For more than a decade, readers have turned to The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror to find the most rewarding fantastic short stories. Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling continue their critically acclaimed and award-winning tradition with another stunning collection of stories. The fiction and poetry here is culled from an exhaustive survey of the field, nearly four dozen stories ranging from fairy tales to gothic horror, from magical realism to dark tales in the Grand Guignol style. Rounding out the volume are the editors' invaluable overviews of the year in fantasy and horror, a new Year's Best section, on comics, by Charles Vess, and on anime and manga, by Joan D. Vinge, and a long list of Honorable Mentions, making this an indispensable reference as well as the best reading available in fantasy and horror.

Highly acclaimed for collecting the finest short fiction in fantasy and horror, the World Fantasy Award-winning annual series continues its eclectic and always interesting tradition with this 15th volume.

Ellen Datlow is the acclaimed editor of such anthologies as Sirens and Other Daemon Lovers (with Terri Windling), Lethal Kisses, Off Limits, and Endangered Species, and has won the World Fantasy Award six times. She lives in New York City.

Terri Windling won the Mythopoeic Award for her first adult novel, The Wood Wife. She had edited numerous books and anthologies, including The Essential Bordertown and Silver Birch, Blood Moon, the most recent in a series of contemporary fairy-tale anthologies, edited with Ellen Datlow. She divides her time between Devon, England and Tucson, Arizona.

Summation 2001: Fantasy, Terri Windling

Summation 2001: Horror, Ellen Datlow

The Year in Media of the Fantastic, Edward Bryant

Fantasy and Horror in Comics: 2001, Charles Vess

Manga and Anime in 2001: Through the Looking Glass, Joan D. Vinge

Obituaries: 2001, James Frenkel

"The Hunter's Wife," Anthony Doerr

"The Cowardly Coffin," Marin Sorescu

"In These Final Days of Sales," Steve Rasnic Tem

"To Dream of White Horses," June Considine

"Skin," Charlee Jacob

"Prussian Snowdrops," Marion Arnott

"The Honeyed Knot," Jeffrey Ford

"Timmy Gobel's Bug Jar," Michael Libling

"The God of Dark Laughter," Michael Chabon

"The Adolescence of Orpheus," Kurt Leland

"Trading Hearts at the Half Kaffe Café," Charles de Lint

"Louise's Ghost," Kelly Link

"Fairy Tale Pantoum," Ellen Wernecke

"The Puppet and the Train," Scott Thomas

"Crocodile Lady," Christopher Fowler

"The Barbarian and the Queen: Thirteen Views," Jane Yolen

"Becoming Bird," Bob Hicok

"Sop Doll," Milbre Burch

"Plenty," Christopher Barzak

"The Bones of the Earth," Ursula K. Le Guin

"What the Story Weaves, the Spinner Tells," Terry Blackhawk

"Onion," Caitlín R. Kiernan

"Where the Woodbine Twineth," Norman Partridge

"Struwwelpeter," Clen Hirshberg

"Outfangthief," Gala Blau

"Rites: Cleaning the Last Bones," Gavin J. Grant

"Watch Me When I Sleep," Jean-Claude Dunyach

"The Tattoo Artist," Patrick Roscoe

"Cleopatra Brimstone," Elizabeth Hand

"Grass," Lawrence Miles

"If Death, A Preprimer," Sandra J. Lindow

"The Bird Catcher," S. P. Somtow

"Black Dust," Graham Joyce

"Annabelle's Alphabet," Tim Pratt

"Tom Brightwind, or, How the Fairy Bridge Was Built at Thoresby," Susanna Clarke

"Gestella," Susan Palwick

"The Legend," Ray Gonzalez

"Oh, Glorious Sight," Tanya Huff

"Home Cooking," Daniel Vlanovsky Sack

"Queen," Gene Wolfe

"The Project," Carol Emshwiller

"The Man in the Comic Strip," Liz Lochhead

"Strange Things About Birds," Scott Thomas

"What We Did That Summer," Kathe Koja and Barry N. Malzberg

"Aesculapius in the Underworld," Ryan G. Van Cleave

"Scarecrow," Gregory Maguire

"The Bockles," Melissa Hardy

"His Own Back Yard," James P. Blaylock

Honorable Mentions: 2001