Three of Gardner Dozois’ books in my house and I’d never heard of him. This is a few years back now, before I’d become foolhardy enough to take up the craft. After I’d started writing I became aware his presence; found the books of his I already owned, starting with the the Mammoth Book of Best New Science Fiction (1999). A tattered copy, much read. Two of my favourite novellas are included in it: Oceanic by Greg Egan and The Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang. 
I suspect that will be the case for many lovers of the genre: they’ll never know his impact. There will be a distant recognition of the name, they will have his anthologies on their shelves, but the conception of his influence will be lacking.
So if you are here, and unsure: he was a fucking giant. One of the those legendary figures in the community, seeming to win a Hugo every year (I read today that he won 40 Hugos, 40 Nebulas, and 30 Locus Awards – holy shit). He won the Hugo for best editor for fifteen years straight at Asimov’s, a feat that will never be repeated. Every award he won – with the exception of two Nebulas – was for his anthologies.
He seemed to me – and certainly this is what all the tributes are saying – to love science fiction to its very core. Truly, madly, deeply. Devoted his life to nurturing new writers in a way that will never be equalled. Loved conventions and the community. What strikes me particularly – and I do wonder if this is partly the reason behind the outpouring of sorrow at his passing – is his generosity. This is a rare thing, among writers (and Dozois was, apparently, a brilliant writer, as well the grand master of anthologies). It’s a selfish game – by nature most of the energies of the writer are directed inwards. Gardner Dozois was a rare bird: he existed for others and not himself. His goal was the careers of 
others, for a flourishing of the genre, for bringing to a wider audience all the wild and wonderful and literary and thought-provoking tales we could muster.
I googled, just earlier today, to see if he’d reviewed my work (I’m a writer, so obviously I thought about myself immediately). He had. In one of his reviews, Dozois very much liked the story in question and said I had a ‘loose, jazzy style’, which is cool. In his summary of 2017 he named me as one of the stand-out contributors to Interzone, and in 2016 gave two of my stories honourable mentions in his ‘Best Of’ anthology for that year. My brush with greatness.
Which is also indicative of just how widely read he was: so many magazines, so many thousands of stories, every year, and he ranged across them all.
I’m not going to say much else. I didn’t know him, and outside of his generosity of spirit can’t claim him as a personal influence or inspiration. Rather, I wanted to share some links. Two are Dozois telling tall stories about fandom, the last a heartbreaking post from George R R Martin on his personal blog, in disbelief and mourning at the loss of a close friend.
The first, a link to the Coode Street podcast, where Dozois and Australia’s Jack Dann reminisce (though Dozois does most of the talking) about days gone by.
The second, below, is a YouTube of George R R Martin, Howard Waldrop, and Gardner Dozois telling stories of fandom. It’s fucking hilarious and ribald, and does make me wonder how much more fun it all looked back then:
Finally George R R Martin responding to the news on his blog.
Where he says: “Lots of people are posting and publishing appreciations of Gardner now, telling you that he was a great writer, and a great editor. All true. But right now it is not the editor or the writer I am mourning, it is my friend. He was the warmest, kindest, gentlest soul you’ll ever met, larger than life, bawdy, funny… so funny. When I remember Gardner, I remember laughter.”
Vale.
