RIP Gardner Dozois

Today the sad news has broken that Gardner Dozois, one of the greatest science fiction editors, has passed away at the age of 70 from a systemic infection.

Gardner Dozois was born in 1947 in Salem, Massachusetts. He served in the US Army in the 1960s before switching to writing science fiction. His first story, The Empty Man, was published in Frederick Pohl's collection If in 1966. He wrote widely in the short form, publishing short fiction as recently as this year ("Neanderthals" and "Unstoppable", both in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction). He won the Nebula Award for Best Short Story twice, for "The Peacemaker" in 1983 and "Morning Child" the following year.

His work at greater length was rare but notable, consisting of the single novel Strangers (1978) and the collaboration Nightmare Blue (1975, with George Effinger). His most recent novel-length project was a long-bubbling collaboration with George R.R. Martin and Daniel Abraham, which resulted in first the novella Shadow Twin (2004) and the novel-length version, Hunter's Run (2007).

However, Dozois' most significant contribution to the field will be his formidable work as an editor of short fiction and his relentless hunt for new, fresh talent. He worked for the magazine Asimov's Science Fiction in the 1970s, serving as editor from 1986 to 2004. He also founded the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction, which was published annually from 1984 to 2017, totalling thirty-four standard volumes and two "best of the best" editions. According to critic John Clute, Dozois' primary strength as an editor was being able to "select (and to edit) work that is both exciting to read and adult on reflection."

Dozois was a firm friend and frequent collaborator of George R.R. Martin. In 1971 he was the first reader who fished Martin's first published story, "The Hero," out of the slush pile at Galaxy and recommended it for publication, leading Martin to dub Dozois as the editor who discovered him. They met at the Disclave Convention in Washington D.C. the same year. As well as their long-gestating work on Shadow Twin/Hunter's Run, they co-edited eight short story collections together: Songs of the Dying Earth (2009), Warriors (2010), Songs of Love and Death (2010), Down These Strange Streets (2011), Old Mars (2013), Dangerous Women (2013), Rogues (2014) and Old Venus (2015). Dozois also contributed the intro and blurb to Martin's Dreamsongs: A RRetrospective (2003).

Dozois' most recent editorial work was on The Book of Silverberg (2016), Mash-Up (2017) and The Book of Swords (2017). A follow-up, The Book of Magic, is scheduled for publication this October, and The Book of Legends in 2019, whilst The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Fifth Annual Collection will be published in July this year.

Gardner Dozois won the Hugo Award for Best Editor no less than fifteen times and was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2011. A giant of the genre, with many modern authors owing him for their first big break, he will be missed.

New SONG OF ICE AND FIRE short story to be released in October

It's been confirmed that George R.R. Martin will be releasing at least one new Song of Ice and Fire story in 2017, with it being confirmed that a short story will be released in Gardner Dozois's anthology Book of Swords, due out in October.

Maegor the Cruel, by Michael Komarck

Martin will be joining authors such as K.J. Parker, Matt Hughes, Ken Liu, Ellen Kushner, Scott Lynch, Robin Hobb, Daniel Abraham, Garth Nix, C.J. Cherryh, Elizabeth Bear and Cecilia Holland. It's certainly an impressive line-up.

Speculation is rife over Martin's story. By far the most likely prospect is The Sons of the Dragon. This is part of Martin's colossal (novel-sized) history of the Targaryen Dynasty, Fire and Blood, which was supposed to be his contribution to The World of Ice and Fire but grew out of control. This would be the third such extract from this material, following The Princess and the Queen (published in Dangerous Women) and The Rogue Prince (published in Rogues).

The Sons of the Dragon is the detailed story of the two sons of Aegon the Conqueror, Aenys and Maegor, half-brothers who were both fated to become kings. This narrative was completed several years ago and Martin has already read extracts from it at conventions, making it a shoo-in for the role. The story also revolves a lot around the Targaryen Valyrian steel sword, Blackfyre, which fits the title of the novella.

However, Westeros.org has also postulated that a new Dunk and Egg novella could be a possibility. This is surprising. George started writing the fourth Dunk and Egg novella, under the working title The She-Wolves, back in 2009 before The Mystery Knight was even published but put it on hold until The Winds of Winter was completed. Martin also seems to have decided to reconsider the project at some point, suggesting that another story called The Village Hero might come first, but again not until The Winds of Winter was completed.

Some may take this as a possibility that The Winds of Winter is nearing completion and Martin has finished one of these two stories as his time frees up, but that may be optimistic. Of course, Martin could have changed his mind (especially if he had a burst of inspiration for the story), but I think The Sons of the Dragon or another Fire and Blood extract is much more likely.

