Anthologies worth checking out

John Klima's "The Ten Most Influential Science Fiction & Fantasy Anthologies/Anthology Series" at Tor is a provocative list - provocative in the sense of generating reactions. Comments are probably more interesting than the post itself.

I'm too much of a genre newbie; so I see the mentions as books possibly worth checking out.

There is some discussion of what's meant by "influential". To me, that simply means: stuff that impressed me that the genre has good literature & made me look for more. But everyone if going to define it differently.

My own best so far:

1. Asimov & Greenberg - "Isaac Asimov Presents Great SF Stories". It's 25 volumes, & so far I've read just about 3 dozen stories from various volumes. But by far the most compatible with my tastes.
2. SF Hall of Fame - vol 1, 2A, 2B. Very famous stories, many good ones too. John includes only vol 1.
3. Drake, Baen, & Flint's "The World Turned Upside Down". All stories are online.
   
4. Hartwell & Cramer - "Ascent of Wonder". Decent collection.
   Caution: it includes a good dose of fantasy in spite of "hard sf" in full title. But generally tasteful selections.

I've checked several volumes of Dozois & Hartwell/Cramer "best of the year" series. Grossly low quality when compared with the volumes above.

[via Bibliphile Stalker]

Related: "best of" lists.