{"id":13097,"date":"2014-02-01T11:33:50","date_gmt":"2014-02-01T19:33:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/journals\/jed\/2014\/02\/01\/13097.html"},"modified":"2014-02-01T11:33:50","modified_gmt":"2014-02-01T19:33:50","slug":"test-of-html-for-top-ten-colle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/2014\/02\/01\/test-of-html-for-top-ten-colle\/","title":{"rendered":"My top ten single-author short sf collections"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Back in 2010, John DeNardo of SF Signal<\/cite> was kind enough to invite me to participate in one of their “Mind Meld” roundups. The topic: What Single-Author Short Fiction Collections Should Be in Every Fan’s Library?<\/a> My list appeared in Part 2<\/a>, and for three and a half years now, I've been meaning to link to it but somehow never quite doing it.<\/p>\n

While I was looking for something else today, I happened across it, and I decided it was time. If you want to see what others said in response to that question, follow the above links; the people who participated included Elizabeth Bear, Jeff VanderMeer, Mike Resnick, Catherynne M. Valente, and Dave Truesdale. If you want to see what I said, you can follow the link to part 2, or you can read the copy of my response that I'm providing below. The rules explicitly excluded Best Ofs, alas.<\/p>\n

Before I go on to my list, a note about gender balance on others' lists:<\/p>\n

I'm pleased that Jeff VanderMeer, Catherynne Valente, and Gio Clairval all chose to list only books by women. Most of the other contributors, of course, have either all-male lists, or all-men-except-for-one-woman; the exceptional women chosen for that singular honor are C. L. Moore, Elizabeth Moon, and James Tiptree, Jr. One contributor listed collections by ten male authors, then added a runner-up list of twenty-five authors, of whom two (Moore and Tanith Lee) are female. One contributor listed two women out of ten authors. One other contributor and I opted for roughly half-and-half lists.<\/p>\n

Onward to my list, which of course attempts to oh-so-subtly sneak in more than ten (as did several of the other contributors):<\/p>\n

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I could have tried to put together a canonical set of collections, a list of what I think every fan should<\/em> read. But on looking at my single-author collections, I find that I’m more interested in listing my favorites than in listing essential\/important collections.<\/p>\n

(I’m sidestepping the “every fan’s library” criterion; a great many fans (especially those who dislike short fiction) would likely hate most or all of the collections I’m listing.)<\/p>\n

So here are my ten favorite single-author collections (excluding Best Ofs):<\/p>\n