The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 26 (Mammoth Books)

by Gardner Dozois

  There are still plenty of other reasons for SF fans to go on the Internet, though, even if you’re not looking for fiction to read. There are many general genre-related sites of interest to be found, most of which publish reviews of books as well as of movies and TV shows, sometimes comics or computer games or anime, many of which also feature interviews, critical articles, and genre-oriented news of various kinds. The best such site is easily Locus Online (www.locusmag.com), the online version of the newsmagazine Locus, where you can access an incredible amount of information—including book reviews, critical lists, obituary lists, links to reviews and essays appearing outside the genre, and links to extensive database archives such as the Locus Index to Science Fiction and the Locus Index to Science Fiction Awards—it’s rare when I don’t find myself accessing Locus Online several times a day. The previously mentioned Tor.com, though, rivals Locus Online as one of the most eclectic genre-oriented sites on the Internet, a website that, in addition to its fiction, regularly publishes articles, comics, graphics, blog entries, print and media reviews, book “rereads” and episode-by-episode “rewatches” of television shows, as well as commentary on all the above. The long-running and eclectic The New York Review of Science Fiction has ceased print publication, but can be purchased in PDF, epub, and MOBI formats, and POD editions through Weightless Books (weightlessbooks.com; see also www.nyrsf.com for information). Other major general-interest sites include SF Site (www.sfsite.com), SFRevu (www.sfsite.com/sfrevu), SFCrowsnest (www.sfcrowsnest.com), SFScope (www.sfscope.com), io9 (io9.com), Green Man Review (greenmanreview.com), The Agony Column (trashotron.com/agony), SFFWorld (www.sffworld.com), SFReader (forums.sfreader.com), and Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist (www.fantasyhotlist.blogspot.com). A great research site, invaluable if you want bibliographic information about SF and fantasy writers, is Fantastic Fiction (www.fantasticfiction.co.uk). Another fantastic research site is the searchable online update of the Hugo-winning The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (www.sf-encyclopedia.com), where you can access almost four million words of information about SF writers, books, magazines, and genre themes. Reviews of short fiction as opposed to novels are very hard to find anywhere, with the exception of Locus and Locus Online, but you can find reviews of both current and past short fiction at Best SF (www.bestsf.net), as well as at pioneering short-fiction review site Tangent Online (www.tangentonllne.com). Other sites of interest include: SFF NET (www.sff.net), which features dozens of home pages and “newsgroups” for SF writers; the Science Fiction Writers of America page (www.sfwa.org), where genre news, obituaries, award information, and recommended reading lists can be accessed; Ansible (news.ansible.co.uk/Ansible), the online version of multiple Hugo-winner David Langford’s long-running fanzine Ansible; Book View Café (www.bookviewcafe.com) is a “consortium of over twenty professional authors,” including Vonda N. McIntyre, Laura Ann Gilman, Sarah Zittel, Brenda Clough, and others, who have created a website where some of their work—mostly reprints, and some novel excerpts–is made available for free.

  An ever-expanding area, growing in popularity, are a number of sites where podcasts and SF-oriented radio plays can be accessed: at Audible (www.audible.com), Escape Pod (escapepod.org, podcasting mostly SF), The Drabblecast (www.drabblecast.org), Star Ship Sofa (www.starshipsofa.com), Pseudopod (pseudopod.org, podcasting mostly fantasy), and PodCastle (podcastle.org, podcasting mostly fantasy). There’s also a site that podcasts nonfiction interviews and reviews, Dragon Page—C Cover to Cover (www.dragonpage.com).

  It was a somewhat weak year for original anthologies, although there were still a few that were worth your money.

  Without a doubt, the best SF original anthology of the year was Edge of Infinity (Solaris), edited by Jonathan Strahan. True, original SF anthologies were light on the ground this year, but Edge of Infinity would be a standout in any year. Unusually, in these days when it seems almost de rigueur for editors to sneak some slipstream or fantasy stories into even ostensibly “All SF” anthologies, everything here actually is pure-quill core SF, some of it hard SF at that, and the literary quality is uniformly excellent across the board. There’s nothing that’s bad here, again unlike most anthologies, which makes it difficult to pick favorites, but among the strongest stories are those by Pat Cadigan, Paul McAuley, Gwyneth Jones, Hannu Rajaniemi, and Bruce Sterling, although there’s also excellent work here by Elizabeth Bear, James S.A. Corey, Sandra McDonald and Stephen D. Covey, John Barnes, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Stephen Baxter, Alastair Reynolds, and An Owomoyela, any of which would have been among the standout stories in any other SF anthology of the year.

  None of the other original SF anthologies of the year were in this league, but there was some interesting stuff.

