[tdeanatoz@yahoo]

Co -editor Jonathan Strahan has just released the contents of these upcoming books:

SCIENCE FICTION: BEST OF 2005

1. Triceratops Summer, Michael Swanwick
2. Little Faces, Vonda N. McIntyre
3. The Second Coming of Charles Darwin, James Morrow
4. Is There Life After Rehab?, Pat Cadigan
5. Zima Blue, Alastair Reynolds
6. The Fulcrum, Gwyneth Jones
7. The Blemmye’s Dilemma, Bruce Sterling
8. They Will Raise You in a Box, Wil McCarthy
9. Finished, Robert Reed
10. The King of Where-I-Go, Howard Waldrop
11. The Calorie Man, Paolo Bacigalupi
12. The Fate of Mice, Susan Palwick
13. I Robot, Cory Doctorow
14. The Little Goddess, Ian McDonald


FANTASY: BEST OF 2005

1. Two Hearts, Peter S. Beagle
2. Snowball’s Chance, Charles Stross
3. A Knot of Toads, Jane Yolen
4. Boatman’s Holiday, Jeffrey Ford
5. Ikiryoh, Liz Williams
6. CommComm, George Saunders
7. The Language of Moths, Christopher Barzak
8. Anyway, M Rickert
9. The Emperor of Gondwanaland, Paul Di Filippo
10. The Pirate’s True Love, Seana Graham
11. Intelligent Design, Ellen Klages
12. Pip and the Fairies, Theodora Goss
13. Grace Notes, Megan Lindholm
14. Leviathan, Simon Brown
15. The Denial, Bruce Sterling
16. The Farmer’s Cat, Jeff VanderMeer
17. Magic for Beginners, Kelly Link

edit: Since the ibooks debacle, Strahan has managed to sell these books to another publisher; see below to find revised TOC's for them.

[Lowlander]

They both look interesting collections. Of course with the Best SF you can always wait for the Year's best by Gardner Dozois or David Hartwell. Sometimes the overlap between these 3 collections is limited and you can buy all 3 of them.

With fantasy the choice is limited. Hartwell's year's best fantasy has been discontinued. The Datlow/Windling year's best series publishes little mainstream fantasy so this Strahan/Haber collection is the only way to find a good overview of mainstream fantasy short fiction.

I have also noticed Haber/Strahan have upgraded their collection from mass market to trade paperback.

[intensityxx]

The Datlow/Windling year's best series publishes little mainstream fantasy so this Strahan/Haber collection is the only way to find a good overview of mainstream fantasy short fiction.I'm just curious what you mean by mainstream fantasy then? Do you mean that you've found past Datlow/Windling Bests to contain more urban fantasy and horror? Or is it not mainstream in some other way, such as elves and dwarves?

[Lowlander]

I have read a number of these Datlow/Windling year's best collections and overall they present an interesting collection. However few of the stories they select are from the well known magazines (F&SF, Asimov's) or story collections/anthologies published by the classical SF/Fantasy imprints. There is nothing wrong with that. The interesting thing about the Windling/Datlow collections was you could discover unknown things you would normally never read.

However it's my feeling they often choose literate stories with some fantastical element. You could say many of them are fantastical stories but often you have to wonder if they are really fantasy. But that doesn't really matter of course, a good fantastic story is always fine. It doesn't matter if it's written by Ian Watson, China Mieville or Jose Luis Borges. But it's often my sentiment most stories in the Datlow/Windling are more concerned with language and style than plot or action. Or to state it more simply : most of them are well written but many of them are also rather boring.

Still in an age where the short story is often forgotten it's always nice to be able to choose between many different collections/anthologies. That's why I find it sad Hartwell/Cramer had to abandon their year's best fantasy series. Their selections were rather safe and perhaps conservative (George Martin, Le Guin, Garcia Y Robertson, Gene Wolfe, Ellen Klages, Peter Beagle, Kage Baker etc..) but there's nothing wrong with old style decent craftsmanship.