We should have more information soon.

A sneak peek at the Dance of Dragons

Thanks to Tor.com, both a sneak peek and a review of the new George R.R. Martin Song of Ice and Fire novella is now available. The Princess and the Queen is a maester's account of the Dance of Dragons, the brutal civil war that took place between differing branches of the Targaryen family approximately 170 years before the events of A Game of Thrones. This civil war almost wiped out the Targaryen family and most of its dragons (the few surviving dragons died a few years after the war).

Rhaenyra Targaryen, the titular princess of the story.

The Princess and the Queen will be published in the Dangerous Women anthology, due out in December this year. At 33,000 words it's the longest story in the collection and clocks in at rather more than a tenth of the length of A Game of Thrones itself. It's a condensed version of a much longer story that Martin plans to publish in a collection - working title 'The GRRMarillion' - once A Song of Ice and Fire is fully completed. The World of Ice and Fire (due next year) will draw on both in its own account of the Dance of Dragons.

Martin is currently working on The Winds of Winter, the sixth and (hopefully) penultimate volume of A Song of Ice and Fire itself. In recent interviews he has said he is writing quickly, but not fast enough to give any indication of a release date.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

Amazon.de is listing a book for release next year called A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, by George R.R. Martin.

This is almost certainly a new (working?) title for the first Dunk and Egg compilation volume, which will collect The Hedge Knight, The Sworn Sword and The Mystery Knight in one book. Originally the fourth story, The She-Wolves, was also part of the compilation but GRRM confirmed to fans at the recent ConQuest convention that he is holding it back until after The Winds of Winter is completed. This indicates either that the compilation will only include those three stories, or it will also be held back until after Winds and the date has not been updated on Amazon to reflect that.

Meanwhile, She-Wolves' replacement story, The Princess and the Queen (a story set at the outbreak of the Dance of Dragons), will appear in Dangerous Women in December.

Neil Gaiman to publish a new NEVERWHERE story (with some help from George R.R. Martin)

Way back in 1996, Neil Gaiman penned the BBC mini-series Neverwhere, adapting it into a novel a year later. Almost immediately after the story first appeared, fans noted a continuity error where the character of the Marquis de Carabas recovered his coat after it had apparently vanished forever. Gaiman promised to explain all in a short story, enigmatically entitled 'How the Marquis Got His Coat Back', but got a bit side-tracked with other projects.

The Marquis de Carabas as portrayed by Patterson Joseph in the original BBC TV series of Neverwhere.

It's been a while coming, but the story will finally appear in a new anthology entitled Rogues, edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois. Rogues - the thematic sequel anthology to 2010's Warriors - will likely be published some time in 2014.


The full story list is as follows:

George R.R. Martin “Everybody Loves a Rogue” (Introduction)
Joe Abercrombie “Tough Times All Over”
Gillian Flynn “What Do You Do?”
Matthew Hughes “The Inn of the Seven Blessings”
Joe R. Lansdale “Bent Twig”
Michael Swanwick “Tawny Petticoats”
David Ball “Provenance”
Carrie Vaughn “The Roaring Twenties”
Scott Lynch “A Year and a Day in Old Theradane”
Bradley Denton “Bad Brass”
Cherie Priest “Heavy Metal”
Daniel Abraham “The Meaning of Love”
Paul Cornell “A Better Way to Die”
Steven Saylor “Ill Seen in Tyre”
Garth Nix “A Cargo of Ivories”
Walter Jon Williams “Diamonds From Tequila”
Phyllis Eisenstein “The Caravan to Nowhere”
Lisa Tuttle “The Curious Affair of the Dead Wives”
Neil Gaiman “How the Marquis Got His Coat Back”
Connie Willis “Now Showing”
Patrick Rothfuss “The Lightning Tree”

Warriors, edited by George RR Martin & Gardner Dozois

Warriors is a multiple-author, genre-swapping anthology. The only thing these twenty stories have in common is that a warrior of some kind - a soldier, a mercenary, a religious fanatic, a cowboy, even a serial killer who considers themselves on an important mission - is involved. The stories move between genres, with SF stories followed by crime thrillers followed by fantasy tales followed by historical fiction, the mainstream and the speculative brought together in a manner I haven't really seen before.


It's an interesting move. As Martin says in his introduction, modern bookstores segregate the genres apart from one another and seem to encourage people - readers and writers alike - to stick to only one genre. He relates his own problems moving from SF to horror and later to fantasy, and how modern publishers are filled with fear whenever a bestselling writer moves from one genre to another, fearing they are about to crash and burn. Of course, what is really important is not so much the genre as if the piece is well-written, if the characters are compelling and if the story is worth reading.

