You wouldn’t know it from the number of times I’ve been posting lately, but I’ve been struggling with what to write. I’ve had an idea for a post about ranking ground-breaking anthologies (’cause who doesn’t like lists?), but I think the topic is too sweeping for one post.
Do I write just about anthologies like Dangerous Visions, Dark Forces, or Trampoline—standalone anthologies with lots of interesting content that came out once, wowed us, and sat as a benchmark for future anthologies?
Or do I write about anthology series like Orbit, New Dimensions, Starlight, Polyphony, Leviathan, and New Worlds Quarterly; anthologies that were series that consistently published new writers and interesting content again and again?
I don’t know that I can fairly compare a standalone anthology to a series. Also, where do I put reprint anthologies like The Year’s Best Science Fiction (particularly the first volume) or The Science Fiction Century or The SFWA Grandmasters Hall of Fame?
So, I need your help. I’ve created a poll to help me decide what tack to take in order to generate a list of the most groundbreaking anthologies. I’m not able to embed javascript into this site, so you’ll have to go here to see the poll. What do you think?