The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Seven
With all of the recent news I’m not sure I had the chance to mention that The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Seven [aka editorial project #51!] has been published and is now in-store and available from your favourite booksellers (including Stefen’s Books here in Perth). I imagine orders are already shipping and on their way, and that if your local bookstore doesn’t have it, they should soon.
In other news, I continue to work on all of my other editing projects, including Reach for Infinity and The New Solaris Book of Fantasy: Volume Two for Solaris Books, Â a special issue of Subterranean Magazine for my dear friends at Subterranean Press, as well as continuing to work as Reviews Editor for Locus. Â Â I am also busy planning new projects that aren’t quite ready for the light of day. All in all, with minor reservations, good and busy times!
I am especially delighted with the news because it was such a pleasure working alongside Jonathan Oliver and the Solaris Team on Edge of Infinity, with Jim Thomas and the Random House team and Sara Odedina and the Hot Key team on Under My Hat: Tales from the Cauldron, and with Ross Lockhart and Marty Halpern on The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Six.  I’ve been extremely fortunate to have such a dedicated, talented and hard working bunch of people there to make me look good.
I would like to acknowledge, though, that the true credit belongs to the wonderful writers who sent me stories and let me print or reprint them in my books – I’m very lucky and working with them really is enough reward in itself.
It would be remiss of me, too, to not shout out to all of my friends who are nominated in other categories — too many to name – all of whom deserve enormous congratulations!
March is well progressed and it’s time for the first Eclipse story of the month. This time it’s a brand new short story from Campbell Award winner E. Lily Yu. Yu’s brilliant story “The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees” was nominated for the Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Awards, and was reprinted in my best of the year. This new story, “Loss, with Chalk Diagrams“, is a moving look at the impact loss can have on our lives.
Every now and then you hear about a labour of love, something that has taken year’s to come to fruition, something you’ve heard people talk about but never had a chance to see yourself. Well, that’s the case with Robert Hood’s new novel Fragments of a Broken Land: Valarl Undead. My dear pal Jack Dann read and raved about it years ago, describing it as “one of the strangest and most interesting visions to come out of the modern horror/fantasy genres”, and even published a section of it as stand-alone story in his classic Dreaming Again anthology.
Well, after too many years, it has just been published quietly by The Borgo Press in the United States. If you love dark fantasy, consider downloading a sample and checking it out.
. My dear pal Jack Dann read and raved about it years ago, describing it as “one of the strangest and most interesting visions to come out of the modern horror/fantasy genres”, and even published a section of it as stand-alone story in his classic Dreaming Again anthology.