Locus Looks at Books: 2013 Recommended Reading: Anthologies
We’re recommending a total of 22 anthologies, down from last year’s 24. We received 118, up from last year’s 111.[FULL DISCLOSURE: People on our reviewing panel have edited some of these anthologies. They were not allowed to vote for their own books and received no special treatment.]
We split the anthologies in the way we list them, though not in the voting, between original, reprint, and Year’s Best categories.
Original anthologies are the most important, as they keep the field supplied with new short fiction. This year we saw 13, same as last year.The trend for 2013 year seemed to be themed anthologies: all but two of the original anthologies on this list centered on a theme of some sort, though the range of creativity allowed by each theme varied wildly. Retellings were popular, as two anthologies focused on them: Once Upon a Time: New Fairy Tales, edited by Paula Guran, and Rags and Bones, edited by Melissa Marr & Tim Pratt, the latter featuring some of the biggest names in the field, and offering, as reviewer Gary Wolfe put it, ‘‘not only a fascinating cacophony of literary traditions, but an intriguing glimpse into the sometimes surprising reading tastes of contemporary fantasy & SF writers.’’ Also giving their contributors creative latitude while maintaining a focused theme were anthologies addressing a specific political concern: The Other Half of the Sky, edited by Athena Andreadis & Kay Holt, featured stories of high literary quality, where the protagonists are ‘‘heroes who happen to be women, doing whatever they would do in universes where they’re fully human.’’ We See a Different Frontier, edited by Fabio Fernandes & Djibril al-Ayad addressed the under-representation of post-colonial stories told from the point of view of the colonized, with SF stories set on other worlds (where the native races are subjugated by ‘‘Earthmen’’) as well as alternate histories and fantasies that addressed the problem closer to home, where the ‘‘Earthmen’’ are imperialistic Western nations.
The anthologies with narrower themes still offered a satisfying variety of work. The road stories in End of the Road, edited by Jonathan Oliver, offered a far wider range of topics than the theme would suggest, thanks in part to the mix of both newer and more established authors offering a diverse set of stories, though the ToC can be divided into stories that are focused on the destination and those that are more concerned with the journey. Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling’s Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells had perhaps an even narrower theme than End of the Road, with historical fantasy set explicitly in 19th-century England (though a few do travel to America), but managed to provide an array of solid stories. Even Bill Fawcett & J.E. Mooney’s tribute anthology, Shadows of the New Sun: Stories in Honor of Gene Wolfe, gives a surprisingly eclectic mix of fiction, thanks in part to the slippery nature of Wolfe’s work. Gary Wolfe notes, ‘‘Wolfe territory is never quite what you think it is… he’s perhaps one of a handful of contemporary writers who can honestly and critically be described as inimitable.’’ Because of this, the tribute better describes the field’s fondness and respect for Wolfe, rather than the true range of his work.
More traditional fare could be found in Old Mars, edited by the powerhouse team of Gardener Dozois & George R.R. Martin, where all the stories are set on the Mars of mid-century SF, and which offered up a variety of styles, from the pulpish tone of the past to the more modern flavor of steampunk. Other original science fiction anthologies were more forward-looking, with Twelve Tomorrows, edited by Stephen Cass,which explores the promise and possible pitfalls of advances in technology (with stories mostly set in the next two or three decades), and The Lowest Heaven, edited by Jared Shurin & Anne Perry, which is specifically set ‘‘in the playground of the solar system’’ and released to coincide with the ‘‘Visions of the Universe’’ exhibition at the Royal Museums Greenwich (and also, it should be noted, containing some fantasy and slipstream alongside the core SF).
We had far fewer anthology series represented on our original anthology list this year compared to last year. Only two books continuing a series were represented on our list, and both were our sole original anthologies without a hard theme: Danel Olsen’s Exotic Gothic 5, this time around presenting a two-volume set containing 26 gothic stories, equally divided between male and female authors, and Solaris Rising 2: The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction, edited by Ian Whates, a solid collection of SF. Edited by our own Jonathan Strahan, the subtitle of our remaining original anthology, Fearsome Journeys: The New Solaris Book of Fantasy, which features classic sword-and-sorcery fantasy, suggests that this, too, may be part of an ongoing series, but only time will tell.
