The Year's Best Fantasy: Second Annual Collection

The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror #2

by Ellen Datlow (Editor), Terri Windling (Editor), Thomas M. Disch

Collects fantasy, horror, fairy tales, and gothic stories chosen from the past year, including works by Ursula K. LeGuin, Neil Gaiman, and Bill Lewis.

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

579 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1989

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

[Dan Trefethen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This 1988 volume is the second in a long-running series. After this one, though, the title changed to add “Horror”. This is appropriate because co-editor Ellen Datlow specializes in that (still does), and many of these stories are flat-out horror, not so much fantasy. This makes for an uneven reading experience, where fans who like one but not the other are not fully satisfied, or skipping around. Fortunately, the editors preface each story with a brief note indicating what it's about, and the discerning reader will note which type it is by which editor writes the note.

A little research tells me that the series continued until 2008 under the “Year's Best Fantasy and Horror” title, then the partnership dissolved and Datlow continued with “The Best Horror of the Year” in 2009, the title under which it is still running.

[Tristan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this anthology a while ago, so I don't remember everything. Lots of the stories are good, but my favorite pieces weren't stories at all. I loved Sara M. Gilbert's "The Last Poem about the Snow Queen and Pinocchio" and absolutely adored John M. Ford's "Winter Solstice, Camelot Station" (another poem). "Camelot Station" was actually the piece I read for speech and debate and went to the State tournament with it. I can only put that sort of energy into something I truly love. Here is a bit from the opening:

Camelot is served
by a sixteen-track terminal done in High Gothic Style...
Beneath its rotunda,just to the left of the ticket windows
is a mosaic floor depicting the Round Table
(where all knights, regardless of their station of origin
or class of accommodation, are equal)

The whole rest of this poem continues in this beautiful vein, going through the arrival of a host of knights until "The one who is King says, 'It all seemed so simple once'/and the best knight in the world says, 'It is. We make it hard'" and the poem is wrapped up with a reminder that "The train may stop/but the line goes on". The collection is well worth it (if you can find a copy) just for Ford's beautiful poem.
In fiction, my favorite story was "The Boy Who Drew Unicorns" by Jane Yolen, which is a powerful and poetic tale of healing.
Lots of great pieces, some pretty weak or unnecessarily confusing, but overall a decent anthology.

[Elizabeth · Rating 1 out of 5]

I expected a lot more out of an anthology titled "the best", but I don't agree that its contents truly are. Most of the stories included haven't got aspects or horror or fantasy elements in them at all. Just dark stories that I honestly didn't enjoy reading. The only reason I made it through the whole thing, was my inability to quit a book I've started.

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

pretty good even some of the poems.

[bluetyson]

Year's Best Fantasy and Horror/Second Annual Collection by Datlow (1989)