The 17 stories Betancourt and Wallace have assembled for the inaugural volume of horror fiction's third "best of" annual series make for a slimmer selection than either Stephen Jones's Best New Horror
or Ellen Datlow's Year's Best Fantasy and Horror
omnibuses, but they show that horror, when well written, is equally potent in small doses. Richard Bowes's "There's a Hole in the City," a haunting tale of the supernatural, captures the desolation and desperation of downtown Manhattan in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Caitlín Kiernan's "Le Peau Verte" is, by contrast, a surreal absinthe dream about an encounter with an otherworldly race. A number of tales reside in the no-man's land between supernatural and psychological horror, including Joe Hill's "The Cape," in which wild talents push a sibling rivalry into psychopathology. Additional contributions by Ramsey Campbell, Clive Barker, Jeff VanderMeer, Michael Marshall Smith and Joe R. Lansdale help this book become less the new kid on the block than a contender among its competitors. (July)
