FORGOTTEN BOOK: THE YEAR'S BEST FANTASY AND HORROR: SEVENTH ANNUAL COLLECTION

 The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror:  Seventh Annual Collection, edited by Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling (1994)

I picked up a copy of this book at a thrift store this Tuesday and am really enjoying the stories (from 1993) here.  1993 was a tough year for fantasy/horror readers.  We lost Avram Davidson, William Golding, Lester del Rey, Anthony Burgess, Vincent Price, Robert Westall, Chad Oliver, Kobo Abe, Keith Laumer, Harvey Kurtzman, and many others who played a huge part in my appreciation for the field.  It was also the year that we got great books from Peter S. Beagle (The Innkeeper's Song), Michael Swanwick (The Iron Dragon's Daughter), Kim Newman (Anno Dracula), Avram Davidson (Adventures in Unhistory:  Conjections on the Factual Foundations of Several Ancient Legends), Harlan Ellison (Mephisto in Onyx), Lucius Shepard (The Golden), Bradley Denton (Blackburn), Peter Hoeg (Smilla's Sense of Snow), Peter Straub (The Throat), Terry Bisson (Bears Discover Fire), John Crowley (Antiquities), as well as welcome reprints by Orson Scott Card (Hart's Hope -- the first hardcover edition) and Evangeline Walton (The Island of the Mighty), as well as a posthumous collection by Poland's Stefan Grabinski (The Dark Domain) and a retrospective by the unfairly ignored David R. Bunch (Bunch!).  And that just scratches the surface.  1993 also gave us Jurassic Park, Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas, Addams Family Values, Groundhog Day, Last Action Hero, and Leprechaun.  (I refuse to mention Super Mario Brothers.)  And there was a lot of good fantasy on television; I'm thinking of you especially, The Adventures of Brisco County.  Graphic novels also had a very good year, including Watchmen, From Hell, Bone, several Sandman (and related titles) from Neil Gaiman, and Joe R. Lansdale gave us Jonah Hew:  Two-Gun Mojo.

And then there were the short stories...

Datlow and Windling have packed this volume with 53 of the best stories (including two poems).  Datlow picked the horror tales and Windling chose the fantasies.  Their taste, as ever, seems impeccable and covers a wide range of themes, always opting for the literate and the creative. 

The contents:

