The Best of Fantasy 2001
by Robert Silverberg, Greg van Eeckhout, Rosemary Edghill, Lawrence Miles, Poul Anderson, Robert Thurston, Brian A. Hopkins, Jack O'Connell, Ursula K. Le Guin, Lucius Shepard, M.E. Wills
Why You'll Love This
When Le Guin and Shepard share a table of contents with hungry new voices, the range of what fantasy can do becomes genuinely startling.
- Great if you want: short fantasy that resists formula and rewards literary curiosity
- The experience: varied and uneven — some stories linger long after others fade
- The writing: styles clash productively: myth-rooted prose beside raw contemporary edges
- Skip if: you want thematic cohesion — the range here is wide, not curated
About This Book
Fantasy in 2001 stood at a crossroads — old mythologies brushing shoulders with urban unease, ancient archetypes twisted into something rawer and stranger. This anthology captures that moment, gathering stories that resist the comfortable and the predictable. From worlds rooted in classical myth to fantasies that press hard against the edges of contemporary life, the collection asks what the genre can actually hold when its best writers stop playing it safe.
What distinguishes this particular volume is its commitment to tonal variety without sacrificing coherence. Silverberg's editorial hand keeps the range from feeling scattered — Ursula K. Le Guin's measured, philosophically grounded prose sits beside Lucius Shepard's charged, street-level intensity and newer voices still finding their sharpest register. The result is a reading experience that keeps recalibrating expectations, story by story. No single mode dominates. Some pieces unsettle quietly; others hit with immediate force. That unpredictability is the point — this is a collection that treats fantasy as a serious instrument for exploring consciousness, mortality, and the strangeness of being alive, not merely a vehicle for spectacle.