We have two reprint anthologies to recommend this year, starting with Unnatural Creatures, edited by Neil Gaiman & Maria Dahvana Headley, a collection of stories featuring magical creatures, with a portion of the profits going to benefit 826 Valencia, a nonprofit organization dedicated to encouraging excitement about writing in students ages 6-18, and helping their teachers. Supporting a different set of youth, the other reprint anthology, 21st Century Science Fiction, edited by David Hartwell & Patrick Nielsen-Hayden, gives lie to the ongoing complaint that ‘‘science fiction is dead’’ by featuring 34 stories by authors who ‘‘came to prominence since the Twentieth Century changed into the Twenty-First.’’ The stories feature not only newer writers, but also new perspectives, featuring authors and characters alike who, as Gardner Dozois put it in his review, ‘‘might not have fit comfortably into John W. Campbell’s largely white, male, middle-class, American stable of writers at the Astounding/ Analog magazine of the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s.’’
The seven Year’s Bests compile some of the best fiction of the year, as defined by their respective editors. The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirtieth Annual Collection, edited by Gardner Dozois, offers many excellent SF stories, as does Year’s Best SF 18, edited by David G. Hartwell. Rich Horton and Jonathan Strahan combine SF and fantasy in their annuals, providing additional highlights. Horror and dark fantasy continue to be well-represented in this category, with three titles: Paula Guran’s The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, has 35 stories which, taken together, blur the lines between the two genres; The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 24, edited by Stephen Jones, offers stories and an in-depth examination of the horror field in 2012 from the editor; and Ellen Datlow, who has been editing horror longer than any other editor at 26 years and counting, selected from 25 different sources to collect the 28 stories and poems in her The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Five, many of them coming from small-press periodicals and specialty-press publications, giving her summation of the field a definite credibility by proving the depth of her research. To divide the anthologies into their component parts, we have four covering SF, three covering fantasy, and three covering horror.–Heather Shaw
Locus Looks at Books: 2013 Recommended Reading: Non-Fiction
NON-FICTIONWe’re recommending 12 non-fiction titles, same as last year, chosen from 55 (14 reference titles and 41 historical or critical volumes), down from 68 (26 reference titles and 42 historical or critical volumes).
Four books offer critical writing on a single author: The Transgressive Iain Banks: Essays on a Writer Beyond Borders is a series of new essays gathered by editors Martyn Colebrook & Katharine Cox that examine Banks’s habit of ‘‘crossing borders’’;Rebecca J. Holden & Nisi Shawl also examine boundary crossing in a collection of essays, in this case in the work of Octavia E. Butler and her willingness to expose the least comfortable aspects of our humanity in Strange Matings: Science Fiction, Feminism, African American Voices and Octavia E. Butler; and, Lovecraft and Influence: His Predecessors and Successors is an assembled set of essays that examine both the authors that Lovecraft was influenced by, as well as those he, in turn, provided with inspiration. The final book in this sub-category narrows its focus not only to an author, but to the riddles contained in a single book: The Riddles of the Hobbit by Adam Roberts examines Tolkien’s use of the riddle not only as a way to structure the novel and deepen its mysteries, but goes further, digging into the history of the riddle in the Norse and Anglo Saxon cultures that were such a big influence on his work.
The Riddles of the Hobbit could also be contained in the next grouping, that of books that offer a critical, in-depth analysis of the elements that make up a good many stories in the genre. Parabolas of Science Fiction is a series of essays collected by Brian Attebery & Veronica Hollinger that takes the idea of the parabola and expands it from a simple suggestion of a story arc into something that engages with the ‘‘sf megatext,’’ or the shared ideas, tropes, plots, and other components well-known to fans of the genre. Stefan Ekman, in Here Be Dragons: Exploring Fantasy Maps and Settings, takes a slightly less rigorous approach to his topic by selecting ‘‘a random sample of two hundreds fantasy novels’’ to base his analysis on; but, as reviewer Gary K. Wolfe puts it, ‘‘the book proves to be a surprisingly fresh and insightful contribution to fantasy studies.’’ The final book on our list that deals with the mechanics of writing takes on nearly every aspect of the process: Wonderbook, edited by Jeff VanderMeer, is a powerhouse of a how-to writing book, described by Wolfe as ‘‘almost certainly the sexiest such handbook ever assembled,’’ with a simply stunning layout, full of whimsical and colorful diagrams, charts, illustrations, and containing tidbits of information gathered from some of the biggest names in the field.
Three books collect the non-fiction essays and articles of prominent critics in the field: Benchmarks Revisited and Benchmarks Concluded are the two final volumes in a three-volume collection of all of Algis Budrys classic review columns for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Past Masters and Other Bookish Natterings is a collection of some of the best of Bud Webster’s columns, author profiles, and other critical writings, offering a sense of the field’s history presented by a scholar who truly loves the genre.
