From Publishers Weekly
A highlight of any year's fantastic fiction yield is Datlow and Windling's picks of the previous year's top tales. This 16th incarnation of their award-winning anthology series shows fantasy and horror fiction alive, well and accessible in an impressively broad array of venues ranging from literary journals to genre publications, on-line markets and even a rock music tour book. The 49 selections (which also include poetry and an essay) are as refreshingly impossible to pigeonhole as their sources. Melissa Hardy's "Aquer," a wry behind-the-scenes look at a saint's canonization, is a perfect balance of supernatural mystery and dubious demystification. Conrad Williams's "The Machine," whose characters are caught up in the inexorable natural processes of its seaside setting, is one of several stories whose surreal symbolism blurs the boundaries between horror and fantasy. "The Least Trumps" by Elizabeth Hand, centered on a female tattoo artist's shaky grip on reality, translates the iconography of tarot cards and the reader's relationship to the written word into a luminous fantasy on the interpenetration of life and art. Don Tumasonis's "The Prospect Cards" is a brilliant narrative puzzle, related as a fragmented travel diary written on the backs of old postcards, in which the missing passages cleverly suggest a horror that defies description. Five writers are represented by two selections apiece; that might have given the impression of a dwindling talent pool were the contents not so delectably varied in theme and approach, and divided judiciously between well-known writers and new names.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
The latest in this annual series is a diverse collection of fiction and poetry. The usual suspects are here--Neil Gaiman, Bentley Little, Ramsey Campbell--and so are nongenre authors, such as Haruki Murakami, Karen Joy Fowler, and Kevin Brockmeier. The stories constitute an entertaining, eerie mixture of creepiness and suspense. In Gaiman's "Feeders and Eaters," a man runs into an old colleague, who tells him about his housemate, an old woman with odd dietary needs. Melissa Hardy's "Aquero" is the tale of a young woman's beatification; the narrative alternates between several different examinations of her buried body and the testimony of a nun who objects to the canonization. In Eric Schaller's creepy "The Assistant to Dr. Jacob," a policeman asks a man to recollect his childhood mentor, whose interest in rosebushes was not the innocent hobby the narrator recalls. Several of the poems included cleverly retell fairy tales, and, of course, the volume also reviews the year in horror and fantasy in all media. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Book Description
For more than a decade, readers have turned to The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror to find the most rewarding fantastic short stories. Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling continue their critically acclaimed and award-winning tradition with another stunning collection of stories. The fiction and poetry here is culled from an exhaustive survey of the field, nearly four dozen stories ranging from fairy tales to gothic horror, from magical realism to dark tales in the Grand Guignol style. Rounding out the volume are the editors' invaluable overviews of the year in fantasy and horror, new Year's Best sections on comics, by Charles Vess, and on anime and manga, by Joan D. Vinge, and a long list of Honorable Mentions, making this an indispensable reference as well as the best reading available in fantasy and horror. The critically acclaimed and award-winning tradition continues with another stunning collection, including stories by Kelly Link o Kim Newman o Corey Marks o Eric Schaller o M. Shayne Bell o Helga M. Novak o Terry Dowling o Michael Libling o Zoran Zivkovic o Bentley Little o Carlton Mellick III o Brian Hodge o Conrad Williams o Tom Disch o Melissa Hardy o Joel Lane o Nicholas Royle o Tracina Jackson-Adams o Karen Joy Fowler o Jackie Bartley o Peter Dickerman o Ramsey Campbell o Adam Roberts o Robert Phillips o Jay Russell o Luis Alberto Urrea o Margaret Lloyd o Stephen Gallagher o Robin McKinley o Haruki Murakami o Theodora Goss o Kathy Koja o Lucy Taylor o Elizabeth Hand o Kevin Brickmeier o Sharon McCartney o Susan Power o Don Tumasonis o Nan Fry. Rounding out the volume are the editors' invaluable overviews of the year in fantasy and horror, Year's Best sections on comics, by Charles Vess, and on anime and manga, by Joan D. Vinge, and a long list of Honorable Mentions, making this an indispensable reference as well as the best reading available in fantasy and horror.


About the Author
Ellen Datlow is the acclaimed editor of such anthologies as Blood is Not Enough, Little Deaths, Alien Sex, Vanishing Acts, and the forthcoming The Dark: New Ghost Stories. She has won the Hugo Award for Best Editor once and the World Fantasy Award six times. She and Terri Windling also won The Bram Stoker Award for The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Thirteenth Annual Collection. She lives in New York City and currently edits fiction for Scifi.com. Visit her Web site at http://www.datlow.com.

Terri Windling is a writer, editor, artist, and passionate advocate of fantasy literature. She has won six World Fantasy awards for her editorial work and the Mythopoeic Award for her novel The Wood Wife. She has edited over thirty anthologies, many in collaboration with Ellen Datlow--including the Snow White, Blood Red adult fairy-tale series, The Armless Maiden, Sirens, The Green Man, and Swan Sister. She has also written children's books and articles on myth and folklore, and she edits the Endicott Studio Online Journal of Mythic Arts at http://www.endicott-studio.com. She divides her time between homes in Devon, England, and Tucson, Arizona.

