Three short story collections, an anthology, and a review essay collection

Confession:  I have read a lot of wonderful short fiction collections this year.  I have also read some that did not appeal to me.  Chances are, if it's a recent SF/F anthology/collection, I did not enjoy it as much as I did those not marketed as such (one such collection will be reviewed in the next week or so), perhaps due to changing tastes or just a general lack of narrative energy and experimentation.  I also am going to write a few words about a writer/lit critic/professor whose reviews, even when I disagree with them, often serve to remind me how much further I could go as a critic if I felt so inclined (sometimes, I feel more inclined to just skim over the sludgy mediocre stories in favor of those that didn't suck quite so much, other times it's all about the squirrel readers; the price I had to pay for reading/reviewing so many books this year).  Some of these works you might enjoy much more than I did; others might be less appealing.  But here they are, in an even-more condensed version than what Reader's Digest could ever hope to pull off:

Dorothy Tse, Snow and Shadow (translated from Chinese by Nicky Harman)

Snow and Shadow is testimony to the ability of writers to employ surrealistic techniques skillfully irrespective of culture or language.  Tse's stories are mostly set in a warped, sometimes grisly Hong Kong, in which women may turn into fish, or a wicked queen might attempt to graft a pig's trotter onto the amputated arm sockets of young women.  Harman does a good job in making Tse's use of weird, grotesque images seem as though they were originally composed in English.  There are few dull stories in this collection; many succeed in creating unsettling settings for some truly odd happenings.  While not every story is pitch-perfect, there are enough solid to very good efforts to make this debut English-language collection worthwhile for readers who enjoy surrealist and weird fiction.

Justin Taylor, Flings

It is almost clichéd to claim that a short story collection contains a mixture of good and not-so-great stories.  Yet there are times where one might read a collection and wonder between stories if the same writer composed the two, because one is so much better than the other that it is difficult to believe the same pen composed the twain.  This is the case with Justin Taylor's latest collection, Flings.  Roughly half of these stories are standard lit fare, replete with familiar characters and cozy plots and mundane action.  The characters in these stories might as well be engaging in one-off flings for the lack of depth and vitality that they possess.  Yet there are a handful of stories that manage to go beyond the mechanistic entities of the other tales and become something moving, vibrant beyond the author's obvious talent for writing.  In tales such as "Sungold" or "Poets," Taylor provides the reader with enough glimpses of his abilities that it is frustrating to read his lesser works, because it is plain by collection's end that he has the potential to write tales that could approach the level of some of the finest short fiction writers of the past half-century.  Maybe in his next collection he'll realize this potential.  As it stands, Flings is a solid yet uneven collection.

Margaret Atwood, Stone Mattress

Atwood is a difficult writer to sum up in a few pithy sentences.  Not only is she a talented writer on the technical level, but her stories also tend to contain profound themes, memorable characters, and situations that challenge reader preconceptions on several "hot topic" issues.  The nine stories in her latest collection, Stone Mattress, largely live up to reader expectations.  There are surprising revenges, intriguing revelations, and tales that consciously and confidently brush aside issues of genre identification in order to narrate tales that engage the reader without feeling too oblique or too transparent in construction or execution.  Stone Mattress might not be Atwood's best work, but it certainly ranks comfortably with several of her other collections and novels.

Adam Roberts, Sibilant Fricative:  Essays & Reviews

Confession:  I have a difficult time pronouncing "sibilant."  I frequently confound it somehow with silibant, which would make for an odd pun if one were pondering the merits of (unintentionally) comic novels.  Puns of course being something with which followers of Roberts' Twitter account would be familiar.  That weakness being confessed, here's another:  Roberts is one of the best lit critics writing today, especially for those who deign to treat topics as varied as Robert Browning, Gene Wolfe, Christopher Priest, Maurice Sendak and Robert Jordan.  Yes, Roberts' essays run the gamut from breaking down complex fictions into interesting, illuminating reviews to bringing to the fore Jordan's unfortunate penchant for writing quasi-clothing and tea porn.  There are times where I disagreed with his conclusions but admired the way he argued his points.  Then there were the times that I wanted to laugh aloud at how adroitly he could skewer a plot that deserved to die the death of a thousand pinpricks.  If this isn't a testimony to how good Roberts is as a reviewer, then perhaps I should just say go forth and buy a copy and find out for yourself.

