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The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror, 2010 Edition Edited by Paula Guran ISBN: 9781607012337 Prime Books 576 pages | trade paperback | $19.95 We can find it anywhere: in a strange green stone etched with mysterious symbols found on a beach; among the people of a small town who annually attend a picnic that inevitably turns into a massacre; in a ghostly house that is easy to enter but not so easy to leave; behind the dumpster in the alley where a harpy lives; in The Nowhere, a place where car keys, toys, people disappear to; among Polar explorers; and, most definitely, within ourselves. Darkness flies from crates sent by amateur historians; surrounds children whose nightlights have vanished; and flickers between us at the movie theater. As a contagion, it creeps among the glitterati at Cannes. Darkness crawls from the past and is waiting in our future; and there's always a chance that Halloween really is a door opening directly into endless shadow. This inaugural volume of the year's best dark fantasy and horror features more than 500 pages of dark tales from some of today's best-known writers of the fantastique as well newfound talents. Chosen from a variety of sources, these stories are as eclectic and varied as darkness itself. Welcome to the dark. You may never want to leave. (Covering stories first published in 2009.) |
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Contents
- THE HORRID GLORY OF ITS WINGS, Elizabeth Bear
- LOWLAND SEA, Suzy McKee Charnas
- COPPING SQUID, Michael Shea
- MONSTERS, Stewart O'Nan
- THE BRINK OF ETERNITY, Barbara Roden
- FROST MOUNTAIN PICNIC MASSACRE, Seth Fried
- SEA-HEARTS, Margo Lanagan
- A HAUNTED HOUSE OF HER OWN, Kelley Armstrong
- HEADSTONE IN MY POCKET, Paul Tremblay
- THE COLDEST GIRL IN COLDTOWN, Holly Black
- STRANGE SCENES FROM AN UNFINISHED FILM,Gary McMahon
- A DELICATE ARCHITECTURE, Catherynne M. Valente
- THE MYSTERY, Peter Atkins
- VARIATIONS OF A THEME FROM SEINFELD, Peter Straub
- THE WIDE, CARNIVOROUS SKY, John Langan
- CERTAIN DEATH FOR A KNOWN PERSON, Steve Duffy
- THE ONES WHO GOT AWAY, Stephen Graham Jones
- LENG, Marc Laidlaw
- TORN AWAY, Joe R. Lansdale
- THE NOWHERE MAN, Sarah Pinborough
- THE BONE'S PRAYER, Caitlín R. Kiernan
- THE WATER TOWER, John Mantooth
- IN THE PORCHES OF MY EARS, Norman Prentiss
- THE CINDERELLA GAME, Kelly Link
- THE JACARANDA SMILE, Gemma Files
- THE OTHER BOX, Gerard Houarner
- WHITE CHARLES, Sarah Monette
- EVERYTHING DIES, BABY, Nadia Bulkin
- BRUISE FOR BRUISE, Robert Davies
- RESPECTS, Ramsey Campbell
- DIAMOND SHELL, Deborah Biancotti
- NUB HUT, Kurt Dinan
- THE CABINET CHILD, Steve Rasnic Tem
- CHERRYSTONE AND SHARDS OF ICE, Ekaterina Sedia
- THE CREVASSE, Dale Bailey and Nathan Balingrud
- VIC, Maura McHugh
- HALLOWEEN TOWN, Lucius Shepard
- THE LONG, COLD GOODBYE, Holly Phillips
- WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU WAKE UP IN THE NIGHT, Michael Marshall Smith
Reviews
'Anthologist and editor Guran has collected 39 thrilling and frightening horror stories published in 2009. While some of the authors will be familiar to readers outside the genre--Joe R. Lansdale, Kelley Armstrong, Peter Straub, Ramsey Campbell--most of the contributors may be new to those who haven't kept up to date on their urban-fantasy and horror writers. Although they are all technically in the same genre, the stories are quite diverse, from Straub's quirky "Variations on a Theme from Seinfeld" to Armstrong's eerie "Haunted House" to Lansdale's creepy and sad "Torn Away." Fans of horror and dark fantasy-the latter, Guran explains, defies easy definition, but you know it when you feel it-should welcome this collection with open arms. This is the first edition of this anthology, but if the editor can maintain the same high quality in years to come, it is certain to join the several crime and SF year's-best collections as a staple in the genre-fiction world.'-Booklist
