The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. Fifth Annual Collection
- Автор: Датлоу Эллен, Виндлинг Терри
- Год: 1992
- Язык: английский
- Год: St.Martin’s Press
- Жанр: Ужасы
Электронная книга - «The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. Fifth Annual Collection». Краткое содержание книги:
Dead End: City Limits: An Anthology of Urban Fear edited by Paul F. Olson and David B. Silva (St. Martin’s), while consistently entertaining, is not as good as their first collaboration, Post Mortem. The standouts are by Steve Rasnic Tem, Poppy Z. Brite, Thomas F. Monteleone, and Charles L. Grant.
Dark Voices 3 edited by David Sutton and Stephen Jones (Pan) is disappointing on the whole, with four reprints (one of which appeared in last year’s Years Best) out of fourteen stories. Several had predictable third-rate “Twilight Zone” TV plots. The few standouts were by Kathe Koja, Lene Kaaberol, Stephen Laws, and Brian Lumley.
Cafe Purgatorium: Three Novels of Horror and the Fantastic by Dana M. Anderson, Charles de Lint, and Ray Garton (Tor) is in fact three novellas. One, “Dr. Krusadian’s Method,” is a reprint from the 1990 Ray Garton collection, Methods of Madness. Dana M. Anderson is a newcomer who contributes the interesting title novella about a haunted speakeasy. And “Death Leaves an Echo,” Charles de Lint’s ghost story, rounds out the lovely package. Powerful work by all three writers.
Embracing the Dark edited by Eric Garber (Alyson Publications) contains original and reprint gay and lesbian vampire stories. The best are reprints by Kij Johnson, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, and Peter Robins and the original vignette from Jewelle Gomez’s “Gilda” series. The editor’s introduction claims he wants to “reject the cliches and invert the metaphors” of heterosexual horror fiction, and further accuses the standard horror novel of glorifying heterosexuality and conversely “punish[ing] any deviation from this heterosexual norm.” This condemns a whole genre by its lowest levels of writing. So it is with great irony that I found many of the stories in the volume (at least those by men) basically idealized gay pornography, “gigantic manhood” and all. Too many of the stories are driven by the facts of the characters’ sexuality at the expense of plot or atmosphere, a disaster in the horror or suspense genres. Also, the explicitness sometimes works against a story’s effectiveness by undercutting the atmosphere of horror. In contrast, Edward Bryant’s classic “Dancing Chickens” (not included in the anthology), which contains a sympathetic gay protagonist, juxtaposes an external horror against the personal horror of his protagonist’s life, and it knocks most of the stories in this anthology out of the water.
The Bradbury Chronicles: Stories in Honor of Ray Bradbury edited by William F. Nolan and Martin H. Greenberg (Roc). Many of these stories are lovely homages to early Bradbury—and quite faithful to the originals. And therein lies the rub—they are enjoyable as nostalgia pieces but there’s not enough originality, although Chad Oliver, Charles L. Grant and F. Paul Wilson make gallant attempts to transcend the theme. It’s bad enough when beginning writers are persuaded to “sharecrop” in an established writer’s universe, but here is an example of established writers being persuaded to lend their formidable talents to what is essentially a rehashing of another’s worldview. Their time and energy would be better spent writing their own material—writing their best and showing how they were influenced as writers, not as imitators of Bradbury.
Tales of the Wandering Jew edited by Brian M. Stableford (Dedalus). Stableford does a good job with a difficult subject. The Wandering Jew of legend is intrinsically an anti-Semitic creation of Christians. The legend goes that a shoemaker taunted or threw something at Jesus while he was walking to his crucifixion and that Jesus cursed the man to live until the second coming. Both the traditional and new stories here could be construed as anti-Semitic in their assumption that the Wandering Jew deserves punishment for his nonbelief, and many of the stories have the wanderer convert to Christianity during his wanderings. The best stories focus on the repercussions of unwanted immortality rather than the religious aspects of the legend. Includes good pieces by Steve Rasnic Tem, Ian McDonald, Robert Irwin, and Geoffrey Farrington.
Cold Shocks edited by Tim Sullivan (Avon) is a satisfying follow-up to Tropical Chills, with excellent stories by A. R. Morlan, S. P. Somtow, Graham Masterton, Michael Armstrong and Edward Bryant and very good stories by the rest.
The Ultimate Werewolf edited by Byron Preiss (Dell) is something I expected to dislike, not believing there could be enough different takes on the theme to keep a reader’s interest. I was pleasantly surprised. Beginning with a classic reprint by Harlan Ellison, this anthology of mostly originals finds enough variations on the werewolf theme to keep everyone happy. The best were by Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Craig Shaw Gardner, Mel Gilden, Nancy A. Collins, Pat Murphy and a collaboration by A. C. Crispin and Kathleen O’Malley.
The Ultimate Dracula and The Ultimate Frankenstein edited by Byron Preiss (Dell). Unfortunately, the negatives I expected from The Ultimate Werewolf did show up in these two. The more specific a theme, the more difficult it is to put together interesting stories that play against that theme. For example, the best story in the Frankenstein book (which, as is customary, mistakes the creature for its creator) is by S. P. Somtow, who does not use the traditional characters at all but creates his own erotic nightmare from his imagination and the exoticism of Thailand, his homeland. The Dracula stories would be better if they weren’t about Dracula but about vampires in general. There’s only so much you can do with the “Father of Darkness” as the actual character. Boring, for the most part, with notable exceptions by Dan Simmons, Brad Strickland, Steve Rasnic Tem and Melanie Tem, W. R. Philbrick, John Lutz, and Kristine Kathryn Rusch.
Nightmares on Elm Street: Freddy Kruegers Seven Sweetest Dreams edited by Martin H. Greenberg (St. Martin’s) also suffers from too specific a theme. The contributors—talented writers such as Nancy A. Collins, Brian Hodge, Bentley Little and Philip Nutman—bring what they can to a thankless task. Only for diehard Freddy fans.
Chilled to the Bone edited by Robert T. Garcia (Mayfair Games) is an anthology that has the exact opposite problem. It is based on the idea (I hesitate to call it a theme) that there are bad things out there—demons and vampires and werewolves and other beasties. And there’s a secret society that’s been fighting these bad things for centuries. Unfortunately, few of the stories reflect this “theme,” loose as it is. Apparently, all the stories have to have a note or message that says “beware” of something or someone. That’s the extent of their connection. Contributions by some usually excellent writers are especially disappointing. A mess.
Final Shadows edited by Charles L. Grant (Doubleday Foundation) is the concluding volume (double-sized) of the World Fantasy Award-winning anthology series. A mixed-bag ranging from the powerful to the adequate, the best stories are by Brian Lumley (originally published in Dark Voices 3 in the UK), Michael Bishop, Jack Cady, Melanie Tem, Stephen Gallagher, Dennis Etchison, Tanith Lee, and the novelette by David Morrell. Oddly, there are no introductions or biographical notes. The cover art gets my nomination for the ugliest of the year.
Borderlands 2 edited by Thomas Monteleone (Borderlands Press/Avon) is disappointing after last year’s volume, which produced two of the best stories of the year. Not enough ambition and too much heavy-handedness, but some good, edgy stories by Charles L. Grant, James S. Dorr, Philip Nutman, David B. Silva and Brian Hodge.