Neil Clarke (ed.), Upgraded:  A Cyborg Anthology

There is a passage in the New Testament book of Revelation that talks about a church being like lukewarm water, fit only to be spewed out of the mouth.  "Lukewarm" is perhaps the most fit descriptor for this anthology of stories that deal with humans being augmented or in some form or fashion becoming "cyborgs."  There was nothing overtly offensive in any of these tales from a diverse mix of young and established SF writers, but neither was there anything memorable at all.  It took over three months for me to finish this anthology because so few stories had any real interest or appeal to me after the first few paragraphs.  Maybe it was the theme, but I suspect it is more the case that recent SF/F short fiction (not that older SF/F was better on any technical or narrative level) just leaves me cold.  There are few glaring problems with prose or characterization other that one feels cold and the other just merely lifeless. This is an issue that goes beyond this particular anthology, making Upgraded merely emblematic for the larger malaise that I feel is afflicting current SF/F short fiction.  Reading this anthology after reading several solid to outstanding non-SF/F collections and anthologies this year only underscores just how devoid of prose mastery or character nuances the SF/F collections/anthologies that I've read in recent years tend to be.  As I said above, this anthology left a lukewarm feeling, thus I spat out these thoughts.

Nick Mamatas and Masumi Washington (eds.), Phantasm Japan

But that's how it is.  It's not something unique to here.  The place and the particulars might change, but it's all the same.

It doesn't matter if you're only a tourist.  When somebody points a camera at you, you shouldn't thoughtlessly flash the V sign.

What meaning does that pose hold for the people around you?  How will it be taken in the place where you are?

Even among your fellow men, some will see it as an impression of a crab, and some won't.

What will you be communicating?

You have to think about that.  For cultural exchange.

Right?

Okay, that's enough pictures, it's time to become holes and let them in.

For the future.

– from Yusaku Kitano's "Scissors or Claws, and Holes," pp. 33-34

Places are tricky entities to pin down and define.  No matter how accurate one's GPS might be, whether one believes that 35°68'N, 139°69'E gives a precise location, places shift and shimmer, grow fuzzy and morph into something beyond a tract of land or sea.  This becomes even more readily apparent when we try to populate our conceived places with people.  So many concepts, both "true" and "false" alike (each have their own facets that belie the beliefs associated with these titles), that we bring to bear when talking about place.  We overlay our own beliefs so thickly upon certain places that it is difficult to tell where one culture's general belief pattern ends and another's begins.

As I was reading the just-released Phantasm Japan anthology, edited by Nick Mamatas and Masumi Washington, these multitude of thoughts on the inherently imprecise nature of place came to mind.  Ask someone to define "Japan," and his or her answers are going to vary wildly.  Ask an elderly World War II vet from the United States and his or her responses will be very different from those of someone who watches anime or plays the latest from Nintendo or Sony.  Even within Japanese society, the concepts of "Japan" will be staggering for outsiders.  Certainly the stories in this anthology, from both non-Japanese and Japanese writers alike, serve as a testimony and celebration of these diverse conceptualizations of Japan.

Phantasm Japan contains six translated stories and fifteen original short stories.  It also contains stories referencing environmental disorder, cultural appropriations good and bad, online stalkers, monsters, fox spirits, tricksters, and ghost tales.  For the most part, these stories manage to create an interesting collage effect, as the various elements that they explore echo and amplify points of emphasis from other stories.  For example, Yusaku Kitano's "Scissors or Claws, and Holes," from which I pulled the above quote, deals with differences in perspectives between Japanese and Westerners in things as simple as taking one's index and middle fingers and spreading them out.  Is it the sign of scissoring when moving together and apart, or is it a crab clawing at its prey?  Who is doing the perceiving shapes the narrative is part of the point of this story, and the "holes" through which one might enter might also be the absences caused by a lack of perception of how the host views the encounter.