The final two books on the list don’t quite fit in our other groupings. Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture edited by Ytasha L. Womack offers revelations on the history of SF/F that has long been overlooked by other historical writings, including authors, critical writing, science and myths from Africa, and goes so far as to explore the ‘‘speculative visions of the future in black music’’ through jazz, funk, and even will.i.am’s work with NASA to beam a song to Mars. And, finally, Fred Nadis’s The Man From Mars: Ray Palmer’s Amazing Pulp Journey takes a satisfyingly deep look at the personal and professional history of one of our genre’s most controversial figures.–Heather Shaw
Locus Review of Books: The Very Best of Charles DeLint
The Very Best of Charles De Lint, Charles de Lint (Tachyon 978-1-892391-96-4, $15.95, 427pp, tp) August 2010. Cover by Charles Vess.
Charles de Lint was a master of urban fantasy before the term meant chicks in black leather beating up vampires, and his focus is more on the frisson of the supernatural intruding on the everyday. He held a poll online to find out which stories were reader favorites, and 90% of The Very Best of Charles de Lint is made up of those pieces, with others included to make the collection “more representative of all the styles in which I’ve written.”
It’s all good stuff, but the best are his Newford stories. The cast of recurring characters and the invented city — an outwardly-ordinary enclave of art and magic — give the stories a comfortable feel and create a texture of verisimilitude. These feel like real people with real problems… that just happen to involve ghosts, fairies, and shapeshifters.
Several major Newford stories are represented. The most heart-wrenching is “Timeskip”, a timeslip romance about a ghost who appears every time it rains, and a woman who disappears into history; it evokes strong emotion without being heavy-handed. Haunting subterranean adventure “The Stone Drum” gives insight into artist (and fan favorite) Jilly Coppercorn, and reveals supernatural secrets about other characters. “In the House of My Enemy” reveals some of the darkness in the light-hearted Jilly’s past, and is one of the best of de Lint’s many stories about the destructive effects of child abuse and neglect. “The Moon is Drowning While I Sleep” is a tour-de-force about troubled artist Sophie Etoile’s vivid, dangerous dreamland… which may have a reality beyond the confines of her mind. “Mr. TruePenny’s Book Emporium and Gallery” is another, more whimsical, tale of Sophie’s dreams and the world they reveal, and is sure to appeal to book (and bookstore) lovers everywhere.
De Lint often writes about the importance of family: specifically the families we create, rather than the ones we’re born with. “Winter was Hard” is the tale of an old man whose life is transformed by the elf-like gemmin… and whose life changes more profoundly when they depart. The younger characters that populate de Lint’s worlds also depend on these created families. Many of them come from broken homes, and their sense of being outsiders and outcasts is echoed by the mystical beings lost in our own mundane world. In “Freewheeling”, a homeless teenager “liberates” bicycles, so they can run with a feral pack of bikes — an initially absurd image that becomes profoundly affecting. In “A Wish Named Arnold” a lonely girl discovers the truth to the old cliché “if you love something, set it free,” but the resolution is anything but clichéd. “Crow Girls” sees a disaffected mother find meaning in her life through her encounter with the magical title girls, a pair of de Lint’s most memorable characters. There’s more bird-magic in “Old Man Crow”, about the title character facing his own mortality while aiding a young woman’s magical self-discovery. “Pal O’ Mine” is another heartbreaker, about the intense power of childhood friendship and the harsh life of an aspiring musician. “Held Safe by Moonlight and Vines” is more positive– the protagonist wanders a graveyard at night, looking for ghosts, all the while protected unseen by an old friend. While she finds what she needs, it’s not what she expected.
A series of folktale-flavored stories concern the mischievous race of tricksters called the Bodach and their encounters with one of de Lint’s most memorable heroines, Meran. “In Laughter in the Leaves” she learns empathy for the creatures, despite the problems they cause, and their relationship evolves in “The Badger in the Bag”. By the end of “And the Rafters were Ringing”, she’s learned not only to tolerate the creatures, but defends them as if they were family.
In the collection’s final story, “The Fields Beyond the Fields”, de Lint’s recurring writer character Christie Riddell contemplates his role as a chronicler of magic who has trouble believing in magic himself, despite a few brushes with the numinous. It’s an intense examination of the nature of creativity and artistic creation, and a fitting end to a magical collection.
—Heather Shaw