The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Eighteenth Annual Collection

'Year in, year out, it's always essential reading.' -Neil Gaiman, New York Times bestselling author of American Gods and The Sandman: Endless Nights Highly acclaimed for collecting the finest short fantasy and hor-ror fiction, the World Fantasy Award-winning annual series con-tinues its tradition of excellence with the most ground-break-ing and engaging work by some of the world's most talented authors. Highlights of this year's edition include works by: John Farris, Margo Lanagan, Jay Russell, and many others. Also included are year-end wrap-ups and the popular comics and manga sections.

Ellen Datlow is the acclaimed editor of such anthologies as Blood Is Not Enough, Little Deaths, Alien Sex, Vanishing Acts and The Dark. She has won the Hugo Award for Best Editor once, the World Fantasy Award seven times, and the International Horror Guild Award for The Dark. She and Terri Windling also won the Bram Stoker Award for The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Thirteenth Annual Collection. She currently edits fiction for SCIFI.COM.
 
Kelly Link and Gavin Grant started Small Beer Press in 2000. They have published the zine Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet (“tiny but celebrated”---The Washington Post) for seven years.
Kelly Link’s first collection of short stories, Stranger Things Happen, was selected as a Best Book of the Year by Salon, Locus, and The Village Voice. Stories from the collection have won the Nebula, Tiptree, and World Fantasy Awards. Her most recent short stories have appeared in The Dark and The Faery Reel. She recently published Magic for Beginners, and when she isn’t writing, she edits the anthology Trampoline.
Originally from Scotland, Gavin Grant regularly reviews fantasy and science fiction. Publications where his work has appeared include Scifiction, Strange Horizons, The Third Alternative, and Singularity.

AcknowledgmentsSummation 2004: Fantasy, Kelly Link and Gavin J. GrantSummation 2004: Horror, Ellen DatlowFantasy and Horror in the Media: 2004, Edward BryantComics and Graphic Novels: 2004, Charles VessAnime and Manga: 2004, Joan D. VingeFantasy and Horror in Music: 2004, Charles de LintObituaries: 2004, James Frenkel "The Oakthing," Gregory Maguire"Horton's Store," R.T. Smith"Rite of Spring," Margo Lanagan"Zora and the Zombie," Andy Duncan"The Changeling," Theodora Goss"Revenge of the Calico Cat," Stepan Chapman"Frozen Charlottes," Lucy Sussex"Reports of Certain Events in London," China Miéville"House of Ice," Jean Esteve"Restraint," Stephen Gallagher"The Baum Plan for Financial Independence," John Kessel"Dancing on Air," Frances Oliver"Cold Fires," M. Rickert"And the Sear Shall Give Up Its Dead," Richard Mueller"A Trick of the Dark," Tina Rath"The Bad Magician," Philip Raines and Harvey Wells"Speir-Bhan," Tanith Lee"Hunting Meth Zombies in the Great Nebraskan Wasteland," John Farris"Guts," Chuck Palahniuk"Water Babies," Simon Brown"Mr. Aickman's Air Rifle," Peter Straub"We Find Things Old," Bentley Little"Wonderwall," Elizabeth Hand"Postcretaceous Era," D. Ellis Dickerson"Watch and Wake," M.T. Anderson"The Oracle Alone," Catherynne M. Valente"A Night in the Tropics," Jeffrey Ford"Clownette," Terry Dowling"Stripping," Joyce Carol Oates"Seven Feet," Christopher Fowler"Singing My Sister Down," Margo Lanagan"Bulldozer," Laird Barron"These Various Methods of Brightness," Anna Ross"The Cajun Knot," Mélanie Fazi"Tales from the City of Seams," Greg van Eekhout"The Specialist," Alison Smith"Here is the Church," Shelley Jackson"The Witch of Truro," Alice Hoffman"Lapland, or Film Noir," Peter Straub"What Her Mother Said," Theodora Goss"The Owl," Conrad Williams"The Silver Dragon," Elizabeth A. Lynn Honorable Mentions: 2004