New Books Spotlight

Welcome to another edition of the New Books Spotlight, where each month or so we curate a selection of 6 new and forthcoming books we find notable, interesting, and intriguing. It gives us the opportunity to shine a brief spotlight on some stuff we're itching to get our hands on.

What are you looking forward to? Anything you want to argue with us about? 

Bennett, Robert Jackson. In the Shadows of Men [Subterranean]
Publisher's Description

In the desolate flats of west Texas, two brothers purchase an old motel with the intent of renovating it and making a fortune off the population surge brought about by the fracking boom. Though each man is lured there by the promise of wealth, they are also fleeing something: a history of trauma, of failure, of family abuse, and shame.

But the motel proves to have a history of its own. Once the business of a distant relative of theirs, Corbin Pugh, the brothers begin to discover signs that it might have been more than just a motel back during the wildcatter days of the last oil boom.

As they live and labor in its dusty halls, fighting the crawling feeling that they are not alone here, they begin to wonder: what kind of a man was Corbin Pugh? What happened in the rooms he owned, so many decades ago? And is the motel changing them, warping them to become more ruthlessly ambitious and brutal—or is this what men must become in order to survive on the edge of civilization?

Why We Want It: Genre readers today are more familiar these days with Bennett's Divine Cities trilogy and the Foundryside novels, but they won't want to miss the realistically bleak In the Shadows of Men. Check out our review.

Ellis, Lindsay. Axiom's End [St. Martin's]
Publisher's Description

The alternate history first contact adventure Axiom's End is an extraordinary debut from Hugo finalist and video essayist Lindsay Ellis.

Truth is a human right.

It’s fall 2007. A well-timed leak has revealed that the US government might have engaged in first contact. Cora Sabino is doing everything she can to avoid the whole mess, since the force driving the controversy is her whistleblower father. Even though Cora hasn’t spoken to him in years, his celebrity has caught the attention of the press, the Internet, the paparazzi, and the government—and with him in hiding, that attention is on her. She neither knows nor cares whether her father’s leaks are a hoax, and wants nothing to do with him—until she learns just how deeply entrenched her family is in the cover-up, and that an extraterrestrial presence has been on Earth for decades.

Realizing the extent to which both she and the public have been lied to, she sets out to gather as much information as she can, and finds that the best way for her to uncover the truth is not as a whistleblower, but as an intermediary. The alien presence has been completely uncommunicative until she convinces one of them that she can act as their interpreter, becoming the first and only human vessel of communication. Their otherworldly connection will change everything she thought she knew about being human—and could unleash a force more sinister than she ever imagined.

Why We Want It: I'm as suspectible to pre-publication hype as anyone else, but Axiom's End was just about as far from my personal radar as possible. I didn't connect the Hugo Award finalist Lindsay Ellis for Related Work with one of the buzzier debuts of the year, but the more I read and hear about Axiom's End the more I'm here for it.

Osborne, Karen. The Architects of Memory [Tor]
Publisher's Description

Millions died after the first contact. An alien weapon holds the key to redemption—or annihilation. Experience Karen Osborne's unforgettable science fiction debut, Architects of Memory.

Terminally ill salvage pilot Ash Jackson lost everything in the war with the alien Vai, but she'll be damned if she loses her future. Her plan: to buy, beg, or lie her way out of corporate indenture and find a cure. When her crew salvages a genocidal weapon from a ravaged starship above a dead colony, Ash uncovers a conspiracy of corporate intrigue and betrayal that threatens to turn her into a living weapon.

Why We Want It: Along with Axiom's End, The Architects of Memory is one of the more significant science fiction debuts of the year. I'm fairly certain I met Karen Osborne a number of years ago at a Fourth Street Fantasy Convention, which has nothing to do with the novel itself, but I remember enjoying speaking with her then and I'm very happy to see Osborne's debut (I'm also 100 pages into the novel as I write this and it is excellent so far)

Muir, Tamsyn. Harrow the Ninth [Tor.com Publishing]
Publisher's Description

She answered the Emperor's call.

