The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror

October 15, 2020
Twenty-five tales of murder, revenge, monstrous creatures, and a love story or two are included in this anthology. Guran's introduction states the stories were not chosen with any theme in mind but there is a pervasive thread of loss here: of life, of family, of self, of the world as it was. In Shattered Sidewalks of the Human Heart by Sam J. Miller, a New York City cabbie receives a piece of Kong from an embittered Ann Darrow, the woman who cared for the Eighth Wonder of the World. Ken Liu's Thoughts and Prayers spotlights a grieving mother's attempts to change attitudes toward gun violence through social media. In Nghi Vo's Boiled Bones and Back Eggs, an innkeeper and her niece, who serve both the living and the dead, have their lives disrupted when a vainglorious ghost comes to stay. Theodora Goss reflects on a classic fairy tale in Conversations With the Sea Witch, while Maria Dahvana Headley presents a lyrical ode to the magic of knowledge and those determined to preserve it in Read After Burning. Fans of dark storytelling will be delighted.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

Starred review from August 16, 2021
The stellar lineup of 30 stories selected by Guran for this annual “best-of” volume attest to the imaginative breadth of dark fantastic fiction written in 2020. Victor Lavalle’s “Recognition” is a ghost story set in contemporary Manhattan during the Covid-19 pandemic. By contrast, Alix E. Harrow’s “The Sycamore and The Sybil” and Alison Littlewood’s “Swanskin” approach their explorations of gender roles through traditional fairy and folktales. Elizabeth Bear mixes the whimsical with the weird in “On Safari in R’lyeh and Carcosa with Gun and Camera,” while Brian Evenson’s “The Thickening” and Elizabeth Hand’s “The Owl Count” end with nightmarish thunderclaps of genuinely unsettling horror. The familiar weird fiction themes of the haunted house and the vampire get creative makeovers in John Wiswell’s “Open House on Haunted Hill” and Craig Laurance Gidney’s “Desiccant,” respectively, while A.C. Wise’s “To Sail the Black” and Elaine Cuyegkeng’s “The Genetic Alchemist’s Daughter” probe the relatively underexplored dark side of science fiction. There’s not a story in the mix that doesn’t merit the appellation of “best,” and the diversity of the selections bodes well for future annuals.