The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror, Volume Two

The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror

by Paula Guran (Editor)

The supernatural, the surreal, and the all-too real . . . tales of the dark. Such stories have always fascinated us, and modern authors carry on the disquieting traditions of the past while inventing imaginative new ways to unsettle us. Chosen from a wide variety of venues, these stories are as eclectic and varied as shadows.



This volume of The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror offers more than four hundred pages of tales from some of today’s finest writers of the fantastique?sure to delight as well as disturb!

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

566 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 19, 2021

About the author

Paula Guran is senior editor for Prime Books. She edited the Juno fantasy imprint from its small press inception through its incarnation as an imprint of Pocket Books. She is also senior editor of Prime's soon-to-launch digital imprint Masque Books. Guran edits the annual Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror series as well as a growing number of other anthologies. In an earlier life she produced weekly email newsletter DarkEcho (winning two Stokers, an IHG award, and a World Fantasy Award nomination), edited Horror Garage (earning another IHG and a second World Fantasy nomination), and has contributed reviews, interviews, and articles to numerous professional publications.

Reviews

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: Volume Two is a collection of utterly fantastic short stories. I am thrilled I had the chance to read this anthology. Not only did these stories surprise and entertain, I have another a list of authors to keep an eye on.

Over four hundred pages of dark fantasy and horror; my top two favorite genres to read. I know sometimes when a reviewer reviews an anthology, they pick their favorite story, but I can’t pick. Each story was different, but what they all had in common was incredible writing. I kept telling myself, “one more story,” until I’d managed to read the entire collection in one sitting.

I need to check out volume one, now. It is clear editor Paula Guran knows how to select some amazing stories and I want more. I loved this so much. I highly recommend giving this a shot! Don’t miss out. Perfect for this time of year!!

Thank you to Kaye Publicity for the ARC copy to review. All opinions are my own and unbiased.

[Sue · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting collection, with a couple of stories I'd rate at 5 stars, but a bigger percentage of others that just didn't do it for me. Still a great way to keep up with the current field of authors.

[Megan McCarthy-Biank · Rating 4 out of 5]

Readers who love spooky stories can turn to The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, Vol. 2 by Paula Guran. Being an anthology – a collection of short stories – it’s easy to pick up and put down without needing to get too invested in ongoing plots or character storylines.

Read my entire review on The Nerd Cantina website.

Read my review from last year’s release of The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, Vol. 1.

[Riju Ganguly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mostly 'Meh' type tales, lacking either the visceral punch or the wit, or both. If these are 'year's best' then I shudder to think about the stuff being mass-produced elsewhere.
Some were good, like Bear's story. More were readable. But they didn't yield any special feeling.
That's it.

[Yolanda (readmorethrillers) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a collection of short stories. One of my favorite ones was Open House on Haunted Hill which is such a unique story because the main character is the house itself. The house has feelings and it expresses its emotions in various ways while viewers visit the house which is for sale.
As a man and his young daughter are touring the house, not quite convinced this is the right house for them, the house plays tricks on them which consequently helps the family make their final decision.
The little girl being a believer of ghosts, feels the energy this house offers her which seems to remind her of her mother’s presence.
Although it’s a story of a haunted house, there’s an element of sweetness as the house finds the perfect family to occupy it and fill its rooms with the energy it needs.
My rating 3.5 ⭐️

[Vince Darcangelo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This may be the best edition of the series (going back to its start in 2010) that I've read so far. And that's saying something.

Faves:
Victor Lavalle, "Recognition"
Zen Cho, "Odette"
Dale Bailey, "Das Gesicht"
Craig Laurance Gidney, "Desiccant"
John Wiswell, "Open House on Haunted Hill"
Elaine Cuyegkeng, "The Genetic Alchemist's Daughter"
H. Pueyo, "Nobody Lives Here"
Elizabeth Bear, "On Safari in R'yleh and Carcosa with Gun and Camera"
Brian Evenson, "The Thickening"
James Everington, "The Sound of the Sea, Too Close"
Kelley Armstrong, "Drunk Physics"
Stephen Graham Jones, "Wait for Night"
Thomas Ha, "Where the Old Neighbors Go"
Caitlin R. Kiernan, "Dead Bright Star (July 1987)"
Shingai Njeri Kagunda, "And This is How to Stay Alive"
Maria Dahvana Headley, "The Girlfriend's Guide to Gods"
Naomi Kritzer, "Monster"
M. Rickert, "Last Night at the Fair"

