Black Gate

The Year’s Best Science Fiction, Third Annual Collection (Bluejay Books, April 1986). Cover by Tom Kidd

I saw a copy of the third volume in Gardner Dozois’ Year’s Best Science Fiction anthology series on eBay for $11.45 last week, and decided to take a chance. Turned out to be the Book Club edition, a reprint that’s a smaller size than my other volumes, which was a disappointment. But at least I finally had a copy.

On the back of the book I found a Table of Contents — and Lord, what an amazing list. Gardner had famously good taste, but this single volume includes some of the most acclaimed science fiction of the past few decades. It contains Lucius Shepard’s famous magic realist tale “The Jaguar Hunter,” a Hugo and Nebula nominee; Frederik Pohl’s Hugo winner “Fermi and Frost;” Bruce Sterling’s classic novella of an old-school bulletin-board romance, the Nebula-nominated “Green Days in Brunei;” Robert Silverberg’s Hugo-winning far-future tale “Sailing to Byzantium;” Nancy Kress’s famous Nebula Award-winning story of a waitress who meets an alien on the night shift, “Out of All Them Bright Stars;” James Tiptree, Jr’s Locus and Hugo Award-winning novella of a young woman who spends her last dollars renting a spaceship to explore the frontier, “The Only Neat Thing to Do;” Pat Cadigan’s creepy tale of alien sex on the road, “Roadside Rescue;” James P. Blaylock’s World Fantasy Award winner “Paper Dragons;” and the novella that kicked off one of the most acclaimed SF trilogies of the 20th Century, Kim Stanley Robinson’s “Green Mars.”

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The Drowned World, first edition (Berkley Medallion, August 1962). Cover by Richard Powers

I’m criminally undereducated in J.G. Ballard. I came to most of my favorite science fiction writers through short fiction, and the first Ballard short stories I read (such as “The Terminal Beach”) were lush and impressively written, but also a far cry from the adventure tales I craved in SF and fantasy.

But as I’ve grown older, I found I’m much more interested in Ballard. I wrote a Vintage Treasures piece on The Crystal World last November, and tracked down his monumental Complete Short Stories, Volumes One & Two in 2019. But the roots of my interest trace back (as they often do) to an article at Black Gate. In this case, Thomas Parker’s terrific piece A Prophet Without Honor: J.G. Ballard, published here in 2015.

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Lin Carter’s anthologies of Adult Fantasy: Kingdoms of Sorcery and
Realms of Wizardry (Doubleday, 1976). Covers by John Cayea and Robert Aulicino

Lin Carter was an exceptional editor, and one of the most important figures in 20th Century American fantasy. As Managing Editor of the seminal Ballantine Adult Fantasy imprint, he was responsible for publishing virtually one new title every month — and he did exactly that, tirelessly producing 83 volumes between August 1965 and April 1974. In the late 70s and early 80s he became one of the most important anthology editors in the genre, helming three major anthology series: Flashing Swords! (five volumes, 1973-1981), The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories (six volumes, 1975-1980), and the paperback incarnation of Weird Tales (four volumes, 1980-83).

But the early 70s was really Carter’s heyday, at least in terms of anthologies. In those days he was producing two to three every year, including terrific books like Golden Cities, Far (1970), Discoveries in Fantasy (1972), and Great Short Novels of Adult Fantasy (1972), all of which were original paperbacks.

In 1976 Carter published his final anthologies of adult fantasy, Kingdoms of Sorcery and Realms of Wizardry. Unlike virtually every other anthology he published, these were hardcover originals — and in fact were never reprinted in paperback. But like the others they were assembled with exacting care, crammed full of dozens of entertaining and informative short essays introducing the tales. While they are much less talked about than his later titles, these are delightful books, with plenty to enchant modern readers — those few who know about them, anyway. I’m here to do what I can to correct that.

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