On these points, Warriors is a resounding success. Martin and Dozois' previous editorial collaboration, Songs of the Dying Earth, was extremely strong but a few stories fell short of the high quality elsewhere. Warriors is notable for not featuring any weak links at all. Some stories are stronger than others, but there is no story that I'd suggest skipping or not bothering with.

Things get off to a good start with The King of Norway by Celia Holland, which follows two Viking warriors on an epic raiding mission. A strong, combat-oriented story that moves very quickly. Forever Bound by Joe Haldeman is an SF story featuring a team of scientists learning to fight together by teleoperating cybernetic soldiers, and is another good story with an unusually moving finale. The Triumph by Robin Hobb is set during the Punic Wars, and concentrates on the friendship of two neighbouring Roman farmers, one of whom became a soldier and the other a general. An excellent short story from an author not known for her brevity.

Clean Slate by Lawrence Block is a pretty savage, contemporary thriller featuring a mentally-damaged protagonist engaging in heinous acts to avenge her destroyed childhood. Powerful and at times disturbing stuff. And Ministers of Grace by Tad Williams is a planet-hopping SF story focusing on a badass cybernetic warrior and is pretty ruthless, with Williams unexpectedly channelling Richard Morgan and doing it very well. Solderin' by Joe R. Lansdale is a funny and entertaining Western with two black men joining the 'buffalo soldiers' and getting into a tough battle. Dirae by Peter S. Beagle is one of the best stories in the collection, being written in an original and different way to some of the rest with a lot more going on under the surface of its apparently obvious revenge fantasy.

The Custom of the Army by Diana Gabaldon takes her established protagonist Lord John Grey on a mission to Canada to assist in the capture of Quebec, and is another fast-paced and action-focused story, although perhaps assuming a little too much foreknowledge of the Lord John novels. Seven Years from Home by Naomi Novik is an excellent SF story about a visitor to a planet getting involved in a local war and going native, in a manner that is reminiscent of (but much better than) Avatar. I'm not a huge fan of her Temeraire books, but this short story was a revelation, and one of the best stories in the collection. The Eagle and the Rabbit by Steven Saylor is a sort-of follow-up to Hobb's story, shifting the perspective to a Carthaginian soldier in Roman captivity (the reverse to Hobb's story) and is just as good. The Pit by James Rollins is a tougher proposition, as the main character isn't human but Rollins assigns some fairly human traits to him. If you can buy the premise this is a well-written, dark tale, but I suspect will be divisive. I liked it.

Out of the Dark by David Weber packs an epic story into is 80-odd pages, with Earth falling to an alien invasion and a mixed force of American and Romanian soldiers fighting back in the Balkans. A fast-paced, well-written story up until the last two pages, when it goes completely bonkers with an ending that explodes the corn-o-meter. If you can swallow the premise of the finale, this is a fun story. The Girls from Avenger by Carrie Vaugh is a more restrained and intelligent story about the Women Airforce Service Pilots in WWII and the sexism faced by female pilots from their male colleagues. Ancient Ways by SM Stirling, set in his Emberverse setting, sees a Cossack and a Kalmyk warrior join forces to rescue a princess from the city of Astrakhan. Great fun, with plenty of rousing action and enjoyable banter between the two soldiers.

Ninieslando by Howard Waldrop is very oddball, a story about an English soldier in WWI who finds himself in another world. The premise is intriguing, perhaps a little under-developed, but the story ticks along nicely. Recidivist by Gardner Dozois channels elements of the New Weird and hard SF in a very dark story that is somewhat reminiscent of China Mieville's work, with a memorable ending. My Name is Legion by David Morrell is about the French Foreign Legion fighting in Syria during WWII, and is both entertaining as a solid war story and also informative about the Foreign Legion and its history.

Defenders of the Frontier by Robert Silverberg is about a group of soldiers holding a remote fortress with no word or reinforcements from HQ for years. At what point should they get up and head home? A clever story with some interesting questions and no easy answers. The Scroll by David Ball is one of the strongest stories in the anthology, featuring a French siege engineer who is captured by a Moroccan king and forced to endure tremendous hardship as the king tries to break him. A brutal, dark and compelling story with a killer final line. The last story is GRRM's The Mystery Knight, his third story of Ser Duncan the Tall and his squire Egg as they get embroiled in intrigue and battle some ninety years before the events of A Game of Thrones.

Overall, this is one of the strongest collections I have read. No duff stories, no weak links and no filler, with each author bringing their A-game. Having read Warriors (*****), I now have a list of new authors I'm going to have to check out at some point.

