"David G. Hartwell. - Years Best SF 4" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hartwell David G)

Michael Skeet
Near Enough to Home
David Langford
A Game of Consequences
Nancy Kress
State of Nature
Bruce Sterling
Maneki Neko
About the Editor
Books Edited by David G. Hartwell
Credits
Cover
Copyright
About the Publisher

Introduction
It has been another exciting year in the SF field for short fiction. In my survey of the works published,
more good original collections cropped up from England and Australia and Canada than in any previous
year. And the fiction magazines each had a bunch of good stories. So I must make my usual disclaimer,
with perhaps more force than usual: this selection of science fiction stories represents the best that was
published during the year 1998. In my opinion I could perhaps have filled two or three more volumes this
size and then claimed to have nearly all of the bestтАФthough not all the best novellas.
Regular readers of this anthology will notice the absence of several familiar names, so let me point out
that they have neither stopped writing nor is the quality of their work any less excellent than in other
years. I believe that representing the best, while it is not physically possible to encompass it all in one
even very large book, also implies presenting some substantial variety of excellences, and I left some
writers out in order to include others in this limited space.
Next, my general principle for selection: this book is full of science fictionтАФevery story in the book is
clearly that and not something else. I have a high regard for horror, fantasy, speculative fiction, and
slipstream and postmodern literature. But here, I chose science fiction. It is the intention of this year's best
series to focus entirely on science fiction, and to provide readers who are looking especially for science
fiction an annual home base.
After what I perceived as a mediocre year for novellas in 1997, 1998 was a strong yearтАФthere were
fifteen or more good novellasтАФbut '98 was at least as satisfying in all the shorter forms. SF Age had
another strong year, as did Asimov's; they are unquestionably at the top of the field, and have quite
similar tastes in the fiction they publish. There was less SF in F&SF and in Interzone, but some dynamite
stuff in each, and some top-notch stories in the newly revived Amazing. Analog was uneven, publishing
some of the best, and some of the worst stories. On Spec, form Canada, and Eidolon, form Australia,
are generating some first-class writers with excellent stories, too, sometimes SF and sometimes horror or
fantasy, as in Interzone.
Notable SF original anthologies include Starlight 2, edited by Patrick Nielson Hayden (probably the
single strongest fantasy and SF collection of the year); Bending the Landscape: Science Fiction, edited
by Nicola Griffith and Stephen Pagel (another very strong collection, of stories billed as gay and lesbian
writing); Dreaming Down Under, edited by Jack Dann and Janeen Webb (an impressive showcase of
the best new Australian fantasy and SF writers, in time for this year's World SF convention in
Melbourne); Arrowdreams, edited by JOhn Dupuis and Mark Shainblum (devoted to alternate history
SF about Canada); the latest volume in the Mankzin Wars series edited by Larry Niven; and the latest
volume in the Writers of the Future series.
In summary, it was another year in which there were more than sixty or seventy, perhaps over a hundred,
really good SF stories published, certainly enough to fill several year's best volumes, providing me with a