She arrived with her arts, her wits, and her only friend.

In victory, her world has turned to ash.

After rocking the cosmos with her deathly debut, Tamsyn Muir continues the story of the penumbral Ninth House in Harrow the Ninth, a mind-twisting puzzle box of mystery, murder, magic, and mayhem. Nothing is as it seems in the halls of the Emperor, and the fate of the galaxy rests on one woman's shoulders.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus, last necromancer of the Ninth House, has been drafted by her Emperor to fight an unwinnable war. Side-by-side with a detested rival, Harrow must perfect her skills and become an angel of undeath — but her health is failing, her sword makes her nauseous, and even her mind is threatening to betray her.

Sealed in the gothic gloom of the Emperor's Mithraeum with three unfriendly teachers, hunted by the mad ghost of a murdered planet, Harrow must confront two unwelcome questions: is somebody trying to kill her? And if they succeeded, would the universe be better off?

Why We Want It: From where I stand (or sit, as the case may be), Harrow the Ninth may be the most anticipated sequel of the year after Gideon the Ninth blew the doors off the genre last year. I've read it. Adri's read it. Whatever you are expecting Harrow the Ninth to be, it is not that. Harrow is perhaps the most unexpected sequel I've read, but it is as spectacular as you might hope - but it is a baffling, wonderful, everything-bending read.

 

VanderMeer, Ann and Jeff VanderMeer. The Big Book of Modern Fantasy [Vintage]
Publisher's Description

From Ann and Jeff VanderMeer comes The Big Book of Modern Fantasy: a true horde of tales sure to delight fans, scholars — even the greediest of dragons. A VINTAGE ORIGINAL.

Step through a shimmering portal . . . a worn wardrobe door . . . a schism in sky . . . into a bold new age of fantasy. When worlds beyond worlds became a genre unto itself. From the swinging sixties to the strange, strange seventies, the over-the-top eighties to the gnarly nineties–and beyond, into the twenty-first century–the VanderMeers have found the stories and the writers from around the world that reinvented and revitalized the fantasy genre after World War II. The stories in this collection represent twenty-two different countries, including Russia, Argentina, Nigeria, Columbia, Pakistan, Turkey, Finland, Sweden, China, the Philippines, and the Czech Republic. Five have never before been translated into English.

From Jorge Luis Borges to Ursula K. Le Guin, Michael Moorcock to Angela Carter, Terry Pratchett to Stephen King, the full range and glory of the fantastic are on display in these ninety-one stories in which dragons soar, giants stomp, and human children should still think twice about venturing alone into the dark forest.

Completing Ann and Jeff VanderMeer’s definitive The Big Book of Classic Fantasy, this companion volume to takes the genre into the twenty-first century with ninety-one astonishing, mind-bending stories.

Why We Want It: It's the Big Book of Modern Fantasy. No, really, this is a massive diverse tome with stories stretching from the end of World War II to 2010. Knowing the editors VanderMeer, this is an extraordinary anthology and it won't hit the same old "best of" stories we've read in a dozen other anthologies. They read with a breadth and a depth that is incredible.

Vaughn, Carrie. The Heirs of Locksley [Tor.com Publishing]
Publisher's Description

Carrie Vaughn follows up The Ghosts of Sherwood with the charming, fast-paced The Heirs of Locksley, continuing the story of Robin Hood's children.

"We will hold an archery contest. A simple affair, all in fun, on the tournament grounds. Tomorrow. We will see you there."

The latest civil war in England has come and gone, King John is dead, and the nobility of England gathers to see the coronation of his son, thirteen year old King Henry III.

The new king is at the center of political rivalries and power struggles, but John of Locksley—son of the legendary Robin Hood and Lady Marian—only sees a lonely boy in need of friends. John and his sisters succeed in befriending Henry, while also inadvertently uncovering a political plot, saving a man's life, and carrying out daring escapes.

