Two Reading Projects: Dozois’s Best of the Best novellas and The Wheel of Time

The Wheel of Time

Seven years ago, I finished the decades long journey of the 14 volumes series by Robert Jordan. I never thought to return any way soon, as it’s a really huge time investment with over 4 million words, each book over 800 pages long. I just visited a fun statistical site analyzing the whole series not only for its word distribution but also gender distribution and other facts. One chapter in the last volume is longer than the whole Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone 😀

So this is the project: Start buddy-reading the series with my daughter and see how it’s developing. No guarantees for continuation. The set mode is one chapter every two days or so. I probably won’t write many posts about it, probably. Which takes some two months per volume.

The Best of the Best Volume 2: 20 Years of the Best Short Science Fiction Novels • 2007 • SF anthology by Gardner Dozois

I just finished Dozois’s third anthology covering 2003-2017, and have also his first anthology covering 1983-2002 reviewed. Completing this with the second volume seems like a good idea.

This anthology is nearly as thick as the other two with over 600 pages. But there aren’t so many stories in it, because all of them are short novels – or in SFF speak “novellas”. That’s 12 great pieces with fabulous names and I’m really looking forward reading them. So far, I know only two of them from Nancy Kress and Ursula K. Le Guin (I haven’t reviewed the later one).

This time, I won’t be able to read one story per day and publish a review for it. Let’s just see how it flows.

Contents as from isfdb (stories are ordered from oldest to newest):

• 1 • Sailing to Byzantium • (1985) • novella by Robert Silverberg
• 45 • Surfacing • (1988) • novella by Walter Jon Williams
• 89 • The Hemingway Hoax • (1990) • novella by Joe Haldeman
• 158 • Mr. Boy • (1990) • novella by James Patrick Kelly
• 204 • ★★★★★ • Beggars in Spain • 1991 • Near Future SF novella by Nancy Kress • review
• 261 • Griffin’s Egg • (1991) • novella by Michael Swanwick
• 318 • Outnumbering the Dead • (1990) • novella by Frederik Pohl
• 379 • Forgiveness Day • [Yeowe and Werel • 2] • (1994) • novella by Ursula K. Le Guin
• 418 • The Cost to Be Wise • (1996) • novelette by Maureen F. McHugh
• 455 • Oceanic • (1998) • novella by Greg Egan
• 491 • Tendeléo’s Story • [Chaga] • (2000) • novella by Ian McDonald
• 542 • New Light on the Drake Equation • (2001) • novella by Ian R. MacLeod
• 584 • Turquoise Days • [Revelation Space] • (2002) • novella by Alastair Reynolds

Meta: isfdb, published 2007 by St Martin’s Griffin.