THE YEAR’S BEST DARK FANTASY & HORROR, VOL.5

Anthologist Paula Guran has announced the contents of Volume 5 of The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror.

Paula Guran has edited more than fifty science fiction, fantasy, and horror anthologies and more than fifty novels and collections featuring the same. She’s reviewed and written articles for dozens of publications.

Table of Contents

• “The Crease”, Simon Avery (Black Static 82/83)
• “Miz Boudreaux’s Last Ride”, Christopher Caldwell (Uncanny #50)
• “All the Things I Know About Ghosts, By Ofelia, Age 10”, Isabel Cañas (The Deadlands #30)
• “Resurrection Highway”, A. R. Capetta (The Sunday Morning Transport 9/3/2023)
• “Return to Bear Creek Lodge”, Tananarive Due (Christmas and Other Horrors: An Anthology of Solstice Horror, ed. E. Datlow)
• “The Demon Lord of Broken Concrete”, Alex Irvine (Bourbon Penn #30)
• “The Witch Is Not the Monster”, Alaya Dawn Johnson (The Book of Witches, ed. J. Strahan)
• “Interstate Mohinis”, M.L. Krishnan (Diabolical Plots #100B)
• “Those Hitchhiking Kids”, Darcie Little Badger (The Sunday Morning Transport 4/2/23)
• “If Someone You Love Has Become a Vurdalak”, Sam J. Miller (The Dark #98)
• “Midnight in Moscow”, Tobi Ogundiran (Jackal, Jackal: Tales of the Dark and Fantastic)
• “Kudzu Boy Dreaming”, SJ Powell (FIYAH #26)
• “A Geography of Innocence”, M. Rickert (Weird Horror #7)
• “Till the Greenteeth Draw Us Down”, Josh Rountree (The Deadlands #27)
• “Jack O’Dander”, Priya Sharma (Tor.com 10/4/23)
• “The Tissot Family Circus”, Angela Slatter (Twice Cursed, eds. M. O’Regan & P. Kane)
• “Significant Disruption”, R.L Summerling (Interzone 295)
• “The Ghasts”, Lavie Tidhar (Uncanny #53)
• The Dark House”, A. C. Wise (Tor.com 3/15/2023)

I am delighted to be included with Jack O’Dander, a story that appeared last year on Reactor, and was aquired and edited by Ellen Datlow.

The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2018

I am very proud to be included  in Paula Guran’s Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2018 with “The Crow Palace”.  This story originally appeared in Black Feathers, a horror of avian anthology, edited by Ellen Datlow.

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ToC:

“Sunflower Junction,” Simon Avery (Black Static #57)
“Swift to Chase,” Laird Barron (Adam’s Ladder: An Anthology of Dark Science Fiction)
“Fallow,” Ashley Blooms (Shimmer #37)
“Children of Thorns, Children of Water,” Aliette de Bodard (Exclusive for The House of Binding Thorns preorders/Uncanny #17)
“On Highway 18,” Rebecca Campbell (F&SF 9-10/17)
“Witch Hazel,” Jeffrey Ford (Haunted Nights, eds. Ellen Datlow & Lisa Morton)
“The Bride in Sea-Green Velvet,” Robin Furth (F&SF 7-8/17)
“Little Digs,” Lisa L. Hannett (The Dark #20)
“The Thule Stowaway,” Maria Dahvana Headley (Uncanny #14)
“The Eyes Are White and Quiet,” Carole Johnstone (New Fears, ed. Mark Morris)
Mapping the Interior, Stephen Graham Jones (Tor.com)
“Don’t Turn on the Lights,” Cassandra Khaw (Nightmare #61)
“The Dinosaur Tourist,” Caitlín R. Kiernan (Sirenia Digest #139)
“Survival Strategies,” Helen Marshall (Black Static #60)
“Red Bark and Ambergris,” Kate Marshall (Beneath Ceaseless Skies #232)
“Skins Smooth as Plantain, Hearts Soft as Mango,” Ian Muneshwar (The Dark #27)
“Everything Beautiful Is Terrifying,” M. Rickert (Shadows & Tall Trees, ed. Michael Kelly)
“Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™,” Rebecca Roanhorse (Apex #99)
“Graverobbing Negress Seeks Employment,” Eden Royce (Fiyah #2)
“Moon Blood-Red, Tide Turning,” Mark Samuels (Terror Tales of Cornwall, ed. Paul Finch)
“The Crow Palace,” Priya Sharma (Black Feathers, ed. Ellen Datlow)
“The Swimming Pool Party,” Robert Shearman (Shadows & Tall Trees 7, ed. Michael Kelly)
“The Little Mermaid, in Passing,” Angela Slatter (Review of Australian Fiction, Vol.22, #1)
“Secret Keeper,” Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam (Nightmare #61)
“The Long Fade into Evening Steve,” Steve Rasnic Tem (Darker Companions, eds. Scott David Aniolowski & Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.)
“Moon and Memory and Muchness,” Katherine Vaz (Mad Hatters and March Hares, ed. Ellen Datlow)
“Exceeding Bitter,” Kaaron Warren (Evil Is a Matter of Perspective, eds Adrian Collins & Mike Myers)
“Succulents,” Conrad Williams (New Fears, ed. Mark Morris)
“The Lamentation of Their Women,” Kai Ashante Wilson (Tor.com 8.24.17)

Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2018

 

Paula Guran has announced the table of contents for Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2018.

I am absolutely delighted to be included with “The Crow Palace”, which originally appeared in “Black Feathers” (edited by Ellen Datlow).

 

ToC

“Sunflower Junction,” Simon Avery (Black Static #57)
“Swift to Chase,” Laird Barron (Adam’s Ladder: An Anthology of Dark Science Fiction)
“Fallow,” Ashley Blooms (Shimmer #37)
“Children of Thorns, Children of Water,” Aliette de Bodard (Exclusive for The House of Binding Thorns preorders/Uncanny #17)
“On Highway 18,” Rebecca Campbell (F&SF 9-10/17)
“Witch Hazel,” Jeffrey Ford (Haunted Nights, eds. Ellen Datlow & Lisa Morton)
“The Bride in Sea-Green Velvet,” Robin Furth (F&SF 7-8/17)
“Little Digs,” Lisa L. Hannett (The Dark #20)
“The Thule Stowaway,” Maria Dahvana Headley (Uncanny #14)
“The Eyes Are White and Quiet,” Carole Johnstone (New Fears, ed. Mark Morris)
Mapping the Interior, Stephen Graham Jones (Tor.com)
“Don’t Turn on the Lights,” Cassandra Khaw (Nightmare #61)
“The Dinosaur Tourist,” Caitlín R. Kiernan (Sirenia Digest #139)
“Survival Strategies,” Helen Marshall (Black Static #60)
“Red Bark and Ambergris,” Kate Marshall (Beneath Ceaseless Skies #232)
“Skins Smooth as Plantain, Hearts Soft as Mango,” Ian Muneshwar (The Dark #27)
“Everything Beautiful Is Terrifying,” M. Rickert (Shadows & Tall Trees, ed. Michael Kelly)
“Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™,” Rebecca Roanhorse (Apex #99)
“Graverobbing Negress Seeks Employment,” Eden Royce (Fiyah #2)
“Moon Blood-Red, Tide Turning,” Mark Samuels (Terror Tales of Cornwall, ed. Paul Finch)
“The Crow Palace,” Priya Sharma (Black Feathers, ed. Ellen Datlow)
“The Swimming Pool Party,” Robert Shearman (Shadows & Tall Trees 7, ed. Michael Kelly)
“The Little Mermaid, in Passing,” Angela Slatter (Review of Australian Fiction, Vol.22, #1)
“Secret Keeper,” Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam (Nightmare #61)
“The Long Fade into Evening Steve,” Steve Rasnic Tem (Darker Companions, eds. Scott David Aniolowski & Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.)
“Moon and Memory and Muchness,” Katherine Vaz (Mad Hatters and March Hares, ed. Ellen Datlow)
“Exceeding Bitter,” Kaaron Warren (Evil Is a Matter of Perspective, eds Adrian Collins & Mike Myers)
“Succulents,” Conrad Williams (New Fears, ed. Mark Morris)
“The Lamentation of Their Women,” Kai Ashante Wilson (Tor.com 8.24.17)

The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2017 Edited by Paula Guran

Paula Guran has annouced the table of contents for her annual anthology The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror: 2017.

Thanks to Paula and to the Albedo One team, who originally published “Grave Goods” in issue 46.