All in a day's work for the Locksley children...

Why We Want It: I read The Ghosts of Sherwood earlier this year and thought it was absolutely delightful. Vaughn's take on the Robin Hood mythos set years later and centered on the children of Robin and Marion is everything I didn't know that I wanted - and The Heirs of Locksley brings me more. 

POSTED BY:  Joe Sherry - Co-editor of Nerds of a Feather, 4x Hugo Award Finalist for Best Fanzine. Minnesotan. He / Him.

Interview: Ann VanderMeer and Eric Desatnik of Avatars Inc.

The Avatars Inc anthology was created by the XPRIZE foundation, as part of their Avatar XPrize. The XPRIZE's aim is to inspire teams all over the world to develop telepresence technology for a variety of uses, particularly healthcare. The anthology is edited by Ann VanderMeer, produced by Eric Desatnik and includes stories by Ken Liu, James S.A. Corey, and Sarah Pinkser. Eric Desatnik is a longtime producer of anthologies for XPRIZE; Ann's extensive work on anthologies, particularly with her husband Jeff VanderMeer, is well known. This is their second collaboration.

Over a 30-year career, Ann VanderMeer has won numerous awards for her editing work, including the Hugo Award and World Fantasy Award. Whether as editor-in-chief for Weird Tales for five years or in her current role as an acquiring editor for Tor.com, Ann has built her reputation on acquiring fiction from diverse and interesting new talents. As co-founder of Cheeky Frawg Books, she has helped develop a wide-ranging line of mostly translated fiction. Her anthologies include the Best American Fantasy series, The Weird, The Time Traveler’s Almanac, Sisters of the Revolution, The Big Book of Science Fiction, The Big Book of Classic Fantasy, and the forthcoming Big Book of Modern Fantasy (Vintage). Eric Desatnik's day job is PR and Marketing. More importantly he has produced a number of SF anthologies for XPRIZE, including Seat 14C, Current Futures, and now most recently Avatars Inc with Ann VanderMeer. Eric also created XPRIZE’s Science Fiction Advisory Council with over 100 of the world’s top sci-fi minds, like Margaret Atwood, Neil Gaiman, Neal Stephenson, and more.

Today we're talking to Ann and Eric about Avatars Inc, whose 24 stories revolve around the memories of robotic avatar units, spanning the 21st century, discovered by Avatar Inc during retrieval missions to physically retrieve, preserve and archive these memories. While on a mission to Mars in the year 2080, a young astronaut encounters a decommissioned robotic Avatar unit, partially buried in the Martian dust. She pops open the cranial casing to find its central processing chip, still intact. She holds the chip up to her visual display unit to reveal its contents. Within moments, she is flooded with what-seem-to-be “memories” from the life of the avatar, and thus the stories begin.

NoaF: So, why Mars? 

ED: We believe that avatar technology will have nearer-term applications than on the surface of Mars in the year 2080, but we wanted to set the stage for the anthology in the far future, and then use avatar “memories” as a way to chronologically look backwards and present snapshots of how avatars might be used throughout the 21st century, made possible by the innovation that’s taking place today, in the year 2020. The result is a collection of avatar use-cases that are both aspirational and grounded.

NoaF: You have quite the set of participants to your anthology. What was your selection process like? 

ED: This is the second anthology I produced on behalf of XPRIZE and All Nippon Airways (ANA), tapping authors from our Science Fiction Advisory Council, while also benefiting from Ann VanderMeer’s incredible relationships. Ultimately, we look for a diversity of perspectives so that the visions of possible futures we are presenting is as representative and inclusive as possible.

NoaF: Ann, what are the differences in curating a collection of new fiction versus the collections of previous published fiction you have edited (such as the Big Book of Science Fiction)?

