28 June 2013

Hugo thoughts: Best editor (short fiction)

I looked at the calendar and realized I'm not going to get through all the things before the end of July, so I'm going to make a couple Friday Hugo-related posts.

John Joseph Adams. Adams is a prolific anthologist, as well as the editor of Lightspeed Magazine. This year's work submitted to the packet was Armored. On the whole, this was a good anthology, with a broad range of styles, topics, and themes along the main theme of power armor. The first few stories were straight-up military SF, but there were also stories about salvage crews and a man who rescues a cat from a destroyed station. I liked some of the stories better than others, but that's how anthologies work. (Lightspeed is nominated for best semiprozine.)

Neil Clarke. Clarke is the editor of Clarkesworld, and the submitted work was issue 73, which contained works by Theodora Goss, Genevieve Valentine, and Yoon Ha Lee. All three stories were very good. I liked Goss' especially, "England Under the White Witch." Clarkesworld is nominated for best semiprozine.

Stanley Schmidt. Schmidt recently retired as the editor of Analog, whose October 2012 issue was in the packet. I didn't really like any of these stories, except Juliette Wade's "The Liars."

Jonathan Strahan. Strahan is another prolific anthologist. The submitted work here was Edge of Infinity, which collects space operas that take place within our solar system, rather than between distant stars. There were a few stories I liked a lot, like An Owomoyela's "Water Rights" and Hannu Rajaniemi's "Tyche and the Ants," but some really never drew me in, the closer from Bruce Sterling especially.

Sheila Williams. Williams is the editor of Asimov's, and the submitted volume was the April/May 2012 double issue. As far as the fiction went, I was about 50/50 on liked/didn't like. The poetry was terrible, except Megan Arkenberg's "Apocalyptic Love Song."

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