"David G. Hartwell - Year's Best Fantasy 5" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hartwell David G)

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Introduction
If we consider the fantastic in literature as a geographic section of the world of literature, it is about the
size of North America, very large and diverse, and with widespread influence. And included in that
geography is the fantasy genre (about the size of French Canada), where things are done a bit differently,
language used a bit differently, and large amounts of territory are not yet inhabited, though it has a long
history and intimate connections to the larger geography and history of the continent and the world. The
whole world can honor and respect prominent citizens of the genre territory, but generally ignores the
rest, and doesn’t include much of their news on the News unless there is a notable death or grand
disaster there. Yet if you visit, you will find a flourishing culture, grand cities, and beautiful landscapes.
We found that the good fantasy short fiction this year is notably international. Although all of the writers in
this book write in English, some of them live and work outside the United States—in Canada, Australia,
the British Isles. Australia is still full of genre energy, as evidenced by the founding of a new Clarion
workshop in Brisbane in 2004, and Australian fantasy novelists are continuing to break out worldwide, at
least in the English language. Canadian SF is still thriving, and Canada is still introducing world-class
fantasy writers to the world stage each year. The Third Alternative has grown into one of the leading
fantasy magazines, and this year purchased Interzone, which will henceforth publish mostly SF. Realms of
Fantasy and F&SF are its peers.

So welcome to the fifth volume of the Year’s Best Fantasy, representing the best of 2004. Like the
earlier volumes in this series, this book provides some insight into the fantasy field now—who is writing
some of the best short fiction published as fantasy, and where. But it is fundamentally a collection of
excellent stories for your reading pleasure. We follow one general principle for selection: this book is full
of fantasy—every story in the book is clearly that and not primarily something else. We (Kathryn Cramer
and David G. Hartwell) edit the Year’s Best Science Fiction in paperback from Eos as a companion
volume to this one—look for it if you enjoy short science fiction too.

The year 2004 was notable for magazines, both large and small. The SF and fantasy magazines that were
widely distributed are Analog, Asimov’s, F&SF, and Realms of Fantasy. And the electronic publishers
kept publishing, sometimes fiction of high quality, though none of them made money at it. We are grateful
for the hard work and editorial acumen of the better electronic fiction sites, such as SciFiction, Strange
Horizons, and Infinite Matrix, and hope they survive.