The Year of the Bests

As further proof that this was not a joke, two news items:
1.
Jonathan Strahan: I'm very happy to announce that Gary Wolfe and I will be co-editing an anthology of the year's best non-fiction writing about science fiction, fantasy and horror for Chris Roberson at Monkeybrain Books. Tentatively titled Best New SF Writings: 2005, it's a book I'm really excited to be doing. I love the idea, and I really like the books Chris has been publishing. If you have anything you've read that you'd like to recommend, we'd love to hear from you

2.
via Sean Wallace: John Gregory Betancourt, editor / publisher of Wildside Press and co-publisher of Weird Tales, has announced that he will edit a Year's Best Horror 2006, covering the year of 2005. Stories originally published in 2005 are eligible for consideration for the first volume. If your work was published in an anthology, magazine, or story collection in 2005, please have your publisher send a review copy to the following address:

Wildside Press / Year's Best Horror 2006
PO Box 301
Holicong, PA 18928

Works must be submitted by October 1st, 2005, with the final selection of stories being made in November 2005. No email submissions (will be deleted unread). Should you have further questions please contact sean@wildsidepress.com
I'm happy that both books will exist, because I love Year's Best collections -- they draw from a large but finite pool of material and try to turn it into something coherent, a statement or a snapshot. Jonathan Strahan and Gary Wolfe's book ought to be fascinating, and I'll be curious to see how they gather and organize material. A lot of the best nonfiction about SF now consists of back-and-forth conversations and arguments like this discussion of "slipstream" at David Moles's site. We shall see...

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