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Most of The SF Site readers should already know, by now, that the twenty-first volume of The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror represents the swan song of this fortunate, long lasting series that the publisher has decided to discontinue. No doubt a great loss for fantasy and horror lovers who will miss a yearly volume providing an exhaustive overview of what happened in the two genres during the previous year, in terms of fiction, poetry, movies, comics, etc. Indeed, it is an invaluable source of information and often (but not always) a good reprint anthology, supposedly offering the best short fiction recently appeared in books and magazines.

Alas, the last volume in the series is a kind of low-key assemblage of stories of which only a few are up to the expected quality level. If this is the year's best, then 2007 must have been a very poor year, which, at least as horror is concerned, is not true, especially if we compare the table of contents of this book with the one of its usual counterpart from the other side of the ocean, Stephen Jones' The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror Volume 19.

So, it's probably just a matter of taste and choice, ever the source of possible disagreement between editors, reviewers and readers.

In this scenario of general mediocrity, two aspects are worth mentioning: the first one is that the boundaries between horror and fantasy are becoming more and more blurred, hence the stories selected by Ellen Datlow for the last volumes are not so different, in themes and atmospheres, from those chosen by her current fantasy co-editors (Kelly Link and Gavin J. Grant), compared with what happened in the past with her co-editor Terri Windling. The second aspect is that the stories included in this volume, when they are good, are extremely good, regardless of the subgenre to which they allegedly belong.

So, I'd like to recommend the splendid "The Cambist and Lord Iron: A Fairy Tale of Economics" by Daniel Abraham, a delightful fairy tale graced by an exquisite narrative style and great characterization, dealing with the unusual subject of economy (that is, weighing the value of human life and soul!) and "The Tenth Muse" by William Browning Spencer, another example of excellent storytelling, unearthing the secrets in the lives of two neighbour writers living in the same small town.

"Mr Poo Poo" is superb piece penned by the talented Reggie Oliver, skilfully exploring religious fanaticism and its devastating effects on people's lives.

Religious horror is also the topic developed in "A Thing Forbidden," a bizarre but captivating tale by Donald Mead.

Don Tumasonis' "The Swing" is an excellent, insightful tale providing a nostalgic journey into a long gone childhood full of mysteries hard to solve even many years later.

Other remarkable selections are "The Gray Boy's Work" by M.T. Anderson, a dark, slightly obscure and subtly disquieting fairy tale and "Up the Fire Road" by Eileen Gunn, an offbeat fantasy piece reporting the adventures of a man and a woman meeting a sexually ambiguous creature living in a cave.

Tanith Lee provides the outstanding, creepy "The Hill," telling in a solid, fascinating narrative style how the house of a missing scientist becomes the venue of a series of sinister events.

Terry Dowling's quite enjoyable "Toother" is a terrifying, quite original crime/horror story featuring a serial killer obsessed with dental fixtures.

Finally, for those who are already missing the annual anthology by Datlow and Co., there is good news. She has signed a contract with Night Shade Books for editing, at least for the next two years, a new "Year's Best" in horror fiction. Cheers.

Mario Guslandi lives in Milan, Italy, and is a long-time fan of dark fiction. His book reviews have appeared on a number of genre websites such as The Alien Online, Infinity Plus, Necropsy, The Agony Column and Horrorwold.