• Ursula K. Le Guin, "The Poacher" (from Xanadu, edited by Jane Yolen}
• Terry Bisson, "England Underway" (from Omni, July 1993)
• Lisa Goldstein, "The Woman in the Painting" (from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July 1993)
• Terry Dowling, "The Daemon Street Ghost Trap" (from Terra Australia, edited by Leigh Blackmore)
• Daina Chaviano, "Memo for Freud" (from Pleasure in the Word:  Erotic Writing by Latin American Women, edited by Margarite Fernadez Olmos and Lizabeth Patavisini-Gebert; a poem translated by Heather Rosario-Sievert)
• Nancy A. Collins, "The Sunday-Go-To-Meeting Jaw' (from Confederacy of the Dead, edited by Richard Gilliam, Martin H. Greenberg, and Edward E. Kramer)
• Adam Corbin Fusco, "Breath" (from Touch Wood:  Narrow Houses Volume 2, edited by Peter Crowther)
• Jane Yolen, "Knives" (from Snow White, Blood Red. edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling; a poem)
• Carol Emshwiller, "Mrs. Jones" (from Omni, August 1993)
• John Coyne, "Snow Man" (from Monster in My Midst. edited by Robert Bloch and (uncredited) Martin H. Greenberg)
• Thomas M. Disch, "One Night, or Scheherazade's Bare Minimum" (from OMNI Best Science Fiction Three, edited by Ellen Datlow)
• Charles de Lint, "Dead Man's Shoes" (from Touch Wood:  Narrow Houses Volume 2. edited by Peter Crowther; part of de Lint's Newford series)
• Fred Chappell, "The Lodger" (first published as a chapbook from Necronomicon Press; 1994 World Fantasy winner for Best Short Fiction)
• Elizabeth Hand, "The Erl-King" (from Full Spectrum 4, edited by Lou Aronica, Amy Stout, and Betsy Mitchell)
• Osamu Dazai, "The Chrysanthemum Spirit" (from his collection Blue Bamboo:  Tales of Fantasy and Romance; translated by Ralph F. McCarthy)
• Mary Ellis, "Angel" (from Glimmer Train Stories, Winter 1993)
• Graham Masterton, "The Taking of Mr. Bill" (from The Mammoth Book of Zombies, edited by Stephen Jones)
• Gabriel Garcia Marquez, "The Saint" (from his collection Strange Pilgrims; translated by Edith Grossman)
• Bruce McAllister, "Cottage" (from Christmas Forever, edited by David G. Hartwell)
• Steve Rasnic Tem, "Doodles" (from Sinistre:  An Anthology of Rituals, edited by George Hatch)
• Dan Simmons, "Dying in Bangkok" (from Playboy, June 1993; also published as "Death in Bangkok"; an expanded version of this story appeared in Simmons collection Lovedeath, published later in 1993)
• Bruce Boston, "Prisoners of the Royal Weather" (from Weird Tales, Spring 1993; a poem)
• Patricia A. McKillop, "The Snow Queen" (from Snow White, Blood Red, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling)
• Neil Gaiman, "Troll-Bridge" (from Snow White, Blood Red, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling)
• Rafik Schami, "The Storyteller" (an excerpt from his multi-layered novel Damascus Nights; translated by Philip Boehm)
• Rosario Ferre, "Rice and Milk" (from Pleasure in the Word:  Erotic Writing by Latin American Women, edited by Margarite Fernandez Olmas and Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert; translated by the author)
• Robert Devereaux, "Ridi Bobo" (from Weird Tales, Spring 1993)
• Ellen Kushner, "Playing with Fire" (from The Women's Press Book of New Myth and Magic, edited by Helen Windrath)
• Michael Marshall Smith, "Later" (from The Mammoth Book of Zombies, edited by Stephen Jones)
• Sherman Alexie, "Distances" (from his collection The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven)
• Nancy Holder, "Crash Cart" (from Cemetery Dance, Fall 1993) 
• Ian McDonald, "Some Strange Desire" (from OMNI Best Science Fiction Three. edited by Ellen Datlow)
• Dennis Etchison, "The Dog Park" (from Dark Voices 5, edited by David Sutton and Stephen Jones; winner of the British Fantasy Association's Award for Best Short Story. 1994) 
• E. R. Stewart, "Wooden Druthers" (from The Ultimate Witch, edited by Byron Preiss and John Betancourt)
• Jane Yolen, "Inscription" (from The Ultimate Witch, edited by Byron Preiss and John Betancourt)
• Robert Westall, "In Camera" (from his 1993 collection In Camera and Other Stories; NOTE:  the story actually appeared previously in Westall's 1992 collection The Fearful Lovers -- somehow this appearence slipped past the editors)
• Daniel Hood, "The Wealth of Kingdoms (An Inflationary Tale)" (from Science Fiction Age, November 1993)
• Nicholas Royle, "The Crucian Pit" (from The Mammoth Book of Zombies, edited by Stephen Jones)
• John Coyne, 'The Ecology of Reptiles" (from Predators, edited by Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg)
• Thomas Tessier, 'The Last Crossing" (from Hottest Blood, edited by Jeff Gelb and Michael Garrett)
• Caila Ross, "Small Adjustments" (from TriQuarterly #7, Spring/Summer 1993)
• Roberta Lannes, "Precious" (from Dark Voices 5, edited by David Sutton and Stephen Jones)
• Harlan Ellison, "Susan" (from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, December 1993)
• Sara Paretsky, "Freud at Thirty Paces" (from 1st Culprit:  A Crime Writer's Association Annual, edited by Liza Cody and Michael Z. Lewin)
• Geoffrey H. Landis, "If Angels Ate Apples" (from Asimov's Science Fiction, June 1993; a poem)
• John Crowley. "Exogamy" (from OMNI Best Science Fiction Three. edited by Ellen Datlow)
• Will Shetterly, "The Princess Who Kicked Butt" (from A Wizard's Dozen:  Stories of the Fantastic, edited by Michael Stearns)
• Miriam Grace Mondolfo, "The Apprentice" (from Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, November 1993)
• O. v. de L. Milosz, "Alvyta (A Lithuanian Fairy Tale)" (from Conjunctions 18, Bard Callege Literary Magazine; translated by Edouard Rodin)
• Augustine Bruins Funnell, 'tattoo" (from Sinistre:  An Anthology of Rituals, edited by George Hatch)
• Patricia A. McKillip, "Lady of the Skulls" (from Strange Dreams, edited by Stephen R. Donaldson)
• Nancy Kress, "To Scale" (from Xanadu, edited by Jane Yolen)
• Danith McPherson, "Roar at the Hart of the World" (from Full Spectrum 4, edited by Lou Aronica, Amy Stout, and Betsy Mitchell)

Quite a line-up.  

Datlow and Windling co-edited sixteen of these annual collections (ending in 2003); Datlow then co-edited another five volumes in the series with Gavin J. Grant and Kelly Link, ending in 2008.  The following year Datlow began editing The Best Horror of the Year, a series that continues to this day.

All of these anthologies are highly recommended.