Views from Medina Road

Gary Westfahl's essay is up, several days ago now, having generated since then no response other than the predictable negative response from a certain reliable hate-mail respondent, as if he (she?) doesn't have anything better to do. I shouldn't even mention it, I know.

Last weekend I finished my first reviews for Locus Magazine in nearly five years, a 3600 word piece covering two best-of-the-year fantasy anthologies, those edited by Rich Horton and by David G. Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer. (Cover images at right.) There are so many best-of-year anthologies this year that Locus gave some relief to Gary K. Wolfe, who usually covers them all in two installments, by farming two of the books out to me. I confess I don't keep up with the short fiction in magazines and anthologies anywhere nearly as well as I did when I was writing a monthly review column for Locus Magazine, but the shift in perspective, from reading everything in those venues to at best reading a couple best-of-year anthologies and the nominees for the Hugo and Nebulas each year, is instructive; I've thought about an entire essay along these lines, about how the expectations within a particular context (from slush-pile reader at one extreme, to skeptical reader of selected 'bests' at the other) affects one's reaction to any particular work of fiction...

Anyway, the reviews I wrote should appear in the July issue of Locus Magazine.

Still pending: comments from the polls.