TOC: Science Fiction: The Best of the Year, 2009 Edition edited by Rich Horton
By John DeNardo |
Monday, December 8th, 2008 at
12:47 pm
[UPDATED with fiction links]
Editor Rich Horton has posted the (preliminary but close-to-final) contents of Science Fiction: The Best of the Year, 2009 Edition:
- “Shoggoths in Bloom” by Elizabeth Bear (Asimov’s, March)
- “Glass” by Daryl Gregory (MIT Technology Review, November/December)
- “The Art of Alchemy” by Ted Kosmatka (F&SF, June)
- “The Fifth Star in the Southern Cross” by Margo Lanagan (Dreaming Again)
- “Character Flu” by Robert Reed (F&SF, June)
- “The Region of Unlikeness” by Rivka Galchen (The New Yorker, March 17)
- “The Ray-Gun: A Love Story” by James Alan Gardner (Asimov’s, February)
- “The Fantasy Jumper” by Will McIntosh (Black Static, February)
- “Balancing Accounts” James L. Cambias (F&SF, February)
- “Suicide Drive” by Charlie Anders (Helix #7, January)
- “The Eyes of God” by Peter Watts (The Solaris Book of New SF, Volume 2)
- “The Golden Octopus” by Beth Bernobich (Postscripts, Summer))
- “Fixing Hanover” by Jeff VanderMeer (Extraordinary Engines)
- “Boojum” by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette (Fast Ships, Black Sails)
- “Catherine Drewe” by Paul Cornell (Fast Forward 2)
- “Evil Robot Monkey” by Mary Robinette Kowal (The Solaris Book of New SF, Volume 2)
- “The Tear” by Ian McDonald (Galactic Empires)
Filed under: Books
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This title (and the Fantasy volume) irks me. Best of 2009? Huh? It is December 2008! It’s bad enough each “best of” anthology comes out earlier and is really a combination of two half years…this is getting silly!
The 2009 is the year it will be published and covers fiction seen in the prior year.
In a way, I agree with Fred, because I’m also a stickler for accuracy in matters of chronology. Nine years on, I still chafe at the recollection of “millennium” celebrations well over a year early.
But you get older, and you learn to live with it.
Look at it this way: mr. Horton’s task was to choose stories published in 2008. As far as the magazines are concerned, that means that he surveyed magazines with cover dates up to December 2008. And these were, of course, available long before December of 2008!
As far as books are concerned, he probably had access to advance copies of all the books published later in the year.
So, I agree that the advance cover dating tradition is faintly annoying, but it’s not Rich Horton’s fault!