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:
Vampires edited by Jane Yolen and Martin H. Greenberg (HarperCollins) is aimed at the young adult audience and as such, is entertaining but not all that horrific. There’s one lovely story by Mary Frances Zambreno and a quite moving piece by Mary K. Whittington.
Night Visions 9 (Dark Harvest). Thomas Tessier shines with a novella. In contrast, James Kisner’s and Rick Hautala’s work in this volume pales beside it. Hautala’s work is bloody and vicious but lacks scope and resonance. A disappointing volume in this series.
Thirteen edited by T. Pines (Scholastic) is an all-original YA anthology with some scary stuff by various writers known for their young adult fiction.
The New Gothic edited by Bradford Morrow and Patrick McGrath (Random House) is a beautiful-looking volume with originals and reprints, which tries to separate itself from the horror field by an heroic attempt at obfuscation in the introduction. This is yet another marketing attempt to separate literary writing from popular writing. No go, guys. Peter Straub’s early fiction (and some of his current) is firmly based in horror and fantasy (although the excerpt in The New Gothic isn’t). Joyce Carol Oates has written mainstream, fantasy, science fiction and horror at various times, and certainly McGrath himself veers back and forth between the realistic and the fantastic. The stories in the anthology vary from the bloodless (in the figurative sense) and boring to the quite bloody (literally) and creepy. The best of the originals are by Janice Galloway, Scott Bradfield, Patrick McGrath, and Bradford Morrow.
Masques IV edited by J. N. Williamson (Maclay) is another mixed quality bag. The weakness of this series has always been that the editor crams in too many very short stories, which usually work on only one superficial level, rather than going for fewer but longer and more ambitious works. Despite this, almost half of the twenty-six stories are very good, including those by Ed Gorman, James Kisner, Graham Masterton, David T. Connolly, Darrell Schweitzer, Ray Russell, Kathryn Ptacek, Lois Tilton, Mort Castle, Rick Hautala, and Dan Simmons.
Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine Issue #10 is a special holiday issue with an especially good horror story by Nina Kiriki Hoffman. #11, the speculative fiction issue, had good horror fiction by Steve Rasnic Tem, Stephanie Perry, and Resa Nelson.
A Whisper of Blood edited by Ellen Datlow (Morrow/Berkley) is a follow-up to the vampirism anthology Blood is Not Enough. All are original stories, with the exception of three; the anthology attempts to push the limits of vampires and the idea of vampirism to the max. Stories by Pat Cadigan, K. W. Jeter, Karl Edward Wagner, David J. Schow, Kathe Koja, Suzy McKee Charnas and others.
Darklands edited by Nicholas Royle (Egerton Press) was published in a limited edition of 500 copies in Great Britain. There may be a trade edition eventually. Good stories by Stephen Gallagher, Julie Akhurst, Philip Nutman, Brian Howell and Joel Lane.
Copper Star: An Anthology of Southwestern Fantasy, Horror and Science Fiction edited by Bruce D. Arthurs (1991 World Fantasy Convention) is a beautifully produced limited edition hardcover of sixteen stories with illustrations. The book was produced specially for members of the 1991 World Fantasy Convention and has excellent stories by Mike Newland, Edward Bryant, Melanie Tem, Norman Partridge and Jeannette M. Hopper.
Raw Head, Bloody Bones: African-American Tales of the Supernatural selected by Mary E. Lyons (Scribners) is a collection of ethnic folktales. The introduction explains something about the oral tradition of these tales, evolving from stories of lions in Africa to rabbits in America. The tales cover hags (witches), sea serpents, zombies and other supernatural beings. This is charming but not very frightening. It’s perfect for young adults around a campfire during a starless night.
Fires of the Past edited by Anne Devereaux Jordan (St. Martin’s) is mostly science fiction but has some horrific material by Edward Bryant Jane Yolen and Kit Reed.