The book is available now in the USA and in the UK via Amazon and other online sellers, as well as certain branches of Forbidden Planet.

SONGS OF THE DYING EARTH and MISTBORN 1 now out in the UK

Just a word to let UK readers know that Songs of the Dying Earth and Mistborn: The Final Empire are both now out in the UK, in swanky new editions. Both are excellent and should be available from your nearest bookshop or favoured online retailer.

Songs of the Dying Earth, edited by George R.R. Martin & Gardner Dozois

Millions of years hence, the Sun has grown old, bloated and red and is about to go out. In these dying days humanity, now capable of great feats of magic, shares the much-changed Earth with hostile races such as the deodands and pelgranes. This is the vivid setting of Jack Vance's Dying Earth series, four books (now usually published in one volume, Tales of the Dying Earth) which now stand as one of the cornerstones of modern fantasy.


Songs of the Dying Earth is an all-star 'tribute album' by some of the biggest names in modern SF and Fantasy, featuring twenty-three stories set in the Dying Earth setting. With a lot of ground to cover, let's get straight into it:

'The True Vintage of Erzuine Thale' by Robert Silverberg sees a melancholic wine-drinker confronting a problem. An interesting little story, if a tad predictable.

'Grolion of Almery' by Matthew Hughes is excellent. A man seeks shelter at a house and falls into the complex schemes of the house's caretaker, with destructive results. This story throws together elements of humour and horror. The Dying Earth meets Little Shop of Horrors by way of Cthulu. Funny, clever and a great last-minute twist.

'The Copsy Door' by Terry Dowling is likewise superb, featuring the mage Amberlin the Lesser, cursed by a particularly annoying form of magic, inadvertently getting into a contest of wills with other mages to unexpected results.

'Caulk the Witch-Chaser' by Liz Williams is somewhat unremarkable. A witch-chaser is employed to hunt down some witches in the marshes, but is unhappy with the process by which he was hired. Williams tries to hit the Vancian mode of speech and doesn't quite nail it. That said, the end is nicely dark and twisted.

'Inescapable' by Mike Resnick sees city watchman Pelmundo become bewitched by a woman and end up getting in over his head. This is another strong story and the ending will likely provide long-term readers of the Dying Earth series with a big grin.

'Abrizonde' by Walter Jon Williams is a highlight, featuring the besieged castle of Abrizonde and charting the fortunes of the hapless Vespanus who is trapped within. This is a great story, tense and dramatic with an amusing finale.

'The Traditions of Karzh' by Paula Volsky sees Farnol of Karzh become of age and stand ready to inherit his family home and fortune, but his lack of magical aptitude is a disgrace to the family's honour. His attempt to make amends leads to a dubious encounter with a particularly persistent pelgrane. An extremely good story, with a slice of dark vein and a particularly satisfying conclusion.

'The Final Quest of the Wizard Sarnod' by Jeff VanderMeer is the weakest story in the collection. The writing is turgid and does not flow well at all, and the failure of the story is all the more irritating as it attempts to resolve the T'sais/Sarnod story from The Dying Earth itself. Disappointing.

'The Green Bird' by Kage Baker similarly invokes Cugel the Clever, the antihero of the second and third Dying Earth books, but to a far more successful end. Cugel learns of the existence of a bird whom has memorised many key spells and sets out to capture it, with typically disastrous results.


'The Last Golden Thread' by Phyllis Eisenstein is one of the more interesting stories in the book. The author does not attempt to match the Vancian mode of speech, and instead tells a melancholic and quiet story about ambitions and desires at the end of time. Affecting and thought-provoking.

'An Incident at Uskvosk' by Elizabeth Moon is a funny little story about a day at the races which ends up being a lot more complicated than it should be.

'Sylgarmo's Proclamation' by Lucius Shepard sees Thiago Alves and Derwe Coreme join forces to track down the troublesome Cugel, with amusing results. A solid if not outstanding story.

'The Lamentably Comical Tragedy (or The Laughably Tragic Comedy) of Lixal Laqavee' by Tad Williams is another highlight of the book. Fake wizard Lixal Laqavee, having tired of his life as a conjurer in a circus, decides to learn some real magic, with troublesome results that force him into a highly hazardous alliance with a deodand of dubious reliability and a ravenous hunger for human flesh. Simply put, brilliant.

'Guyal the Curator' by John C. Wright sees Manxolio Quinc, Chief Invigilator of Old Romarth, investigating the arrival of a stranger in the city suffering from amnesia. Their investigation of his origins sees them running afoul of the ill-tempered titan Magnatz. This another successful story, with a startling ending. The only problem with this tale is that the Dying Earth seems to have unexpectedly re-acquired its Moon (which, as previous stories had established, had wandered out of Earth's orbit millions of years earlier).