THE YEAR’S BEST DARK FANTASY & HORROR: 2017 ToC

“Lullaby for a Lost World,” Aliette de Bodard (Tor.com 06/16)
“Our Talons Can Crush Galaxies,” Brooke Bolander (Uncanny #13)
“Wish You Were Here,” Nadia Bulkin (Nightmare # 49)
“A Dying of the Light,” Rachel Caine (The Gods of H.P. Lovecraft)
“Season of Glass and Iron,” Amal El-Mohtar (The Starlit Wood: New Fairy Tales)
“Grave Goods,” Gemma Files (Autumn Cthulhu)
“The Blameless,”Jeffrey Ford (The Natural History of Hell)
“As Cymbals Clash,” Cate Gardner (The Dark #19)
“The Iron Man,” Max Gladstone (Grimm Future)
“Surfacing,” Lisa L. Hannett (Postscripts 36/37: The Dragons of the Night)
“Mommy’s Little Man,” Brian Hodge (DarkFuse, October)
“The Sound of Salt and Sea,” Kat Howard (Uncanny #10)
“Red Dirt Witch,” N. K. Jemisin (Fantasy #60)
“Birdfather,” Stephen Graham Jones (Black Static #51)
“The Games We Play,” Cassandra Khaw (Clockwork Phoenix 5)
“The Line Between the Devil’s Teeth (Murder Ballad No. Ten),” Caitlin Kiernan (Sirenia Digest #130)
“Postcards from Natalie,” Carrie Laben (The Dark #14)
“The Finest, Fullest Flowering,” Marc Laidlaw (Nightmare #45)
The Ballad of Black Tom, Victor LaValle (Tor.com)
“Meet Me at the Frost Fair,” Alison Littlewood (A Midwinter Entertainment)
“Bright Crown of Joy,” Livia Llewellyn (Children of Lovecraft)
“The Jaws That Bite, The Claws That Catch,” Seanan McGuire (Lightspeed #72)
“My Body, Herself,” Carmen Maria Machado (Uncanny #12)
“Spinning Silver,” Naomi Novik (The Starlit Wood: New Fairy Tales)
“Whose Drowned Face Sleeps,” An Owomoyela & Rachael Swirsky (Nightmare # 46/What the #@&% Is That?)
“Grave Goods,” Priya Sharma (Albedo One #46)
“The Rime of the Cosmic Mariner,” John Shirley (Lovecraft Alive!)
“The Red Forest,” Angela Slatter (Winter Children and Other Chilling Tales)
“Photograph,” Steve Rasnic Tem (Out of the Dark)
“The Future is Blue,” Catherynne M. Valente (Drowned Worlds)
‘‘October Film Haunt: Under the House’’, Michael Wehunt (Greener Pastures)
“Only Their Shining Beauty Was Left,” Fran Wilde (Shimmer 13)
“When the Stitches Come Undone,” A.C. Wise (Children of Lovecraft)
“A Fist of Permutations in Lightning and Wildflowers,” Alyssa Wong (Tor.com 03/16)
“An Ocean the Color of Bruises,” Isabel Yap (Uncanny #11)
“Fairy Tales are for White People,” Melissa Yuan-Innes (Fireside Magazine Issue 30)
“Braid of Days and Nights,” E. Lily Yu (F&SF, Jan-Feb)

The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror 2014 edited by Paula Guran

Paula Guran has very kindly included me in her Year’s Best for 2014, published later this year by Prime Books. It’s a story called “Rag and Bone” which appeared on Tor.com last year.

Needless to say, I’m a very happy woman who owes thanks to both Paula and Ellen Datlow, who was my editor at Tor.com.

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s the table of contents:

