disgusting islands.
"The Drowned Life" by Jeffrey Ford. Hatch is an insurance claims worker. One day all the considerations of life grow too much for him and he metaphorically (?) drowns and finds himself in a metaphorical (?) Drowned Land where everyone else has ruined lives as well. I have no clue what happened in this story, and after slogging through so many senseless stories before it, I didn't have the patience to puzzle it out.
"Light" by Kelly Link. Lindsey doesn't conform to the stereotypes about people with two shadows: she's not a trouble maker, she's not untrustworthy. She just likes to drink and take care of iguanas. Then a hurricane hits and gives her the opportunity to leave her troublesome twin brother and depressing routine behind. I liked a lot of the writing here, like the descriptions of the incipient hurricane. Lindsey feels realistically complicated, and the world is fantastical but still grounded. Not sure what was going on in this story, though.
"How the World Became Quiet: A Post-Human Creation Myth" by Rachel Swirsky. The apocalypses of the earth, and the ways humanity survived (or didn't). Fucking fantastic.
September 13, 2009
As the title states, these are the stories that editors Ann and Jeff Vandermeer have chosen for the best American (stories published in American journals, magazines, and web sites) fantasy stories of the year. With one exception, I can't find fault with their choices.
“Bufo Rex” by Erik Amundsen. The toad of fairy tales travels from town to town, until he finds a story of his own.
“The Seven Deadly Hotels” by Bruce Holland Rogers. Description of visits to seven different hotels, each with a singular flaw.
“The Revisionist” by Miranda Mellis. The doctored report is easier to believe than the reality.
“The Ruby Incomparable” by Kage Baker. The daughter of the Dark Lord and Saint of the World decides destiny is not for her.
“Interval” by Aimee Bender. On the first day of sculpting class, a student is told to sculpt without clay.
“Memoir of a Deer Woman” by M. Rickert. Transformation viewed as an end-of-life experience.
“In the Middle of the Woods” by Christian Moody. Introducing mechanical life to nature is fraught with hazards.
“Story with Advice II: Back from the Dead” by Rick Moody. The advice columnist has more to add post-mortem.
“Logorrhea” by Michele Richmond. The feature that makes the narrator's husband most attractive to her is what he most wants to lose.
“Ave Maria” by Micaela Morissette. Assimilating not-quite homo ferus into society.
“Chainsaw on Hand” by Deborah Coates. The difficulties of love with a man who claims to see fairies.
“The Last and Only, or, Mr. Moscowitz Becomes French” by Peter S. Beagle. Some people are more French than others.
“Minus, His Heart” by Jedediah Berry. The search for the lost mix tape through the surreal playgrounds and zoos.
“Abroad” by Judy Budnitz. While on vacation, the narrator's husband goes native.
“Mario's Three Lives” by Matt Bell. The Plumber contemplates his life.
“The Naming of the Islands” by David Hollander. The crew of the Scapegrace searches for safe harbor amongst strange and dangerous islands.
“The Drowned Life” by Jeffrey Ford. Drowning in debt is no longer a metaphor.
“Light” by Kelly Link. Pocket universes, insubstantial twins, and warehouses of sleepers. All a background for difficult family relationships.
“How the World Became Quiet: A Post-Human Creation Myth” by Rachel Swirsky. The aftermath of the tree-human peace treaty.
None of the stories are in the elf-and-sword mode, which is something of a relief. The types of stories include the metaphor-as-reality and the outright surreal, which sometimes make for difficult reading for some people, but there are also contemplative and personal stories.
Appropriately for a “Best” anthology, it's difficult to pick out the stand-outs, but if you were truly pressed for reading time I would recommend “The Seven Deadly Hotels”, “The Ruby Incomparable”, “ The Last and Only, or, Mr. Moscowitz Becomes French”, and “The Naming of the Islands”, which is not meant to slight the rest. With the exception of “Mario's Three Lives” (a story from the point of view of a game character, a theme that's been done before going back decades), all the stories are interesting, some are very clever, and all very good.
“Bufo Rex” by Erik Amundsen. The toad of fairy tales travels from town to town, until he finds a story of his own.
“The Seven Deadly Hotels” by Bruce Holland Rogers. Description of visits to seven different hotels, each with a singular flaw.
“The Revisionist” by Miranda Mellis. The doctored report is easier to believe than the reality.
“The Ruby Incomparable” by Kage Baker. The daughter of the Dark Lord and Saint of the World decides destiny is not for her.
“Interval” by Aimee Bender. On the first day of sculpting class, a student is told to sculpt without clay.
“Memoir of a Deer Woman” by M. Rickert. Transformation viewed as an end-of-life experience.
“In the Middle of the Woods” by Christian Moody. Introducing mechanical life to nature is fraught with hazards.
“Story with Advice II: Back from the Dead” by Rick Moody. The advice columnist has more to add post-mortem.
“Logorrhea” by Michele Richmond. The feature that makes the narrator's husband most attractive to her is what he most wants to lose.
“Ave Maria” by Micaela Morissette. Assimilating not-quite homo ferus into society.
“Chainsaw on Hand” by Deborah Coates. The difficulties of love with a man who claims to see fairies.
“The Last and Only, or, Mr. Moscowitz Becomes French” by Peter S. Beagle. Some people are more French than others.
“Minus, His Heart” by Jedediah Berry. The search for the lost mix tape through the surreal playgrounds and zoos.
“Abroad” by Judy Budnitz. While on vacation, the narrator's husband goes native.
“Mario's Three Lives” by Matt Bell. The Plumber contemplates his life.
“The Naming of the Islands” by David Hollander. The crew of the Scapegrace searches for safe harbor amongst strange and dangerous islands.
“The Drowned Life” by Jeffrey Ford. Drowning in debt is no longer a metaphor.
“Light” by Kelly Link. Pocket universes, insubstantial twins, and warehouses of sleepers. All a background for difficult family relationships.
“How the World Became Quiet: A Post-Human Creation Myth” by Rachel Swirsky. The aftermath of the tree-human peace treaty.
None of the stories are in the elf-and-sword mode, which is something of a relief. The types of stories include the metaphor-as-reality and the outright surreal, which sometimes make for difficult reading for some people, but there are also contemplative and personal stories.
Appropriately for a “Best” anthology, it's difficult to pick out the stand-outs, but if you were truly pressed for reading time I would recommend “The Seven Deadly Hotels”, “The Ruby Incomparable”, “ The Last and Only, or, Mr. Moscowitz Becomes French”, and “The Naming of the Islands”, which is not meant to slight the rest. With the exception of “Mario's Three Lives” (a story from the point of view of a game character, a theme that's been done before going back decades), all the stories are interesting, some are very clever, and all very good.
May 20, 2010
This is an incredible collection of stories.They sprawl across time and space and are endlessly inventive. Every story is compelling, impossible to set down yet every story is also incredibly different from each other. a remarkable feet. Grab this collection.
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September 3, 2009I've only read the one story in this so far, but I have a special fondness for it :)
August 3, 2011
Interesting range of stories; even those not to my taste were solid and well-written.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews