The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: No.11 (Year's Best Fantasy & Horror) [Paperback]

This book in the long-running series of best of the year anthologies showcases the authors favorite stories from 1997. There are some really good stories in here.

My favorite by far was Safe by Gary A Braunbeck. This story was about a shooting and its ramifications and it actually made me cry - a rare thing with her story. This is horrible remember for a long time.

Another good story was Mbo by Nicholas Royale, which was about an African vampire type creature that preys off tourists.

The Psychomantium by Molly Brown was about a woman who becomes trapped in an alternate universe after looking into a mirror.it is also a powerful story.

In the Black Mill is another one of my favorites - it's set in a small town where a young college professor is conducting an archaeological dig learning about an extinct ride that seemed to have no religion, but which apparently practiced human sacrifice. All of the men in the town seem to work at a mill, but the college professor cannot get any information about what is made there. All he knows is that many people in the town are missing parts of their bodies - limbs, fingers, feet, etc. - and these accidents are attributed to the mill. The story has a very powerful ending.

Wild Horses by the ever talented Charles de Lint is about a woman who possesses a magical set of cards, similar to tarot cards, which show the holder what they want to know. The story revolves around a young woman's search for her brother.

I Am Infinite, I Contain Multitudes was another very good story - prisoners in a mental hospital for the criminally insane are offered a way to escape their confinement by an old man who was also a prisoner - but of course there is a catch.

Bucket of Blood capitalized it tells the story of two friends on a road trip who encounter danger after one of the finds a discarded quarter and uses it to when thousands of dollars in gambling. The quarter's owner wants the money - and he'll stop at nothing to get it.

Dust Motes is the story of a woman who is dying of cancer and encounters ghosts in a library. The idea was good but I found the means to release the ghosts to be problematic.

The Crawl by Stephen Laws tells the harrowing story of a couple that encounter a supernatural evil that stalks them on the roadway.

Kinyo no fun tells the story of a gay couple who are terrorized by a man with the power to invade another's body.

The Last Song of Sirit Bayar is a tale set in the distant past were traveling musician plays magical music. The story is told from the point of view of a young girl who accompanies him

There were many other good stories in this book, and only a few stories that I didn't like. I recommend it.

This is the best collection of stories of fantasy and horror I've ever found. I've bought and read a few of these Year's Bests before, but this one was stunning. Great stories by Nancy Pickard, Michael Cadnum, Michael Chabon (who turns in a Lovecraftian tale of all things! Go Michael!), Norman Partridge, Douglas Clegg, Jack Womack, and Gary Braunbeck--this is an amazing collection, and I'm even more enthralled by the editorial eye that found these gems.

If anyone wants to find out what's going on in the fiction of the fantastic and of terror, they need look no further than Year's Best Fantasy & Horror 11th Annual Collection. Ellen Datlow and Terry Windling should get some kind of exalted place in fictiondom for their method of selecting an eclectic group, not based on some bestselling names that no longer produce interesting prose or dazzling stories, but based purely on the stories and poems at hand.

The Charles de Lint and Stephen Laws stories stood out for me, too. Where else can you get this variety of great short fiction? I miss Karl Edward Wagner's Best Of collections also, but Datlow and Windling, as an editorial team, are number one in my book.

Don't hesitate. Grab this one while it's available. If you're a devoted reader of these genres, then you can do no better; if you're a writer, see what's getting noticed these days. There are a lot of talents here I'd never read before that really shine.

Having read several of Windling and Datlow's collections from previous years, I bought this book with total confidence that I would love it. I was not disappointed. Some of the stories delighted me, others made my spine squirm, or made me laugh, or just say "Yick!" but each and every one was worth reading. This series is not only the first I would recommend to any fantasy or horror fan, but also the first I would recommend to non-fans. You want this book!