I love SF novels, and count stories like The Forever War and The Ghost Brigades among my all-time favorites, but in the last year, I’ve grown very fond of the SF short story. Since an SF short story is what I hope to scrape out of my brains as my next writing project, I’ve been reading as many short stories as I can get my hands on, in places like Subterranean online, the Subterranean magazine, and in various anthologies.
I recently finished a great anthology called the Nebula Awards Showcase 2007, edited by Mike Resnick. In addition to some great SF from established writers, it included some fantasy (Kelly Link’s Magic for Beginners was wonderful), some poetry, and a novellette from Harlan Ellison that, while not SF or Fantasy, was probably my favorite tale in the book.
Now that I’m done with it, I’m looking for a new SF anthology. I’ve spent some time in the bookstore and on the googles trying to pick out a new one, but it’s tricky. Most anthologies are, by their nature, uneven, and some are downright garbage. I haven’t red enough to know if there’s one editor who I can rely upon more than another, of if there’s one publisher who puts out books with pretty covers and not much else.
While I wait for my sample issues of F&SF to arrive, I’m looking for a new anthology that’s not huge (some are over 800 pages, which is just too big for me to schlep around town) that focuses on speculative fiction.
Any suggestions?
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I really enjoyed Fast Forward 1 (http://www.amazon.com/Fast-Forward-Future-Fiction-Cutting/dp/1591024862/) when I read it over the summer. Another good anthology is The Cold Equations and Other Stories, a collection of Tom Godwin’s stories (http://www.amazon.com/Cold-Equations-Tom-Godwin/dp/0743488490/), which was compiled by Eric Flint.
Glad to see you give a nod to Kelly Link as she is brilliant and on the cutting edge of fairy-tale fiction.
There’s also a newer anthology from Baen publising, The Best of Jim Baen’s Universe (its on Amazon in hardcover). You can also get the electronic version up on http://www.webscriptionl.net I believe.
Has a great short from Cory Doctorow in it. Great stuff.
Mispelled that, its http://www.webscription.net
Sorry.
Wil, that really depends on the type anthology you enjoy. I read lots of things from game-based anthologies to fantasy, and sci-fi so to “answer” I’d really need to know what you prefer.
If you can get hold of them try the Early Asimov books, they collect loads of his short stories from various magazines, also Asimov’s The Martian Way is good collection as well.
If you want slightly darker then get Mirror Shades – A Cyberpunk Anthology by Bruce Sterling. Also v.good.
A friend of mine, Allan Rousselle, had his first two short stories published last year. One of them is in a SF anthology called Cosmic Cocktails, which was a pretty good read.
LOL! Think you got enough information/recommendations there, Wil? Guess the demographic of your readers is fairly clear, eh?
And while I have nothing further to add in terms of what to read (those were all excellent suggestions), I have published a couple of short stories in sci fi. I’ll turn you on to those, if you’re interested.
iR
I would encourage you to look into Ursula LeGuin’s collected short stories. She has a wonderful and spare style that draws me right into the story.
I’m not at all interested in fantasy, with lords and ladies, sorcerers and dragons and a small percentage of her stories have a dragon or two but I read everything LeGuin writes over and over.
I appreciate all the recommendations on your comments list and expect to keep busy enjoying all kinds of new (to me)authors.
One I really enjoyed that I haven’t seen recommended yet is Elizabeth Moon’s Moon Phases. Ms. Moon is an excellent sci-fi writer, and her short stories are no exception.
I think I’ve enjoyed every collection I’ve read from editor Garner Dozois, although I couldn’t tell you when was the last one he did – I read a bunch of them in the 80s.
I’m sure someone, somewhere may have already mentioned these, but especially if you’re a fan of Harlan Ellison, you owe it to yourself to hunt down copies of his Dangerous Visions and Again, Dangerous Visions anthologies, featuring some of the best speculative (SF) fiction out there, from the very best names ever in the biz, Bloch, Dick, Farmer, Niven…the list goes on an on. They relatively easy to come by on eBay, and I believe the original Dangerous Visions is still in print and can be ordered through your Amazon or similar online retailer.
Or better yet, stop by his site and order them direct from the source!
Another plug for a favorite single-author collection. Technically, it’s a chapbook, and the price is right for the great short stories contained therein.
The author is William Shunn, and the chapbook is An Alternate History of the 21st Century available from Spilt Milk Press for a mere five dolla. Quite possibly the best five dollars I ever spent. Much better purchase than today’s China Buffet or my daily parking fee.
http://www.electricvelocipede.com/htm/shopping.htm#chapbooks01
Gidday Wil
Second Chuck, with Isaac Asimov SFM, especially from 1977-81.
