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

The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror #12

by Ellen Datlow (Editor), Terri Windling (Editor), Sara Douglass (Contributor)

Over 250,000 words of the finest fantasy and horror

A. S. Byatt
Charles de Lint
Karen Joy Fowler
Neil Gaiman
Lisa Goldstein
Stephen King
Ellen Kushner
Patricia A. McKillip
Steven Millhauser
Michael Marshall Smith
Peter Straub
Jane Yolen

For more than a decade, readers have looked to The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror to showcase the highest achievements of fantastic fiction. 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 fantastic fiction, and a long list of Honorable Mentions, making this volume a valubale reference source as well as the best reading available in fantasy and horror

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

624 pages, Paperback

First published July 30, 1999

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

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fewer memorable stories than other years, but still many I enjoyed.

Running Dogs, Steve Duffy
Taking Loup, Bruce Glassco (this was really good)
The Evil Within, Sara Douglass
Suburban Blight, Terry Lamsley
Every Angel is Terrifying, John Kessel
Blackbirds, Norman Partridge
The Specialist's Hat, Kelly Link
Jenny Come to Play, Terry Dowling

[E.A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finished my year-long read at the last hour. I liked what I liked, I skipped what I didn’t.

[Ronald Wise · Rating 4 out of 5]

As is typical for this series, the first 110 pages of this volume was an encyclopedic recap of all things fantasy and horror during the year 1998. Of historical note in Windling’s section “Children’s Fantasy” was the recommendation to check out the first novel by a Scottish author titled Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

Then followed 46 short stories and poems, of which I found the outstanding ones to be: “Wiglaf” (poem) by Marisa de los Santos; “Due West” by Rick Kennett; “The Evil Within” by Sara Douglass; “The Rainmaker” by Mary Rosenblum; “A Place to Stay” by Michael Marshall Smith; “Hoopa, the White Deer Dance” by Ralph Salisbury; “That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French” by Stephen King; “Every Angel Is Terrifying” by John Kessel; “Mrs. Beast” (poem) by Carol Ann Duffy; “Mr. Clubb and Mr. Cuff” by Peter Straub; and “Jenny Come to Play” by Terry Dowling.

[KarlaC · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just meh. I've had this book for many years. I started to read it 20 years ago, and found the stories disappointing then. I always thought it was because I not all that fond of short stories, but now when I picked it up again, I found that the stories are just not that good. I stayed away from the horror, because that's not my thing, but the fantasy was overall fairly anticlimactic. Except for Travels With the Snow Queen, which is loosely based on the Snow Queen, which is the basis for the movie Frozen. That one I'll remember.

[Vincent Campbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

this anthology is worth reading just for the two
stories i felt were most stellar and spellbinding: “become a warrior” by jane yolen and “blackbirds” by norman partridge. cannot recommend those two
stories enough. masterful and menacing.

[Robin Chen]

五把銳利的劍。短篇恐怖奇幻作品合集。選擇這本是因為想嘗試入坑fantasy作品...大概看了一些有名的奇幻作品後，我發現改編成影視作品的話，我比較看得下去，這也許是因為要憑著自己的想像力建構出書中的世界對我來說實在太費勁了。
似曾相識 Stephen King：沒認真看，吸引不了我。
狂奔的狗群 Steve Duffy：沒認真看，吸引不了我。
黑色偵探事務所 Peter Straub：不想看。
橡樹山 Patricia A. Mckillip：不想看。
復仇記 Michael Blumlein：不想看。

[Laura Talley · Rating 3 out of 5]

So many great stories in one collection. The last story is wonderful!

[[on hiatus, probably forever] The rockabilly werewolf from Mars · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the best entries in the series, because of the unusually high number of Jamesian ghost stories (Running Dogs, Due West, Jackdaw Jack, and arguably Suburban Blight, which blends science fiction with strong Jamesian elements). It also has stories by several other great writers, including Stephen King, Peter Straub, and Neil Gaiman. Notes on the stories to come.

[DDog · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some really neat stories in this one, and some that were not my style.

My favorites:
"Mrs Mabb," Susanna Clarke
"Due West," Rick Kennett
"Taking Loup," Bruce Glassco
"The Rainmaker," Mary Rosenblum
"A Place to Stay," Michael Marshall Smith
"Inside the Cackle Factory," Dennis Etchison
"The House of the Black Cat," Yumiko Kurahashi; trans. by Atsuko Sakaki
"Shoggoth's Old Peculiar," Neil Gaiman
"Psyché," Mark W. Tiedemann
"Become a Warrior," Jane Yolen
"The Faerie Cony-catcher," Delia Sherman
"Hershel," Judy Budnitz
"By the Time We Get to Uranus," Ray Vukcevich
"Twa Corbies," Charles de Lint
"Jenny Come to Play," Terry Dowling
"Cold," A.S. Byatt

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were some really, really good stories in here. And lots of solid but not amazing stories. And a few that I skipped without finishing reading (all of those were horror, so quite possibly a genre bias on my part).

I liked being able to pick up the book when I only had a few minutes here or there and read a complete story. Maybe I should add more short story collections to my reading list.



[From Kelly Link's "Travels with the Snow Queen" (here because it didn't fit in the Reading Progress quote box):
"Give me a kiss," Bae says. The wind whips his words back to you. You can almost see the shape of them hanging in the heavy air.
"I'm not really a reindeer," he says. "I'm an enchanted prince."
You politely decline, pointing out that you haven't known him that long, and besides, for traveling purposes, a reindeer is better than a prince.
]

[Debra Firestone · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF. Normally I love these type of anthologies, but for some reason, I did not enjoy a single story in this one. I finished about 60% of the book and after not enjoying any of them more than an "eh" I decided to stop. I have to much I want to read and not enough time to continue with it.

Merged review:

DNF. Normally I love these type of anthologies, but for some reason, I did not enjoy a single story in this one. I finished about 60% of the book and after not enjoying any of them more than an "eh" I decided to stop. I have to much I want to read and not enough time to continue with it.

[Patrick Hurley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some really fantastic stories in here. Along with a few that are... not so. The Terry Dowling story felt really out of place. Some of the horror stories just didn't work. Kelly Links' stuff was fantastic.

[bluetyson]

The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Twelfth Annual Collection (Year's Best Fantasy and Horror) by Ellen Datlow (1999)

[Madly Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best anthologies I've ever read. REVIEW and details later