Customer Reviews

The Locus Awards: Thirty Years of the Best in Science Fiction and Fantasy

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Of all the anthologies of fantasy and science fiction I have plowed through, this one contained the lowest percentage of filler. The genre is a landscape flooded with juvenile sensibility. A few tall peaks break the water to form islands of interest. One can exhaust one's self searching for these far-flung islands in one's little canoe of curiosity. This volume creates an archipelago of interesting work. Standouts for me were the stories by Gene Wolfe, John Varley, Terry Bisson, Lucius Shepard, Harlan Ellison, Octavia Butler, and Pat Murphy. This would be a good book to point your non-genre-reading friends to, if they are curious about the field, but don't know where to start reading.

This strong tome provides readers with a delightful sampling of some of the winning shorts and novellas over the last thirty years. The collection is balanced as four entries represent the 1970s; six from the 1980s; five from the 1990s; and three from the 2000s. The contributors are a who's who of the two genres (not surprising since this prestigious award is selected by a vote of Locus magazine readers) to include greats like Harlan Ellison, George R.R. Martin, Neil Gaiman, Gene Wolfe and Ursula K. Le Guin, etc. Each selection is well written, but some of the tales, surprisingly especially from the 1990s, feel dated; incredibly, the seventies and eighties hold up quite well and besides a bit of nostalgia remain terrific entries. Readers, especially those of the magazine, will appreciate the eighteen selections that make up "thirty years of the best in science fiction and fantasy".

Harriet Klausner