From richard.horton@sff.net Mon Mar 15 23:49:26 2004 Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2004 19:24:22 -0600 From: Rich Horton Newsgroups: sff.people.richard-horton Subject: A Virtual Best of the Year Todd McAulty recently suggested that I assemble a proposed Best of the Year anthology. That's actually an idea that's occurred to me before, so when I saw Gardner Dozois's TOC for his BotY, I figured I'd go ahead and compile mine. I'll note to begin with that I'm not dealing with actually paying people and getting the rights and all -- I know that Gardner occasionally can't use a story he wants for some reason or another. Gardner's anthology appears to be about 365,000 words long (there is one story I haven't read or seen, so I don't know how long it is). Here's his TOC, copied from his list on the Asimov's forum: *OFF ON A STARSHIP, William Barton -IT'S ALL TRUE, John Kessel ROGUE FARM, Charles Stross *THE ICE, Steven Popkes EJ-ES, Nancy Kress THE BELLMAN, John Varley THE BEAR'S BABY, Judith Moffett CALLING YOUR NAME, Howard Waldrop *JUNE SIXTEENTH AT ANNA'S, Kristine Kathryn Rusch *THE GREEN LEOPARD PLAGUE, Walter Jon Williams -THE FLUTED GIRL, Paolo Bacigalupi -DEAD WORLDS, Jack Skillingstead *KING DRAGON, Michael Swanwick -SINGLETONS IN LOVE, Paul Melko ANOMALOUS STRUCTURES OF MY HEART, M. Shayne Bell *THE COOKIE MONSTER, Vernor Vinge JOE STEELE, Harry Turtledove *BIRTH DAYS, Geoff Ryman *AWAKE IN THE NIGHT, John C. Wright -THE LONG WAY HOME, James Van Pelt -THE EYES OF AMERICA, Geoffrey A. Landis -WELCOME TO OLYMPUS, MR. HEARST, Kage Baker NIGHT OF TIME, Robert Reed STRONG MEDICINE, William Shunn SEND ME A MENTAGRAM, Dominic Green *AND THE DISH RAN AWAY WITH THE SPOON, Paul Di Filippo -FLASHMEN, Terry Dowling DRAGONHEAD, Nick DiChario *DEAR ABBEY, Terry Bisson I make that 8 novellas, 10 novelettes, 11 short stories. (That's assuming that the one story I haven't read, Nick DiChario's "Dragonhead", is a short story.) The markings are * for a story that is definitely a contender for "my" anthology, - for a story that I thought pretty good, BotY possibilities but not ones that I'd really pick, and no marking for stories I thought OK but not ones that I would have even considered BotY candidate. As I mention, I haven't read or seen the DiChario. OK, so here are my choices. One note -- Gardner chooses only stories he considers "Science Fiction" -- no Fantasy. My list will have both, but for fun I'll add the stories I'd have added if I had to remove the Fantasy choices (which I'll mark with "F"s). "A Crowd of Bone", by Greer Gilman - F "Off on a Starship", by William Barton "The Albertine Notes", by Rick Moody "The Green Leopard Plague", by Walter Jon Williams "In Springdale Town", by Robert Freeman Wexler - F "The Path of the Transgressor", by Tom Purdom "The Empire of Ice Cream", by Jeffrey Ford "Only Partly Here", by Lucius Shepard - F "Scabbing", by Mark W. Tiedemann "A Study in Emerald", by Neil Gaiman "Hard Times", by Neal Barrett, Jr. "Amends", by H. Courreges Le Blanc "Of a Sweet Slow Dance in the Wake of Temporary Dogs", by Adam-Troy Castro - F "Hexagons", by Robert Reed "Fable From a Cage", by Tim Pratt - F "Valley of the Sugars of Salt", by Anna Tambour - F "Burning Day", by Glenn Grant "From the Corner of My Eye", by Alexander Glass "The Brief History of the Dead", by Kevin Brockmeier - F "Four Short Novels", by Joe Haldeman "Start With Color", by Bill Kte'pi "Ten Bears; or a Journey to the Weterings", by Henry Wessells - F "Ancestor