Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett (Gollancz, U.K.). New from the master of the British humorous fantasy form.
It's Been Fun by Esther M. Friesner (Pulphouse). Issue #23 of the Author’s Choice Monthly short story series.
Noah and Me by Antonia Holding Schwed (Evans). A charming, funny, and bittersweet fantasia about the patients of an animal psychotherapist.
Practical Demonkeeping by Christopher Moore (St. Martin’s Press). A strange black comedy of a demon and his keeper in a small California town.
The Vicar of Nibbleswicke by Roald Dahl, illustrated by Quentin Blake (Overlook Press). The first U.S. edition of what is, or at least should be, a modern classic.
Ye Gods! by Tom Holt (Orbit, U. K.). A humorous contemporary fantasy about the offspring of the god Jupiter.
Flying Dutch by Tom Holt (St. Martin s Press). First U.S. edition of this quirky contemporary fantasy.
Fantasy Mysteries:
Humans by Donald E. Westlake (Warner/Mysterious Press). A literary fantasy about an angel sent by God to bring about Armageddon.
Lemprieres Dictionary by Lawrence Norfolk (Harmony). Murder, intrigue and intricate historical detail set against a background of classical mythology.
The Wrong Rite by Charlotte MacLeod (Morrow). A mystery novel with delightful fantasy overtones, the latest in the Madoc Rhys series (published under the pen name Alisa Craig) about a Canadian Mountie and his eccentric family.
The Testimony of Daniel Pagels by Vickery Turner (Scribners). Though not quite fantasy, this courtroom drama uses Native American mysticism and quantum physics to explore such large concepts as time, space, and the nature of reality. Fascinating.
The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter by Sharyn McCrumb (Scribners). A lovely Magical Realist mystery novel set in the Appalachians.
Absences by Steve Rasnic Tem (Haunted Library, U.K.). Five tales about a psychic sleuth.
Dark Fantasy:
Heart-Beast by Tanith Lee (Headline, U.K.). Dark fantasy about a shape-changer, from a master of the macabre.
Forest of the Night by S. P. Somtow (AvoNova). An excellent, hard-to-classifv book that falls between several genres. '
Imajica by Clive Barker (HarperCollins, 1991—not read until this year). Complex, sensual, richly imagistic dark fantasy.
Alembic by Timothy d'Arch Smith (Dalkey Archive Press). Literary fiction mingling dark fantasy and elements of SF and horror into an intriguing tale about the British government’s secret alchemy bureau.
Conglomeros by Jesse Brown (Random House). Contemporary fiction with dark fantasy elements set in New York; poetic and disturbing.
Her Monster by Jeff Collignon (Soho Press). A contemporary dark fantasy novel loosely based on the Beauty and the Beast story.
Fantastic Tales by I. U. Tarchetti (Mercury House). The collected tales of an Italian dark fantasist.
Memories of the Body: Tales of Desire and Transformation by Lisa Tuttle (Severn House, U.K.). This collection of fifteen stories includes some dark fantasy.
Fantasy in the Mainstream:
The ]ourney oflbn Fattoume by Naquib Mahfouz (Doubleday). A parable set in a mythic Middle East by a winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
At the Sign of the Naked Waiter by Amy Herrick (HarperCollins). A literary fantasy about a woman’s search for love in a contemporary but magical world.
Leviathan by Paul Auster (Viking). Suspenseful literary fiction exploring a distinctively American mythological landscape.
Charlie Peace by Paul Pickering (Random House). A peculiar literary fantasy novel about two children who grow up listening to stories by a man who might be God.
The Good Fairies of New York by Martin Millar (Fourth Estate, U.K.). A peculiar literary novel about Celtic fairies exiled to New York City.
Voice by Tim Wynne-Jones (New English Library, U.K.). A literary novel set in a haunted castle.
Outside the Dog Museum by Jonathan Carroll (Doubleday). The first U. S. edition of the latest Magic Realist novel from this original and often brilliant writer.
The Cornish Trilogy by Robertson Davies (Viking). An omnibus volume of three novels: The Rebel Angels, What’s Bred in the Bone, and The Lyre of Orpheus. These are entertaining and beautifully written novels with some fantasy elements.
The Man in the Window by Jon Cohen (Warner). A literary fantasy romance set in a magical town.
Young Adult Fantasy:
The Girl with the Green Ear: Stories About Magic in Nature by Margaret Mahy (Knopf). Short fiction by one of the very best writers in the field. Recommended.
A Bone from a Dry Sea by Peter Dickinson (Gollancz, U.K.). Excellent fantasy about an archaeological dig.
The Mark of the Cat by Andre Norton (Ace). A sweet coming-of-age story based on Karen Kuykendall’s fantastical drawings of cats (found in The Cat People and Tarot of the Cat People).
Damnbanna by Nancy Springer (Pulphouse/Axolotl). A memorable and hardhitting young adult novella.
Searching for Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede (HBJ). Sequel to her delightful Dealing with Dragons.
Tongues of Jade by Laurence Yep (HarperCollins). A collection of eleven stories based on Chinese folktales, illustrated by David Wiesner.
The Thief of Always by Clive Barker (HarperCollins). YA fantasy, with illustrations by the author, by a writer better known for his horror fiction.
Dark Moon by Meredith Ann Pierce (Little Brown). The sequel to Birth of a Firebringer.
The Land of Gold by Gillian Bradshaw (Greenwillow). Fantasy set in ancient Egypt.
A Plague of Sorcerers by Mary Frances Zambreno (HBJ). A standard but sweet fantasy tale.
Seven Strange and Ghostly Tales by Brian Jacques (Philomel). Darker than his “Redwall” novels. He also published a new “Redwall” book (that’s the talking rodent series, remember?), Mariel of Redwall.
Child of the Ancient City by Tad Williams and Nina Kiriki Hoffman (Atheneum). An Arabian Nights—style vampire tale.
Hobkin by Peni R. Griffin (Macmillan). A magical contemporary story about two runaway girls on an old farmstead. Generally light and entertaining, the novel has more serious undertones as Griffin explores what it is the children ran away from.
Tristan and Iseult by Rosemary Sutcliff (Farrar, Straus, & Giroux). A reprint of an excellent Arthurian novel.
The Thirteen Clocks by James Thurber (Dell Yearling). A new edition of the classic fantasy tale.
1992 saw the publication of excellent work in the area of short fantasy fiction. Ellen Datlow and I read a wide variety of material over the course of 1992 to choose the stories for this volume. I found that the best anthology of the year was published in Britain: Caught in a Story, a collection of modern literary fairy tales and fables edited by Christine Park and Caroline Heaton. (I am indebted to Wendy Froud for pointing it out to me.)