AV: With reprint anthologies like The Big Book of Science Fiction, we’re reading, researching and selecting stories that have already gone through the vetting and editing process. We have a general idea which authors and stories we may want to consider, but this is a flexible process and the selections can change based on our close reading of the stories. In many cases we’re working with estates, agents and translators rather than living writers, so we’re not making changes to the existing work. In this sense it’s more of a curation.

With an original anthology like Avatars, Inc we are working with specific writers that were chosen because of our knowledge of their body of work, their interest in the subject matter and how we perceive their stories within the wider context of the other writers - in other words, how will they ‘play’ together. In a theme anthology like this, it’s important to show the variety of stories and storytelling that comes from some of the brightest writers working in the field today. With original fiction it’s such a pleasure to be surprised and amazed by what each writer delivers, even in rough form. And also enjoyable to work with them as their stories come to life with each draft.

NoaF: The themes of Avatars Inc with identity, climate change, autonomy and responsibility are rich themes for the authors. What  other, unexpected themes or resonances came out in the stories submitted?

AV: There is also a sly humor to some of the stories, even when the overall premise may be darker. Communication was a recurring theme as well - people reaching out to others, aching to be heard, to be seen. One may think that the use of an avatar may make a person more disconnected from the world and everything in it, but that isn’t the case. What we find in these stories is a closer connection due to the possibility of avatars.

NoaF: What is the most surprising bit of character or worldbuilding  in the stories submitted?

AV: I’ve got to admit, I never ever thought of using an avatar for crime scene cleanup, and yet in Nino Cipri’s story “At the End of a Most Perfect Day,” we are presented with  a darkly humorous, yet very compelling tale of family relationships. And in Johanna Sinisalo’s story “A Bird Does Not Sing…” we experience how the avatar can be used to protect other life forms (in this case the natural world) from human contamination. A theme that resonates more strongly today.

NoaF: Thanks for joining us, Ann and Eric!

---
POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, Hugo Finalist for Best Fan Writer, but I’m just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.

Holiday Gift Guide: Books and Comics

Welcome to our annual Holiday Gift Guide where the flock takes a break from talking about all the awesome and not so awesome things to, well, talk about some more of the awesome things that you might want to consider for your Holiday shopping this year. Today we'll talk about books and comics, but throughout the week you'll have any number of things to consider (games, apps, movies, and more). 

And, as you can see from the first item on this list, you still can't avoid hearing about Hamilton. I'm not sorry.


Joe: for the Hamilton obsessed in your life

Hamilton: The Revolution

by Jeremy McCarter and Lin Manuel-Miranda

I'm not sure there is anything so ingrained in nerd culture (for whatever that means today) as Hamilton. It's a musical, it's a soundtrack that has become the soundtrack of our lives, there's a star studded mixtape out now, and there's also this book. It is stunningly good. Hamilton: The Revolution is two things. First, it is a behind the scenes making of the show from inspiration all the way through making it big on Broadway and turning into the phenomenon it became. The second part of the book, and just as good is  Lin-Manuel Miranda annotated his lyrics. He writes about some of the things he was trying to accomplish, hip hop references, and more. My only wish is that Miranda would have gone full on genius annotating every line and small detail of the show - but that's a small and selfish quibble. This is a can't miss book for fans of the show and also for those still trying to figure out what's going on with this Hamilton thing.


The G: For the Vikings fan in your life

The Long Ships (New York Review Books Classics)

by Frans G. Bengtsson (trans. Michael Meyer)

I have a love/hate (mostly hate) relationship with History Channel's series Vikings, namely because it isn't nearly as historical as I want it to be. But I do appreciate that it is making more people interested in actual Viking history and culture. Now, granted--The Long Ships is neither history nor Saga, but it's a gateway to reading the Sagas, as it captures their feel, relativistic worldview and dark humor quite well. Only, The Long Ships also gives you modern prose with narrative structure. In other words, this is the closest you're going to get to the Sagas without actually reading the Sagas. And you should really read the Sagas, but The Long Ships is a good way to see if you're up for that. Plus it's just a very good story, told well.