• “Postcards from Abroad,” Peter Atkins (Rolling Darkness Revue 2013, Earthling Publications)
• “The Creature Recants,” Dale Bailey (Clarkesworld, Issue 85, October 2013)
• “The Good Husband,” Nathan Ballingrud (North American Lake Monsters, Small Beer Press)
• “Termination Dust,” Laird Barron (Tales of Jack the Ripper, ed. Ross Lockhart, Word Horde)
• “The Ghost Makers,” Elizabeth Bear (Fearsome Journeys, ed. Jonathan Strahan, Solaris)
• “The Marginals,” Steve Duffy (The Moment of Panic, PSPublishing)
• “A Collapse of Horses,” Brian Evenson (The American Reader, Feb/Mar 2013)
• “A Lunar Labyrinth,” Neil Gaiman (Shadows of the New Sun: Stories in Honor of Gene Wolfe, eds. J. E. Mooney & Bill Fawcett, Tor)
• “Pride,” Glen Hirshberg (Rolling Darkness Revue 2013, Earthling Publications)
• “Let My Smile Be Your Umbrella,” Brian Hodge (Psycho-Mania!, ed. Stephen Jones, Robinson)
• “The Soul in the Bell Jar,” K. J. Kabza (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Nov/Dec 2013)
• “The Prayer of Ninety Cats,” Caitlín R. Kiernan (Subterranean Online, Spring 2013)
• “Dark Gardens,” Greg Kurzawa (Interzone # 248)
• “A Little of the Night,” Tanith Lee (Clockwork Phoenix 4, ed. Mike Allen, Mythic Delirium)
• “The Gruesome Affair of the Electric Blue Lightning,” Joe R. Lansdale (Beyond Rue Morgue: Further Tales of Edgar Allan Poe’s First Detective, ed. Paul Kane & Charles Prepole, Titan)
• “Iseul’s Lexicon,” Yoon Ha Lee (Conservation of Shadows, Prime Books)
• “The Plague” Ken Liu (Nature, 16 May 2013)
• “The Slipway Gray,” Helen Marshall (Chilling Tales 2, ed. Michael Kelly, Edge Publications)
• “To Die for Moonlight,” Sarah Monette (Apex Magazine, Issue #50)
• “Event Horizon,” Sunny Moraine (Strange Horizons, 21 Oct 2013)
• “The Legend of Troop 13,” Kit Reed (Asimov’s Science Fiction, Jan 2013 / The Story Until Now: A Great Big Book of Stories, Wesleyan)
• “Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell,” Brandon Sanderson (Dangerous Women, eds. George R. R. Martin & Gardner Dozois, Tor)
• “Phosphorous,” Veronica Schanoes, (Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells: An Anthology of Gaslamp Fantasy, eds. Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling, Tor)
• “Blue Amber,” David J. Schow (Impossible Monsters, ed. Kasey Lansdale, Subterranean Press)
• “Rag and Bone,” Priya Sharma (Tor.com, 10 April 2013)
• “Our Lady of Ruins”, Sarah Singleton (The Dark 2, Dec 2013)
• “Cuckoo,” Angela Slatter (A Killer Among Demons, ed. Craig Bezant, Dark Prints Press)
• “Wheatfield with Crows,” Steve Rasnic Tem (Dark World: Ghost Stories, ed. Timothy Parker Russell, Tartarus Press)
• “Moonstruck,” Karin Tidbeck (Shadows and Tall Trees, Vol. 5, ed. Mike Kelly, Undertow)
• “The Dream Detective,” Lisa Tuttle (Lightspeed, Mar 2013)
• “Fishwife,” Carrie Vaughn (Nightmare, Jun 2013
• “Air, Water and the Grove,” Kaaron Warren (The Lowest Heaven, eds Anne C. Perry & Jared Shurin, Jurassic London)

 

 

 

The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2013

The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2013 edited by Paula Guran, is now out from Prime Books.

It’s available in print and Kindle edition from Amazon UK, Amazon US and to order from your local  bookshop.

I’m fortunate enough to be included with my story, “Pearls”, which originally appeared in Bourbon Penn (issue 3).  Big thanks to Bourbon Penn’s editor, Erik Secker, and to Paula Guran.

The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror:2013 and The Best Horror of the Year Volume 5

Paula Guran and Ellen Datlow have now annouced the contents of their annual anthologies.

“Pearls” originally appeared in Issue 4 of Bourbon Penn (April 2012)

“The Ballad Of Boomtown” appeared in Issue 28 of Black Static (April-May 2012)

A huge thank you to Ellen, Paula, Andy Cox (editor of Black Static) and Erik Secker (editor of Bourbon Penn).

