Rating: 
Summary: Great stories
Review: I give this book five stars for the quality of the short stories, one star for the quality of Datlow's overview. Notoriously partisan, she again praises her friends and ignores her enemies, delivering her pronouncements as if from on high. She does pick good fiction, though, and if you skip her essay and go straight to the stories, you can't lose.
Rating:
Summary: Year's Best F&H 13
Review: I have to confess embarrassment here. 14 and 13 got mixed up, perhaps on Amazon, perhaps just in my head. This review is of 13.I felt this was one of the weakest volumes of this anthology yet. I read these as much for the introduction, giving the "state of the industry" and recommending books, as for the stories. I was disappointed therefore that that section in this volume was very short and few books were mentioned. I've read some of the recommended books and found them to be of low quality, making me wonder if the editors had really read them. On the other hand, though I haven't checked publication dates, I'm pretty sure some good work came out in 2000 that was not mentioned. On to the stories: The editors of this series consistently make an effort to scour the globe for the "best" fantasy and horror stories. I rarely like their more exotic findings, since literature in translation (not to mention kooky magic realism without plot) tends not to work for me. This edition seemed to have more translated and out-of-left-field stories than others, which weakened it for me. Overall, the quality of the stories seemed rather low, particularly in the area of horror, though there was one nice story about a haunted house. Standouts here are Gilman's incomprehensible but gorgeously poetic folktale story and a wonderful novella by John Crowley based on a selkie ballad. Nalo Hopkinson's story, despite a rather unsupported character twist, also is worth reading.
Rating: 
Summary: Tedious, Overblown, Pretentious, Overwritten......
Review: I really can't be bothered doing my usual story-by-story review, since most of the stories stunk. I'm not a big Fantasy fan, so my distaste for the Fantasy side of the book shouldn't be a big surprise. I'll just reiterate my usual complaint about Fantasy Editor Terri Windling's half (More like 2/3rd's..) of the book: Waaaaayyy too much Fantasy, to the point where the Horror stories get short shrift. Ellen Datlow's Horror selections also leave a lot to be desired, as the truly distinctive voices of modern Horror fiction, like Bentley Little, Jack Ketchum, Edward Lee, Richard Laymon, et al, continue to not be represented, while told-by-rote Victorian-era wannabes dominate the book.
(My original review was much longer, and I did single out particular stories/Authors for praise, and recommended some of the individual anthologies, but the review-censorship gang at Amazon saw fit to chop off four whole paragraphs of my review! Thanks, @ssholes!)
Rating: 
Summary: pure magic
Review: If you`ve read too much minimalist academic fiction, you`re in for a treat. These stories, both dark and light, and infused with magic and poetry, have been culled from sources as diverse as the New Yorker, the Iowa Review, and some very obscure zines. Established masters of their craft such as Ursula Leguin and N. Scott Momaday rub shoulders with intruiguing newcomers such as Linnet Taylor and Mary Sharratt. Kelly Link`s fabulous story "The Girl Detective" is not to be missed.
Rating: 
Summary: Another Year, Another Snooze-Fest....
Review: Made it through another one!!! Once again, Fantasy Editor Terri Windling runs roughshod over Horror Editor Ellen Datlow- Windling weighs in with 26 stories, Datlow with 19. (Datlow continues to beat the drum for awful-poetry lovers everywhere, with no less than EIGHT poems...Yuck.) As usual, the book opens with Windling's interminably long overview on The Year in Fantasy, which is really no more than a list of every book that's come out that year, along with her rambling on and on about "Magical Realism" for what seems like 5000 pages. I read one page, skimmed the rest, didn't miss a thing. On to Datlow's Year in Horror- Slightly more interesting, but still WAAY too long. Skimmed once again... Edward Bryant's Horror and Fantasy in the Media overview is interesting reading, but it seems as if Bryant just throws every movie he's seen into the mix. Does "In the Company of Men" really qualify as Fantasy or Horror...? Seth Johnson's Year in Comic Books overview is very interesting, and considering how much Windling drones on, I don't think it would kill them to let Johnson have a few more pages than he does. On to the stories themselves....There are a LOT of stories that are bad, if not downright AWFUL, in this book, and most of them go on MUCH too long. Among the Awful/Overlong are: The meandering, pointless "The Skull of Charlotte Corday", "It Had To Be You", which would have been cute if had been 20 pages shorter; Charles Grant's head-scratching yawn-a-thon "Riding the Black", ... "In the Fields" was so bad I actually had to skip to the next story; I also couldn't finish Peter S. Beagle's "The Last Song of Sirit Byar"- It seemed like the song had no end..... It's not ALL bad, though. Standout stories include "Gulliver at Home", which tells of Lemuel Gulliver's time at home between voyages; "I Am Infinite; I Contain Multitudes" has one of the nastiest scenes I've ever read, and packs a hell of a punch; Nicholas Royle's "Mbo" delivers a nasty spin on the Dracula legend; Gary A. Braunbeck's "Safe" is a moving tale of the aftermath of a gruesome mass-murder; "El Castillo De La Perseverancia" is THE weirdest story I've ever read...Mexican Wrestlers vs. Aztec monsters! It's like a Santos movie in print! "Residuals" tells the hidden history of Alien-abduction in America, and Michael Chabon delivers a ripping good H. P. Lovecraft pastiche "In the Black Mill". Christopher Fowler's "Spanky's Back!" is good sick fun, and Stephen Laws' "The Crawl" presents a far-fetched tale of road-rage that still manages to evoke a chill. While there ARE some worthwhile reads here, the book is more pain than pleasure to read. Proceed at your own risk!
Rating:
Summary: Most disappointing volume in years
Review: No one will ever like every story in a multi-author collection, but I found that I disliked a majority of this year's Fantasy and Horror collection. Even the list of Honorable Mentions did not seem impressive. Still, the good stories were good, and in themselves are worth reading. However, I suggest borrowing it from your library rather than buying it.
Rating:
Summary: Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 15
Review: Overall, I enjoyed many of the stories in this anthology. I normally skip the poetry, so I don't have any real comments on them. Many of the stories did seem to slant toward the literary side of the spectrum, with the fantastic elements only subtley present. Still plenty of good stuff here for almost any taste.
Rating: 
Summary: Something for everyone
Review: Overall, I enjoyed many of the stories in this anthology. I normally skip the poetry, so I don't have any real comments on them. Many of the stories did seem to slant toward the literary side of the spectrum, with the fantastic elements only subtley present. Still plenty of good stuff here for almost any taste.
Rating:
Summary: Worth every penny!
Review: The reader from Baltimore -- whose review appears on this page -- seems to have read a different book than the rest of us. I consider this volume the best one yet in this terrific series. But then -- since the Baltimore reader is complaining about inclusion of fiction originally published in the New Yorker -- I suppose he/she prefers fantasy and horror with a less literary bent. This is definitely not an anthology for those who aren't interested in savouring fine prose or exploring the unusual places where "genre" and "mainstream" fiction meet. If you want unchallenging, predictable horror and fantasy then give this volume a miss -- but if you love dazzling writing of all different sorts -- defying the very notion of what is "genre" and what is "mainstream" -- then this is the collection for you. There are brilliant stories and poems here -- in an incredibly ecclectic mix. I hope someone is paying Datlow and Windling very very well so that they continue to provide this amazing annual volume for years to come.
Rating: 
Summary: More information:
Review: The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror series has won three World Fantasy Awards to date. For more information on the series, and other Datlow/Windling collaborations, visit the Endicott Studio Web Site.
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