[nealasher]

Little bit of news relevant to this thread:

My short story Mason's Rats has been taken by David G Hartwell & Kathryne Cramer for their Year's Best SF 11, and I've since been contacted by Gardner Dozois who wants another story of mine published in Asimov's -- Softly Spoke the Gabbleduck -- for one his 'Year's Best' anthology.

[Sean Wright]

Congrats on Year's Best mentions, Neal. That's one heck of a title "Softly Spoke the Gabbleduck." Do you have any idea when the year's best antho will be coming out?

[tdeanatoz@yahoo]

It's probably old news to some of you, but ibooks, the publisher of SCIENCE FICTION: THE BEST OF 2005 and FANTASY: THE BEST OF 2005, filed for bankruptcy last week. Jonathan Strahan has indicated that these anthologies were never sent to the printer (no surprise there, they should have been on bookstore shelves by now), and are thus unlikely to see the light of day. He is currently in discussions with other publishers to continue the series next year. Here's hoping he's successful...

[Lowlander]

A real pity. They looked like good story collections. Especially since many of these stories are almost impossible to find (certainly here in Belgium).

Still there is always hope. I just read that David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer have found a publisher for their Year's best fantasy 2005 collection. This collection will now be published by Tachyon later this year. Although I wonder how I will ever find a book published by Tachyon here in Belgium. Of course there is always the internet.

[tdeanatoz@yahoo]

Jonathan Strahan has now posted that SCIENCE FICTION: THE BEST OF 2005 and FANTASY: THE BEST OF 2005 may indeed appear eventually, but if they do, they will almost certainly have different contents from that previously indicated above, due to rights and restrictions entailed after the ibooks bankruptcy.

[Lowlander]

Good news from the Year's best anthology front. Rich Horton has just confirmed that Prime/Wildside will publish a year's best SF and Fantasy (around april). The table of contents are :

Best SF
"The Edge of Nowhere", by James Patrick Kelly (Asimov's, June)
"The Policeman's Daughter", by Wil McCarthy (Analog, June)
"The Fate of Mice", by Susan Palwick (Asimov's, January)
"Bank Run", by Tom Purdom (Asimov's, October-November)
"Finished", by Robert Reed (Asimov's, September)
"Triceratops Summer", by Michael Swanwick (Amazon Shorts)
"The Inn at Mount Either", by James Van Pelt (Analog, May)
"The King of Where-I-Go", by Howard Waldrop (Sci Fiction, December 7)
"Understanding Space and Time", by Alastair Reynolds (Novacon 2005 Program Book)
"Search Engine", by Mary Rosenblum (Analog, September)
"You, by Anonymous", by Stephen Leigh (I, Alien)
"Heartwired", by Joe Haldeman (Nature, March 24)
"Bliss", by Leah Bobet (On Spec, Winter 2005)
"The Jenna Set", by Daniel Kaysen (Strange Horizons, March 14)
"A Coffee Cup/Alien Invasion Story", by Douglas Lain (Strange Horizons, February 7)

Best Fantasy
"Two Hearts", by Peter Beagle (F&SF, March)
"Wax" by Elizabeth Bear (Interzone, December)
"Is There Life After Rehab?", by Pat Cadigan (Sci Fiction, August 17)
"The Emperor of Gondwanaland", by Paul Di Filippo (Interzone, January-February)
"Fancy Bread", by Gregory Feeley (TEL:Stories)
"Sunbird", by Neil Gaiman (Noisy Outlaws)
"Pip and the Fairies", by Theodora Goss (Strange Horizons, October 3)
"The Gist Hunter", by Matthew Hughes (F&SF, June)
"Jane", by Marc Laidlaw (Sci Fiction, February 16)
"Magic for Beginners", by Kelly Link (F&SF, September; Magic for Beginners)
"CommComm", by George Saunders (The New Yorker)
"Empty Places", by Richard Parks (Realms of Fantasy, December)
"By the Light of Tomorrow's Sun", by Holly Phillips (In the Palace of Repose)
"Three Urban Folk Tales", by Eric Schaller (Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet #16)
"On the Blindside", by Sonya Taaffe (Flytrap, May)
"Invisible", by Steve Rasnic Tem (Sci Fiction March 2)
"Comber", by Gene Wolfe (Postscripts, Spring