Annal:2002 World Fantasy Award for Collection

Skin Folk

Nalo Hopkinson

• 2002 WFA–Collection winner
• Score: 10.52

Nalo Hopkinson has gained universal acclaim as one of the most impressively original authors to emerge in years. Now she presents Skin Folk, a richly vibrant collection of short fiction that ranges from Trinidad to Toronto, from fantastic folklore to frightening futures, from houses of deadly haunts to realms of dark sexuality. Powerful and sensual, disturbing and triumphant, these tales explore the surface of modern existence…and delve under the skin of eternal legends.

Dark Universe

William F. Nolan

• 2002 WFA–Collection nominee
• 2001 IHG–Collection nominee
• Score: 12.52

Welcome to William F. Nolan’s Dark Universe, a universe of horror, suspense and mystery. For the past fifty years William F. Nolan has been writing in each of these worlds and compiling a legendary body of work that is unsurpassed in quality, style…and the sheer ability to send chills down the spines of readers. At long last, this volume collects many of Nolan’s finest stories, selected from his entire career. These are unforgettable tales guaranteed to frighten, surprise, delight and even shock readers who like to explore the shadows and who aren’t afraid of the dark.

The Essential Ellison: A 50 Year Retrospective

Harlan Ellison, Terry Dowling

• 1987 Stoker–Collection winner
• 2002 WFA–Collection nominee
• Score: 16.37

In April of 1949, Harlan Ellison was a lonely little kid living in Painesville, Ohio. A time traveler, observing him from within an invisible bubble, would not have marked him as anything more interesting than an undersized fourteen-year-old, seemingly always in hot water. Lively blue eyes, but basically just another kid.

But something was stirring, something was wakening in that nexus of energy. And in The Cleveland News of June 7th, little more than a week after he turned fifteen, Harlan Ellison’s first professional writing appeared in print: the initial installment of a five-part adventure serial (liberally cribbed from Sir Walter Scott) titled “The Sword of Parmagon.”

Now, in a retrospective, 50 years of the best of Harlan Ellison has been assembled in a volume exceeding 1200 pages, encompassing fiction, essays, personal reminiscences, reviews and (published for the first time anywhere) a complete teleplay. Eighty-six complete and (with one exception) unabridged examples of the nonpareil writings of the man The Los Angeles Times labels “the 20th Century Lewis Carroll.”

Stranger Things Happen

Kelly Link

• 2002 WFA–Collection nominee
• Score: 6.52

This first collection by award-winning author Kelly Link takes fairy tales and cautionary tales, dictators and extraterrestrials, amnesiacs and honeymooners, revenants and readers alike, on a voyage into new, strange, and wonderful territory. The girl detective must go to the underworld to solve the case of the tap-dancing bank robbers. A librarian falls in love with a girl whose father collects artificial noses. A dead man posts letters home to his estranged wife. Two women named Louise begin a series of consecutive love affairs with a string of cellists. A newly married couple become participants in an apocalyptic beauty pageant. Sexy blond aliens invade New York City. A young girl learns how to make herself disappear.

These eleven extraordinary stories are quirky, spooky, and smart. They all have happy endings. Every story contains a secret prize. Each story was written especially for you.

Talking in the Dark: Selected Stories

Dennis Etchison

• 2002 WFA–Collection nominee
• 2001 IHG–Collection nominee
• Score: 12.52

The year 2001 marked the fortieth anniversary of Dennis Etchison’s first professional short story sale. Talking In the Dark collects the best work by a brilliant writer at the peak of his powers—the author’s own selection of personal favorites from four decades of writing. Among these twenty-four unforgettable tales of life on the edge are the award-winning classics “The Dark Country,” “The Olympic Runner,” and “The Dog Park,” as well as several long-out-of-print stories and a new masterpiece written especially for this volume.