The Years Best Science Fiction & Fantasy: 2009
Page 78
Patrick Rothfuss lives in central Wisconsin where he drinks too much coffee and tells lies for a living. He was once described as “a rough, earthy iconoclast with a pipeline to the divine in everyone’s subconscious.” But honestly, that person was pretty drunk at the time, so you might want to take it with a grain of salt.
In his free time, Pat runs writing workshops, practices civil disobedience, and dabbles with alchemy in his basement. He loves words, laughs often, and refuses to dance.
Jeff VanderMeer is an award-winning writer with books published in over twenty countries. He is generally recognized as both one of the world’s best SF/fantasy writers, and one of the internet’s next-generation “internet writer-entrepreneurs” along with creators such as Cory Doctorow and John Scalzi. His books have made the year’s best lists of Publishers Weekly, LA Weekly, Amazon, the San Francisco Chronicle, and many more. VanderMeer has worked with rock band The Church, 30 Days of Night creator Ben Templesmith, Dark Horse Comics, and Playstation Europe on various multimedia projects, including music soundtracks and short films. His nonfiction appears regularly in the Washington Post and on the Amazon book blog. With his wife Ann (together, cited by Boing Boing as a literary “power couple”), he is also an award-winning editor profiled on Wired.com and the NYT blog, whose books include the iconic and bestselling Steampunk anthology. Current projects include Booklife: Survival Tips for Twenty-First Century Writers and the novel Finch.
Sarah Monette grew up in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, one of the three secret cities of the Manhattan Project. Having completed her Ph.D. in English literature, she now lives and writes in a 102-year-old house in the Upper Midwest. Her novels are published by Ace Books. Her short fiction has appeared in many venues, including Strange Horizons, Weird Tales, and Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. Visit her online at www.sarahmonette.com
Karen Heuler’s odd stories have appeared in over forty publications, ranging from literary to fantasy to horror, and she writes odd novels as well, the latest of which—Journey to Bom Goody—concerns fantastic doings in the Amazon. She lives in New York with a very stable cat and a very unstable dog, both of whom make things up.
Paul Cornell is an SF writer who also writes for television (notably Doctor Who) and comics (Wisdom and Captain Britain and MI-13 fo Marvel Comics). He’s proud to have stories in the latest volumes of all three ongoing non-theme SF anthologies, and has just adapted Iain M. Banks’ “The State of the Art” for Radio 4.
James Maxey lives in Hillsborough, NC, in a cinderblock house on a hilltop that can be easily defended during zombie uprisings. His short fiction has appeared in Asimov’s, IGMS, and numerous anthologies. His novels include the cult-classic superhero novel Nobody Gets the Girl and the Dragon Age trilogy of Bitterwood, Dragonforge, and Dragonseed. More information about his writing can be found at dragonprophet.blogspot.com.
Mary Robinette Kowal is a professional puppeteer who moonlights as a writer. Her short fiction appears in Strange Horizons, Cosmos and CICADA. In 2008 she received the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Visit her website www.maryrobinettekowal.com for more fiction and puppetry.
Richard Bowes’ most recent novel is the Nebula nominated From the Files of the Time Rangers. His most recent short fiction collection Streetcar Dreams And Other Midnight Fancies appeared from PS Publications in England. He has won the World Fantasy, Lambda, International Horror Guild and Million Writers Awards. Recent and upcoming stories appear in F&SF, Electric Velocipede, Subterranean, Clarkesworld and Fantasy magazines and in The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Year’s Best Gay Stories 2008, Naked City, Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, Beastly Bride, Haunted Legends and Lovecraft Unbound anthologies. Many of these stories are chapters in his novel in progress Dust Devil on a Quiet Street. His email is: rickbowes@earthlink.net.
Liz Williams is a science fiction and fantasy writer living in Glastonbury, England, where she is co-director of a witchcraft supply business. She is currently published by Bantam Spectra (US) and Tor Macmillan (UK), also Night Shade Press and appears regularly in Realms of Fantasy, Asimov’s and other magazines. She is the secretary of the Milford SF Writers’ Workshop, and also teaches creative writing and the history of science fiction.
