...as we know it.

[threemonkeys]

The word for the day is Chronotopicality - the notion that writing reflects the time and place it is composed regardless of where it is set. I'm paraphrasing here. David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer refer to this concept in the introduction to their Year's Best SF 12 compilation. They seem to be using it as justification for including a lot of stories dealing with catastrophic events or times. Luckily a few of the treatments are light hearted or it would be a very depressing volume. It is still pretty downbeat. bluetyson has commented recently about how downbeat other recent collections and the scene generally have been and on the evidence of this volume I'd have to agree. It really is a sign of the mood of the times.

Leaving that aside though, I found this collection a very satisfying read. There are a lot of good stories here. What is more, perhaps because of the prevalent catastrophe themes, it flows very well as a total volume. Making a collection work as a connected work has always been a particular strength of Hartwell's and this is a very fine example of that. Just look at the choice of Charlie Rosenkrantz's Preemption to finish the collection with. It touches on many of the elements in earlier stories and manages to cover both the seriousness and the humour shown in the preceding stories. Yet it finishes on an open and optimistic note for the future. It isn't necessarily the strongest story in the collection but it works as an end piece and the editors could see that. It is this type of judgement that makes the Hartwell & Kramer my personal best of the "best of" collections. It may not be as comprehensive as the Dozois one but every year, for me at least, it manages to produce the most readable and enjoyable product.

Comments

[bluetyson.livejournal.com]

I'd agree, this one is the strongest, this year, on average.

(although Strahan at a bit of a disadvantage as I don't rate fantasy stories as highly in general).

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

The avowedly science fiction only nature of this particular series does rather tilt my opinion in its favour.

[bluetyson.livejournal.com]

Yeah, well eventually I'll have gone through them all (sometime next year), so will be interesting to compare for the time period that the Hartwell/Cramer one has existed alongside the Dozois, anyway.

Suppose I should separate out Strahan's fantasyishness to compare, too, as you could look at that Silverberg/Haber/Strahan evolution stream that has been going a few years too, now.

Get another rare LJ entry out of that, perhaps. :)

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

Then there is the obvious comparison - between the two Hartwell & Kramer best of collections - SF and Fantasy. I have always liked their SF one more than their fantasy one.

[bluetyson.livejournal.com]

Yeah, if I do it, though, pretty much a laydown for the SF though, I think. 0.3 per story or something handicap would be a bit much to overcome. I do have most of the Hartwell fantasy, though, except last year.

This year's was a 3.48 average (for 4 out of 5) compared to 3.90 for the SF (5 out of 5 - just [4.75 with a push over the edge for the intro and having nothing subpar in there).

I don't think I am ever going to be much of a fan of mundane or mainstream or barely fantasy fantasy as compared to sword and sorcery and 'low fantasy' I saw Elizabeth Bear call it the other day, or urban fantasy monster hunting with the odd rock and roll elf, basically. Definitely like horror of the supernatural variety more than the mundane fantasy thing, too.

If there was more stuff towards that sort of thing it would be in with a chance.
cf Barron's Hallucigenia Lovecraftian gem, or Shepard's The Lepidopterist, or Moorcock's The Roaming Forest, and of course Stross' Pimpf speaking of city monster bashing stuff.

http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2007/11/years-best-fantasy-7-david-g-hartwell.html

[bluetyson.livejournal.com]

http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2007/11/years-best-sf-12-david-g-hartwell-and.html

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

I don't think the downbeat is a sign of the time: I think it's a sign of the editors :).

[bluetyson.livejournal.com]

Everybody seeks unhappies
Everyone agrees
Everybody's got downbeatstrial disease?

:)

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

There was a theory going round a few years ago that the big age of movie musicals was to combat downbeatsrial disease, and there was one going round in London during the Blitz that humour was needed to take everyone's mind off things. So why are we wallowing?

[bluetyson.livejournal.com]

Dunno, no food coupon rationing or senile president nuclear armageddon 80s stress, that is or sure. There's that warm everything up not just the nuked bits I guess thing?