'With this collection of 39 stories originally published in 2009, Guran (Zombies: The Recent Dead) creates an expansive definition of the genre, ranging from overtly fantastic to (mostly) realistic and from the hilarity of Seth Fried's Pushcart Prize-winning "Frost Mountain Picnic Massacre" to the tender terror of Margo Lanagan's novella "Sea-Hearts." Nods to classics abound: Suzy McKee Charnas's futuristic "Lowland Sea" retells a Poe story of plague, Michael Shea's "Copping Squid" evokes Lovecraft's Cthulhu, Sarah Monette's "White Charles" channels M.R. James, and Catherynne M. Valente's "A Delicate Architecture" revisits the Brothers Grimm. Others play on present-day pop culture, such as Peter Straub's "Variations of a Theme from Seinfeld." Many tales tackle themes of objectification, abuse, and destroyed innocence, cutting straight to the reader's heart.'--Publishers Weekly'This is a fat, tasty treat: nearly forty stories culled from a range of sources, print and online, mainstream and small press...The good thing about these 'best of' anthologies is that it helps the hard-pressed reader discover the quality material...'--Piper at the Gates of Fantasy
The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror: 2010 Edition distinguishes itself from its fellow best-ofs in a couple important ways...the volume's page count is indeed considerable: 575 large trade paperback pages, all of them, except for an introduction and the back matter, devoted to fiction. For this particular year, Guran's volume includes about as much fiction as Datlow and Jones combined. That's 39 stories, including three novellas....But enough about quantity; it's that other thing that really matters. Fortunately, Guran hits a home run here as well...the volume's wide scope means that you can go from a retold fairy tale to a ghost story to a doppelganger to a vampire to a deal with the devil to a story that isn't supernatural at all. For the reasonable price of $20 US, The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror: 2010 Edition offers an excellent overview of where dark fiction went in 2009. Here's hoping this series, unlike other recent attempts at a new horror best-of, will have some staying power. It certainly deserves to.'--The Stars at Noonday
'Guran's anthology is a titanic effort. It includes dozens of stories and checks in at almost 600 pages, much of it excellent fiction. The editor's endnotes were illuminating and the stories seemed to build toward the macabre finish, Michael Marshall Smith's haunting "What Happens When You Wake Up In the Night." This...is a shelf tome--you'll find yourself dog-earing it long down the road, I think. Recommended.'--The Byproduct
'Readers curious about the state of dark fantasy and horror would be advised to consider this work.'--RT Book Reviews
'...anyone fond of good fiction will find material well worth reading.'--Bookotron
The Editor
Paula Guran is the editor of Pocket Book's Juno fantasy imprint and nonfiction editor for Weird Tales magazine. In an earlier life she produced weekly e-mail newsletter DarkEcho (winning two Bram Stoker Awards, an International Horror Guild Award award, and a World Fantasy Award nomination), edited Horror Garage magazine (earning another IHG and a second World Fantasy nomination), and has contributed reviews, interviews, and articles to numerous professional publications. She's also done a great deal of other various and sundry work in sf/f/h publishing. Earlier anthologies Guran has edited include Embraces, Best New Paranormal Romance, and Best New Romantic Fantasy 2. In addition to this anthology, she recently edited Zombies: The Recent Dead for Prime Books. Forthcoming anthologies for Prime include Vampires: The Recent Undead and Halloween! By the end of 2010 she will also have edited four dozen published novels and three collections.