The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2016 Edited by Paula Guran

Paula Guran has announced the table of contents for “The Best Dark Fantasy and Horror: 2016”. I am very happy to be included with “Fabulous Beasts” which appeared on Tor.com in July 2015.

Many thanks to Paula Guran and also to Ellen Datlow, who accepted this for Tor.com.

ToC

•“The Door” by Kelley Armstrong (Led Astray: The Best of Kelley Armstrong, Tachyon)
•“Snow” by Dale Bailey (Nightmare, June 2015)
•“1Up” by Holly Black (Press Start to Play, ed. Adams, Vintage)
•“Seven Minutes in Heaven” by Nadia Bulkin (Aickman’s Heirs, ed. Strantzas, Undertow)
•“The Glad Hosts” by Rebecca Campbell (Lackington’s #7)
•“Hairwork” by Gemma Files (She Walks in Shadows, eds. Moreno-Garcia & Stiles, Innsmouth Free Press)
•“Black Dog” by Neil Gaiman (Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances, William Morrow)
•“A Shot of Salt Water” by Lisa L. Hannett (The Dark #8)
•“The Scavenger’s Nursery” by Maria Dahvana Headley (Shimmer # 24)
•“Daniel’s Theory About Dolls” by Stephen Graham Jones (The Doll Collection, ed. Datlow, Tor)
•“The Cripple and Starfish” by Caítlin R. Kiernan (Sirenia Digest #108)
•“The Absence of Words” by Swapna Kishore (Mythic Delirium #1.3)
•“Corpsemouth” by John Langan (The Monstrous, ed. Datlow, Tachyon)
•“Cassandra” by Ken Liu (Clarkesworld # 102)
•“Street of the Dead House” by Robert Lopresti (nEvermore, ed. Kilpatrick, EDGE)
•“Mary, Mary” by Kirstyn McDermott (Cranky Ladies of History, eds. Roberts & Wessely, Fablecroft)
•“There is No Place for Sorrow in the Kingdom of the Cold” by Seanan McGuire, The Doll Collection, ed. Datlow, Tor)
•“Below the Falls” by Daniel Mills (Nightscript 1, ed. Muller, Chthonic Matter)
•“The Deepwater Bride” by Tamsyn Muir (F&SF Jul-Aug)
•“The Greyness” by Kathryn Ptacek (Expiration Date, ed. Kilpatrick, EDGE)
•“The Three Resurrections of Jessica Churchill” by Kelly Robson (Clarkesworld # 101)
•“Those” by Sofia Samatar (Uncanny #3)
•“Fabulous Beasts” by Priya Sharma (Tor.com)
•“Windows Underwater” by John Shirley (Innsmouth Nightmares, ed. Gresh, PS Publishing)
•“Ripper” by Angela Slatter (Horrorology, ed. Jones, Quercus)
•“The Lily and the Horn” by Catherynne M. Valente (Fantasy #59)
•“Sing Me Your Scars” by Damien Angelica Walters (Sing Me Your Scars, Apex)
•“The Body Finder” by Kaaron Warren (Blurring the Line, ed. Young, Cohesion)
•“The Devil Under the Maison Blue” by Michael Wehunt (The Dark #10)
•“Kaiju maximus®: “So various, So Beautiful, So New” by Kai Ashante Wilson (Fantasy #59)

 

Life on Mars

Starman xxx

2015

January is the time for looking back and looking forwards – it’s when people blog about what they’ve read and enjoyed, when reading lists appear and when “best of” anthologies are finalised.

In the last few years, I’ve singled out one story annually- previously “Shark! Shark!” by Ray Cluley, “Signs of the Times” by Carole Johnstone and “Ptichka” by Laura Mauro.

I have to admit that I’m woefully behind with my reading but of what I have read from 2015, a few things spring to mind immediately.

I have to confess a bias in that Cate Gardner is my friend but I do genuinely admire her work which is steeped in darkness, loss and grief. She has a unique take on the world. “The Bureau of Them” is her novella, published by Spectral Press. Black Static has featured her short stories this year, including “When the Moon Man Knocks” in Issue 48.

In that same issue of Black Static was “The Suffering” by Steven J. Dines. I’ve always enjoyed his writing but I hope he’ll forgive me for saying that there’s been a change in what he’s had published this year. It feels raw and heartfelt, as if he’s struck a particularly rich vein of inner-strange that’s enriched his fiction. I think it heralds more exciting things to come. I know many people would pick his other story – “So Many Heartbeats, So Many Words” (Black Static , Issue 46) but I’m going with “The Suffering” because it’s unrelenting in its horror.

The final story is pure fantasy- “The Waters of Versailles” by Kelly Robson, which can be read in its entirety here. What appears initially to be a frothy historical drama is a tale of self interest and ambition versus responsibility and love. Kelly Robson pulls off the fantastic elements with aplomb. It’s already appeared on many reading lists.

Gardner Dozois has included her other excellent story, “The Three Resurrections of Jessica Churchill”,  in his upcoming Year’s Best Science Fiction (Thirty-third Annual Collection). This first appeared on the Clarkesworld website.

As to my own stuff, a lot of people have been very kind about “Fabulous Beasts”, so thank you for the support.