In a different way, Tim Pratt's "Those Who Hunt Monster Hunters" plays off of these blind spots that non-natives have for native perceptions.  Using the fetishization of Asian (including Japanese) women as being docile sex dolls as a springboard, he creates a horror tale whose real effect is not felt until the very end, when the reader is finally able to piece together what has occurred around the margins of the tale.  It is in interplays between outsider and native cultural prejudices that a certain narrative tension occurs, one in which these multiple, sometimes contradictory stories of spirits and monsters, of technology and estrangement, collide. 

Although there were a few stories that felt slighter, more like mood pieces than substantive narratives, for the most part the stories in this anthology work better together than they would have independently.  Certainly there are some excellent stories.  Besides the Kitano and Pratt stories already mentioned, the novella-length "Sisyphean" by Dempow Torishima is a highlight of the anthology.  Utilizing elements of weird fiction and hard SF, Torishima has constructed a tale that might feel somewhat familiar to Western readers, yet with a certain thematic sensibility that deals more with Japanese past conceptualizations of horror and progress than with anything Anglo-American.  It is a vivid, visceral story, one that will take another re-read before it can be unpacked adequately.

As a collage of images and views of this perceived place called "Japan," Phantasm Japan does an excellent job in illustrating these various and sometimes contradictory views of Japan.  The majority of the stories are short, sharp, concise bursts of narrative and reflective prose that explore these various concepts of Japan, often with surprising twists and turns.  While there were a few tales that I thought were slighter and could have used more space for developing their themes, on the whole Phantasm Japan is an excellent anthology that showcases several developing SF/F talents from across the globe.

Rose Fox and Daniel José Older (eds.), Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction from the Margins of History

1.  Apul Apul 

A male ogre of the Great Lakes region.  A melancholy character, he eats crickets to sweeten his voice.  His house burned down with all his children inside.  His enemy is the Hare.

[My informant, a woman of the highlands who calls herself only "Mary," adds that Apul Apul can be heard on windy nights, crying for his lost progeny.  She claims that he has been sighted far from his native country, even on the coast, and that an Arab trader once shot and wounded him from the battlements of Fort Jesus.  It happened in a famine year, the "Year of Fever."  A great deal of research would be required in order to match this year, when, according to Mary, the cattle perished in droves, to one of the Years of Our Lord by which my employer reckons the passage of time; I append this note, therefore, in fine print, and in the margins. ...] - from Sofia Samatar's "Ogres of East Africa," p. 11, iPad iBooks e-edition)

A little over a year ago, there was a Kickstarter campaign for an anthology of speculative fictions devoted to the theme of covering those groups, ethnic and sexual for the most part but not strictly limited to those, who have been pushed to the "margins" and have had their stories, set in our world, pushed aside in favor of other, more dominant narratives.  I contributed to this campaign, curious to see what sorts of stories editors Rose Fox and Daniel José Older would select.  What I discovered in reading it is that nearly two months after reading it is that it is a mixed bag, with some stories that appealed to me, yet the whole being less than the sum of its parts.

The expressed theme of Long Hidden, that of telling speculative stories from the perspective of those whom others have labeled as "minorities" or as "outsiders," is very broad and the 27 contributors rightly take different approaches toward exploring this theme.  The opening story, Sofia Samatar's "Ogres of East Africa," takes the most direct approach, writing two stories within one, a narration of a white hunter's catalog of ogres hunted and killed in East Africa, as well as the Indian-born transcriber writing in the margins his thoughts about the expeditions and his own treatment.  Samatar's use of a dual narrative reminds me most of Nabokov's Ada and she does an excellent job in illustrating the complex interplay between the hunter and his transcriber.  It is my favorite story in the anthology and the one that I believe takes the most chances in terms of narrative structure.

