The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2010

Edited by Paula Guran.

Darkness surrounds us. We can find darkness anywhere: in a strange green stone etched with mysterious symbols; at a small town's annual picnic; in a ghostly house that is easy to enter but not so easy to leave; behind the dumpster in the alley where a harpy lives; in The Nowhere, a place where car keys, toys, people disappear to; among Polar explorers; and, most definitely, within ourselves. Darkness flies from mysterious crates; surrounds children whose nightlights have vanished; and flickers between us at the movie theater. Darkness crawls from the past and is waiting in our future; and there's always a chance that Halloween really is a door opening directly into endless shadow. Welcome to the dark. You may never want to leave. This inaugural volume of the year's best dark fantasy and horror features more than 500 pages of dark tales from some of today's finest writers of the fantastique. Chosen from a variety of sources, these stories are as eclectic and varied as the genre itself.

Contents:

• What the Hell Do You Mean By "Dark Fantasy and Horror?" by Paula Guran
• The Horrid Glory of Its Wings by Elizabeth Bear
• Lowland Sea by Suzy McKee Charnas
• Copping Squid by Michael Shea
• Monsters by Stewart O'Nan
• The Brink of Eternity by Barbara Roden
• Frost Mountain Picnic Massacre by Seth Fried
• Sea-Hearts by Margo Lanagan
• A Haunted House of Her Own by Kelley Armstrong
• Headstone in Your Pocket by Paul Tremblay
• The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black
• Strange Scenes from an Unfinished Film by Gary McMahon
• A Delicate Architecture by Catherynne M. Valente
• The Mystery by Peter Atkins
• Variations on a Theme from Seinfeld by Peter Straub
• The Wide, Carnivorous Sky by John Langan
• Certain Death for a Known Person by Steve Duffy
• The Ones Who Got Away by Stephen Graham Jones
• Leng by Marc Laidlaw
• Torn Away by Joe R. Lansdale
• The Nowhere Man by Sarah Pinborough
• The Bone's Prayer by Caitlín R. Kiernan
• The Water Tower by John Mantooth
• In the Porches of My Ears by Norman Prentiss
• The Cinderella Game by Kelly Link
• The Jacaranda Smile by Gemma Files
• The Other Box by Gerard Houarner
• White Charles by Sarah Monette
• Everything Dies, Baby by Nadia Bulkin
• Bruise for Bruise by Robert Davies
• Respects by Ramsey Campbell
• Diamond Shell by Deborah Biancotti
• Nub Hut by Kurt Dinan
• The Cabinet Child by Steve Rasnic Tem
• Cherrystone & Shards of Ice by Ekaterina Sedia
• The Crevasse by Nathan Ballingrud and Dale Bailey
• Vic by Maura McHugh
• Halloween Town by Lucius Shepard
• The Long, Cold Goodbye by Holly Phillips
• What Happens When You Wake Up in the Night by Michael Marshall Smith