The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Twentieth Annual Collection

For twenty years this award-winning compilation has been the nonpareil benchmark against which all other annual fantasy and horror collections are judged. Directed first by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling and for the past four years by Datlow and Kelly Link & Gavin J. Grant, it consistently presents the strangest, the funniest, the darkest, the sharpest, the most original—in short, the best fantasy and horror. The current collection, marking a score of years, offers more than forty stories and poems from almost as many sources. Summations of the field by the editors are complemented by articles by Edward Bryant, Charles de Lint and Jeff VanderMeer highlighting the best of the fantastic in, respectively, media, music and comics as well as honorable mentions—notable works that didn’t quite make the cut but are nonetheless worthy of attention. The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror: 20th Annual Collection is a cornucopia of fantastic delights, an unparalleled resource and indispensable reference that captures the unique excitement and beauty of the fantastic in all its gloriously diverse forms, from the lightest fantasy to the darkest horror. Contents: Summation 2006: fantasy / Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant -- Summation 2006: horror / Ellen Datlow -- The year in media of the fantastic: 2006 / Edward Bryant -- Fantasy in comics and graphic novels / Jeff VanderMeer -- Music of the fantastic: 2006 / Charles de Lint -- Obituaries: 2006 / James Frenkel -- Pol Pot's beautiful daughter / Geoff Ryman -- First kisses from beyond the grave / Nik Houser -- The last to be found / Christopher Harman -- Fourteen experiments in postal delivery / John Schoffstall -- Becoming the villainess and Persephone and the prince meet over drinks / Jeannine Hall Gailey -- The night whiskey / Jeffrey Ford -- In the house of the seven librarians / Ellen Klages -- Drowning Palmer / Sarah Monette -- Landfill / Joyce Carol Oates -- Another word for map is faith / Christopher Rowe -- Lionflower hedge / Ira Sher -- A fearful symmetry / Minsoo Kang -- Messages / Brett Alexander Savory -- Ballade and My babe, my babe / William Hope Hodgson -- The box / Stephen Gallagher -- Halfway house / Frances Hardinge -- La fée verte / Delia Sherman -- Father Muerte & the flesh / Lee Battersby -- Winkie / Margo Lanagan -- Tell / Nathalie Anderson -- Dog person / Scott Nicholson -- The extraordinary limits of darkness / Simon Clark -- Cup and table / Tim Pratt -- The churring / Nicholas Royle -- Dear sea fruit / Kaaron Warren -- Directions / Caleb Wilson -- La profonde / Terry Dowling -- Journey into the kingdom / M. Rickert -- The good ones are already taken / Ben Fountain -- A pig's whisper / Margo Lanagan -- 31/10 / Stephen Volk -- Sob in the silence / Gene Wolfe -- Yep, I said camel / Josh Bell -- Femaville 29 / Paul Di Filippo -- A siege of cranes / Benjamin Rosenbaum -- Is rain my bearskin? / Jeanne Marie Beaumont -- The lineaments of gratified desire / Ysabeau S. Wilce -- Raphael / Stephen Graham Jones -- The muldoon / Glen Hirshberg -- Honorable mentions: 2006. View Less