Comments on: Science Fiction Short Stories 2007

By: Carl V.

Carl V. — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 17:20:57 +0000

Great links. While I love short fiction and much prefer to read it in book format, it is great that so much of it is finally showing up online so that if one does hear about some great story there is actually a chance to go check it out without struggling to find the book or, more often than not, magazine, that the story was published in.

By: tinkoo

tinkoo — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 02:23:31 +0000

I've ToCs of some anthologies listed & read portions ranked. Plus a ranking of all sf shorts & novels I've read since I began posting. And I've a tiny best of 2006 list too. I don't have anything similar to Listology, but I do have a listing of most Dozois & Hartwell best of year lists. Generally, I don't intend to do annual listings of times gone by. These best of year lists are my own picks; not of anthology editors. Less than 10% of admissible stories I read make it to these best of year lists (I think only one or two from may be two dozen I read from this year's Nebula list made it here; similar was the case with last year's Hugo finalists). Note that anthology editors are constrained in ways I'm not: they need some big name authors on cover to make people pick up the book in stores, & they need to be able to actually license a story they like (not always possible). My lists care only about the story itself, & nothing else. But my reading is much more limited, meant only for my own entertainment - so fewer stories.

By: jameswharris

jameswharris — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 19:09:04 +0000

Tinkoo, I like the way you’re organizing your favorite recommended stories year by year. Are you going to go back in time too and fill in the past? I wouldn’t mind doing something like that myself if I had more time and energy.

Yesterday I found this at Listology:

http://www.listology.com/content_show.cfm/content_id.18128

What they started doing was to list the “Best Of” anthologies for each year starting with 1960. They are missing quite a bit so the idea could be improved. They need to start earlier with the Judith Merril’s Year’s Best SF beginning in 1956-1968. Didn’t Groff Conklin do some earlier yearly best anthologies?

Even better would be to list the stories from all those volumes. Maybe someone’s already done it. Be sure and let me know if you have.

Asimov and Greenberg did an anthology of best annual stories starting with 1939 through 1963.

It might be possible with other cross year anthologies to build a list back to 1926.

Jim

By: tinkoo

tinkoo — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 03:51:53 +0000

I do a "best of year" online listing - but my list of 2008, e.g., is of stories published during 2008. And my lists tend to be much smaller than those of professional anthology editors. My best of 2008; 2007.

By: Rusty

Rusty — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 16:51:00 +0000

James,

Thanks for mentioning my post about great places to find SF online. I agree that it is sad to see the print magazines losing subscribers, but I am also excited about all the excellent SF short stories that are available on the web. I, for one, have read loads of SF short stories online – perhaps more than I ever read the printed ones – mostly because of the price. It also allows me to read some excellent stories that haven’t made it to the major magazines. I’m finding that there are quite a few really talented authors out there, and I am quite happily plugging away reading some great stories and telling others where to find them.