Tuesday, February 19, 2008

For Andy

Another short fake blog...(real one to follow)...this is out of sheer curiosity Andy, but what is the rhyme or reason behind the order in which we are reading these stories? (i.e. Crystal was not the only one to make that mistake). Just wondering. :)
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2 comments:

Andy Duncan said...

That's a good question. Of the stories I selected, they're grouped by total page count so that each week's reading is approximately the same. Within each grouping, they're listed simply in the order in which they appear in the anthology. (Which raises the question of why that order, but you'd have to ask the editors that question.)

As for the larger question of why these stories, and not others, well, it's a combination of things, the chief considerations being how much I like the story, whether it contains any fantasy element (because some of the horror stories do not), and, yes, how influential the author is in the field. One of my goals in the class is to leave you with a sense of the authors who are being read, lauded and debated by their peers circa 2008 -- within our brief window of opportunity, of course, which (Pratchett excepted) pretty much eliminates the novel series that make up the bulk of fantasy publishing (though not necessarily the bulk of fantasy awards, critical acclaim, etc.).

You are all welcome to write papers about any of the stories in this book that strike your fancy, whether they made the syllabus or not.

February 20, 2008 at 6:45 AM
Jessica Trevino said...

Hmm, too bad I didn't read the stories in order. lol. I just went through them and picked randomly. oops. i guess it defeated the editor's purpose

February 20, 2008 at 11:04 AM

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