The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2011

This incomparable annual compilation of the best short fiction and novellas features an unmatched variety of the quietly weird, the merely eerie, high fantasy, modern Lovecraftian horror, nightmarish near-future scenarios, the darkly humorous, the supernatural, and the monstrously mundane from the brightest new talent, legendary authors like Joe R. Lansdale, Tanith Lee, and Gene Wolfe, and bestsellers such as Holly Black, Neil Gaiman, and Sarah Langan. Includes a 36,000 word novella by George R.R. Martin set in his A Song of Fire and Ice universe. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: Back to the Dark by Paula Guran Lesser Demons by Norman Partridge Raise Your Hand If You’re Dead by John Shirley As Red as Red by Caitlín R. Kiernan Tragic Life Stories by Steve Duffy The Naturalist by Maureen McHugh The Broadsword by Laird Barron A Thousand Flowers by Margo Lanagan Frumpy Little Beat Girl by Peter Atkins The Stars Are Falling by Joe R. Lansdale Hurt Me by M.L.N. Hanover Are You Trying to Tell Me This is Heaven? by Sarah Langan Sea Warg by Tanith Lee Crawlspace by Stephen Graham Jones Mother Urban’s Booke of Dayes by Jay Lake Brisneyland by Night by Angela Slatter The Thing About Cassandra by Neil Gaiman He Said, Laughing by Simon R. Green Bloodsport by Gene Wolfe Oaks Park by M.K. Hobson Thimbleriggery and Fledglings by Steve Berman You Dream by Ekaterina Sedia Red Blues by Michael Skeet The Moon Will Look Strange by Lynda E. Rucker The Things by Peter Watts Malleus, Incus, Stapes by Sarah Totton The Return by S.D. Tullis The Dog King by Holly Black How Bria Died by Mike Aronovitz The Dire Wolf by Genevieve Valentine Parallel Lines by Tim Powers The Mystery Knight by George R.R. Martin About the Authors Copyrights & First Publication About the Editor