It’s like fantasy tapas, or if you prefer, a buffet: fantasy short stories contain all the excitement and inspiration of a novel, in a way that requires less commitment. Instead of reading a five-course fantasy series of 900+ pages, you can hunker down for a 10- or 20-page adventure. And while you’re at it, eat at the best place in town: read Hartwell and Cramer’s Year’s Best Fantasy series.

There are anthologies like it, but the books I read were edited by Hartwell and Cramer, and every story in their anthology series is a gem. What I love in particular are the author bios at the start of each entry, which can drop you the names of certain magazines worth submitting to, a boon to readers who also happen to be writers hungering for a chance at publication.

A great way to discover new writers and read the shorts of those who you might already know. Though the anthology has gone completely online in recent years, I still possess three physical anthologies. They contain tales from such noted authors as Neil Gaiman, Michael Moorcock, Tad Williams, Jeffrey Ford, Gene Wolf, and Holly Black–but also many upcoming authors who have been published only rarely. You can buy them from Tor.com or on Amazon.

Hartwell and Cramer define fantasy broadly, to include such various approaches as supernatural fantasy, adventure fantasy, satirical, and humorous fantasy.  There is no pure science fiction, which I think is great, being a fantasy purist, but an occasional tale with a science fiction bent occasionally appears, if fantasy elements are present in the story. These anthologies are for people who believe that fantasy can be as good, and as necessary, as literary fiction. They provide a survey of the genre from every direction in which it is expanding.

Examples of what you might find in this stellar series (in Issue 8) include a library that comes to life in Holly Black’s “Paper Cuts Scissors.” Civic gods are challenged by a knight and his puppet companion in Garth Nix’s “Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz Go to War Again.” Mark Chadbourn takes us to a supernatural Elizabethan England in which a famous poet is threatened by fairies in “Who Slays the Gyant, Wounds the Beast.” And who could ever forget “Still Life with Boobs” by Anne Harris in Issue 6?

Other treasures in this series include a short story that eventually became Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book in Issue 8: “The Witch’s Headstone.” Though 7 years old, Issue 8’s stories are timeless and Gaiman entertains as always. Very slightly more recently, Issue 9 (2008) presented us with Naomi Novik’s first short fiction. She is otherwise known for her Temeraire series, in which dragons fight Napoleon during the Age of Sail. Legendary author of The Last Unicorn Peter S. Beagle has two stories in Issue 9 as well, including “The Rabbi’s Hobby,” which I found great.

Year’s Best Fantasy also includes  experimental fantasy. For example, in Issue 9, Catherynne M. Valente writes a story through a catalogue, chronicling a rivalry between two explorers in “A Buyer’s Guide to Maps of Antarctica.” Garth Nix also writes a story entirely in newspaper headlines in Issue 6’s “Read It in the Headlines!”

Another reason I love this series is that Canadian authors receive substantial representation. For  example, Nalo Hopkinson had “Soul Case” published in Issue 8 and Claude Lalumiere, a Montreal author, appeared with Issue 6’s story “Being Here,” and has been published in other more recent issues. For any Canadian fantasy fans out there, you know how perfect this is beautiful. Canadian fantasy is running strong, claim the editors of YBF, with many of the stories they selected appearing in the Tesseracts anthology series published by EDGE.

If anyone is looking for a March break read, get your tongs ready and pick the choicest cuts from this great buffet of literature. You won’t be disappointed; these are the best of the best, served from the very best chefs–err, authors–that fantasy has to offer. (Now this “story-buffet” metaphor is making me hungry!)

Issue 9 was printed in a limited run after Tor.com began to publish the series online. Therefore, you will have to get the most recent additions to the series online.

There has also been some editorial eye-skip in Issue 9, maybe because of the online move. This resulted in more typos. I suspect that the online format makes it easier to miss them. If this is an issue for you, get the earlier editions of the series: they are just as good! That being said, the online editions will hopefully not affect your reading experience too much.