"David G. Hartwell. - Years Best Fantasy 3" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hartwell David G)

In this book, and this anthology series, we use the broadest definition of fantasy (to include wonder
stories, adventure fantasy, supernatural fantasy, satirical and humorous fantasy). We believe that the
best-written fantasy can stand up in the long run by any useful literary standard in comparison to fiction
published out of category or genre, and furthermore, that out of respect for the genre at its best we ought
to stand by genre fantasy and promote it in this book. Also, we believe that writers publishing their work
specifically as fantasy are up to this task, so we set out to find these stories, and we looked for them in
the genre anthologies, magazines, and small press pamphlets. Some fine fantasy writers will still be
missing. A fair number of the best fantasy writers these days write only novels, or if they do write short
fiction, do so only infrequently, and sometimes it is not their best work.

This was a notable year for short fiction anthologies, as well as for the magazines both large and small.
The last SF and fantasy magazines that are widely distributed are Analog, AsimovтАЩs, F&SF, and
Realms of Fantasy. And the electronic publishers kept publishing, sometimes fiction of high quality, in
spite of the fact that none of them broke even or made money at it. We are grateful for the hard work
and editorial acumen of the better electronic fiction sites, such as SciFiction, Strange Horizons, Fantastic
Metropolis, and Infinite Matrix, and hope they survive.

The small presses remained a vigorous presence this year. We have a strong short fiction field today
because the small presses, semiprofessional magazines (such as Fantastic, Weird Tales, and Horror
Garage), and anthologies are printing and circulating a majority of the high-quality short stories published
in fantasy, science fiction, and horror. The U.S. is the only English-language country that still has any
professional, large-circulation magazines, though Canada, Australia, and the UK have several excellent
magazines. The semi-prozines of our field mirror the тАЬlittle magazinesтАЭ of the mainstream in function,
holding to professional editorial standards and publishing the next generation of writers, along with some
of the present masters. We encourage you to subscribe to a few of your choice. You will find the names
of many of the most prominent ones in our story notes.

In January of 2003, as we write, professional fantasy and science fiction publishing as we have always
known it is still concentrated in nine mass market and hardcover publishing lines (Ace, Bantam, Baen,
DAW, Del Rey, Eos, Roc, Tor, and Warner), and those lines are publishing fewer titles in paperback.
But they do publish a significant number of hardcovers and trade paperbacks, and all the established
name writers at least appear in hardcover first. The Print-on-Demand field is beginning to sort itself out,
and Wild-side Press and its many imprints look to be the umbrella for many of the better publications,
including original novels and story collections.

This was a very strong year for original anthologies. Among the very best were The Green Man, edited
by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling; Leviathan 3, edited by Jeff VanderMeer and Forrest Aguirre;
Conjunctions 39, edited by Peter Straub; Embrace the Mutation, edited by Bill Sheehan; Dark
Terrors 6, edited by Stephen R. Jones, and the DAW 35th Anniversary Anthology: Fantasy, edited
by Sheila Gilbert and Betsy Wollheim. One noticeable trend evident in some of these is toward
non-genre, or genre-bending, or slipstream fantastic fiction. There were a number of quite good original
anthologies and little magazines devoted to stories located outside familiar genre boundaries, yet more
related to genre than to ordinary contemporary fictionтАФand marketed to a genre readership.

It was also a good year for novellas and novelettes in the genre, though, sadly, we do not have the space
in this book to include more than a couple. There were dozens of good ones, and we would have liked to
include many of them.

We repeat, for readers new to this series, our usual disclaimer: this selection of fantasy stories represents