Gardner Dozois has released his selections for the next Year's Best Science Fiction, which will hit book stores in June or July. The discussion link above also contains some fascinating insight into his thoughts on science fiction and how he compiles the annual anthology. For example, Dozois states:
I have stuck to my guns with this series and am reprinting only stuff that I consider to be SF (Ted Chiang's "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" is about as far out as I go, and even that has a slight SF rationale, if you squint at it), but I wonder if it isn't eventually going to hurt me that I don't use fantasy as well, as Jonathan Strahan is doing; I get the increasing impression, particularly on the internet (and looking over the Nebula results) that nobody much cares about this distinction anymore, except me.
I also care deeply about this distinction and it is Dozois's focus on science fiction which keeps me purchasing his anthology year after year. Like Dozois, I dislike it when science fiction anthologies are filled with slipstream, fantasy and soft horror. Not that there's anything wrong with these other genres, which I also love and occasionally write in myself. But it sometimes feels as if both writers and the reading public have forgotten how the best science fiction stories easily rank among the most liberating types of fiction out there.
In the discussion Dozois also mentions new writers who popped up on his radar this year. These include Una McCormack, Jennifer Pellard, C.W. Johnson, Sarah K. Castle, Andrea Kail, Aliette de Boddard, and Beth Bernobich, along with several writers who've been publishing for only a couple or years like Justin Stanchfield, Jason Stoddard, Vandana Singh, Ted Kosmatka, and Lavie Tidhar.
