The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year-Volume Four Read Free

Book of New Science Fiction: Volume 3 , which had good work by Daniel Abraham and Alastair Reynolds. The best fantasy anthology of the year was Sharyn November's Firebirds Soaring , which included outstanding work by Jo Walton, Margo Lanagan, Ellen Klages, and Marly Youmans. It was very closely followed by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois's excellent The Dragon Book . Any theme anthology is best dipped into, but this strong outing contained a real diversity of high quality work by Diana Wynne Jones, Cecelia Holland, Andy Duncan, and others. I also admired Dozois and George R.R. Martin's Songs of the Dying Earth, which also was a book that you had to dip into rather than read straight through. The stories by Dan Simmons, Neil Gaiman, and Lucius Shepard were particularly good. Ellen Datlow continued to show why she is one of our best editors in 2009, publishing no fewer than three fine anthologies. Her Poe , Lovecraft Unbound , and Troll's Eye View (with Terri Windling) were all outstanding and stories from each of them are reprinted here. Peter Crowther and Nick Gevers' Postscripts magazine morphed into a quarterly anthology series in 2009. The best volume was Postscripts 20/21 which had several excellent stories, but the standout Postscripts story of the year was Daniel Abraham's "Balfour and Meriwether in 'The Adventure of the Emperor's Vengeance'" from Postscripts 19 . And finally one or two really interesting books were published back home in Australia this year. Twelfth Planet Press published Peter M. Ball's strong novelette Horn , and Tansy Rayner Roberts' highly enjoyable "Siren Beat", which appeared as a double book with World Fantasy Award winner Robert Shearman's "Roadkill" , and Deborah Biancotti's excellent debut collection, The Book of Endings. All are recommended. Particularly noteworthy, though, was Keith Stevenson's X6 , an anthology of novellas that is genuinely one of the year's most interesting books. It features an excoriating piece of work from Paul Haines, "Wives", and a terrific fantasy by Margo Lanagan, that make the book well worth seeking out.
    It shouldn't be surprising, given the quality of short fiction in recent years, that this was another good year for short story collections. It's never easy to pick the best short story collection of the year, but Ian McDonald's Cyberabad Days , Greg Egan's Oceanic , Gwyneth Jones's Grazing the Long Acre , and Charles Stross's Wireless all stand amongst the best science fiction collections of recent times, while Peter S. Beagle's We Never Talk About My Brother was easily my favorite fantasy collection of the year. A number of excellent retrospectives were published during the year: standouts include The Best of Gene Wolfe , The Best of Michael Moorcock , and Trips by Robert Silverberg. NESFA Press also published the outstanding six-volume Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny and two fine volumes of The Collected Short Works of Poul Anderson . All of these books deserve your attention.
    Finally, a personal note. On July 12, 2009, Locus co-founder and publisher Charles N. Brown died in his sleep on his way home to California from a science fiction convention in Boston. I first met Charles in the North American summer of 1993 where we made absolutely no impression upon one another. I did, however, spend time romancing his managing editor, which meant he agreed to suffer through a dinner with me the following year. He was almost interested. And yet, because of his managing editor, we both persevered. He let me work for him and eventually, possibly because we spent a lot of time eating dim sum and buying CDs together, he became one of my dearest friends. His advice colored every project I've worked on and his support helped make each and every one of them possible in some way or another. He was, I think, science fiction's best and truest advocate. His passion for the field was deep, profound and perspicacious. He influenced me greatly but he influenced the field he loved