For THE LINE UP, Orrin Grey includes THE VERY BEST OF CAITLÍN R. KIERNAN in What Are the Best Weird Fiction Books? Here Are 13 Tales of Cosmic Horror to Get You Started.

Over the years, Caitlin R. Kiernan has established herself as a savant of all kinds of strange, beautiful, haunting, and tragic stories—she does have more than one “best of” volume to her name, after all—and among those forms in which she has demonstrated a confident mastery is the weird tale. THE VERY BEST OF CAITLÍN R. KIERNAN provides a strong starting point for exploring Kiernan’s one-of-a-kind fiction.

Carolyn Cox, at THE PORTALIST, expresses similar feelings about the collection in What to Read Next If You Love Joe Hill Books.

Speculative fiction author Caitlin R. Kiernan also has a reputation for writing horror stories that are truly haunting. 

This anthology features the best of the best from Kiernan’s extensive lexicon of horror, fantasy, and sci-fi. The World Fantasy, Bram Stoker, and James Tiptree Jr. Award-winning author is on full display in this anthology, which makes a perfect companion read to Twentieth Century Ghosts. 

In his year-in-review piece for LOCUS Gary K. Wolfe mentions THE VERY BEST OF CAITLÍN R. KIERNAN as well as an allusion to Kameron Hurley’s MEET ME IN THE FUTURE.

The year also saw impressive first story collections from Kameron Hurley and Sarah Pinsker (who had a terrific year with a first novel and a first collection), solid collections from the always underappreciated Gwyneth Jones and Susan Palwick, and important retrospective collections including the massive The Best of Greg Egan, which reminded us just how profound Egan’s influence has been over the past three decades, and the inimitable Caitlín R. Kier­nan’s The Very Best of Caitlín R. Kiernan.