As always, a mixed bag--but it's a BIG bag!

books:


	• The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror: Eighth Annual Collection Ellen Datlow St. Martin's Griffin, 1995 - 644 pages average customer review:based on 2 reviews view larger image
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As always, a mixed bag--but it's a BIG bag!

J and I were having a discussion about reading preferences. She likes big thick books, typically, and I profess that I don't, although the books I name as my favorites all tend to be fairly hefty ones (The Gold Bug Variations, Possession, and Stand on Zanzibar, to name three). What I do like, that J has virtually stopped reading except in special cases, is short stories. Thinking about this, what I decided was my attraction in a story was a strong beginning and strong end, something you get a lot more of with short stories (where, in certain cases, are just beginnings and ends), yet can also be found in certain books. It's not that I don't like the middles of stories, but I'm a structuralist, and if a story starts off strong and finds a way to tie it up all together at the end, I've found what I'm looking for. It also explains why I don't tend to like "mainstream" fiction all that much, which is often just about the characters, i.e., the middle, and which the structure of beginning and end matters little.

So the publication of these large volumes of short stories is a regular purchase for me, enabling me to forego the magazines, which--to read in the kind of breadth and width brought to this collection by editors Datlow and Windling--would be ruinously expensive. I tend to like Datlow's picks better than Windling, that is, if the initials on the introductions indicate which woman picked which story for the volume, and I think that's because my tastes have always been more in line with Datlow. While both editors try to break free of the genre for at least a portion of their selections, Windling seems to have a certain stable of writers whom she can't stop from including--Yolen and de Lint come to mind--that I have never found as strong as she does.

The highlights in this volume include Stephen King's "The Man in the Black Suit," a Faulkner-influenced meet the devil tale that benefits from King's ability to write colloquially; Neil Gaiman's "Snow, Glass, Apples" which is like Gregory Maquire's Wicked in its ability to reframe a couple of well-known fairy tales so that the reader discovers that history is written by the winners; William Browning Spencer's "The Ocean and All Its Devices," wherein the Cthulhu mythos is reinvigorated; David Garnett's "A Friend Indeed," one of the best twist-in-the-tail stories that I've read in a while; and "Superman's Diary" by B. Brandon Barker, where Clark Kent finally wins the day. I liked some of the others, which tended to have great beginnings but weren't able to end to my satisfaction, including Bradley Denton's "A Conflagration Artist," Ian McDonald's "Blue Motel" and Jack Womack's "That Old School Tie." While I'm glad the editors include poetry, once again I wasn't impressed with the selections.

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A nice mix of horror and fantasy

This book was my first introduction to Datlow and Windling's "Year's Best" series. I got it for Christmas in high school, and promptly sequestered myself in my room to devour as much as I could of the stories within. Not a huge fan of fantasy, I looked forward to the horror stories, but the fantasy tales actually did not disappoint me as much as I feared they would.

The book opens with a review of the year's fantasy and horror publications, the year in question for this volume being 1994. There is also a "Horror and Fantasy in the Media" chapter written by Edward Bryant, dedicating itself to mentioning movies such as "Interview With the Vampire," "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein," "The Crow," "Wes Craven's New Nightmare," and "The Shadow," among others. Inexplicably (to me, at least), the chapter also mentions "Exit To Eden," "Street Fighter," and "Pulp Fiction." The latter is mentioned due to what Bryant refers to as "the horror of violence." There is also a chapter on Comics, as well as an Obituary chapter.

It takes a while to get through all of this opening material. There are, by my count, 85 (including the page of Acknowledgments) pages of written material to read through before getting to the first story. That is a lot...but if you're a fantasy and horror fan, then I do recommend at least skimming those pages, as you may find a publication, book, comic, or movie that you'd be interested in seeing or may have missed.

Getting into the stories, there are some very, very good stories here. As I mentioned earlier, I am more partial to the horror tales, but there is some excellent fantasy included. The first fantasy tale that captivated me was Johnathan Carroll's "A Wheel In The Desert, The Moon On Some Swings," the story of a man who will lose his eyesight and is preparing himself for it.

Also recommended:

"Who Will Love The River God" by Emily Newland
"Elvis's Bathroom" by Pagan Kennedy
"Yet Another Poisoned Apple For The Fairy Princess" by A.R. Morlan
"The Big Game" by Nicholas Royle
"Rain Falls" by Michael Marshall Smith
"A Friend Indeed" by David Garnett
"The Conflagration Artist" by Bradley Denton

My favorite story back when I first received the book as a gift was Stephen King's "The Man In The Black Suit." I am always amazed at King's ability to step into the mind of a child. Some adults go their whole lives and they still cannot even properly communicate with a child, this uncanny knack of King's to actually become a nine-year-old is nothing short of stunning. Though my repertoire of the genre has vastly expanded, I will always hold King in high regards.

There are many good tales here. I would list ALL of the good ones, but it doesn't make sense to do so, as you will have your own favorites. Or you might not like any of them, who knows? But any fan of the two genres will, I think, appreciate this anthology.

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This acclaimed series, winner of numerous World Fantasy Awards, continues its tradition of excellence with scores of short stories from such writers as Michael Bishop, Edward Byrant, Angela Carter, Terry Lamsley, Gabriel Garcia Marquex, A.R. Morlan, Robert Silverberg, Michael Swanwick, Jane Yolen and many others. Supplementing the stories are the editors' invaluable overviews of the year in fantastic fiction, Edward Bryant's witty roundup of the year's fantasy films, and a long list of Honorable Mentions -- all of which adds up to an invaluable reference source, and a font of fabulous reading.

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