Year's Best Fantasy 5

There's a case of editorialus canthelpourselvssus here. From the introduction :"We follow one general principle for selection: this book is full of fantasyevery story in the book is clearly that and not primarily something else." From the intro to one of those stories: 'Not quite category fantasy, but certainly a fantasy about the fantastic in real life.' For a lot of us, the request would be, resist, don't bloody do this. Please. Editorial brain cramps aside, however, this volume is far superior to the first four of the series, coming in at 3.40 and without some of the wastes of space/useless vignette problems of earlier entries. It is closing on a 3.75 book. Year's Best Fantasy 05 : The Dragons of Summer Gulch - Robert Reed Year's Best Fantasy 05 : Miss Emily Gray - Theodora Goss Year's Best Fantasy 05 : The Baum Plan for Financial Independence - John Kessel Year's Best Fantasy 05 : Lizzy Lou - Barbara Robson Year's Best Fantasy 05 : The End of the World As We Know It - Dale Bailey Year's Best Fantasy 05 : Leaving His Cares Behind Him - Kage Baker Year's Best Fantasy 05 : The Problem of Susan - Neil Gaiman Year's Best Fantasy 05 : Stella's Transformation - Kim Westwood Year's Best Fantasy 05 : Charlie the Purple Giraffe Was Acting Strangely - David D. Levine Year's Best Fantasy 05 : Pat Moore - Tim Powers Year's Best Fantasy 05 : Perpetua - Kit Reed Year's Best Fantasy 05 : Quarry - Peter S. Beagle Year's Best Fantasy 05 : Diva's Bones - John Meaney Year's Best Fantasy 05 : The Seventh Daughter - Bruce McAllister Year's Best Fantasy 05 : Life in Stone - Tim Pratt Year's Best Fantasy 05 : Many Voices - M. Rickert Year's Best Fantasy 05 : A Hint of Jasmine - Richard Parks Year's Best Fantasy 05 : Elvenbrood - Tanith Lee Year's Best Fantasy 05 : Beyond the River - Joel Lane Year's Best Fantasy 05 : Out of the Woods - Patricia A. McKillip Year's Best Fantasy 05 : The Man from Shemhaza - Steven Brust Year's Best Fantasy 05 : Death's Door - Terry Bisson Year's Best Fantasy 05 : The Smile on the Face - Nalo Hopkinson Year's Best Fantasy 05 : Golden City Far - Gene Wolfe Dracaleology weaponry. 4 out of 5 Brat nanny patricide. 3.5 out of 5 Magic money. 3 out of 5 Shrunken sister. 3.5 out of 5 No Triffids, Kraken, Cuckoos or Lichen. 4 out of 5 Wastrel wants trouble. 3 out of 5 Narnia eating out. 3.5 out of 5 Reading therapy. 3 out of 5 Where's that cartoon fourth wall then? 3.5 out of 5 Ghost namesake Hold'Em, mushroom ante like a demon. 3 out of 5 Later, gator. 3 out of 5 Pursuit of rejection showdown vegie trap. 4 out of 5 Singer save remains. 4 out of 5 Dark girls. 3 out of 5 Sweet soul survival strategy sundering. 3.5 out of 5 Prison crazy killer. 3 out of 5 Ghost trace ancestry. 3.5 out of 5 Sister swap. 3.5 out of 5 Publishing cat cr@pola. 3 out of 5 Pay attention to the magic, boss. 3 out of 5 Musician not so nice. 3.5 out of 5 Party girl, hamadryadcent.

For the past five years, editors David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer put together a new Year's Best Fantasy book, and every year it is a thoroughly enjoyable read. I may not agree with all of their choices, but I rarely find a story that I really didn't want to read. This year's 5th edition is no different. There aren't as many stories in it that make me stand up and pay attention, but all of them are quite good, even the ones that I have a bit of a problem with (stand up Joel Lane). Even better is the wide range of sources the editors draw from for their choices. A great number of them came from the book Flights, which I haven't read, so there weren't too many stories that I was already familiar with (though since I am now subscribing to three different short story magazines, some of them have been read before). Thankfully, some of the regular contributors to these anthologies (Neil Gaiman, Tanith Lee) don't annoy me like they have in the past. Lee's writing has never been my favourite (though I did like her "Moonblind" in last year's book), but "Elvenbrood is a very strong story about a shattered family who is attempting to move on, and the weird things in the woods outside that want the daughter as part of a pact that the father made. Gaiman finally moves on from the "weird character in the story tells a story" motif, though just barely, with "The Problem of Susan." Like "Beyond the River" (discussed below), this is a story of an interviewer visiting an author, though Gaiman's story goes in a different direction and takes a bit more of a horrific turn at the end. The one story I had a problem with was "Beyond the River," by Joel Lane. A young journalist goes to visit an old children's book writer for an article on her life, as well as the breach of contract charges that have been brought up against her by the company that has bought her books. It seems they want to re-issue them with a lot of changes to make them more "accessible" to the modern reader, which she refuses to do. It's a pointed story about the publishing business, but it has a major misstep that threw me out of the story. It takes a weird turn when the interviewer, a woman, is asked to spend the night at Susanne's house because it's late, and the interviewer starts talking about whether or not the invitation was sexual or a seduction. While this may be a normal first question in a male-female meeting, it's not in a female-female meeting when there has been no hint of sexual tension before that, and there has been no hint that either of the characters are gay. It felt completely out of left field. Plus, the storyline is tremendously heavy-handed in its vilification of the mass-publishing market and how book lines can become mass-produced. The world that Susanne introduces the interviewer to is kind of interesting in a fairy-tale sort of way, but these two things made the story much less enjoyable to read than it should have been. For me, one of the strongest st

I am only through the first six stories and all I can say is WOW! Usually, I question the selections by some best of anthologies, but Mr. Hartwell and Ms. Cramer hit a home run with their selections. So, far, Robert Reed has taken me to an alternate world where dragons are its dinosaurs; John Kessel has taken me on a Wonka-like ride to the kindest bank in the universe; and, Dale Bailey has taken me to the end of the world with a mixture of sex and booze. Great!