  An odd item was Solaris Rising 1.5: An Exclusive ebook of New Science Fiction, edited by Ian Whates, and available only in ebook form. An original SF anthology designed to act as a “bridge” between 2010’s Solaris Rising print anthology and 2013’s upcoming Solaris Rising 2 anthology, it features good fiction by Adam Roberts, Aliette de Bodard, Paul Cornell, Paul Di Filippo, and others. Armored (Baen), edited by John Joseph Adams, is an all-original anthology of military SF, stories about armored fighting suits, and wearable tanks, more or less, probably first popularized by Robert A. Heinlein in his novel Starship Troopers, seen subsequently in lots of SF, including movies such as Avatar, and currently hovering right on the edge of becoming an actuality; certainly it won’t be more than ten or fifteen years at most before we have them prowling the battlefields in the real world. The best stories here are by David Klecha and Tobias S. Buckell, Alastair Reynolds, Ian Douglas, Simon R. Green, Karin Lowachee, and Sean Williams, although there’s also solid work here by Carrie Vaughn, David D. Levine, Jack McDevitt, Genevieve Valentine, Michael A. Stackpole, Tanya Huff, David Sherman, and others.

  Other good original SF anthologies included Going Interstellar (Baen), edited by Les Johnson and Jack McDevitt, which contained an excellent novella by Michael Bishop, as well as solid work by Jack McDevitt, Ben Bova, and others, in addition to nonfiction essays about possible designs for interstellar spaceships by Dr. Gregory Matloff, Dr. Richard Obousy, and Les Johnson himself (Simon & Schuster), edited by John Joseph Adams, a tribute anthology in which modern writers get to play with Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Mars and its characters and generate Barsoom stories of their own. There is a noticeable split in approach to the material here. Some authors write straightforward John Carter adventures with lots of swordplay and mayhem, chases, captures, hairsbreadth cliff-hangers, and daring escapes, much as Burroughs himself might have (although all of the authors in the book are much better writers line by line than Burroughs ever was). The best stories in this mode are probably those by S. M. Stirling and Joe R. Lansdale. The best stories here are those that take the other approach, and add a dab of playful postmodernism to the mix, including stories by Peter S. Beagle, Garth Nix, Theodora Goss, Catharynne M. Valente, Tobias S. Buckell, and Genevieve Valentine.

  There were two post-Apocalyptic anthologies, After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia (Hyperion Books), edited by Ellen Datlow and Terry Windling; and Epilogue (Fablecroft Publishing), edited by Tehani Wessely, and an anthology of dystopian YA stories, Diverse Energies (Tu Books), edited by Tobias S. Buckell and Joe Monti. There were two steam-punk anthologies, The Mammoth Book of Steampunk (Running Press), edited by Sean Wallace, and Steampunk III: Steampunk Revolution (Tachyon), edited by Ann VanderMeer. There were two shared-world anthologies, Man-Kzin Wars XIII (Baen), edited by Larry Niven, and Grantville Gazette VI (Baen), edited by Eric Flint. Postscripts Anthology No. 26–27: Unfit for Eden (PS Publishing), edited by Nick Gevers and Peter Crowther, was one of two Postscripts editions this year, the other, Postscripts 28–29, being a special “Gothic Fiction” edition guest edited by Danel Olson. Postscripts 26–27 was a bit weak compared to some of the earlier volumes in this series, but still contained good work by Michael Swanwick, Jessica Reisman, Steven Utley, Michael Bishop, Eric Brown, Mic
hael Bishop, and others.

  This was a very good year for anthologies that afford a view of what’s happening in fantastic literature in other countries, outside the usual genre boundaries. Anthologies of this sort included The Future is Japanese (Haikasoru), edited by Nick Mamatas and Maumi Washington; Breaking the Bow: Speculative Fiction Inspired by the Ramayana, edited by Anil Menon and Vandana Singh; Afro SF: Science Fiction by African Writers (StoryTime Press), edited by Ivor W. Hartmann; Three Messages and a Warning: Contemporary Mexican Short Stories of the Fantastic (Small Beer Press), edited by Eduardo Jiménez Mayo and Chris N. Brown; Lauriat: A Filipino-Chinese Speculative Fiction Anthology (Lethe Press), edited by Charles Tan; Walking the Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction (University of Arizona), edited by Grace L. Dillon; and The Apex Book of World SF 2 (Apex Publications), edited by Lavie Tidhar.

  L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume XXVIII (Galaxy Press), edited by the late K. D. Wentworth, is the most recent in a long-running series featuring novice work by beginning writers, some of whom may later turn out to be important talents. Wentworth died in 2012, and her replacement has yet to be named.

  Noted without comment is Rip-Off! (Audible), an audio anthology of SF and fantasy stories edited by Gardner Dozois.

