How do they pick all these wonderful, terrible, awesome, delightful, saddening, maddening, gruesome, transcendent...fantastic stories? I really don't have a clue, but I'm glad that the editorial team of Datlow, Link and Grant throw themselves annually onto the literary grenade of fantasy and horror fiction so we don't have to. Though, of course, the end result is that we do have to, are compelled to, driven to, drawn to, and generally sucked in by the gravitational force of all this really, really, great writing. Whether we think we like fantasy (and horror) or not. Now in its 19th Year, its a collection as important to readers who don't dote on fantasy as much as those who do, but for them (me included) these are perilous waters to swim...

(Source: St. Martin's Press)