Also Larry Liven “Limits”, I think you will enjoy “Flare Time”, although you will probably get through it all in one reading 😉
PAST LIVES, PRESENT TENSE (edited by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough) has a very nifty concept — using recovered DNA, dead people’s memories can be uploaded into the living, allowing them to “be” Otis Redding, Sir Walter Raleigh, Anne Boylen, etc.
Also, if you’re looking for online stuff you might want to try Helix SF (http://www.helixsf.com). It’s a quarterly zine, and this quarter features some excellent SF from Jayme Lynn Blaschke, Vylar Kaftan, Sarah K. Castle and Jennifer Pelland.
There are lots of suggestions on this thread that I’m adding to my Amazon shopping list. But I actually finally got a typekey account just to second the people who’ve already recommended the Science Fiction Hall of Fame and Dangerous Visions anthologies. Unless you’ve already all the stories in them, they’re totally worth getting.
They’re kind of old but still awesome. If you like Harlan Ellison’s work, you have to at least try Dangerous Visions. It’s a collection of (at the time) new stories from every cutting edge SF writer that Ellison admired.
The Science Fiction Hall of Fame was published over thirty years ago and collected a representative story (and often the writer’s best story) from pretty-much every legendary SF author in the Asimov/Heinlein/Blish/Sturgeon/Clarke generation. It is a great set of books for rediscovering a story you’ve read as a kid and since forgotten or for discovering an author who might not be so famous anymore.
I grew up in a small town with a little Carnegie library that had great selections of juvenile and adult SF from the 1940s-1970s. I was a huge fan and read pretty much all of it between the ages of 12-16, then became more selective later in life. But the one anthology that sticks with me more than any other is Tomorrow’s Children edited by Asimov and published in a garish red/orange hardcover in (checks Amazon) 1966. Long out of print, but the Amazon review show there were a lot of other kids who ran into this back then and still remember it fondly. 18 stories about kids, several of which became Twilight Zone episodes or otherwise appeared on screen. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
I second many of the recommendations, particularly for the Science Fiction Hall of Fame volumes, Ted Chiang’s book of short stories, and Ursula K. LeGuin’s short stories (I particularly like her short story collection that includes Fisherman of the Inland Sea).
Other short story collections to recommend include:
John Varley’s various collections. I think there is an omnibus volume, but I particularly like the earlier collection The Persistence of Vision.
James Patrick Kelly’s various collections.
An Australian spec fic writer Margo Lanagan is really interesting. Maybe it was the mindset of my friends and I, but on the first reading of a story called ‘Singing My Sister Down’ we did not pick up on the subtlety of the fantasy aspect, immediately assuming the story took place in the past. Her writing is really beautiful; some of the prose is so carefully detailed and descriptive that sucks me into the story without making me think of the sentence structure and stylistic approaches.
Another vote for Neil Gaiman. “American Gods” was good. “Stardust” is fairy tale gold IMHO.
For lengthier reading, when you have the time, The series “A Song of Ice and Fire” by George R.R. Martin kicks serious ass.
Orson Scott Card’s “Alvin Maker” books are really fun alt-history tales.
I know none of this is sci-fi, but still, there they are.
Here’s what I can suggest.
Get anything by Zelazny. He has a ton of short story collections out there and they all have something worthwhile to offer. The man was a genius.
In the same vein I would suggest reading the Wild Cards series if you haven’t already. It’s a series of anthologies by different authors in the same universe. They call them mosaic novels. The first six or so are really well done and include contributions from Zelazny and George RR Martin. It’s not hard sci-fi, but it does have good short form storytelling in it.
The Hard SF Renaissance
edited by
David
G Hartwell & Ktheryn Cramer
isbn: 031287636x
I’m about half way through…great variety…no elves in space boots.
I recommend Axiomatic, a compilation of short stories by Greg Egan. They focus on issues on transferring consciousness into artificial media, copying identities, the moral questions involved with dealing with artificial life… I enjoy his novels as well, but not as much as the shorts stories in this collection.
I’m getting rid of these 4 books if you would like them. I am downsizing and I have too many boxes of books in the closet. I can leave them at Interact if you ever go there and if that’s cool with them.
(1)Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Vol. 1, Ed. by Robert Silverberg. (2)Twenty Years of the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Ed. by Edward Ferman & Robert Mills, intro by Issac Azimov. (3)A Treasury of Great Science Fiction, Vol. 1, Ed. by Anthony Boucher, (4)A Treasury Of Great Science Fiction, Vol. 2, Ed. by Anthony Boucher.