  Jonathan Strahan, who had an excellent year in 2012, also edited the year’s best fantasy anthology, a YA anthology about witches, Under My Hat: Tales from the Cauldron (Random House Books for Young Readers), which means that Strahan has pulled off, in my own estimation, anyway, the difficult task of editing both the best fantasy anthology and the best science-fiction anthology of 2012. Not surprisingly, since it’s aimed at a YA audience, Under My Hat is not as substantial and chewy as Strahan’s Edge of Infinity, but it has a very pleasing wit and lightness of tone about it (for the most part, there are a few darker stories) that ought to appeal to the adult fantasy-reading audience as well. The best stories here include work by Peter S. Beagle, Margo Lanagan, Ellen Klages, Garth Nix, Jane Yolen, and Holly Black, although there are also good stories here by Ellen Kushner, Delia Sherman, Jim Butcher, M. Rickert, Patricia A. McKillip, Isobelle Carmody, Tim Pratt, Tanith Lee, Charles De Lint, Frances Hardinge, and Diana Peterfreund, as well as a poem by Neil Gaiman. A (mostly) reprint anthology on the same subject was this year’s Witches: Wicked, Wild & Wonderful (Prime Books), edited by Paula Guran.

  Other original fantasy anthologies were Magic, An Anthology of the Esoteric and Arcane, edited by Jonathan Oliver (Solaris); Elemental Magic: All-New Tales of the Elementary Masters (DAW), edited by Mercedes Lackey; and Hex Appeal (St. Martin’s Griffin), edited by P. N. Elrod. There was a tribute anthology to Ray Bradbury, Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury (William Morrow Paperbacks), edited by Sam Weller and Mort Castle; mostly fantasy with an admixture of horror, and a tribute anthology to Charles Dickens, Pandemonium: Stories of the Smoke (Jurrasic London), edited by Anne C. Perry and Jared Shurin, which had a similar fantasy/horror mix. Other books on the borderland between fantasy and horror included An Apple for the Creature (Ace), edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni L. P. Kelner; The Alchemy Press Book of Ancient Wonders (Alchemy Press), edited by Jan Edwards and Jenny Barber; The Alchemy Press Book of Pulp Heroes (Alchemy Press), edited by Mike Chinn; and Westward Weird (DAW), edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Kerrie Hughes, which also mixed in elements of the Western.

  The most prominent original horror anthology this year seemed to be A Book of Horrors (St. Martin’s Griffin), edited by Stephen Jones, but there was also a big zombie anthology, 21st Century Dead: A Zombie Anthology (St. Martin’s Griffin), edited by Christopher Golden; Danse Macabre: Close Encounters with the Reaper (EDGE), edited by Nancy Kilpatrick; Dark Currents (NewCon Press), edited by Ian Whates; and The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories, edited by Ann VanderMeer and Jeff VanderMeer.

  Lavie Tidhar, Aliette de Bodard, Ken Liu, Elizabeth Bear, and (as usual) Robert Reed were all highly prolific this year, publishing good stories all over, in many different markets.

  SF continued to appear in places well outside accepted genre boundaries, from the science magazines Cosmos and Nature to The New Yorker, which surprised everybody by releasing a “Special SF Issue” this year.

  (Finding individual pricings for all of the items from small presses mentioned in the Summation has become too time intensive, and since several of the same small presses publish anthologies, novels, and shortstory collections, it seems silly to repeat addresses for them in section after section. Therefore, I’m going to attempt to list here, in one place, all the addresses for small presses that have books mentioned here or there in the Summation, whether from the anthologies section, the novel section, or the short-story collection section, and, where known, their website addresses. That should make it easy enough for the reader to look up the individual price of any book mentioned that isn’t from a regular trade publisher; such books are less likely to be found in your average bookstore, or even in a chain superstore, and so will probably have to be mail-ordered. Many publishers seem to sell only online, through their websites, and some will only accept payment through PayPal. Many books, even from some of the smaller presses, are also available through Amazon.com. If you can’t find an address for a publisher, and it’s quite likely that I’ve missed some here, or failed to update them successfully, Google it. It shouldn’t be that difficult these days to find up-to-date contact information for almost any publisher, however small.)

