An Anthology Series that Delivers What Its Title Promises:
A Review of The Years Best Fantasy and Horror, Fifteenth Annual Collection
by June Pulliam
Datlow, Ellen, and Terri Windling, eds. The Years Best Fantasy and Horror: Fifteenth Annual Collection. New York: St. Martins-Griffin, 2002. 542 p.
The Years Best Fantasy and Horror is far and away the best of the best--of any collections that purport to represent the annual cream of the crop in the horror genre. However, the annual's brilliance is not due to the quality of the stories and poetry selected by the authors, but rather, because of the copious and entertaining essays that introduce the anthology. It is through these tools that anyone with a serious interest in horror or fantasy can get a quick and informative overview of the books released in the three genres, as well as a discussion of recent trends.
In addition, Datlow and Windling include obituaries for luminaries in the field, and the addresses of small presses of note. That last item is quite important for anyone wishing to contact these small publishers. One soon discovers that reference sources such as Bowker are not comprehensive, and often fail to include accurate, or in some cases any, information about small presses.
The essays are broken down into the two categories that define the book, with Ellen Datlow writing about horror and Terri Windling on fantasy. Each editor begins with her annotated list of the top 20 works from the genre in that year, and then veers off to discuss various trends and subgenres within the field. Each also includes a long list of novels published in the genre that year, and this list doesnt confine itself to works published by imprints devoted to fantasy or horror, but includes offerings by mainstream publishers and small presses alike, including chapbooks.
Since Necropsy concerns itself with horror, I wont go into any detail about Windlings summation of the year in fantasy. Instead, Ill skip to the segments of the book that discuss horror. Datlows summation of the year in horror pays special attention to both collections composed exclusively of horror and those with work from mixed genres, anthologies, and chapbooks. Also included is a lengthy discussion of the various magazines and e-zines devoted to the genre, as well as non-fiction about horror.
After Datlows and Windlings essays about horror and fantasy respectively, the books introduction gives an overview of horror and fantasy produced in other media. Edward Bryant writes about The Year in Media of the Fantastic, beginning with a particularly informative annotated list of feature films. This list is particularly helpful to horror fans looking for a good film to rent on Saturday night, as Bryant doesnt confine his selections to movies marketed solely as works of fantasy or horror, or to films created in the United States. While he discusses obvious titles for the year 2001 such as Jeepers Creepers and The Mummy Returns, he also submits for consideration more mainstream offerings such as The Others, The Gift, and From Hell, as well as foreign films that are more difficult to find such as the Spanish language film The Devils Backbone by director Guillermo Del Toro (maker of the 1992 vampire film, Cronos). Other media of note chronicled in this essay are television series and made for T.V. movies and even toys.
The discussion of the year in fantasy and horror is rounded out by Charles Vesss essay about comics, and Joan D. Vinges essay about manga and anime (Japanese comics and animation). Vinges essay breaks new ground for the Years Best series which heretofore hasnt devoted any space to these art forms, and unlike the other essays in the book, it assumes the reader is a neophyte to these two media. Vinges essay leads with an overview of the media, and its appeal is explained to those still wondering about who reads/watches these things featuring big-breasted Japanese schoolgirls whose skirts never manage to cover their panties, adult characters with eyes the size of an average Hummel figurine, and pretty, sexually ambiguous boys. Her essay concludes with a helpful list of recommended manga and anime translated into English, useful for someone interested in exploring the genre. All in all, this is an excellent short introduction to these complimentary Japanese art forms.
After this very thorough analysis of the year in review, the anthology contains poems and short stories from the genres themselves, differentiated as to genre by the initials of their respective editors. But the essays themselves, rather than the fiction and poetry, make The Years Best Fantasy and Horror books worth reading. They provide a detailed and lively snapshot of the year in each genre, and the work collected in each editon is in some ways an appendex to the introductions.