The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2017

The supernatural, the surreal, and the all-too real . . . tales of the dark. Such stories have always fascinated and modern authors are carrying on the disquieting traditions of the past while inventing imaginative new ways to unsettle. Chosen from a wide variety of venues, the stories for this eighth volume of the series include sinister fairy tales, dreadful new legends, and spooky tales sure to spur the shivers. Encounter the eclectic terrors of today, frightening glimpses of bleak futures, and alarming considerations of the past. Welcome to the best of dark fantasy and horror. Contents Introduction: Not Afraid of the Dark | Paula Guran Seasons of Glass and Iron | Amal El-Mohtar The Future is Blue | Catherynne M. Valente Grave Goods | Gemma Files The Ballad of Black Tom | Victor LaValle Our Talons Can Crush Galaxies | Brooke Bolander An Ocean the Color of Bruises | Isabel Yap The Iron Man | Max Gladstone The Blameless | Jeffrey Ford Birdfather | Stephen Graham Jones The Jaws That Bite, The Claws That Catch | Seanan McGuire The Rime of the Cosmic Mariner | John Shirley Fairy Tales are for White People | Melissa Yuan-Innes Lullaby for a Lost World | Aliette de Bodard The Finest, Fullest Flowering | Marc Laidlaw Spinning Silver | Naomi Novik Grave Goods | Priya Sharma Braid of Days and Wake of Nights | E. Lily Yu Wish You Were Here | Nadia Bulkin Only Their Shining Beauty Was Left | Fran Wilde The Line Between the Devil’s Teeth (Murder Ballad No. 10) | Caitlín R. Kiernan Photograph | Steve Rasnic Tem Red Dirt Witch | N. K. Jemisin My Body, Herself | Carmen Maria Machado The Sound of Salt and Sea | Kat Howard A Dying of the Light | Rachel Caine Postcards from Natalie | Carrie Laben As Cymbals Clash | Cate Gardner The Games We Play | Cassandra Khaw Bright Crown of Joy | Livia Llewellyn Mommy’s Little Man | Brian Hodge A Fist of Permutations in Lightning and Wildflowers | Alyssa Wong Surfacing | Lisa L. Hannett Meet Me at the Frost Fair | Alison Littlewood Haunt: Under the House | Michael Wehunt Whose Drowned Face Sleeps | An Owomoyela & Rachel Swirsky When the Stitches Come Undone | A. C. Wise The Red Forest | Angela Slatter About the Authors Acknowledgements