[Jeffrey Powanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

An elegant and diverse collection of 30 stories. The stories seemed more haunting and introspective than I expected, which caused me to read them at a languid pace over several weeks. Here are my favorites:

"Recognition" by Victor LaValle—Set during the COVID-19 pandemic, a shy narrator in an emptying NYC apartment building forms a deep, yet distant, bond with her neighbor Mirta, an older Cuban immigrant. A short but touching start to the collection.

"On Safari in R'Lyeh and Carcosa with Guns and Camera" by Elizabeth Bear—Lonely, fifty-something physics professor Greer Griswold takes a DNA test revealing an unusual 10.2% "unknown" genetic marker, which leads her and her biologist friend, Michael Roberts, to investigate and discover connections to the Cthulhu Mythos. A clever take on cosmic horror.

"The Owl Count" by Elizabeth Hand—Set in a post-apocalyptic future, the two main characters continue to conduct an annual owl count in the North Woods, despite the environmental group that once sponsored the count having long since disappeared.

"Drunk Physics" by Kelley Armstrong—Two female postgraduate physics students create a popular web series that takes a horrific turn when a mysterious apparition appears in their videos.

"Wait for Night" by Stephen Graham Jones—A crew of day laborers cleaning up a flood-damaged creek near Boulder, Colorado discover old bones stuck in tree roots. The bones hide a monstrous secret.

"Monster" by Naomi Kritzer—Cecily, a gene editing researcher on winter break, visits the Chinese town of Guiyang looking for her childhood best-friend Andrew, who has been doing research on a serum that gives people superpowers. A disturbing take on the monstrous nature of superheroes.

[Teresa C · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure I like horror or at least modern horror. Which is mostly humans being toxic to each other, but monsters, ghosts and what not are definitely my thing! So dark fantasy, I suppose.
Anyways this book is mostly good but I did skip some stories and that's the nice thing about short stories collections like this. So 3 stars because of that and because I thought a few of the stories ended in a weird place.

[Brigitte · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ll be honest, a lot of the stories in this year’s anthology didn’t grab me. I much preferred Datlow’s Best Horror, vol.13. But there were a couple of stand outs: Wiswell’s “Open House on Haunted Hill,” Tem’s “The Dead Outside My Door,” Hand’s “The Owl Count,” and “Wait for the Night” by Stephen Graham Jones.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think sometimes you’re just on the same page as an editor, and sometimes you’re not. Paula Guran and I are a decided NOT. Most of the stories didn’t hit for me, but there were a few I loved —

The Sycamore and the Sybil - Alix E. Harrow (same universe as The Once and Future Witches).

The Genetic Alchemist’s Daughter — Elaine Cuyegkeng (I read this one 3 times, you can read it here.

Swanskin - Alison Littlewood

On Safari in R’lyeh and Carlos’s with Gun and Camera - Elizabeth Bear

The Girlfriend’s Guide to Gods - Maria Dahvana Headley

[Annarella · Rating 4 out of 5]

A second volume of horror and dark fantasy written by well known and less known authors.
It's a bit of a mixed bag as the level of the stories differs even if it's always high.
I discovered some interesting author that will follow.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

[JJacy1 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quality throughout

I have been reading Paula’s Year’s best since their beginning with another publisher and I most often give them 4 stars, but not this one. This one didn’t have any all star stories, but every story was a solid read. Can’t go wrong with this one.

[Robert Knudsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love it

I must say anyone who reads this is going to love it. There is a wide assortment of stories for everyone to enjoy in this book, well written and the storyline, and characters are going to suck you into the stories,I think this one is as good as volume one, enjoy

[IWB · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some hits; some misses.

[Justine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really loved the diversity of stories in this volume. I think I enjoyed more of them than usual. I wished there were more scary ones, but overall I enjoyed reading this.

[Eric Evans · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a big fan of the selections

[Bill Borre]

"Recognition" by Victor Lavalle - A woman who dies from Covid ends up haunting her New York tenement apartment building.