Search Results for: dozois

A Decadal Review of 1989 Science Fiction Magazines: Wrap-up

Comments 0 Comment

I reviewed five science fiction magazines from mid-2021 to early 2024. Here are my overall notes and rankings. Asimov’s Science Fiction, September 30, 2022 Edited by Gardner DozoisCover by Wayne BarloweRanking 1st out of 5 Megan Lindholm’s (AKA Robin Hobbs) “A Touch of Lavender” and Walter Jon William’s “No Spot of Ground” really elevate this issue. Allen Steele’s “Ride to Live, Live to Ride” was solid, and two trying-to-get-in-on-the-‘cyberpunk’-wave stories, Robert Silverberg’s “Chiprunner” and Orson Scott Card’s “Dogwalker” had a…

Read More Read More

Janet Morris, May 25, 1946 – August 10, 2024

Comments 6 comments

High Couch of Silistra (Bantam Books, May 1977) and The Golden Sword (Baen, November 1984). Covers by Boris Vallejo and Victoria Poyser Just after I put up my first Harold Lamb post I found out that an author I much admired and who has influenced my work, had died. Janet Morris. I’ll get back to Lamb next post but wanted to take a moment to comment on Ms. Morris. I only wish I’d done this before she died. I knew…

Read More Read More

Vintage Treasures: Frontera by Lewis Shiner

Comments 3 comments

Frontera (Baen Books, August 1984). Cover by Vincent Di Fate I first discovered Lewis Shiner in Gardner Dozois’ Year’s Best Science Fiction anthologies, where he was a regular, and one of my favorite contributors. His first published story, “Tinker’s Damn,” appeared in the fifth issue of Charles Ryan’s Galileo magazine in October 1977, and he followed that with dozens more all through the 80s and 90s in places likes The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Twilight Zone Magazine, Omni,…

Read More Read More

Besties: The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy edited by R.F. Kuang

Comments 3 comments

The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2023 (Mariner Books, October 17, 2023) Perhaps the most overused title for short story anthologies beings with “Best of.” In genre fiction, the heavyweight (in terms of both size and breadth of coverage) was the Gardner Dozois-edited The Year’s Best Science Fiction Stories that ran for 35 years until his death in 2018. And there are a whole slew of similar “Best of’s” for horror, dark fantasy, speculative fiction, you name a subgenre…

Read More Read More

Vintage Treasures: Sandkings by George R.R. Martin

Comments 11 comments

Sandkings (Timescape/Pocket Books, December 1981). Cover by Rowena Morrill Writing is a notoriously poor-paying profession. In 2017, after eleven months of work, I sold my first novel to Houghton Mifflin for $20,000 — about $10,000 below the poverty line for a family of five in Illinois. And I felt lucky to get it, believe me. So when someone like George R.R. Martin earns $9 million a year as a fantasy novelist, it generates a lot of wonder and amazement. And…

Read More Read More

Vintage Treasures: Strange Monsters of the Recent Past by Howard Waldrop

Comments 4 comments

Strange Monsters of the Recent Past (Ace Books, July 1991). Cover by Alan M. Clark Howard Waldrop passed away in January of this year, and his death was a major loss. It’s common, especially for writers, to be praised as a unique talent, but in Waldrop’s case there may be no more apt description. He had an entirely unique voice. There was no one else like him. Waldrop left behind a single solo novel and over a dozen collections, but…

Read More Read More

Future Treasures: Collecting Myself: The Uncollected Stories of Barry N. Malzberg, edited by Robert Friedman and Gregory Shepard

Comments 2 comments

Collecting Myself: The Uncollected Stories of Barry N. Malzberg (Stark House, March 8, 2024). Cover by Jeff Jordan Barry N. Malzberg has had an enormously prolific career. He published his first science fiction story the August 1967 issue of Galaxy magazine, and over the next six decades has produced an astounding 500+ short stories, dozens of novels, eleven anthologies, and nearly two dozen collections. These days he’s well known as a genre historian and critic. That’s him on the back…

Read More Read More

Make Room For Harry Harrison: Anthony Aycock on a Forgotten SF Master

Comments 17 comments

Make Room! Make Room! (Berkley Medallion, July 1967). Cover by Richard Powers Harry Harrison was a true believer. Like Isaac Asimov, Terry Carr, Donald Wollheim, Gardner Dozois, Lin Carter, Damon Knight and a handful of others, he dedicated his life to science fiction, and in a multitude of roles, as writer, editor, critic, and scholar. His fiction, however, has been largely — and unjustly — forgotten, and in the dozen years since his death in August 2012, all his books…

Read More Read More

Vintage Treasures: The Last Man on Earth edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin Harry Greenberg, and Charles G. Waugh

Comments 7 comments

The Last Man on Earth (Fawcett Crest / Ballantine, August 1982). Cover by Wayne Barlowe I continue to dip into the (seemingly endless) supply of anthologies from the three amigos of science fiction, Isaac Asimov, Martin Harry Greenberg, and Charles G. Waugh. I’m not sure how many they actually produced together, but I’ve managed to track down around 80. They began collaborating in the 80s, and averaged over half a dozen books a year, until Asimov’s death in 1992. This time…

Read More Read More

Bad Things Come in Threes: Terry Bisson (February 12, 1942 – January 10, 2024), Howard Waldrop (September 15, 1946 – January 14, 2024), Tom Purdom (April 19, 1936 – January 14, 2024): A Tripartite Obituary

Comments 4 comments

Terry Bisson, Howard Waldrop, and Tom Purdom On the heels of Terry Bisson’s death I heard news that Howard Waldrop had died. And this morning I woke up to learn that Tom Purdom had also died. A profound 1-2 punch to the SF community, followed by a knockout. Bisson and Waldrop were two of the most original, indeed weirdest, SF writers; and if Purdom wasn’t as downright weird as those two he was as intriguing in his slightly more traditional…

Read More Read More