'The Good Magician' by Glen Cook reacquaints us with Ildefonse the Preceptor, Rhialto the Marvellous and the rest of their ill-assorted circle of allied mages. An amateur wizard, Alfaro, stumbles across a long-held secret which threatens the stability of the Dying Earth. I must admit that whilst the story here is fine, the writing is not very strong and the story is overlong.

'The Return of the Fire Witch' by Elizabeth Hand sees 'good' witch Saloona Morn recruited by her neighbour Paytim Noringal on a mission of wanton slaughter and destruction, to Saloona's distress. This is an oddball story, quite interesting and well-characterised, but one where the author's point seems to have gotten lost in the writing somewhere.

'The Collegeum of Mauge' by Byron Tetrick sees young Dringo joining a magical college to seek out his missing father. The story is quite good, twisting and turning as it goes and with an open-ended conclusion that could be quite interesting to follow up on one day.

'Evillo the Uncunning' by Tanith Lee is another highlight of the collection, as the young orphan Evillo decides to venture into the wilder world and seek his fortune, soon becoming an ally of the sentient snail Khiss along the way. The story is quite bonkers, even by Dying Earth style, complete with a recurring story point highly reminiscent of a recurring storyline in Family Guy (seriously). It's also brilliantly funny.

'The Guiding Nose of Ulfant Banderoz' by Dan Simmons is the longest story in the collection, a rich, detailed novella which sees Shrue the Diabolist allying with the redoubtable Derwe Coreme to find the greatest library in all the world, aided by a demonic entity known as KirkriK and involving a lengthy airship chase. Possibly the best story in the book, given room to breathe by its length, Simmons knocks it out of the park with a story that is funny, tender and dramatic by turns.

'Frogskin Cap' by Howard Waldrop is, on the other hand, the shortest story in the collection, a short mood piece with some funny lines and a lack of mortal peril.

'A Night at the Tarn House' by George R.R. Martin sees several folk of mixed repute take shelter at the inn known as the Tarn House (known for its hissing eels) for the night, only for total mayhem to result. GRRM, in only his second non-Song of Ice and Fire-related piece of fiction written in fifteen-odd years, delivers a characteristically sharply-characterised piece laden with very dark humour and a thought-provoking final line.

'An Invocation of Incuriosity' by Neil Gaiman is a coda not just to the collection but to the whole Dying Earth universe. So, what happens when the Sun finally does go out? Gaiman delivers the haunting answer.

Songs of the Dying Earth (****½) is an exceptionally strong collection, a rich and sumptuous banquet of tales from the end of time. The weak links here are not enough to dilute the impact of the best stories in the collection, and the best stories are thought-provoking, memorable and sharply funny. The book is available now from Subterranean Press in the USA and will be published by HarperCollins Voyager in the UK on 1 October 2009.

Hunter's Run by George RR Martin, Gardner Dozois & Daniel Abraham

Hunter's Run is an unusual book. Gardner Dozois started writing it in 1977 but got stuck, so passed it over to George RR Martin, who wrote an additional block of the story in 1981 before getting stuck himself. In 2003 or thereabouts, the aborted story was finally completed by Daniel Abraham and published in novella form the following year as Shadow Twin. Now Abraham has gone back and re-structured the story as a full-length novel, a story some thirty years in the making.

The planet is San Paolo. Ramon Espejo, a colonist from Mexico, has killed a man in a bar fight and fled into the wilderness to evade justice. In a remote mountain range he uncovers a surprising presence, and is forced into a flight for his life over a vast and dangerous stretch of countryside, with a remorseless hunter behind him and an uncertain reception ahead...

Hunter's Run is not a convoluted multi-stranded narrative with a cast of thousands. It is a simple story at heart, the exploration of what makes a person a person, but with complexities of emotion that run from it being written by three of the best character-builders in modern SF&F. Espejo is not a likable protagonist, but his actions are understandable and as the book progresses the reader sympathises with him more. The alien biosphere is well-described, the city of Diegotown comes to life vividly, the writing is crip and fast-paced, with each chapter and incident leading into the next in rapid succession. The alien characters are intriguing and there is a sense of a much larger story waiting to be told, of which this is the tip of the iceberg. Whether these three writers will collaborate again or not is uncertain, but I certainly hope that if they do, we won't have to wait thirty years for it.

Hunter's Run (****) is a strong novel from three of the leading voices in the genre today. It is published by Voyager in the UK and by both Eos and Subterrenean (as a limited illustrated edition) in the USA.