  Addresses are: PS Publishing, Grosvener House, 1 New Road, Hornsea, West Yorkshire, HU18 1PG, England, UK, www.pspublishing.co.uk; Golden Gryphon Press, 3002 Perkins Road, Urbana, IL 61802, www.goldengryphon.com; NESFA Press, P.O. Box 809, Framingham, MA 01701-0809, www.nesfa.org; Subterranean Press, P.O. Box 190106, Burton, MI 48519, www.subterraneanpress.com; Old Earth Books, P.O. Box 19951, Baltimore, MD 21211-0951, www.oldearthbooks.com; Tachyon Press, 1459 18th St. #139, San Francisco, CA 94107, www.tach-yonpublications.com; Night Shade Books, 1470 NW Saltzman Road, Portland, OR 97229, www.nightshadebooks.com; Five Star Books, 295 Kennedy Memorial Drive, Waterville, ME 04901, www.galegroup.com/fivestar; NewCon Press, via www.newconpress.com; Small Beer Press, 176 Prospect Ave., Northampton, MA 01060, www.smallbeerpress.com; Locus Press, P.O. Box 13305, Oakland, CA 94661; Crescent Books, Mercat Press Ltd., 10 Coates Crescent, Edinburgh, EH3 7AL, Scotland, UK, www.crescentfiction.com; Wildside Press/Borgo Press, P.O. Box 301, Holicong, PA 18928-0301, or go to www.wildsidepress.com for pricing and ordering; Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing, Inc., and Tesseract Books, Ltd., P.O. Box 1714, Calgary, Alberta, T2P 2L7, Canada, www.edgewebsite.com; Aqueduct Press, P.O. Box 95787, Seattle, WA 98145-2787, www.aqueductpress.com; Phobos Books, 200 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10003, www.phobosweb.com; Fairwood Press, 5203 Quincy Ave. SE, Auburn, WA 98092, www.fairwoodpress.com; BenBella Books, 6440 N. Central Expressway, Suite 508, Dallas, TX 75206, www.benbellabooks.com; Darkside Press, 13320 27th Ave. NE, Seattle, WA 98125, www.darksidepress.com; Haffner Press, 5005 Crooks Rd., Suite 35, Royal Oak, MI 48073-1239, www.haffnerpress.com; North Atlantic Press, P.O. Box 12327, Berkeley, CA, 94701; Prime Books, P.O. Box 36503, Canton, OH, 44735, www.primebooks.net; Fairwood Press, 5203 Quincy Ave. SE, Auburn, WA 98092, www.fairwoodpress.com; MonkeyBrain Books, 11204 Crossland Drive, Austin, TX 78726, www.monkeybrain-books.com; Wesleyan University Press, University Press of New England, Order Dept., 37 Lafayette St., Lebanon, NH 03766-1405, www.wesleyan.edu/wespress; Agog! Press, P.O. Box U302, University of Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia, www.uow.ed.au/~rhood/agogpress; Wheatland Press, via www.wheatlandpress.com; MirrorDanse Books, P.O. Box 3542, Parramatta NSW 2124, Australia, www.tabula-rasa.info/MirrorDanse; Arsenal Pulp Press, 103-1014 Homer Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6B 2W9, www.arsenalpress.com; DreamHaven Books, 912 W. Lake Street, Minneapolis, MN 55408; Elder Signs Press/Dimensions Books, order through www.dimensionsbooks.com; Chaosium, via www.chaosium.com; Spyre Books, P.O. Box 3005, Radford, VA 24143; SCIFI, Inc., P.O. Box 8442, Van Nuys, CA 914
09-8442; Omnidawn Publishing, via www.omnidawn.com; CSFG, Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild, via www.csfg.org.au/publishing/anthologies/the_outcast; Hadley Rille Books, via www.hadleyrillebooks.com; Suddenly Press, via suddenlypress@yahoo.com; Sandstone Press, P.O. Box 5725, One High St., Dingwall, Ross-shire, IV15 9WJ Scotland, UK; Tropism Press, via www.tropismpress.com; SF Poetry Association/Dark Regions Press, www.sfpoetry.com, send checks to Deborah Flores, SFPA Treasurer, P.O. Box 4846, Covina, CA 91723; DH Press, via diamondbookdistributors.com; Kurodahan Press, via www.kurodahan.com; Ramble House, 443 Gladstone Blvd., Shreveport, LA 71104; Interstitial Arts Foundation, via www.interstitialarts.org; Raw Dog Screaming, via www.rawdogscreaming.com; Three Legged Fox Books, 98 Hythe Road, Brighton, BN1 6JS, England, UK; Norilana Books, via www.norilana.com; coeur de lion, via coeurdelion.com.au; PARSECink, via www.parsecink.org; Robert J. Sawyer Books, via www.sfwriter.com/rjsbooks.htm; Rackstraw Press, via rackstrawpress; Candlewick, via www.candlewick.com; Zubaan, via www.zubaanbooks.com; Utter Tower, via www.threeleggedfox.co.uk; Spilt Milk Press, via www.electricveloci-pede.com; Paper Golem, via www.papergolem.com; Galaxy Press, via www.galaxypress.com.; Twelfth Planet Press, via www.twelfhplanetpress.com; Five Senses Press, via www.sensefive.com; Elastic Press, via www.elasticpress.com; Lethe Press, via www.lethepressbooks.com; Two Cranes Press, via www.twocranespress.com; Wordcraft of Oregon, via www.word-craftoforegon.com; Down East, via www.downeast.com; ISFiC Press, 456 Douglas Ave., Elgin, IL 60120, www.isficpress.com.