Maybe the whole Western governments deciding that doing the KGB or Stasi thing is cool makes everybody unhappy?

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

In which case Australia should be the first country to produce upbeat spec fic (and I bet we're not!). We got rid of our 'rule by diktat' mob on Saturday. I keep thinking it's more nebulous than attributable to a given political or social or armageddonish factor.

[bluetyson.livejournal.com]

Yeah, got to be partly the writers knowing that the more depressing flavour is more likely to rate better, and hence have a higher probability of gaining them fame and beer money.

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

See, that "it's easier to agree on misery" thing again!

[phillberrie.livejournal.com]

Very droll. I like it.

[bluetyson.livejournal.com]

All four of the SF Super Editors are pretty consistent here, it seems.

I don't think you can cage them and stop them talking to each other, though, to see if that produces variation. ;-)

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

They're good editors, too. We don't need to change them. We just need to add one or two more senior editors who have a taste for the light.

Part of the trouble is (seriously) that it's much easier to get a consensus on the quality of a serious piece of work or something that's adventure-based than on anything that's funny. I bet it's easier to discount the humour as personal taste only, and dismiss it from a year's best when there are so many good stories competing for space.

[bluetyson.livejournal.com]

Even Flint and Resnick, whose JBU goes a bit the other way, have, literally, a serial going called 'Countdown to Armageddon'.

Of course, they do have Fish Story, which is about as unserious as you could possibly get, too. :)

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

Not just these editors though - quite a few of them have caught the disease. And they had to have the material to select - some of these apocalyptic stories came from authors whose work I know well and I haven't seen this type of story from before.

There was also a whole bit I composed in my head but didn't commit to electrons about these editors being from the USA and so that it was more a national reflection than a global one. In fact the collection seems more American-centric than previous ones. I'm seeing similar trends in novels from American authors too.

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

American-centric is more a sign of the times than the downbeatness. Look at how many Aussies are writing Aussie-centric fiction (I need to come to NZ and write a series of NZ-based fiction and prove myself wrong :) ). Not everyone in any country is writing about their own country, but there's certainly a greater tendency to do so than there was a few years ago.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

You could well be right - I have noticed more Australian-ness in Aussie authors but Brit authors don't seem to be doing it. Trying to find it in NZ would be rather pointless - the sample set is too small.

There have to be a number of things feeding into that. I want to blame this "you can't write about any culture that you aren't part of" debate that has been popping up. I don't think that is one of the bigger factor though.

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

I think spec fic writers are a little more conscious overall of what country they belong to and this is part of the zeigeist. It's more an awareness than rampant patriotism, though.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

Luckily the spec fic writers aren't like some members of that particular brand of "serious" lit fic author who broadcasts the fact that they have been taught to "write what you know" in writing school and taken it too much to heart.

[gillpolack.livejournal.com]

Actually, I rather suspect that spec fic writers write what we know. What we know is thinking and dreaming....

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

Nicely put.

[phillberrie.livejournal.com]

Still most of our media input is American. Do people think that the possible recession in America is effecting writing in the english speaking nations world-wide. As a stock market player I know that it is still the case that the American stock market affects markets world-wide, even the ones it shouldn't

Sorry, quite pissed at the moment. Disregard if incoherent.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

What goes on in America does influence the rest of the world in business, politics etc. Therefore what goes on in the USA must have some sort of impact on the mindset of authors even if it isn't a a conscious level. It really is a matter of determining if that impact is big enough to cause a discernible change in the writing output of those authors.

[littenz.livejournal.com]

Must shoehorn in forty or so hours of reading of all four books (present in my "to read" pile) so I can comment knowledgibly on these collections. Nah - I'll wait until next year, when I'll probably have Jonathan Strahan's novella collection too.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

Don't leave it too long - there is always another collection "just around the corner".

[littenz.livejournal.com]

I know. Held off buying another year's best collection because of too much repitition with Strahan opus. And I have another year's best fantasy collection as well - and not the Datlow-Wilding selection either!