Date: Fri, 08 Nov 2002 18:25:14 -0500
From: "Michael Walsh" <MJW at mail.press.jhu.edu>
To: <wsfalist at keithlynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] PW's Year in Books: Science Fiction and Fantasy
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>

Sorry, no URl for this yet, maybe next, so for now . . .

PW Daily for Booksellers
Friday, November 8, 2002

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PW's Year in Books: Science Fiction and Fantasy

Today's installment of PW's Best Books of the Year selection focuses
on science fiction and fantasy:

Franchise series titles as exemplified by Alan Dean Foster's Star
Wars: The Approaching Storm and R.A. Salvatore's Star Wars: Episode
II--Attack of the Clones (both Del Rey), together with
Tolkien-influenced fantasy such as Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's
Dragons of a Vanished Moon (Wizards of the Coast) and Terry Brooks's
The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara: Morgawr (Del Rey), continued to
command bestseller lists. Ancillary Tolkien books, including Douglas
Anderson's updated Annotated Hobbit (Houghton Mifflin) and the
brothers Hildebrandts' expanded edition of The Tolkien Years, edited
by Gregory Hildebrandt Jr. (Watson-Guptil), benefited from the success
of the first Lord of the Rings movie.

In SF, the leading sellers were Orson Scott Card's Shadow Puppets,
part of Card's Ender series, and Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson's
Dune: The Butlerian Jihad (both Tor), another volume set in Frank
Herbert's Dune universe. Card also had an associational short story
collection, First Meetings: Three Stories from the Enderverse
(Subterranean). Two outstanding alternative histories touching on
Islamic themes were Kim Stanley Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt
(Bantam), in which Islamic civilization rises to the fore after 90% of
medieval Europe's population dies of plague, and Steven Barnes's
Lion's Blood (Warner), which took the premise that the dominant
settlers of the Americas were Africans and Asians. In another
intriguing historical reversal, Harry Turtledove imagined an
Elizabethan England conquered by Spain in Ruled Britannia (NAL), with
Will Shakespeare writing a subversive play to rally his downtrodden
compatriots.

British author Jasper Fforde's surreal and funny alternative-history
novel, The Eyre Affair (Viking), in which literature (including
Shakespeare) appeals to the masses, ranked as perhaps the year's most
exciting debut. Horror veteran Richard Matheson enjoyed a banner year,
including his first novel in seven years, Hunted Past Reason (Tor), an
Arabian Nights fairytale, Abu and the 7 Marvels (Gauntlet), and two
story collections, Nightmare at 20,000 Feet (Tor) and Offbeat
(Subterranean). Douglas Clegg came out with a strong traditional
horror novel, The Hour Before Dark (Leisure).

Black Projects, White Knights: The Company Dossiers by Kage Baker
(Golden Gryphon)

Diplomatic Immunity by Lois McMaster Bujold (Baen)

Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang (Tor)

The Fantasy Writer's Assistant by Jeffrey Ford (Golden Gryphon)

Fool's Errand: Book I of the Tawny Man by Robin Hobb (Bantam Spectra)

The Birthday of the World by Ursula K. Le Guin (HarperCollins)

The Scar by China Mieville (Del Rey)

The Amazing Dr. Darwin by Charles Sheffield (Baen)

The Visitor by Sheri S. Tepper (Eos)

City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff VanderMeer (Prime)

The editors responsible for the science fiction and fantasy best books
list are Jeff Zaleski and Peter Cannon.