THE YEAR'S BEST FANTASY AND HORROR
FOURTEENTH ANNUAL COLLECTION

Reviewed by Steven H Silver

There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio,
Then are dream't of in our Philosophy.
-Hamlet, Act I, scene i

Despite arguments to the contrary, many fantasy and horror fans live in a ghetto, reading stories and novels which appear under their chosen marketing rubric and unaware of the vast amounts of fantasy and horror being published in the mainstream press, read by readers who would never deign to pick up a fantasy novel or a horror story. Terri Windling and Ellen Datlow, editors of The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror anthology series, once again have gone out of their way to explore the world beyond the ghetto walls, reprinting stories and poems from unlikely sources and by unfamiliar names. 

By scouring the non-genre publications, Datlow and Windling are able to introduce genre readers to authors such as Louise Erdrich, Stacey Richter, or Justin Tussing. At the same time, mainstays of the fantasy and horror field, such as Charles de Lint, Jack Dann and Ramsey Campbell are well represented (Campbell has two stories in the anthology). This gives the editors the opportunity to demonstrate that authors within and without the ghetto are both capable of writing good, original fantasy and horror which doesn’t attempt to recreate the tropes of the genres from scratch. 

Just as the authors and sources are varied, so too is the inspiration for the different tales. Ben Pastor’s “Achilles’ Grave” combines the epic poetry of Homer with the more gritty epic of twentieth-century warfare to provide a story. Harlan Ellison, on the other hand, takes a fantasy cliché, the disappearing shop, and infuses it with new life in “Incognita, Inc.” 

As always, Terri Windling has elected to include several poems in the anthology.  While this may be an indication of Windling’s own preferences and view of fantasy literature, it is also indicative of one of the attributes which so many fantastic stories share.  Poetry often forces its authors to take great care in word selection in order to create a sense which also frequently occurs in fantastic literature.  Furthermore, the poetry Windling has selected is built around fantastic elements which are as integral to the poems as they are to the stories included in the anthology.

Naturally with an anthology of this type, there will be plenty of opportunities to disagree with specific selections of the editors.  For the most part, Datlow and Windling have selected a good and wide range of representational stories which indicate the health and wealth of the fantasy and horror genres beyond the traditional sword and sorcery epics.  With competition this year from David Hartwell's Year's Best Fantasy anthology, it will be interesting to compare the view of the field presented by Datlow and Windling and by Hartwell. 

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