Major Science Fiction Anthologies: A Brief History

By Blue Tyson

Plenty has been written about the decline of the short story, anthology and collection, and when you read some older books they have been saying the same thing for decades, even in the first issue of Asimov's magazine in 1977.

I have also seen Gardner Dozois write about the acceleration of the 'lack of memory' of past science fiction work. Not too surprising perhaps with the pace of change.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Blue Tyson
• Release date: May 14, 2010
• ISBN: 9781466066380

Blue Tyson

Free SF and Not Free SF MegaBlog : http://freesf.strandedinoz.com/wordpress Website : http://leighbrackett.blogspot.com Twitter : http://www.twitter.com/bluetyson Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/BlueTyson Paolo Bacigalupi (ology) : http://paolobacigalupi.blogspot.com Laird Barron (ology) : http://lairdbarron.blogspot.com Leigh Brackett (ology) : http://leighbrackett.blogspot.com Ted Chiang (ology) : http://tedchiang.blogspot.com Greg Egan (ology) : http://borderguards.blogspot.com James Enge (ology) : http://jamesenge.blogspot.com Alastair Reynolds (ology) : http://alastairreynolds.blogspot.com Cordwainer Smith (ology) : http://cordwainersmith.blogspot.com Charles Stross (ology) : http://charlesstross.blogspot.com Free SF Reader : http://freesf.blogspot.com Not Free SF Reader : http://notfreesf.blogspot.com Super Reader : http://superprose.blogspot.com Space Opera Reader : http://spaceoperareader.blogspot.com Year's Best SF Reader : http://yearsbestsf.blogspot.com Free SF Best : http://freesfbest.blogspot.com Australian SF Reader : http://ozsfbest.blogspot.com SF Watcher : http://sfwatcher.blogspot.com See here for more :- http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Blue%20Tyson%22

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Major Science Fiction Anthologies - A Brief History

Blue Tyson

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Copyright 2010 Blue Tyson

Plenty has been written about the decline of the short story, anthology and collection, and when you read some older books they have been saying the same thing for decades, even in the first issue of Asimov's magazine in 1977.

I have also seen Gardner Dozois write about the acceleration of the 'lack of memory' of past science fiction work. Not too surprising perhaps with the pace of change.

I have looked for an article like this for a while, and one may well exist somewhere that I have never seen, or in an obscure journal, fanzine or book. Of the critical works I have seen they are more interested in listing novels, in general.

With less interest in anything not a novel, it explains why fewer people write about anthologies, certainly. If anyone knows of any piece of writing relatively recently by someone far more knowledgeable than I am, I would love to see it. Likewise with suggestions for additions.

A Fantasy version of this article can be found here Major Fantasy Anthologies - Briefer History

So I thought I'd have a go at listing some works that I know about, and others found with some browsing. Of more particular interest is more modern publication, even if not more modern work, that is likely to be more available. I certainly wasn't around in the 40s and 50s and 60s to acquire or read the older volumes, and as such, I am much more likely not to know about books from that time. Part of the point of writing this is for people to point out additions, though. A Super Editor or eidetic memoried bibliographer I am not.

Where I have actually read and rated them, I will put a link after the volume that goes to that for anyone who cares. The editors of the volumes are listed at the end of the article and linked to their isfdb entry for those who would like to check out the contents of the volumes.

A couple more additions and the DAW suggestion.

NINETEENTH CENTURY AND PRE-GERNSBACK

Whether you want to call the start of Science Fiction Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, or Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, you will find all those stories online here :-

Project Gutenberg Australia SF Project

Science Fiction (Bookshelf) - ProjectGutenberg

Of particular interest of course is H. G. Wells, but also