Unfortunately, there are relatively few others that are as adventurous in utilizing narrative style as another means of discussing the diverse characteristics of their characters.  Often I found myself experiencing expository writing in too great of length within the majority of the stories.  Exposition is often necessary in order to bridge certain narrative gaps, but too frequently I felt it was relied upon in order to clue in readers to the cultural backstories.  This is exacerbated perhaps from reading Teju Cole's Every Day is for the Thief and Rivka Galchen's American Innovations, as both writers explore issues of identity and cultural interaction without resorting overmuch to exposition in order to explain things to readers.  Sometimes short story writers, particularly speculative fiction ones, depend too much on explaining things in detail.  Occasionally, and I believe this would have been beneficial to several stories, any dissonance that would have been created as a result of WASP/Western/male/straight/etc. readers not immediately grasping the import of what is transpiring could have been more than made up with this increased sense of difference.

This criticism does not mean that these stories were actively "bad" by any stretch.  However, I do believe stories like Thoraiya Dyer's "The Oud" could have been stronger if the first-person narrators could have "spoken" their tales without seeming to be providing another, more whispered, aside to a supposedly non-comprehending audience.  When authors cast aside this, such as in Troy L. Wiggins' "A Score of Roses," the stories resonate much better because the authors trust the readers to read between the lines, to take these tales in as conversations between the marginalized and not as stories in which the dominant group(s) are also to be witnesses.

For many readers, these concerns will seem minor in the context of the narratives themselves.  Certainly there are several praiseworthy stories, such as the ones I've already mentioned or stories like L.S. Johnson's "Marigolds," but I was left with this sense that Long Hidden could have been tighter, more focused.  Yes, there are some tales that may be chosen for "best of year" lists or anthologies, but as a whole, the anthology felt flat to me after reading several other novels and collections by PoC, albeit more realist than speculative in nature, that cover some of the same topics and themes in a deeper, more substantive fashion.  This is not to say that Long Hidden is a poor or even mediocre anthology, but rather that it was underwhelming in comparison to some of the other work that PoC writers have put out this year alone.

Received an intriguing retrofuturistic/steampunk Portuguese anthology in the mail today

Thanks to Safaa Dib of Saída de Emergência for sending this new anthology of theirs, Lisboa no Ano 2000,  to me.  It is an anthology of stories set in a Lisbon of 2000 that never existed.  Based on 19th century writings by novelists such as Jules Vernes that tried to project future Parises (or Londons, Berlins, etc.) at the dawn of the 21st century (yes, I know 2000 was the last year of the 20th century, but bear with me), this anthology imagines a Lisbon that could have existed if the entirety of 20th century developments had not occurred.  The anthology, which I received today, contains stories from the following writers:

• João Barreiros
• Ricardo Correia
• Jorge Palinhos
• AMP Rodriguez
• Carlos Eduardo Silva
• Ana C. Nunes
• Ricardo Cruz Ortigão
• João Ventura
• Joel Puga
• Telmo Marçal
• Michael Silva
• Pedro Vicente Pedroso
• Guilherme Trindade
• Pedro G.P. Martins
• Pedro Afonso

Lisboa no Ano 2000 just came out this month in Portugal (or at least that's what the 1st edition copyright says).  I hope to review it sometime in the next few weeks or so, along with a few Brazilian works that I received recently.  Thought this might be of interest to those curious about retrofuturistic/Steampunk stories being written outside the US/UK/Canada.

As of today, I am a published translator!

Earlier today, the anthology ODD?, edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, was made available in various e-book formats (the print edition is scheduled to be published around May 2012).  One of the stories included was Leopoldo Lugones' "The Bloat Toad," translated by yours truly.  This is my first published, professional translation (my translation of Augusto Monterroso's "Mister Taylor" will appear in late October in the UK when The Weird, also edited by the VanderMeers, is published).  Later this week, likely Thursday evening, I plan on writing a commentary on the story and my perspective of it as a translator.  But for now, I would like to point people to the main announcement of ODD? over at Jeff's blog, as he has a contest running for a free e-copy, as well as links to the places where you can buy the anthology in various e-formats and e-retailers for the low price of $7.  Even if I weren't one of the authors/translators published here, I'd still buy a copy for the impressive lineup of the truly odd and not too normal stories and writers.  Further note:  this is only the first volume of a planned biannual series of ODD? anthologies, with volume 2 coming out in May 2012.

