In my post about the passing of Gardner Dozois, I mentioned that I was a fan of his fiction, even if his reputation was mainly as an editor. I’d forgotten that his backlist is back in print, at least as ebooks: Baen Books reissued a bunch of them in 2012, and it now appears that all his novels and collections, including the heretofore-elusive collection of his collaborations, Slow Dancing Through Time, can be had for a few dollars each. I list those books below. (Warning: contains slimy affiliate links.) I’ve also gone and assembled a list of his stories that can be read for free online, also below. Because I think he needs to be read.
If you’d like to read something about Dozois’s fiction, there’s Being Gardner Dozois (Old Earth Books, 2001) a book-length interview conducted by Michael Swanwick that discusses every single story Dozois had published to that point. Toward the end of that book, Dozois said, “I figure there’s about five people in the world who are going to want to read this book. Maybe that’s overestimating it.” Bear in mind that it’s not a book you should read unless you’ve read his fiction. But it’s fascinating if you have. [Amazon/iBooks]
Short Stories Available Online
A few of Dozois’s short stories are available online, either as reprints or as sample chapters for the collections Baen brought back into print.
- “A Special Kind of Morning” (novelette, 1971)
- “Flash Point” (novelette, 1974)
- “The Visible Man” (novelette, 1975)
- “Touring” (with Jack Dann and Michael Swanwick, novelette, 1981)
- “Golden Apples of the Sun” (with Jack Dann and Michael Swanwick, novelette, 1984)
- “Morning Child” (1984, short story, Nebula winner)
- “The Mayan Variation” (1984, short story)
- “The Gods of Mars” (with Jack Dann and Michael Swanwick, novelette, 1985)
- “Solace” (1989, short story)
Short Story Collections
All of Dozois’s collections are available as ebooks. There is a great deal of overlap in the later collections (Geodesic Dreams and onward), which reprint his significant older stories (most of which are also found in The Visible Man) and add more recent material.
- The Visible Man (Berkley, 1977). His first collection. Paperback original. [Amazon/Baen/iBooks]
- Slow Dancing Through Time (Ursus/Ziesing, 1990). Collaborations with Susan Casper, Jack Dann, Jack C. Haldeman II and Michael Swanwick. Personally fond of this one. [Amazon/Baen/iBooks]
- Geodesic Dreams: The Best Short Fiction of Gardner Dozois (St. Martin’s Press, 1992). [Amazon/iBooks]
- Strange Days: Fabulous Journeys with Gardner Dozois (NESFA Press, 2001). Includes introductions from divers hands to each story, as well as one of Dozois’s travel diaries. Omits some notable stories that were then available online; overlaps a fair bit with Slow Dancing Through Time. [Amazon/Baen/iBooks]
- Morning Child and Other Stories (ibooks, 2004). [Amazon/Baen/iBooks]
- When the Great Days Come (Prime, 2011). My review. Best starting point. If you want just one, get this. [Amazon/iBooks/Weightless]
A good starter combination might be Strange Days and When the Great Days Come: there’s only some overlap in the stories.
Novels
Dozois wrote only three novels, two of them in collaboration.
- Nightmare Blue (Berkley, 1975). A so-called “potboiler” co-written with George Alec Effinger. [Amazon/Baen/iBooks]
- Strangers (Berkley, 1978). An expansion of a 1974 novella with the same name; the original novella can be found in Strange Days. [Amazon/Baen/iBooks]
- Hunter’s Run (HarperVoyager, 2007). Co-written with Daniel Abraham and George R. R. Martin, this is an expansion of “Shadow Twin,” a novella published in 2004. [Amazon/iBooks]
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