Tia: For the Harry Potter Fan in your life

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: The Illustrated Edition (Harry Potter, Book 2)

by J.K. Rowling and Jim Kay (Illustrator)

The Harry Potter Illustrated series is a must have for any Harry Potter fan. The Chamber of Secrets doesn't feel quite as heavily illustrated as the first in the series, probably because the text is a bit longer, but that doesn't detract from the magnitude of the beauty of the book. You can catch a preview of some of the illustrations from Book 2 on Pottermore. The books themselves are almost coffee-table size, the construction is sturdy and the pages are heavy and glossed. The plan is to release one illustrated book per year, starting last year, so it is not too late to make this a holiday giving tradition.


Vance: for lover of the best science fiction has to offer

The Big Book of Science Fiction

by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (editors)

I kid you not, the introduction alone is worth the price of this book. Written by the editors, the intro lays out the entire evolution of science fiction, from Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Jules Verne, and H.G. Wells through today. But it doesn't just tell the story of Western science fiction, which is almost exclusively what I'm familiar with, it also explores how sci-fi developed in other parts of the world, too, often cut off from the Western tradition, and how it matured in response to the social conditions present in those countries and cultures. The stories collected in the book, collected methodically and purposefully, then demonstrate that history and evolution. I love vintage sci-fi -- in my gift guide entry last year, I highlighted the Fantagraphics EC Comics collections, and I have been known to wander into my local used books shop and buy sci-fi anthologies from the 50s and 60s pretty much at random. In most of those cases and with the EC collections, there are standout gems, and a bunch of junk that gets skipped, or after I scratch the pulp sci-fi or horror itch, I put the books aside until next time. But this is not to be the fate of The Big Book of Science Fiction. It's long, and I have not made my way through it fully yet, but the variety and consistently stellar (see that?) quality of the stories really do set this apart as, in my mind, *the* premier anthology of short science fiction. A must-have.



Mike: For the nostalgic comic book lover in your life

Paper Girls Volume 1

by Brian K. Vaughan

As I contemplate what an amazing year of comics it has been, I struggled to find one book that was truly a must read.  In my opinion, a lot of the titles that have come out this year are not to be missed, but as I pondered my stack of comics I reached the conclusion that that one title in 2016 was Paper Girls.  Brian K. Vaughan is no stranger to writing amazing books (Saga, Y: The Last Man, Ex Machina) and Paper Girls is as good as any of them.  In a similar vein to Stranger Things, Paper Girls had an 80's nostalgia to it that was expertly crafted.  It didn't feel forced, and reminded me of The Goonies, Stand By Me, and others.  It brings me visions of riding my bike around the neighborhood ready for anything the world could throw at me.  In the case of the characters in this title, the paper girls are confronted with mysterious aliens and mayhem and never miss a beat.  Featuring a cast of strong female characters, Paper Girls is just the title for someone on your list looking for a bit of nostalgia and fun.


Shana: for the lover of the best short fiction being written today

The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories

by Ken Liu

In Ken Liu's first short story collection, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, the reader is met with some of Ken's most awarded and award-nominated short stories with one never before published, 15 in all. This speculative fiction collection is one of the most moving and awe-inspiring I've ever read with many of the stories centering around themes such as family, identity, and politics. Liu's ability to strike the reader to the core with his poetic prose is unparalleled and any recipient of this collection will be rewarded with a gut-punch of a read.


POSTED BY: Joe Sherry - Writer / Editor at Adventures in Reading since 2004. Nerds of a Feather contributor since 2015, editor since 2016. Minnesotan.  

New Books Spotlight

Welcome to another edition of the New Books Spotlight, where each month or so we curate a selection of 6 forthcoming books we find notable, interesting, and intriguing. It gives us the opportunity to shine a brief spotlight on some stuff we're itching to get our hands on.

What are you looking forward to? Anything you want to argue with us about? Is there something we should consider spotlighting in the future? Let us know in the comments!

