The Year’s Best Science Fiction
I’ve been a fan of science fiction since I was in the 7th grade, which is also when I cranked out my first sad little efforts at writing. Back then I would get a copy of Fantasy and Science Fiction and read the shortest stories first. These are still pretty much my favorites. The longer short stories have too much setup, so that by the time you reach the end, you want there to be a lot more.
Somewhere along the way I found collections of stories about this and that. My favorite anthology is The Year’s Best Science Fiction, followed by the Year’s Best Fantasy. I run across other odd little collections once in a while, but these two are the ones I look forward to.
Since I am a major cheapskate I usually wait until I find these books in the library before I read them. At the moment I have the Year’s Best Science Fiction from 2008 close at hand. The stories are good, as always, but I have yet to read one that really jumps out at me. After a while you feel like you’ve read everything and you recognize familiar plots and twists miles before they arrive. I still like a good story, but I tend to long now for the great stories.
The best part of these books is the Year In Review bit at the start of each volume where the editor talks about how many magazines, publishers, and TV Shows have gone out of business over the last year. It can be fun to read older editions and be reminded of TV Shows that I had all but forgotten ever existed, let alone that someone had high hopes for their success. In the 2008 Edition of Year’s Best Science Fiction the shows that came and went were Moonlight, New Amsterdam, The Bionic Woman, and Caveman-though I don’t think anyone was rooting for the thirty minute Gieco commercials to succeed. I did like New Amsterdam, though.
This is a great series of books. It is always fun to be able to say, a couple of years down the road when a new movie comes out-Hey, I read the short story that’s based on.
Related posts
August 4, 2009
Tags: book review, fun stuff, sci fi, writing Posted in: book review, writing
4 Responses
I’ve always found that the books are far better than the movies. Does this happen for you too?
Have a terrific day.
Usually the book is better than the movie because I spend more than two hours with it and there is room to explore more of what is going on.
Silence of The Lambs is the only movie that comes to mind where it appears that the novel was used as a shooting script.
They did try to make a literal translation of Watchman as well, but the problem there was-well, who really gives a damn?
There are so many movies that simply trash the well-written book that it was based upon. That’s probably because the movie powers that be want to make money. Years ago I read a book entitled, The Reincarnation of Peter Proud. When the movie came out, I was amazed because so many of the lines came straight from the book.
Thanks of the information. This is a great article. Check out my first and recently released novel, Long Journey to Rneadal. This exciting story is a romantic action adventure in space.
Most writers hate what is done to their story when a book is translated into a film. But others are just happy to get any attention that they can.
I’m all for any writer becoming successful, good luck with your career.
Leave a Reply