Black Gate

World’s Best Science Fiction First Series (Ace Books, 1970). Cover by Jack Gaughan

If you want to understand science fiction, it’s not a bad idea to start by reading Year’s Best volumes. And if you’re going to do that, it’s not a bad idea to start with the World’s Best Science Fiction, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Terry Carr, an annual series that began in 1965 and lasted for an amazing 26 volumes. The last of which, The 1990 Annual World’s Best SF, appeared four months before Wollheim’s death at the age of 76.

The series survived both editorial changes and a switch in publishers (from Ace to DAW, in 1972), and was one of the only Year’s Best series to receive multiple paperback reprints. In fact, for collectors like me, its publication history is all rather confounding. Follow along while I try and figure it all out.

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Memories (Bantam Spectra Special Edition, August 1989). Cover by Will Cormier

Mike McQuay published his first SF novel, Lifekeeper, in 1980, and he died just fifteen years later, in May 1995. But in that decade and a half he enjoyed an impressive career as a science fiction and fantasy novelist.

He made his mark writing men’s adventure with a light SF twist, starting with the Mathew Swain (“The 21st Century Private Eye”) series, the covers of which unfailingly featured our hero clutching one of three essential tools of the trade: a pistol, a cigarette, or a slender young woman (frequently several at once). They began with Hot Time in Old Town (1981), which proudly bore the cover blurb “Can a hard-boiled private eye beat the odds in the back alleys of tomorrow?” That same year he was selected to write the novelization for John Carpenter’s cinematic masterpiece Escape From New York, and you can sorta see the connection.

Just six years later McQuay published Memories, which signaled a significant evolution as a writer. It was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award for distinguished science fiction paperback, and began a period when McQuay was taken much more seriously. His next book The Nexus — which Joe Bonadonna called ‘brilliant’ in his Black Gate review — was released as part of Bantam Spectra’s prestigious Spectra Special Edition line in 1989.

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The Night Watch (Ace, September 1998). Cover by Tara McGovern-Benson

Sean Stewart has had a fascinating career. He was Creative Director at Microsoft’s Xbox Studios until the studio closed in 2014, then spent five years at Magic Leap. Today he’s a Managing Partner at Cathy’s Book, LLC, publisher of his alternative reality game/novel series Cathy’s Book, and since 2020 he’s been working at a Generative AI stealth start-up as an Interactive Storyteller.

But he began his career the old fashioned way — writing fantasy novels. His debut book Passion Play (1992) won the Prix Aurora Award for Best Canadian Science Fiction novel, and his follow-up Nobody’s Son won the Aurora Award in 1994. His real success came in in 1995 with the appearance of the magic realist fantasy Resurrection Man, The New York Times Best Science Fiction Book of the Year, and the two books set in the same world, The Night Watch (1997) and Galveston (2000), winner of the World Fantasy Award.

The Night Watch is the one I want to talk about today.

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