Ian McDonald lives in Northern Ireland by the shore of Belfast Lough. From that vantage he’s seen the Troubles start and also, he hopes, end. His first story was sold in 1983 to short-lived but very glossy local SFF magazine Extro. He bought a guitar with the money. His first novel, Desolation Road, came out in 1988 from Bantam Spectra, this year PYR republish it for the first time since then in the US. His most recent novel was the Hugo- and Nebula-nominated Brasyl, just out from PYR in the US and Gollancz in the UK is Cyberabad Days, a collexction of stories from the future India of his 2006 novel River of Gods, including Hugo-winning novelette The Djinn’s Wife. In progress is a new novel, The Dervish House, set in near-future Turkey. In daylight hours he works as a development producer for a local animation company.
RECOMMENDED READING
Jim Aikin, ”Run! Run!” (F&SF, September)
William Alexander, “Ana’s Tag” (Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, November)
Nina Allan, “Angelus” (Albedo One #34)
Erik Amundsen, “Turnipseed” (Fantasy, March)
Charlie Anders, “Love Might Be Too Strong a Word” (LCRW, June)
Charlie Anders, “Suicide Drive” (Helix, January)
Nick Antosca, “Soon You Will Be Gone and Possibly Eaten” (GUD, Autumn)
Paolo Bacigalupi, “The Gambler” (Fast Forward 2)
Kelly Barnhill, “The Men Who Live in Trees” (Postscripts, Spring)
Stephen Baxter, “Turing’s Apples” (Eclipse 2)
Peter S. Beagle, “The Tale of Junko and Sayiri” (IGMS, July)
Peter S. Beagle, “Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the Angel” (Strange Roads)
Peter S. Beagle, “What Tune the Enchantress Plays” (A Book of Wizards)
Elizabeth Bear, “Overkill” (Shadow Unit 1.07)
Beth Bernobich, “Air and Angels” (Subterranean, Spring)
Terry Bisson, “Private Eye” (F&SF, October/November)
Neal Blaikie, “Offworld Friends are Best” (GUD, Spring)
Naomi Bloch, “Same Old Story” (Strange Horizons, December 8)
Michael Blumlein, “The Big One” (Flurb #6)
Sarah Rees Brennan, “An Old-Fashioned Unicorn’s Guide to Courtship” (Coyote Wild, August)
John Brown, “From the Clay of His Heart” (IGMS, April)
Alan Campbell, “The Gadgey” (Strange Horizons, May 5)
E. L. Chen, “The Story of the Woman and Her Dog” (Tesseracts Twelve)
Ted Chiang, “Exhalation” (Eclipse Two)
Deborah Coates, “How to Hide a Heart” (Strange Horizons, January 31)
Tina Connolly, “The Bitrunners” (Helix, Summer)
Constance Cooper, “The Wily Thing” (Black Gate, Spring)
Cory Doctorow, “The Things that Make Me Weak and Strange Get Engineered Away” (Tor.com, August)
Brendan DuBois,Not Enough Stars in the Night” (Cosmos Online, May 9)
David Dumitru, “Little Moon, Too, Goes Round” (Aeon Thirteen)
Hal Duncan, “The Toymaker’s Grief” (Lone Star Stories, October)
Hal Duncan, “The Behold of the Eye” (Lone Star Stories, August)
Carol Emshwiller, “Master of the Road to Nowhere” (Asimov’s, March)
Rebecca Epstein, “When We Were Stardust” (Fantasy, February)
Charles Coleman Finlay, “The Political Prisoner” (F&SF, August)
Charles Coleman Finlay, “The Rapeworm” (Noctem Aeturnus)
Carolyn Ives Gilman, “Arkfall” (F&SF, September)
Kathleen Ann Goonan, “Memory Dog” (Asimov’s, April/May)
Peni R. Griffin, “The Singers in the Tower” (Realms of Fantasy, February)
Merrie Haskell, “The Girl-Prince” (Coyote Wild, August)
&nb
sp; Merrie Haskell, “The Wedding Dress Parties of 2443” (Quantum Kiss, October 9)
Nina Kiriki Hoffman, “Trophy Wives” (Fellowship Fantastic)
Nina Kiriki Hoffman, “The Trouble with the Truth” (The Dimension Next Door)
Alex Irvine, “Mystery Hill” (F&SF, January)
Paul Jessup, “A World Without Ghosts” (Fantasy, April)
Alaya Dawn Johnson, “Down the Well” (Strange Horizons, August 4)
John Kessel, “Pride and Prometheus” (F&SF, January)
Nicole Kornher-Stace, “Yell Alley” (Fantasy, October)
Ted Kosmatka, “N-Words” (Seeds of Change)
Nancy Kress, “First Rites” (Baen’s Universe, October)
Bill Kte’pi, “The End of Tin” (Strange Horizons)
Jay Lake, “The Sky that Wraps the World Round, Past the Blue and into the Black” (Clarkesworld, March)
Jay Lake, “A Water Matter” (Tor.com, November)
Margo Lanagan, “Machine Maid” (Extraordinary Engines)
Ann Leckie, “The God of Au” (Helix, Spring)
