The Year's Best Writing About SF?

[coalescent]

So it started with a post by Jonathan Strahan:

I do not believe I could edit this book myself, though there is a part of me that would like to try, but I wonder if the world would have any interest in a book collecting the year's best writing about science fiction or fantasy; you know, reviews, essays, articles, blog postings and so on; a book that would synopsise the field's discussions with itself. I'd love to read it, if it should ever happen. Strikes me as a Borgo Press kind of book. It'd be fun to do.

This sounded like a potentially cool thing to me, so I stuck it in as one of the options in the good or bad poll earlier this afternoon. That led to this discussion, in which a couple of other people said they also thought it was quite a cool idea, but we fairly rapidly started debating exactly what it should be like if it existed. In brief, here's what I think:

• It should be a snapshot. A reflection of the feel of the field in a given year; works published, and conversations had.


• It should contain new material--second looks at major works, as ninebelow suggested, overviews of the year in sf--as well as reprints.


• The reprints should mix up critical articles from places like Foundation and NYRSF with less formal articles from places like Strange Horizons, and even edited blog posts and discussion threads.

Now, the problem is, much as I'd be more than willing to help out on a project like this, I don't think I could take responsibility for editing this book, either; I don't have the experience or the name recognition or even much of a clue where to start. I wouldn't know which publishers to approach or how to approach them, and that's just for starters. But I'd still like to move the discussion on, if I can. So--

Does this sound like something you'd be interested in reading? If yes or if no, why? What doesn't it do that you'd want it to do? Is there anyone out there who'd be interested in contributing to or helping to edit it, or who has suggestions for contributers or editors? Does anyone have any ideas about publishers? And last, but most importantly, I need people to explain to me exactly why this is a pipe dream that will never get anywhere. :)