I was browsing the Black Gate website the other day when I came across the post announcing that Matthew David Surridge’s “The Word of Azrael” had been selected for inclusion in the forthcoming The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2011 edited by Rich Horton.  Congratulations to Mr. Surridge.

The thing that intrigued me, though, was when I followed the link to the table of contents and perused the titles, and more to the point, the sources of these stories.  There are 28 titles listed, along with the venues in which they saw print.  Or rather were published, with that term being defined to include electronic media.  Of the selections Rich Horton chose as the best of the year (always a subjective list, as a perusal of the contents of the respective volumes in any given year will demonstrate), fifteen of them were published in electronic format in seven different venues:  Apex, Clarke’s World, Fantasy Magazine, Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, Subterranean, and Tor.com. Fantasy and Lightspeed each had four stories.  Tor, Apex, and Clarke’s World each had one.

Several anthologies were represented with single stories.  Among the big three of the print magazines, F&SF and Asimov’s each made the list with 3, while what is the magazine with by far the largest print circulation, Analog, didn’t make the list at all.  Neither did Realms of Fantasy, Interzone, Postscripts, or Weird Tales.  I find this interesting, especially given the much publicized death and resurrection of RoF last month and the various comments about why  it died posted several places on the web. 

The ToC of Johnathan Strahan’s The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year hasn’t been released yet, even though it has a March release date, nor have the contents of the Dozois or Hartwell and Cramer volumes, which typically hit shelves in the summer (although this year’s fantasy volume is still listed as forthcoming on Kathryn Cramer’s blog).  It will be very interesting to see where they chose their selections from, mostly print, mostly online, or about an even mix.  It will also be interesting to see whether the heavy- and middle-weights that didn’t make Horton’s cut make fare much better in the other volumes. 

There’s no doubt we are seeing a major change in the publishing of short fantastic fiction.  Not only are there more electronic periodicals out there than ever before, the print magazines may be seeing their first circulation increases in years thanks to Kindle, Nook, and other e-readers.  I for one am not about to try to predict where the trends are heading, for one reason because things are changing so fast that by the time some trends become evident, they’ve mutated into something else.  I will keep as much of an eye on things as I can, and you can bet I will write about them here.

Anyone who has much knowledge of the science fiction field knows the name of Frederik Pohl.  He’s been a fan, an agent, an editor, and a writer since before World War II, although not necessarily all at the same time.  This past year he won his seventh Hugo.  Back in the 70s several members of the Futurians, the famous (some would say infamous) fan organization, wrote memoirs.  Fred’s was called The Way the Future Was.  Well, that book has been out of print for quite some time.  But in recent years Fred has taken to blogging, with a blog aptly titled The Way the Future Blogs.   He’s been more active than usual of late, with some reminiscences of Judith Merrill posted over the last few days.  If you have any interest in the history of science fiction, especially written by someone who not only was there but helped shape much of it, this is one of the blogs you ought to be reading.

As the Christmas season is fast approaching, and has been for the last eleven months or at least feels like it anyway, people are beginning to think about parties.  And one of the things you often find at parties is a smorgasbord of delectable goodies.  Since I can’t serve you any food, I thought I’d offer up a different kind of smorgasbord, or a more literary nature.

So here’s a little list of a few items for your Christmas lists you may or may not be aware of.  This list is in no way intended to be inclusive.  Some deal with fantasy and some with pulp in general.  I offer the list with brief descriptions but no detailed comments since I haven’t had time to read more than one or two stories, if that, from any of these.

The Last Hieroglyph, The Collected Fantasies v. 5
Clark Ashton Smith
Night Shade Books
376 p. $39.99

A few years back, like say in 2004 or so, when I preordered my set, Night Shade announced they were doing a multi-volume collection of the fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith.  This is the final volume, which was just released a few weeks ago.  The stories are in the order of their composition rather than order of publication or by theme or setting as some earlier collections have, such as those edited by Lin Carter for the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series in the 1960s and 1970s.

Strange Wonders
Fritz Leiber
Subterranean Press
280 p. $40 (trade edition)
This is the book for the Fritz Leiber fan in your life, even if that fan is you.  Especially if that fan is you.  This is a collection of drafts, early stories, and poems by one of the greatest practitioners of sword and sorcery, science fiction, and horror who ever lived.  There was a limited edition of the book, but it is out of print.

The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror 2010
Paula Guran, ed.
Prime Books
575 p., $19.95
Unlike the much missed Datlow-Windling (later Datlow-Grant-Link) annual collections of fantasy and horror, this one limits itself to dark fantasy, with none of the more upbeat subgenres represented in those volumes.  I’m not familiar with Paula Guran, but having read the introduction and the afterwards to the few stories I’ve managed to ssteal time to read, I’m going to be watching for her name on a cover. (The books skips the traditional editor’s introductions and replaces them with afterwards.)

Best American Noir of the Century
James Ellroy and Otto Penzler, eds
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
731 p. $30 list price.

Ellroy and Penzler have killed a lot of trees to bring you this book.  Which happens to have a few killings in it.  While there isn’t a story for every year of the 20th century, there’s a lot to go around.  Penzler’s introduction about how noir is the antithesis of the private detective story points out some differences between the two types of story.

The Black Lizard Big Book of Black Mask Stories
Otto Penzler, ed.
Vintage
1136 p. $25 list price

Proving he’s just a good an editor at disreputable pulp as he is at respectable noir, Penzler has put together a collection of stories from the legendary pulp Black Mask.  With over a thousand pages, this is the largest collection of tales from Black Mask.  The stories are reproduced exactly as they appeared including illustrations.  Add a cover showing a moll with a grimace, a tommy gun, and a blazing roscoe, and what’s not to love?