Cover Art by Julia Lloyd

Allan, Nina. The Race [Titan, 2016]
Publisher's Blurb

A child is kidnapped with consequences that extend across worlds… A writer reaches into the past to discover the truth about a possible murder… Far away a young woman prepares for her mysterious future…

In a future scarred by fracking and ecological collapse, Jenna Hoolman lives in the coastal town of Sapphire. Her world is dominated by the illegal sport of smartdog racing: greyhounds genetically modified with human DNA. When her young niece goes missing that world implodes... Christy’s life is dominated by fear of her brother, a man she knows capable of monstrous acts and suspects of hiding even darker ones. Desperate to learn the truth she contacts Alex, a stranger she knows only by name, and who has his own demons to fight… And Maree, a young woman undertaking a journey that will change her world forever.

The Race weaves together story threads and realities to take us on a gripping and spellbinding journey…

Why We Want It: Originally published by the smaller Newcon Press in 2014, The Race received a significant amount of buzz for how good it was. Now it is receiving a larger publication push from Titan, so we'll all get the chance to read it.

Photo by Shirley Green, Illustration by Don Sipley, Design by Lauren Panepinto

Carriger, Gail. Imprudence [Orbit, 2016]
Publisher's Blurb

Rue and the crew of the Spotted Custard return from India with revelations that shake the foundations of England's scientific community. Queen Victoria is not amused, the vampires are tetchy, and something is wrong with the local werewolf pack. To top it all off, Rue's best friend Primrose keeps getting engaged to the most unacceptable military types.

Rue has family problems as well. Her vampire father is angry, her werewolf father is crazy, and her obstreperous mother is both. Worst of all, Rue's beginning to suspect what they really are... is frightened.

Why We Want It: I may be a touch behind on my Gail Carriger reading, having only read the first two books of The Parasol Protectorate and Imprudence is the second volume of the sequel series The Custard Protocol. But Carriger's novels of Victorian era manners, steampunk, and urban fantasy are simply not to be missed and the publication of Imprudence serves to remind me that I simply need to get cracking.

Cover Artist Unknown

Higgins, C.A. Supernova [Del Rey, 2016]
Publisher's Blurb

C. A. Higgins’s acclaimed novel Lightless fused suspenseful storytelling, high-caliber scientific speculation, and richly developed characters into a stunning science fiction epic. Now the dazzling Supernova heightens the thrills and deepens the haunting exploration of technology and humanity—and the consequences that await when the two intersect.

Once Ananke was an experimental military spacecraft. But a rogue computer virus transformed it—her—into something much more: a fully sentient artificial intelligence, with all the power of a god—and all the unstable emotions of a teenager.

Althea, the ship’s engineer and the last living human aboard, nearly gave her life to save Ananke from dangerous saboteurs, forging a bond as powerful as that between mother and daughter. Now she devotes herself completely to Ananke’s care. But teaching a thinking, feeling machine—perhaps the most dangerous force in the galaxy—to be human proves a monumental challenge. When Ananke decides to seek out Matthew Gale, the terrorist she regards as her father, Althea learns that some bonds are stronger than mortal minds can understand—or control.

Drawn back toward Earth by the quest, Althea and Ananke will find themselves in the thick of a violent revolution led by Matthew’s sister, the charismatic leader Constance, who will stop at nothing to bring down a tyrannical surveillance state. As the currents of past decisions and present desires come into stark collision, a new and fiery future is about to be born.

Why We Want It: I reviewed Lightless back in March and found it a delightfully good science fiction novel. Though Lightless worked as a complete story on its own, I am very much into seeing what else Higgins does with this setting.

Cover Artist Unkown

Rowling, J.K., Jack Thorne, and John Tiffany. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Parts One and Two [Scholastic, 2016]
Publisher's Blurb

The Eighth Story. Nineteen Years Later.