FROM OUR EDITORS

If you read one anthology of fantastic fiction this year, it has to be this one. Datlow and Windling have shown, over this past decade, that they have an unerring eye for the fantastic that is at once literate and accessible, which is no mean feat. I particularly liked the Wrede and the McKillip, but almost all of the stories are worthy of note. Highly recommended.
—Michelle West

ANNOTATION

The annual excellence that has garnered this series two consecutive World Fantasy Awards and a windfall of critical acclaim continues in an impressive new anthology. Comprehensive in its coverage of the year in horror and fantasy, this collection features works by Ellen Kushner, Pat Cadigan, Jane Yolen, and dozens of others.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

For more than a decade, readers have turned to The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror to find the most rewarding fantastic short stories. Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling continue their critically acclaimed and award-winning tradition with another stunning collection of stories. The fiction and poetry here is culled from an exhaustive survey of the field -- nearly four dozen stories, ranging from fairy tales to gothic horror, from magical realism to dark tales in the Grand Guignol-style. Rounding out the volume are the editors' invaluable overviews of the year in fantasy and horror, two new Year's Best sections -- on comics, by Charles Vess, and on anime and managa, by Joan D. Vinge -- and a long list of Honorable Mentions, making this an indispensable reference as well as the best reading available in fantasy and horror.

FROM THE CRITICS

The Washington Post

Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling are renowned for their Year's Best Fantasy and Horror volumes, and the new Sixteenth Annual Collection is their best yet. Every story and poem included is remarkable, and a brief survey must suffice to reveal the variety in this must-own anthology … I wouldn't be surprised if this award-worthy anthology ended up being used in college courses on science fiction. — Fiona Kelleghan

Publishers Weekly

This collection is short on fantasy and long on horror--with special emphasis on sadomasochism, which, in the hands of an author like Kathe Koja, can result in a darkly illuminating story about sexual fantasies sometimes better left unrealized. Not all writers are so gifted, however. Grant Morrison gives us an offensive story about a blind heroine who is urinated upon and slashed with a razor before being clamped to a ``Chair of Final Submission.'' But Datlow and Windling, who edited the earlier volumes in this series, offer entertaining fare as well, including several appearances by good old-fashioned vampires. K. W. Jeter's aged monster has needs that promise to make his daughter's life a horror for all eternity, while Jane Yolen pens a touching tale of a young girl whose love allows her undead mother to go to her eternal rest. Also included are some enjoyable new turns on famous characters, including Peter Pan, Robin Hood and Santa Claus. Deserving of special mention are Nancy Willard's magically real tale of a man who returns from the dead to retrieve his pets and Robert Holdstock and Garry Kilworth's suspenseful, literate tale of an archeologist on the trail of immortality. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

A highlight of any year's fantastic fiction yield is Datlow and Windling's picks of the previous year's top tales. This 16th incarnation of their award-winning anthology series shows fantasy and horror fiction alive, well and accessible in an impressively broad array of venues ranging from literary journals to genre publications, on-line markets and even a rock music tour book. The 49 selections (which also include poetry and an essay) are as refreshingly impossible to pigeonhole as their sources. Melissa Hardy's "Aquer," a wry behind-the-scenes look at a saint's canonization, is a perfect balance of supernatural mystery and dubious demystification. Conrad Williams's "The Machine," whose characters are caught up in the inexorable natural processes of its seaside setting, is one of several stories whose surreal symbolism blurs the boundaries between horror and fantasy. "The Least Trumps" by Elizabeth Hand, centered on a female tattoo artist's shaky grip on reality, translates the iconography of tarot cards and the reader's relationship to the written word into a luminous fantasy on the interpenetration of life and art. Don Tumasonis's "The Prospect Cards" is a brilliant narrative puzzle, related as a fragmented travel diary written on the backs of old postcards, in which the missing passages cleverly suggest a horror that defies description. Five writers are represented by two selections apiece; that might have given the impression of a dwindling talent pool were the contents not so delectably varied in theme and approach, and divided judiciously between well-known writers and new names. (Aug. 20) FYI: This is Windling's last volume as fantasy editor. Her successors are author Kelly Link and publisher Gavin Grant. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

You can't improve on the "best," but as the editors of this landmark anthology series show in its most recent volume, you can find fresh new angles from which to present it. For the first time ever, they have selected an essay, Douglas Winter's "The Pathos of Genre," and this incisive critique of the limits of genre branding subtly calls attention to how Datlow and Windling's fiction and poetry selections usually resist simple categorizing. Many of their best picks from 1999 willfully bend, blend and move beyond expected genre materials: Tim Lebbon's "White," a horror and SF cross-stitch, uses B-movie imagery to explore the behavior of people confronted with ecological apocalypse. Kim Newman, in "You Don't Have to Be Mad," grounds a caustic horror satire of modern business mores in set pieces appropriated from television espionage programs of the 1960s. Michael Marshall Smith, in "Welcome," and Charles de Lint, in "Pixel Pixies," conjure alternate fantasy worlds with the most unlikely of talismans--a computer. Neil Gaiman, one of six authors represented by more than one contribution, places both a horror and a fantasy tale: "Keepsakes and Treasures: A Love Story," a nasty bit on the death of romance, and "Harlequin Valentine," a darkly funny fantasy. There are more than a few modern fairy tale variants, but even these show a refreshing range of styles and approaches, notably Patricia McKillip's "Toad," a delightful deflation of the frog prince's tale. The usual generous survey essays by Datlow, Windling, Ed Bryant and Seth Johnson only enhance the volume's reputation as indispensable reading for the year. (Sept.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

VOYA - Alison Kastner