Yoon Ha Lee, “Architectural Constants” (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, October 23)
Rose Lemberg, “Geddarien” (Fantasy, December)
Kelly Link, “The Surfer” (The Starry Rift)
Ian R. MacLeod, “The Hob Carpet” (Asimov’s, June)
Bruce McAllister, “Hit” (Aeon Thirteen)
Paul McAuley, “The Thought War” (Postscripts, Summer)
Todd McAulty, “The Soldiers of Serenity” (Black Gate, Spring)
Meghan McCarron, “The Magician’s House” (Strange Horizons, July 21)
Kirstyn McDermott, “Painlessness” (GUD, Spring)
Maureen F. McHugh, “The Kingdom of the Blind” (Plugged In)
Will McIntosh, “Linkworlds” (Strange Horizons, March 17-24)
Dean McLaughlin, “Tenbrook of Mars” (Analog, July/August)
Holly Messinger, “End of the Line” (Baen’s Universe, February)
Silvia Moreno-Garcia, “Enchantment” (Reflection’s Edge, November)
David Erik “Nelson,Tucker Teaches the Clockies to Copulate” (Paradox, Spring)
Garth Nix, “Infestation” (The Starry Rift)
Paul Park, “The Blood of Peter Francisco” (Sideways in Crime)
Richard Parks, “On the Wheel” (Hub #41)
Norman Partridge, “Apotropaics” (Subterranean, Fall)
Tim Powers, “The Hour of Babel” (Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy)
Tom Purdom, “Sepoy Fidelities” (Asimov’s, March)
Philip Raines and Harvey Welles, “Alice and Bob” (Albedo One #34)
David Reagan, “Solitude Ripples from the Past” (Futurismic, May)
Robert Reed, “Five Thrillers” (F&SF, April)
Robert Reed, “Truth” (Asimov’s, October/November)
Jessica Reisman, “Flowertongue” (Farrago’s Wainscot, May)
Kate Riedel, “Pest Control” (On Spec, Winter)
Mark Rigney, “Portfolio” (LCRW, June)
Mercurio D. Rivera, “Snatch Me Another” (Abyss and Apex, First Quarter)
Adam Roberts, “The Man of the Strong Arm” (Celebration)
Margaret Ronald, “When the Gentlemen Go By” (Clarkesworld, July)
Benjamin Rosenbaum, “Sense and Sensibility” (The Ant King and Other Stories)
Mary Rosenblum, “The Egg Man” (Asimov’s, February)
Mary Rosenblum, “Horse Racing” (Asimov’s, September)
Kristine Kathryn Rusch, “G-Men” (Sideways in Crime)
Geoff Ryman, “Talk is Cheap” (Interzone, June)
Karl Schroeder, “Book, Theatre, and Wheel” (The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Volume 2)
David J. Schwartz, “The Sun Inside” (The Sun Inside)
Gord Sellar, “Wonjiang and the Madman of Pyongyang” (Tesseracts Twelve)
Stacy Sinclair, “The 21st Century Isobel Down” (Fantasy, April)
Jeremy Adam Smith, “The Wreck of the Grampus” (Lone Star Stories, April)
Sherwood Smith, “The Rule of Engagement” (Lace and Blade)
Katherine Sparrow, “The Future is Already Seen” (Shiny #3)
William Browning Spencer, “Penguins of the Apocalypse” (Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy)
Brian Stableford, “Following the Pharmers” (Asimov’s, March)
James Stoddard, “The First Editions” (F&SF, April)
Jason Stoddard, “Far Horizon” (Interzone, February)
Jason Stoddard, “Willpower” (Futurismic, December)
Michael Swanwick, “From Babel’s Fall’n Glory We Fled” (Asimov’s, February)
Chris Szego, “Valiant on the Wing” (Strange Horizons, April 14)
Lavie Tidhar, “The Case of the Missing Puskat” (Chiaroscuro #35)
Lavie Tidhar, “Blakenjel” (Apex, October)
Catherynne M. Valente, “A Buyer’s Guide to Maps of Antarctica” (Clarkesworld, May)
James Van Pelt, “Rock House” (Talebones, Spring)
John Walker, “The Disappearance of Juliana” (GUD, Spring)
Chris Willrich, “The Sword of Loving Kindness” (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, October 23)
PUBLICATION HISTORY
“26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss” by Kij Johnson. © by Kij Johnson. Originally published in Asimov’s, July. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Shoggoths in Bloom” by Elizabeth Bear. © by Elizabeth Bear. Originally published in Asimov’s, March. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Glass” by Daryl Gregory. © by Daryl Gregory. Originally published in MIT Technology Review, November/December. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Hiss of Escaping Air” by Christopher Golden. © by Christopher Golden. Originally published in The Hiss of Escaping Air. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Araminta, or, The Wreck of the Amphidrake” by Naomi Novik. © by Naomi Novik. Originally published in Fast Ships, Black Sails. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“We Love Deena” by Alice Sola Kim. © by Alice Sola Kim. Originally published in Strange Horizons, February 11. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Art of Alchemy” by Ted Kosmatka. © by Ted Kosmatka. Originally published in F&SF, June. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Falling Angel” by Eugene Mirabelli. © by Eugene Mirabelli. Originally published in F&SF, December. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Fifth Star in the Southern Cross” by Margo Lanagan. © by Margo Lanagan. Originally published in Dreaming Again. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“King Pelles the Sure” by Peter S. Beagle. © by Avicenna Development Corporation. Originally published in Strange Roads. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Character Flu” by Robert Reed. © by Robert Reed. Originally published in F&SF, June. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Gift from a Spring” by Delia Sherman. © by Delia Sherman. Originally published in Realms of Fantasy, April. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Region of Unlikeness” by Rivka Galchen. © by Rivka Galchen. Originally published in The New Yorker, March 17. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Daltharee” by Jeffrey Ford. © by Jeffrey Ford. Originally published in The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Ray-Gun: A Love Story” by James Alan Gardner. © by James Alan Gardner. Originally published in Asimov’s, February. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The God of Au” by Ann Leckie. © by Ann Leckie. Originally published in Helix #8, Spring. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Fantasy Jumper” by Will McIntosh. © by Will McIntosh. Originally published in Black Static, February. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Magician’s House” by Meghan McCarron. © by Meghan McCarron. Originally published in Strange Horizons, July 14-21. Reprinted by permissio
n of the author.
“Balancing Accounts” by James L. Cambias. © by James L. Cambias. Originally published in F&SF, February. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Suicide Drive” by Charlie Anders. © by Charlie Anders. Originally published in Helix #7, January. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Small Door” by Holly Phillips. © by Holly Phillips. Originally published in Fantasy Magazine, May. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Eyes of God” by Peter Watts. © by Peter Watts. Originally published in The Solaris Book of New SF, Volume 2. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Firooz and His Brother” by Alex Jeffers. © by Alex Jeffers. Originally published in F&SF, May. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Infestation” by Garth Nix. © by Garth Nix. Originally published in The Starry Rift. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“A Water Matter” by Jay Lake. © by Jay Lake. Originally published in Tor.com. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Golden Octopus” by Beth Bernobich. © by Beth Bernobich. Originally published in Postscripts, Summer. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Blue Vervain Murder Ballad #2: Jack of Diamonds” by Erik Amundsen. © by Erik Amundsen. Originally published in Not One of Us, October. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Road to Levinshir” by Patrick Rothfuss. © by Patrick Rothfuss. Originally published in Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Fixing Hanover” by Jeff VanderMeer. © by Jeff VanderMeer. Originally published in Extraordinary Engines. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Boojum” by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette. © by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette. Originally published in Fast Ships, Black Sails. Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Difficulties of Evolution” by Karen Heuler. © by Karen Heuler. Originally published in Weird Tales, July/August. Reprinted by permission of the author.