And for those who like book trailers, an outstanding book trailer has been put out for ODD? that contains a very catchy theme song:

Table of Contents for The Weird released

The ToC for The Weird, edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, was just revealed on Jeff's blog.  Now, I'm going to be biased due to a translation of mine, "Mister Taylor" by Guatemalan writer Augusto Monterroso, appearing there, but I do think this 750,000 word reprint anthology will be one of those anthologies that readers of all stripes, particularly those who like one or more iterations of weird fiction, ought to own.  There are authors who have fallen from the limelight, authors from non-Anglo-American literary traditions, stories that are classics and those who just might surprise you.  Even if I didn't have a story appearing here, I'd want to own this one (it comes out in the UK in mid-October, with a possible US publication some time later) as soon as it was on the market due to the high probability that I would discover several outstanding writers/stories.

Also, when the associated Weird Fiction Review site launches near release date, expect some content related to this ToC there.  I am quite excited about this and hopefully there will be others excited as well. If you want to weigh in with your thoughts on the ToC or just to express your interest (or even disinterest, if that suits you more) in the stories, please leave a comment below.

Want to read an original anthology that'll contain new and exciting voices?

I just saw this posted over at Jeff VanderMeer's site:  He and his wife Ann are going to be reviving the Leviathan original anthology series, one of the best genre/weird/surrealist/etc. anthology series of the past dozen years or so.  They want Leviathan 5, which will consist of around 100,000 words (think somewhere around 400-450 pages) of original fiction, none of which would be by authors who have had more than two books published in English.  In addition, the goal is to have up to 30,000 of those 100,000 words be devoted to authors whose stories would be translated into English.  Envious of those who rave about how good this story is in Spanish, Portuguese, French, Chinese, Japanese, etc., while you know you have a snowball's chance in hell of being able to read it because you don't know the language?  This anthology would serve those who have ever found themselves wishing that they could get at least a hint of the rich treasure of stories being produced outside of the Anglo-American publishing sphere, in addition to the promotion of new and exciting voices writing in English.

There's a catch, however.  Translators have to be paid, along with others associated with collating and producing these things, so VanderMeer is pledging to take 100% of the royalties received from his latest works, 2010's story collection The Third Bear and 2011's non-fiction collection Monstrous Creatures, and apply them to funding those extra expenses that make translated fiction anthologies/collections a difficult venture.  More details are found at the link above. 

I'll be editing an original anthology for publication in 2011

Last week, I blogged about how there was an exciting new opportunity about which I was awaiting final approval.  Now I've finally received word from this small press in the Pacific Northwest that they have accepted my proposal for creating a themed, original anthology of speculative fiction that will be published sometime in the second quarter of 2011.

I have always dreamed about editing an original anthology (the work I've done helping with the editing of Best American Fantasy 4 has only strengthened this resolve) and although some might have thought I was joking when I mentioned it in my Nebula Blog bio, I am finally going to get the chance to do an open reading for an original anthology of squirrel-related SF, to be called, Squirrelpunk. 

Below are two mock cover arts that Serbian illustrator Dunja Branovački has created for this anthology.  Doubtless, she will be adding more details once the final selection of stories is made later this year:

Hard to say which is better, but I do know that I enjoy the way she created a clockwork squirrel here.

As noted above, Squirrelpunk will be original stories only that involve squirrels in a steampunk-like setting.  The opening reading period will be from May 1, 2010 to October 31, 2010.  All submissions should be manuscript format and be sent via email to the following address:

squirrelpunkfiction@gmail.com

Hopefully, there will be several dozen submissions and that it'll be very difficult to choose the finalists for inclusion in Squirrelpunk.

