Comments: In 1990, The Year's Best Fantasy: Second Annual Collection, edited by the formidable team of Ellen Datlow and Terry Windling, won the World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology. This win was surely deserved, but I have always been somewhat less than enthusiastic when such types of anthologies win awards. The World Fantasy award for Best Anthology has never been dominated by a single "Best of" series in the same way that the Locus Award Best Anthology award has been dominated by Gardner Dozois' Year's Best Science Fiction series, but it almost seems anticlimactic when collections like this win. Aren't they supposed to be a compilation of the best genre fiction of the year? Given that the guiding principle of other anthologies is usually something other than "compile all of the best stories from this year into one volume", it almost seems unfair for them to be competing with these "Best of" anthologies. On the other hand, these volumes do usually represent the best genre fiction of the year, so excluding or handicapping them also seems unfair. So we're left with what seems to me to be an ultimately unsatisfying situation that has no real solution. The other anthologies at least get the benefit of a nomination, which is something.
Best Novel
Lyonesse: Madouc by Jack Vance
Other Nominees:
Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons
A Child Across the Sky by Jonathan Carroll
In a Dark Dream by Charles L. Grant
Soldier of Arete by Gene Wolfe
The Stress of Her Regard by Tim Powers
Best Novella
Great Work of Time by John Crowley
Other Nominees:
Apartheid, Superstrings, and Mordecai Thubana by Michael Bishop
A Dozen Tough Jobs by Howard Waldrop
The Father of Stones by Lucius Shepard
On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert with Dead Folks by Joe R. Lansdale
Best Short Fiction
The Illusionist by Steven Millhauser
Other Nominees:
The Edge of the World by Michael Swanwick
Mr. Fiddlehead by Jonathan Carroll
A Sad Last Love at the Diner of the Damned by Edward Bryant
Varicose Worms by Scott Baker
Yore Skin's Jes's Soft 'n Purty . . . He Said. by Chet Williamson
Best Anthology
The Year's Best Fantasy: Second Annual Collection edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling
Other Nominees:
Blood Is Not Enough edited by Ellen Datlow
Book of the Dead edited by John Skipp and Craig Spector
Razored Saddles edited by Joe R. Lansdale and Pat LoBrutto
Best Collection
Richard Matheson: Collected Stories by Richard Matheson
Other Nominees:
Blue World and Other Stories by Robert R. McCammon
By Bizarre Hands by Joe R. Lansdale
Harlan Ellison's Watching by Harlan Ellison
Novelty by John Crowley
Lifetime Achievement
R.A. Lafferty
Other Nominees:
None
Best Artist
Thomas Canty
Other Nominees:
James Christensen
Don Maitz
J.K. Potter
Special Award, Professional
Mark V. Ziesing
Other Nominees:
Ellen Datlow
Paul Mikol and Scot Stadalsky
Tim Underwood and Chuck Miller
Special Award, Non-Professional
Peggy Nadramia
Other Nominees:
Richard T. Chizmar
David B. Silva
Joe Stefko and Tracy Cocoman
Go to previous year's nominees: 1989
Go to subsequent year's nominees: 1991
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