Well, I’m reading my way towards the end of The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year. Technically I shouldn’t really consider anything that arrives after today, but realistically speaking I’ll look at anything that arrives over the next week or so.  I’ve got the skeleton of the book in place, though the fantasy side continues to worry me.  I’ve seen some terrific stories, but there’s definitely been less really stand out fantasy that there was last year (and news that Sharyn November’s Firebirds Soaring has been delayed to 2009 is particularly disappointing).  This isn’t to say there haven’t been terrific stories, just less of them, or that the genre is in trouble (the whole annual thing is fairly artificial), but it’s a little disappointing.  It has, on the other hand, been a banner year for great SF.  Such are the vagaries of editing this book.

I have come across several good stories that are essentially mainstream that I’d love to use. One, Jonathan Carroll’s “Nothing to Declare“  is particularly good. If there’d been even a whisper of genre, it’d have been in my annual. sigh.