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The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, Eighth Annual Collection by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling (ed).

Published by St. Martin's Books

Reviewed by Leigh Kimmel

Each year editors Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling compile a collection of what they regard to be the best fantasy and horror short stories published during that year. This volume covers the stories of 1994, and as always includes a discussion of the state of the publishing industry and a list of stories that couldn't be included in the volume but were worthy of note.

Fantasy and horror cover a broad spectrum, from retellings of fairy tales and mythology to magic realism, from subtle psychological horror to grim stories of gore and extreme suffering. There is Pagan Kennedy's ironic contemporary story of "Elvis's Bathroom," which explores the popular cult of Elvis is explored in terms of the search for wonder in a world where increasingly the strange is explained away by science. "De Natura Unicorni" by Jane Yolen is the story of a legendary beast, done in her usual witty, elliptical style.

In all, this is an excellent compendium, a particularly good resource for the writer who wants to see what a top editor in the field considers to be the best of the best.

Table of Contents

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This review posted October 25, 2000

Updated March 22, 2001

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