Well, I’ve finished selecting all of the stories for The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume 3 and am hard at work on story notes, introductions etc.  As promised earlier, I’ll publish the table of contents here once all the permissions are finalised.

I have a verbal agreement with the publisher for volumes four and five of the series, so it seems likely that I’ll be doing this again for 2009.  Just as soon as the agreement is formalised I’ll put out a general announcement and call for stories, recommendations etc, but there is one thing I can do regardless.  I’d like to invite anyone who is editing an anthology, publishing an anthology, or who has a story in an original anthology to drop me an email and let me know about the book.  I’d like to do more to promote these books, and am pondering various options.  At the very least I’ll be repeating the list I ran last year.  And, on that, my sincere apologies to anyone who’s books didn’t get on to the 2008 list.  It was an oversight on my part.   I’ll be endeavouring to do better in 2009!

The cover for Eclipse Two is out, and it’s a really lovely piece by Donato Giancola.  Given that this volume of the Eclipse series is definitely a science fiction instalment it’s particularly appropriate.  The book is due out from Night Shade in November. You can see a full table of contents here and order it here.  I can’t wait to hear what everyone thinks about the book.

Well, dear readers, progress!  I have now selected my preferred contents for this year’s annual: twenty eight stories from a wide range of anthologies, collections, magazines, and websites.  I’ve sent out all of the invitations to writers, and am waiting to hear back from them.  Once I have, I’ll publish the table of contents here.  I think one or two people may not be able to be involved, so we’ll see.  In the meantime I’m moving on to working on the main volume introduction (my least favorite part of editing a year’s best) and the individual author story notes.  If I can get those done, I’ll deliver the book to the good folk at Night Shade a few days after getting back from Calgary, and then the book will move into production for it’s scheduled March 2009 publication.

I should also mention that I’ll be sitting down with the good folks from Night Shade when I get to California to discuss volumes 4 and 5 of the year’s best series.  With a little luck, I’ll be editing this series for them for a good time to come – something that makes me inordinately happy.

Well, I’ve just about completed selecting the contents for The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume 3. I’m running behind, of course, but 95% of the authors on my first round wish list have been notified and most of them seem happy to have their stories reprinted in the book, which is very pleasing.  From here, I need to nail down the last 5% of the book’s contents, write an introduction and story notes, and get the manuscript to the publisher for the week after Calgary’s World Fantasy Convention.  I have some very, very slight hopes that I might have an ms. before I fly out for Canada, but the odds are long indeed on that. I probably won’t release the contents list until everything’s contracted and delivered, but when I can, I’ll post it here.
What it does mean, though, is that I can take a breather from reading short fiction.  I need to start working on the final first draft of the Locus Short Fiction Recommended Reading list, and then get it out to all of our commentators for their input (which is always vital, important and has a major impact on the final list), but I don’t have to read any short fiction for a little while.  I can read novels for a month or two, and I’m looking forward to it.  No, this doesn’t mean new short fiction isn’t coming in.  I’ve already got magazines and anthologies on hand for 2009, and will get to them in the coming month or so.  Yes, it does mean, though, that if I haven’t seen something from 2008 it’s too late. I may be able to roll one or two very late things over to 2009, but mostly I’ve read everything I can find, and I’ll have to hope that will be enough (as I do every year).

There are a lot of people to thank for their help and input into the year’s best, but this year I’d especially like to thank Alisa, Ben, Alex and Tansy at Not if You Were the Last Short Story on Earth.  They really helped keep me honest, keep me motivated, and provided a great sounding board when I needed it.  I’m very, very grateful that they’ve let me play in their sandpit and would have struggled far, far more to compile the book if I hadn’t had their valuable, intelligent and considered input.  Thanks to each of you!!

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.