Money", by Maureen McHugh - F "Castaway", by Gene Wolfe "555", by Robert Reed "That Which Does Not Kill Us", by Scott Westerfeld "The Chance Walker", by Lynda E. Rucker - F "Shopping at the End of the World", by Douglas Lain "The Tale of the Golden Eagle", by David D. Levine "Eternal Sunset", by Rhys Hughes - F "Lily, With Clouds", by Theodora Goss - F "The Uterus Garden", by Alex Irvine "The Dark Lady of the Equations", by Michael Swanwick "Birth Days", by Geoff Ryman "Worshipping Small Gods", by Richard Parks - F "Theo's Girl", by David Moles "Jumping", by Ray Vukcevich - F That turns out to be 375,000 words. Oh well, I'm too chicken to cut anything. 37 stories, 5 novellas, 13 novelettes, 19 short stories. The replacement SF stories, if I cut the "F"'s above: "Greetings", by Terry Bisson "The Cookie Monster", by Vernor Vinge "The Rule of Terror", by Dominic Green "Alfred Bester is Alive and Well and Living in Winterset, Iowa", by Bret Bertholf "In Yerusalom", by Yves Menard "Nightfall", by Charles Stross "Birth Days", by Geoff Ryman "Kukla Boogie Moon", by Eliot Fintushel "June Sixteenth at Anna's", by Kristine Kathryn Rusch "No Solace for the Soul in Digitopia", by John Grant "Cause for a Haunting", by Patricia Rutale I think that reduces the word count a bit, too. I still haven't played around with the order of the ToC or anything, but ... From richard.horton@sff.net Mon Mar 15 23:49:33 2004 Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 22:27:49 -0600 From: Rich Horton Newsgroups: sff.people.richard-horton Subject: Re: A Virtual Best of the Year On 11 Feb 2004 18:44:14 GMT, todd_Mcaulty@yahoo.com (Todd McAulty) wrote: >No no no. What I meant was, assemble a Best Of list and include my story >in it. ;) Well, over on the TTA Press forum Claude Lalumiere asked me why I didn't also produce a Fantasy only list -- which nicely dovetails with including your story -- so ... Here's a Best Fantasy of the Year list -- I haven't checked the word count closely, but it ought to be in the neighborhood of Gardner's YBSF: "A Crowd of Bone", by Greer Gilman "In Springdale Town", by Robert Freeman Wexler "The Bone Witch", by R. Garcia y Robertson "There's a Hole in October", by Todd McAulty "Only Partly Here", by Lucius Shepard "A Study in Emerald", by Neil Gaiman "Of a Sweet Slow Dance in the Wake of Temporary Dogs", by Adam-Troy Castro "Fable From a Cage", by Tim Pratt "Valley of the Sugars of Salt", by Anna Tambour "King Dragon", by Michael Swanwick "The Census Taker", by Dale Bailey "The Chambered Fruit", by M. Rickert "Of Soil and Climate", by Gene Wolfe "The Hortlak", by Kelly Link "One Thing About the Night", by Terry Dowling "The Bees", by Dan Chaon "The Fishie", by Philip Raines and Harvey Welles "Nightmare Mountain", by Kage Baker "Cotillion", by Delia Sherman "Glass: A Love Story", by Jay Lake "The Brief History of the Dead", by Kevin Brockmeier "Ten Bears; or a Journey to the Weterings", by Henry Wessells "Ancestor Money", by Maureen McHugh "The Chance Walker", by Lynda E. Rucker "Eternal Sunset", by Rhys Hughes "Lily, With Clouds", by Theodora Goss "Worshipping Small Gods", by Richard Parks "Theo's Girl", by David Moles "Jumping", by Ray Vukcevich "The Beautiful Gelreesh", by Jeffrey Ford "From Sunset to the White Sea", by William Mingin "Alephestra", by Bruce Holland Rogers "A Hunter's Ode to His Bait", by Carrie Vaughn "In the Darkening Green", by Mike O'Driscoll "Gods and Three Wishes", by Carol Emshwiller "Postcards from Atlantis", by Catherine MacLeod