Summer is coming to an end, but that doesn’t mean that your mind has to stop having fun. Step into not just one world of fantasy, but dozens. The Year’s Best Fantasy, Vol. 1 by Paula Guran is the curator’s latest collection of short stories specific to the fantasy genre. While we know her for her collections of dark fantasy and horror, Paula felt compelled to rise to a new challenge and offer readers something different. 

Read my review of The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, Vol. 1.

Read my review of The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, Vol. 2. 

I’m familiar with Paula’s style, having read two of her previous anthologies. At about 50 published collections, she knows what she’s doing. But somewhere along the way she wanted to give the fantasy genre a shot – not just for her own professional growth, but for readers as well. 

All the authors featured in this anthology are talented and impressively accomplish enough world-building for such a small scale. Even though this wasn’t a dark fantasy collection, some of the stories could pass as such. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the pieces that Paula chose to include in The Year’s Best Fantasy, Vol. 1 and am glad that she rose to the occasion. 

The book has a total of 23 short stories. I’m not going to summarize or tease the plot for each one, as I usually do in my reviews. I will, however, list my favorites among them (in order of appearance).

• “Unseelie Brothers, Ltd.” by Fran Wilde
• “Small Monsters” by E. Lily Yu
• “L’Esprit de L’Escalier” by Catherynne M. Valente
• “Frost’s Boy” by P. H. Lee
• “The Tale of Jaja and Canti” by Tobi Ogundiran
• “The Cloud Lake Unicorn” by Karen Russell
• “Her Garden, the Size of Her Palm” by Yukimi Ogawa
• “Gisla and the Three Favors” by Kathleen Jennings
• “Passing Fair and Young” by Roshani Chokshi
• “The Demon Sage’s Daughter” by Varsha Dinesh
• “Drunkard’s Walk” by James Enge
• “If the Martians Have Magic” by P. Djeli Clark
• “Breath of a Dragon King” by Allison King
• “A Spell for Foolish Hearts” by Isabel Yap

Paula Guran returns to The Nerd Cantina Show podcast for a third Cantina Conversation, where we chat about her experience in switching to a different genre and being a curator in general. Stay tuned for the interview in an upcoming episode and pre-order The Year’s Best Fantasy, Vol. 1, available August 16.