The DAW animal anthology meme?

Over the past few days, John Scalzi and Jeff VanderMeer, among others, have been blogging about the rather odd (OK, fucked-up) cover to the Zombie Raccoons & Killer Bunnies themed anthology released in MMPB format by DAW books.  Some readers expressed incredulity, doubting that such a beautiful piece of...something actually existed. 

To that, I say:  It exists, oh, it exists.  And I have provided photo evidence of it, not just of the cover, but of an excerpted page that ought to pique curiosity even more!  Feast your eyes on these images!

I thought it'd be best to pair this anthology cover with a book that would show the natural prey for fey, rabid, zombie animals:  women in (not so much) distress, showing cleavage.  It's like chocolate and peanut butter for these type of stories, no?

Not enough for you?  Then what do you make of the sparkling dialogue and stunning narrative wit revealed in the passage excerpted in the image below?

Yes, Zombie Raccoons & Killer Bunnies seems to be after the cheese factor.  In a perverse way, I'm tempted to read and review this, but I think I might be able to resist (barely!) due to the overload of work and other books I need to read for review purposes over the next few weeks.  But here's a question:  Should I a) Give this book to someone I know who has a thing for rabid squirrels, or b) Hold some sort of silly contest for my copy of this book? 

Not guaranteeing that I'll follow the results of this poll, but if there is a lot of response, I might be swayed...after all, rabid squirrels are just something you don't mess with, ya know?

ProLiteracy charity anthology, Last Drink Bird Head, now available for pre-orders

Last Drink Bird Head is an anthology of flash fiction featuring several of my favorite authors, with all proceeds from this limited-edition work going to benefit the ProLiteracy group, which works toward eradicating illiteracy. More details, including a pre-order discount, can be found here.

One final note: The list of contributors is impressive. For those who need to be persuaded by "name" authors, feast your eyes on these authors:

Daniel Abraham, Michael Arnzen, Steve Aylett, KJ Bishop, Michael Bishop, Desirina Boskovich, Keith Brooke, Jesse Bullington, Richard Butner, Catherine Cheek, Matthew Cheney, Michael Cisco, Gio Clairval, Alan M. Clark, Brendan Connell, Paul Di Filippo, Stephen R. Donaldson, Rikki Ducornet, Clare Dudman, Hal Duncan, Scott Eagle, Brian Evenson, Eliot Fintushel, Jeffrey Ford, Richard Gehr, Felix Gilman, Jon Courtney Grimwood, Rhys Hughes, Paul Jessup, Antony Johnston, John Kaiine, Henry Kaiser, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Tessa Kum, Ellen Kushner, Jay Lake, Tanith Lee, Stina Leicht, Therese Littleton, Beth Adele Long, Dustin Long, Nick Mamatas, JM McDermott, Sarah Monette, Kari O’Connor, Ben Peek, Holly Phillips, Louis Phillips, Tim Pratt, Cat Rambo, Mark Rich, Bruce Holland Rogers, Nicholas Royle, G Eric Schaller, Ekaterina Sedia, Ramsey Shehadeh, Peter Straub, Victoria Strauss, Michael Swanwick, Mark Swartz, Alan Swirsky, Rachel Swirsky, Sonya Taaffe, Justin Taylor, Steve Rasnic Tem, Jeffrey Thomas, Scott Thomas, John Urbancik, Genevieve Valentine, Kim Westwood, Leslie What, Andrew Steiger White, Conrad Williams, Liz Williams, Neil Williamson, Caleb Wilson, Gene Wolfe, Jonathan Wood, Marly Youmans, and Catherine Zeidler.

Think you might want to consider placing an order now, since it's for a good cause and the chances are high that there'll be some quality stories to read?

