What are you Reading? March 2018 edition

[Blue]

Years Best Science Fiction, edited by Gardner Dozios. You're guaranteed to find stories you like and new authors to explore. It's really the gold standard.

Gardner Dozois is still active?! Okay, you sold me right there. I've been a fan of him for many years, him first coming to notice to me with Asimov's SF mag. Actually, he's probably the only editor whom ever grabbed my attention, and that was a slow process. (I've also got some favorite cover illustrators like Michael Whelan, but they at least have something discrete to look at, while an editor's value comes in the improvement of the work, and not seeing originals that's hard to get any feel for.)

Have you ever read any of his fiction? I can't say it's great overall so I haven't read much, but his prose reminds me of poetry - nothing wasted, great word choices. Someone one said the difference between prose and poetry is prose is the perfect word and poetry is the perfect word in the perfect place - that's the feel I got.

 

[Nellisir]

Gardner Dozois is still active?! Okay, you sold me right there. I've been a fan of him for many years, him first coming to notice to me with Asimov's SF mag. Actually, he's probably the only editor whom ever grabbed my attention, and that was a slow process. (I've also got some favorite cover illustrators like Michael Whelan, but they at least have something discrete to look at, while an editor's value comes in the improvement of the work, and not seeing originals that's hard to get any feel for.)

Have you ever read any of his fiction? I can't say it's great overall so I haven't read much, but his prose reminds me of poetry - nothing wasted, great word choices. Someone one said the difference between prose and poetry is prose is the perfect word and poetry is the perfect word in the perfect place - that's the feel I got.

So far as I know he's still active. His name is still on the cover of the most recent Years Best I have (I might be a year behind, but no more). I can't say that I've read any of his fiction. I don't usually like all the stories in a Years Best, but its usually something about the author's style that rubs me wrong, not their skill. And there are many many stories in each volume, so....

Interestingly, I kinda hated SF in the mid- to late-90's. I went back and reread a bunch of Years Best from that period and you know what? I still hate it. There was something stylistic or topical going through a lot of SF then that I found grating. It's been much better for the past fifteen years....