Monkey Brain Sushi: New Tastes in Japanese Fiction edited by Alfred Birnbaum (Kodansha) can only marginally be considered fantasy or horror—a cartoon strip, an S&M story. There is some very weird stuff (including “TV People,” by Huraki Murakami, which appeared in last year’s volume of The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror). What’s most interesting to me is how close in flavor it is to the type of hip American fiction being published today—even the S&M.
Tales of the Outre: Writings Celebrating the Centenary of H. P. Lovecraft (Unspeakable Tomes, 1990) is an original anthology of spoof Lovecraft stories, all written under pseudonyms [not seen].
The following original or mostly original anthologies cross genres and also contain some horror: Dark Crimes edited by Ed Gorman (Carroll & Graf)—story by Ed Gorman; Winters Tales: New Series 7 edited by Robin Baird-Smith (St. Martin’s)—stories by Tom Wakefield, Patrick McGrath, Tony Peake, and A. L. Barker; Revenge edited by Kate Saunders (Faber & Faber)—stories by Lisa St. Aubin de Teran and Kate Saunders; Full Spectrum 3 edited by Lou Aronica, Amy Stout and Betsy Mitchell (Doubleday Foundation)—stories by Marcos Donnelly and R. V. Branham; Writers of the Future Volume VII edited by Algis Budrys (Bridge)—story by Barry H. Reynolds; The Fantastic Adventures of Robin Hood edited by Martin H. Greenberg (Signet)—stories by Steven Rasnic Tem and Nancy A. Collins; Sword and Sorceresses VIII edited by Marion Zimmer Bradley (DAW)—stories by Deborah Burros, Jennifer Roberson, Eluki bes Shahar and Jere Dunham; New Worlds 1 edited by David Garnett (Gollancz)—story by Brian W. Aldiss; A Hammock Beneath the Mangoes edited by Thomas Colchie (Dutton)—stories by Moacyr Scliar and Guillarmo Cabrero Infante; Subtropical Speculations edited by Rick Wilber and Richard Mathews (Pineapple Press)—story by Joe Taylor; Invitation to Murder edited by Ed Gorman and Martin H. Greenberg (Dark Harvest)—stories by Gary Brandner, Billie Sue Mosiman, Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Andrew Vachss; Unmapped Territories: New Womens Fiction from Japan edited and translated by Yukiko Tanaka (Women in Translation); Horse Fantastic edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Rosalind M. Greenberg (DAW)— story by Jennifer Roberson; There Wont Be War edited by Harry Harrison and Bruce McAllister (Tor)—stories by Jack McDevitt, Nancy A. Collins and Gregory Frost; When the Music’s Over edited by Lewis Shiner (Bantam Spectra); The Fifth Book of After Midnight Stories edited by Amy Myers (Robert Hale-UK); Tales of Magic Realism by Women: Dreams in a Minor Key edited by Susanna J. Sturgis (The Crossing Press)—story by Stephanie T. Hoppe; Catfantastic II edited by Andre Norton and Martin H. Greenberg (DAW)—story by Elizabeth Moon; A Woman’s Eye edited by Sara Paretsky (Delacorte)—story by Nancy Pickard.
Anthologies containing mostly reprinted material included I Shudder at Your Touch (with four originals, including one by Patrick McGrath) edited by Michele Slung (Roc); The Mammoth Book of Terror edited by Stephen Jones (Carroll & Graf); Hollywood Ghosts edited by Frank D. McSherry, Jr., Charles G. Waugh and Martin H. Greenberg (Rutledge Hill Press); Civil War Ghosts edited by Martin Harry Greenberg, Frank McSherry, Jr., and Charles G. Waugh (August House); The Horror Hall of Fame edited by Robert Silverberg and Martin H. Greenberg (Carroll & Graf); Sacred Visions (with three original stories—an especially good one by Gene Wolfe), edited by Andrew M. Greeley and Michael Cassutt (Tor);