Year's Best Fantasy 6 - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1892391376 ISBN 13: 9781892391377

Publisher: Tachyon Publications, 2006

Synopsis

Award-winning editors David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer know fantasy. This engaging anthology series, now in its sixth year, has become mandatory reading for fantasy devotees. Featuring a diverse lineup of best-selling authors and rising stars, Year’s Best Fantasy 6 is the definitive guide to the best fantasy stories of 2005.

About this title

About the Author

David G. Hartwell is a senior editor at Tor/Forge Books and the publisher of the New York Review of Science Fiction. A recipient of the Hugo, World Fantasy, and Eaton awards, he is the author of Age of Wonders, editor of The World Treasury of Science Fiction, editor of the Year’s Best Fantasy series, and co-editor of two anthologies of the best Canadian science ficti0on, Northern Stars and Northern Suns.

Kathryn Cramer is an author, editor, artist, and photographer who lives in Westport, New York. She is the World Fantasy Award–winning editor of The Architecture of Fear and the co-editor of the anthologies The Ascent of Wonder, The Hard SF Renaissance, and the Year’s Best Science Fiction series.

Reviews

Starred Review. Hartwell and Cramer (The Ascent of Wonder) present 23 fantastic stories in this brilliant anthology, the first trade paperback installment of their popular Year's Best series. Most notable are Jonathon Sullivan's tear-jerking "Niels Bohr and the Sleeping Dane," which brings together physics and Kabbalistic magic during a daring escape from Nazi-occupied Denmark; Laird Barron's "The Imago Sequence," a heart-stopping tale of some deeply disturbing photographs and the people who will do anything to see them; Delia Sherman's "Walpurgis Afternoon," which brings glorious magic to a bland suburb; and Neil Gaiman's "Sunbird" with its R.A. Lafferty–flavored bittersweet hilarity. Stories from such renowned authors as Esther Friesner and Gene Wolfe are surprisingly outclassed by tales from relative newcomers Alaya Dawn Johnson and Anne Harris. With selections that aren't always technically perfect but pack a powerful emotional wallop, the editors easily meet their stated goal of offering not only a great read but also a broad and thorough overview of the current state of short fantasy fiction. (Oct.)
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For the sixth edition, Hartwell and Cramer switch the format of their annual from mass-market to trade paperback. It looks spiffy, it should get more attention (bigger books are harder to ignore), and it's hard to imagine improving the 23 stories it contains. Oh, Laird Barron's "The Imago Sequence" ends flat, but until then, its Philip Marlowe-goes-to-hell tone is a high-wire act of the very first order. Garth Nix's "Read It in the Headlines" may be too minimal--it consists entirely of newspaper headlines--but what fun! Tim Pratt and Greg van Eekhout's "Robots and Falling Hearts," Gene Wolfe's "Comber," and Gavin J. Grant's "Heads Down, Thumbs Up" require conceptual stretching, but that's good for mental health, right? The stories by Anne Harris, Heather Shaw, Connie Willis, and Candas Jane Dorsey are funny enough to pose the danger of cracking ribs from laughing. Alaya Dawn Johnson's "Shard of Glass" is an entire romantic novel in 20 pages. An exhilarating collection. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Tachyon Publications
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1892391376
• ISBN 13: 9781892391377
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 355
• Editor: Hartwell David G, Cramer Kathryn