If you’ve been paying attention you will have read my gushing review of The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Vol 8 edited by Jonathan Strahan. I’m not certain gushing quite covers my feelings on this book. I was delighted when the editor agreed to answer a few questions for me. After reading his thoughts you should buy the book.
How did you get into editing anthologies?
I started editing back in the early 1990s. I had been co-editing and co-publishing a small press magazine, Eidolon, with some friends which involved keeping up with everything that was happening in Australian SF at the time. When a major publisher decided to start up a new SF imprint, Voyager, my friend and co-editor Jeremy Byrne and I pitched the idea of editing an Australian “best of the year” series for them, and they went for it. We did it for a of couple years, before moving on to other things. My real big break, though, came when I was having dinner one evening with Karen and Bob Silverberg. They were editing two best of the year series for Byron Preiss’s iBooks, but Bob was looking to focus his energies elsewhere. Somewhere over dinner they asked if I’d like to do co-edit the books, and everything snowballed from there.
Do you need to be an accomplished author in order to edit anthologies or will any type of writing experience (or inexperience) do?
While some of our greatest editors have been writers, many haven’t. Certainly there are different kinds of editing and different kinds of editors, and while I can see that writing experience can help, I don’t think it’s essential. A number of our major editors aren’t writers, like Ellen Datlow and Ann VanderMeer. The most important thing, to me, is being an analytical and informed reader. You need to be able to read a story and look at how it might be improved or enhanced in a way that supports what the author is trying to do with the story.
Where do you source the short stories from? Do people send them to you unasked or are they already published elsewhere?
The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year series reprints science fiction and fantasy stories that were published anywhere in the world in the preceding year in the English language. I source the stories from websites, magazines, anthologies, short story collections, gift cards – just about anywhere that they might appear. A lot of time goes into searching for stories, as you can imagine, and I put out a call each year inviting anyone to send me stories they’ve published, written or read that they think I should consider for the book.
How many would you read in a year?
I don’t keep track of the exact number, but I would look at several thousand stories every year, slowly winnowing them down to the final group that end up in the book.
When do you find the time to read that many?
I try to be organized about it. I read every day, and try to fit it in around everything else I have to do. I also have found that over time I can pick up pretty early when a story is or isn’t going to work for me. Sometimes it only takes a page or two, so while I start to read several thousand stories, I don’t necessarily finish all of them. That helps with managing the time involved.
Do you ever have the problem of being so stuck in a short story that you can’t read another one immediately? If so, how do you manage to move onto the next one?
I find I sometimes need to take a little break at the end of a story, just so I can approach the next one fresh, but mostly I don’t have a problem. The real issue is that every few months I just yearn to read something longer, so I stop to read a novel or watch some TV, just to freshen my mental palate, but I’m usually ready to get back to the next story pretty quickly.
Do you have a favourite author? If so, please spill the beans.
I always say no to this because I have different authors I go to for different reasons. For a chunk of my childhood Robert Heinlein was my favourite writer, mostly because I loved his characters and the sense of adventure in his stories. I find his books more problematic looking back at them from the perspective of adulthood, but at the time they were the thing. In my late 20s and early 30s Howard Waldrop and Lucius Shepard were my favourites, and I devoured everything they wrote. You haven’t lived till you’ve read Howard Who? or The Jaguar Hunter. I’m less sure of the answer these days, though. I read so much more widely, and there’s so much to choose from.
Do you have a favourite story? If so, why?
The greatest reading experience I can remember is when I first read Lucius Shepard’s novella “R n R”, which appeared in an issue of Asimov’s in the mid-80s. Shepard was on a streak at the time, producing a string of brilliant stories that were setting the field on fire, and this hallucinogenic, immersive masterpiece just hypnotized me. I can remember reading the opening of the story and being left almost shaking at the end of it. I’ve not re-read the story in 20 years, and I still remember it like I read it yesterday.
Are you ever tempted to edit a short story before you anthologise it? Is this appropriate or should you just leave it as it was previously published complete with typos?
Every story I included in the Best of the Year is copyedited to make sure there aren’t any typographical or other errors. Sometimes that simply involves correcting a typo or two, or making sure something’s consistent, but occasionally it involves some minor editing. Sometimes there are changes between the original published work and the version I reprint, but usually those come from authors who want to take the opportunity to fix something that’s been bothering them or that they’ve noticed since the original publication of the story.
When is your next book being published? Either an anthology or your own work.
Next up is Fearsome Magics, an original fantasy anthology I’ve edited for Solaris. It’s a sequel of sorts to my World Fantasy Award nominated anthology Fearsome Journeys, and includes some great stories. I’m also working on volume nine of the Best of the Year series and a new “Infinity” anthology.
Can you do the Safety Dance while reading short stories or is that something you reserve for long fiction?
I can dance the safety dance while reading a short story or a novel, and if I can’t, I leave them behind, because if I couldn’t dance when reading a story or novel it’d be no friend of mine.