The Best Horror of the Year Volume V (Ed. Ellen Datlow) 
Nikishi  by Lucy Taylor
Little America by Dan Chaon
A Natural History of Autumn by Jeffrey Ford
Mantis Wives    by  Kij Johnson
Tender as Teeth by Stephanie Crawford and Duane Swierczynski
The Callers by Ramsey Campbell
Two poems for Hill House by Kevin McCann
Mariner’s Round by  Terry Dowling
Nanny Grey by Gemma Files
The Magician’s Apprentice by Tamsyn Muir
Kill All Monsters   by Gary Mcmahon
The House on Ashley Avenue by Ian Rogers
Dead Song  by Jay Wilburn
Sleeping, I  Was Beauty    by Sandi Leibowitz
Bajazzle  by Margo Lanagan
The Pike by Conrad Williams
This Circus the World  by Amber Sparks
Some Pictures in An Album by Gary McMahon
Wild Acre by Nathan Ballingrud
Final Exam by  Megan Arkenberg
None So Blind   by Stephen Bacon
The Ballad of Boomtown  by Priya Sharma
Pig Thing by Adam Nevill
The Word-Made Flesh by Richard Gavin
Into the Penny Arcade by Claire Massey
Magdala Amygdala  by Lucy Snyder
Frontier Death Song by Laird Barron

The Best Dark Fantasy and Horror: 2013 (Ed. Paula Guran)
Laird Barron, “Hand of Glory” (The Book of Cthulhu 2)
Peter S. Beagle, “Great-Grandmother in the Cellar” (Under My Hat)
Peter Bell, “Glamour of Madness”  (The Ghosts & Scholars Book of Shadows)
Joseph Bruchac, “Down in the Valley” (Postscripts #28/29: Exotic Gothic 4)
Jim Butcher, “Bigfoot on Campus” (Hex Appeal)
Mike Carey, “Iphigenia In Aulis” (An Apple for the Creature)
Terry Dowling, “Nightside Eye” (Cemetery Dance #66)
K. M. Ferebee, “The Bird Country” (Shimmer #15)
Jeffrey Ford, “The Natural History of Autumn” (F&SF, July/August 2012)
Neil Gaiman, “The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury” (The Shadow Show)
Theodora Goss, “England Under the White Witch” (Clarkesworld, Issue 73)
Maria Dahvana Headley, “Game” (Subterranean, Fall 2012)
Robert Hood, “Escena de un Asesinato” (Postscripts #28/29: Exotic Gothic 4)
Stephen Graham Jones, “Welcome to the Reptile House” (Strange Aeons #9)
Caitlín R Kiernan, “Fake Plastic Trees: (After)
Ellen Klages, “The Education of a Witch” (Under My Hat)
Marc Laidlaw, “Forget You” (Lightspeed, June 2012)
John Langan, “Renfrew’s Course” (Lightspeed, April 2012)
Joe R. Lansdale. “The Tall Grass” (Dark Tales of Lost Civilizations)
Tim Lebbon, “Slaughterhouse Blues” (Nothing As It Seems)
Alison Littlewood, “The Eyes of Water (The Eyes of Water)
Good Hunting, Ken Liu  (Strange Horizons, October 2012)
Helen Marshall, “No Ghosts In London” (Hair Side, Flesh Side)
Sarah Monette, “Blue Lace Agate” (Lightspeed, January 2012)
Ekaterina Sedia, “End of White” (Shotguns v Cthulhu)
Priya Sharma, “Pearls” (Bourbon Penn 04)
Robert Shearman, “Bedtime Stories for Yasmin” (Shadows & Tall Trees 4)
John Shirley, “When Death Wakes Me to Myself” (Black Wings II)
Cory Skerry, “Sinking Among Lilies” (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Issue #92)
Simon Strantzas, “Go Home Again” (Fungi)
Rachel Swirsky, “The Sea of Trees” (The Future Is Japanese)
Melanie Tem, “Dahlias” (Black Wings II)
Karen Tidbeck, “Arvid Pekon” (Jagganath: Stories)
Genevieve Valentine, “Armless Maidens of the American West” (Apex, August 7, 2012)
Brooke Wonders, “Everything Must Go” (Clarkesworld, Issue 74)

The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror 2012

The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror 2012 is now available.

I feel very fortunate that my story, “The Fox Maiden”, has been included. Many thanks to Paula Guran and also to On Spec, where it was originally printed, in particular Cat McDonald.

The anthology includes work by Stephen King, Joan Aiken, Tim Powers, Gene Wolfe, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Lisa Tuttle, Charles de Lint, Margo Lanagan, Naomi Novik, Kelley Armstrong and many more. Full TOC.

It can be ordered from Amazon UK, Amazon US or from your local bookshop.