The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Twelfth Annual Collection($15.00Value)

Description

Collects fantasy, horror, fairy tales, and gothic stories chosen from the past year, including works by Ursula K. LeGuin, Neil Gaiman, and Bill Lewis. Beginning with Kelly Link's haunting version of a classic fairy tale ("Travels with the Snow Queen") and ending with A.S. Byatt's somber story of a princess's search for happiness ("Cold"), the 38 stories and eight poems that make up this collection offer a bird's-eye view of fantasy and horror for 1998. Essays summarizing the year in fantasy, horror, and film, as well as a list of Honorable Mentions, provide an overview of the state of imaginative fiction. Including works by Lisa Goldstein, Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Charles de Lint, and numerous other genre notables and newcomers, this volume belongs in most fantasy collections. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. paper 0-312-20686-0 Forget the other best-story collections. Datlow and Windling's is the one that pins everything on imagination, then throws in fine writing as well. You aren't going to find a better sheaf of shorts this year than this one starring Jorge Luis Borges (``The Rose of Paracelsus''), A.S. Byatt (``Cold''), Stephen King (``That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French''), Peter Straub (``Mr. Clubb and Mr. Cuff''), Neil Gaiman (``Shoggoth's Old Peculiar''), Pulitzer-winner Steven Millhauser (``Claire De Lune''), and two by brilliant Bostonian newcomer Kelly Link. ``Travels with the Snow Queen'' begins, ``Part of you is always traveling faster, always traveling ahead. Even when you are moving, it is never fast enough to satisfy that part of you.'' Just as effective is the opening of Links ``The Specialist's Hat'': `` `When you're Dead,' Samantha says, 'you don't have to brush your teeth.' `When you're Dead,' Claire says, `you live in a box, and it's always dark, but you're not ever afraid.' Claire and Samantha are identical twins. Their combined age is twenty years, four months, and six days. Claire is better at being Dead than Samantha.'' Also included are summations of the years best fantasy (Windling) and horror (Datlow), Edward Bryant's essay ``Horror and Fantasy in the Media: 1998,'' Seth Johnson on comics, and a necrology of those who departed last year for that Great Fantasy and Horror Publisher in the Sky. A seriously excellent anthology. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. This volume includes stores from: Jorge Luis Borges Chana Bloch Michael Blumlein Catharine Savage Brosman Sylvia Brownrigg Judy Budnitz A. S. Byatt Susanna Clarke Sarah Corbett Charles de Lint Marisa de los Santos Nick DiChario Terry Dowling Carol Ann Duffy Steve Duffy Sara Douglass Dennis Etchison Larry Fontenot Karen Joy Fowler Neil Gaiman Bruce Glassco Lisa Goldstein Christopher Harman Rick Kennett John Kessel Stephen King Ellen Kushner Terry Lamsley Kelly Link Patricia A. McKillip Steven Millhauser Lawrence Osgood Norman Partridge Holly Prado Mary Rosenblum Ralph Salisbury Delia Sherman Michael Marshall Smith Ilan Stavans Peter Straub Mark W. Tiedemann Ray Vukcevich Jane Yolen Kurahashi Yukimo