Based on an original new story by J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, a new play by Jack Thorne, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the eighth story in the Harry Potter series and the first official Harry Potter story to be presented on stage. The play will receive its world premiere in London's West End on July 30, 2016.

It was always difficult being Harry Potter and it isn't much easier now that he is an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband and father of three school-age children.

While Harry grapples with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest son Albus must struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted. As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the uncomfortable truth: sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places.

Why We Want It: While there is a "Definitive Edition" coming early next year, I don't know if I'll be able to hold off reading the "Special Rehearsal Script Edition" because, come on! It's a new and official Harry Potter story! Reading the script is as close as I'm going to come to seeing the play for any number of years. New Harry Potter!

Cover Art by Les Edwards

Strahan, Jonathan (editor). Drowned Worlds [Solaris, 2016]
Publisher's Blurb

We live in a time of change. The Anthropecene Age - the time when human-induced climate change radically reshapes the world - is upon us.  Sea water is flooding the streets of Florida, island nations are rapidly disappearing beneath the waves, the polar icecaps are a fraction of what they once were, and distant, exotic places like Australia are slowly baking in the sun.

Drowned Worlds asks over a dozen of the top science fiction and fantasy writers working today to look to the future, to ask how will we survive? Do we face a period of dramatic transition and then a new technology-influenced golden age, or a long, slow decline?  Swim the drowned streets of Boston, see Venice disappear beneath the waves, meet a woman who's turned herself into a reef, traverse the floating garbage cities of the Pacific, search for the elf stones of Antarctica, and spend time in the new, dark Dust Bowl of the American mid-west.  See the future for what it is: challenging, exciting, filled with adventure, and more than a little disturbing.

Whether here on Earth or elsewhere in our universe, Drowned Worlds give us a glimpse of a new future, one filled with romance and adventure, all while the oceans rise...

Why We Want It: I'm a sucker for any number of things, but included in that epically long list are anthologies from Jonathan Strahan, the literary destruction of our world, and giant floods. Drowned Worlds is just what I'm looking for, isn't it?

Cover Artist Unknown

VanderMeer, Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (editors). The Big Book of Science Fiction [Vintage, 2016]
Publisher's Blurb

Quite possibly the greatest science fiction collection of all time—past, present, and future!

What if life was neverending? What if you could change your body to adapt to an alien ecology? What if the pope were a robot? Spanning galaxies and millennia, this must-have anthology showcases classic contributions from H. G. Wells, Arthur C. Clarke, Octavia E. Butler, and Kurt Vonnegut, alongside a century of the eccentrics, rebels, and visionaries who have inspired generations of readers. Within its pages, you’ll find beloved worlds of space opera, hard SF, cyberpunk, the New Wave, and more. Learn about the secret history of science fiction, from titans of literature who also wrote SF to less well-known authors from more than twenty-five countries, some never before translated into English. In The Big Book of Science Fiction, literary power couple Ann and Jeff VanderMeer transport readers from Mars to Mechanopolis, planet Earth to parts unknown. Immerse yourself in the genre that predicted electric cars, space tourism, and smartphones. Sit back, buckle up, and dial in the coordinates, as this stellar anthology has got worlds within worlds.

Including:
· Legendary tales from Isaac Asimov and Ursula K. Le Guin
· An unearthed sci-fi story from W. E. B. Du Bois
· The first publication of the work of cybernetic visionary David R. Bunch in twenty years
· A rare and brilliant novella by Chinese international sensation Cixin Liu

Plus:
· Aliens!
· Space battles!
· Robots!
· Technology gone wrong!
· Technology gone right!

Why We Want It: Some 750,000 words and 1200 pages of science fiction goodness curated by the VanderMeers. One hundred years of science fiction, with fiction from some of the legends of SF as well as works being translated into English for the first time. This is a must read.


POSTED BY: Joe Sherry - Writer / Editor at Adventures in Reading since 2004. Nerds of a Feather contributor since 2015, editor since 2016. Minnesotan.