I'm really fond of anthologies like this. You pick a group of fantasy writers and you ask each one to pick a favorite story and write a short intro explaining the choice. You can hardly fail to come up with a first-class book. Two writers, Robert Silverberg and Gorge R. R. Martin, picked stories by Jack Vance, both from the same collection, The Dying Earth, which happens to be one of my favorite fantasy collections. And a favorite story that I still remember reading in F&SF long years ago is "That Hell-Bound Train," chosen by Rick Hautala. Terry Pratchett picked L. Sprague de Camp's "The Gnarly Man." Neil Gaiman chose one by R. A. Lafferty.
This book's over 11 years old now, and I suspect not many people remember it. It has over 400 pages of great stories, and if you don't have it on your shelves, you're missing a bet.
6 comments:
Did you mean to put Atlee's name in the header? I've just picked up the second FANTASY HALL OF FAME volume Silverberg put together, and it's certainly comparable...the MY FAVORITE SF STORY and HORROR STORY books, iirc, are similarly great fun.
Now how did that get there? Anyway, it's gone now.
I agree with the other two titles. I really like all three of those titles.
Wow, I wonder how many Greenberg-edited collections I have? Time to add one more.
Oh, I remember this book! I think there was a companion volume, MY FAVORITE SF STORY.
I think I'll have to search this one out.
Yes George, there was a Favorite SF Story, published by Daw in January 1999.
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