Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 2008: 21st Annual Collection by Ellen Datlow (Editor), Kelly Link (Editor), Gavin J. Grant (Editor)

From the Publisher

As in every year since 1988, the editors tirelessly scoured story collections, magazines, and anthologies worldwide to compile a delightful, diverse feast of tales and poems.
On this anniversary, the editors have increased the size of the collection to 300,000 words of fiction and poetry, including works by Billy Collins, Ted Chiang, Karen Joy Fowler, Elizabeth Hand, Glen Hirshberg, Joyce Carol Oates, and new World Fantasy Award winner M. Rickert. With impeccably researched summations of the field by the editors, Honorable Mentions, and articles by Edward Bryant, Charles de Lint and Jeff VanderMeer on media, music and graphic novels, this is a heady brew topped off by an unparalleled list of sources of fabulous works both light and dark.

Publishers Weekly

The 40 selections in this exemplary anthology from Link and Grant (the fantasy half) and Datlow (the horror half) reflect virtually every hue of the fantasy/horror palette: urban fantasy in Jeffrey Ford's "The Drowned Life" and Karen Joy Fowler's "The Last Worders"; traditional supernatural horror in Paul Walther's "Splitfoot" and Terry Dowling's "Toother"; modern folk fantasy in Elizabeth Hand's "Winter's Wife" and Eileen Gunn's "Up the Fire Road"; and cosmic terror fiction in Laird Barron's "The Forest" and Don Tumasonis's "The Swing." A handful of stories involve child abuse and abduction, of which Lisa Tuttle's "Closet Dreams" is the most horrifying. The front matter's snapshot summaries of the past year's yield in fantasy, horror, comics, mixed media and music are a small and invaluable book unto themselves. (Oct.)

Jackie Cassada - Library Journal

From Daniel Abraham's cautionary tale of an honest money changer's encounters with the evil Lord Iron ("The Cambist and Lord Iron: A Fairy Tale of Economics") to Kij Johnson's powerful animal rights allegory ("The Evolution of Trickster Stories Among the Dogs of North Park After the Change"), this collection of 40 stories and poems published in 2007 embodies the variety and dynamism of short fantasy and horror. Essays summarizing the progress of the genres, a glance at the year's fantastic media, the contributions of comics and graphic novels as well as music, along with an obituary section, provide a comprehensive introduction to the stories, while a lengthy list of "Honorable Mentions" follows the selected stories. This classic volume should find a place in most libraries where horror and fantasy are popular.

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