2009 Anthologies and Story Collections Read/Owned to Date

Since in three months or so I'll be posting my Best of 2009 list, I thought I'd take stock of the short fiction published in some new form or fashion in 2009 that I've read. This is not in chronological order or in level of preference:

Short Story Collections:

1. Peter S. Beagle, We Never Talk About My Brother

2. Caitlín R. Kiernan, A is for Alien

3. Otsuichi, ZOO

4. Terrence Holt, In the Valley of the Kings

5. Tobias Buckell, Tides from the New World

6. Brian Evenson, Fugue State


Anthologies (single-author and multiple authors):

7. John Davey, Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, The Best of Michael Moorcock

8. Nick Gevers and Jay Lake, Other Earths

9. Gianpaolo Celli, Steampunk: Histórias de um Passado Extraordinário

10. Dean Francis Alfar and Nikki Alfar, Philippine Speculative Fiction IV

11. Bradford Morrow, Conjunctions: 52: Betwixt the Between

12. Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, Best American Fantasy 2

13. Lavie Tidhar, The Apex Book of World SF


In Progress:

14. George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, Songs of the Dying Earth

15. Vincent Michael Simbulan, A Time for Dragons: An Anthology of Philippine Draconic Fiction

16. John Scalzi, Metatropolis


On Order:

16. Jonathan Strahan, Eclipse 3

17. Peter Straub, American Fantastic Tales (two vols.)


Not too bad, I suppose, but I'm not satisfied with this. What anthologies/collections released in 2009 in the US (or first elsewhere in the world) am I missing that I ought to acquire so I can consider for inclusion in my wrapup on 2009 short fiction books?

I have a very cool announcement to make

I've sat on this for a few days now, but since it's now been made public, I can go ahead and share with you that I've been asked to be an assistant editor (along with Fábio Fernandes) for the Best American Fantasy anthology series, starting with BAF4, which will be published in 2011 and cover 2010. Fábio and I will be working with Latin American (Spanish and Portuguese alike) stories that have been translated into English.

Needless to say, this is a dream opportunity, since for the past few years, I have found myself hoping to one day get to help edit an anthology of Latin American fiction, particularly of the speculative variety.

For more details, be sure to read Jeff VanderMeer's post on the matter.

Conjunctions 51: The Death Issue

Death is the great mystery that has bedeviled us for as long as humans or their ancestors developed the first spark of self-consciousness. It appears in so many guises in our stories, from Shakespeare's "the undiscover'd country, from whose bourn no traveller returns" to Neil Gaiman's sweet, goth-like girl. To define death would be to define the whole range of human experiences, emotions, as well as our hopes, dreams, and fears.

Lately, death has been on my mind. Two days ago, on March 25, I learned that a high school classmate of mine had died after a years-long battle with leukemia. Although he and I were never close (he was two years older than me and had struggled to stay in school until 18, when he dropped out), he is the second person in my high school class (we had as many as 71, with 58 graduating in 1992) to die. It is a sobering realization, knowing that cancer can take the young as well as the old. That, more than gray hairs, middle-age spreads, or achy joints, serves to remind people of their mortality.

What is there about death that entices us, scares us, makes us do all sorts of things to embrace it or attempt (vainly) to flee from it? What power does it have that can drive a person away from the bedside of a loved one (I almost vomited seeing my maternal grandfather in the ICU as the doctors tried to resuscitate him a second time; I left the hospital two hours before he died, because I just couldn't bear the emotional atmosphere there any longer. Still haunted by those dreams), while another frantically rushes to be there for that one final, bittersweet moment?

In the Fall/Winter 2008 issue of Conjunctions, called The Death Issue: Meditations on the Inevitable, 42 authors weigh in with their poems and short stories on this most mysterious of human experiences. The result is a powerful, sometimes disturbing collection of stories that showcase all the myriad emotions that the living can feel when confronted with death and with the dying.

The collection opens with Sallie Tisdale's "The Sutra of Maggots and Blowfish." Tisdale combines scientific inquiry into the brief lives and deaths of ephemeral insects with Buddhist reflections on suffering and loss. Below are a couple of excerpts that cut to the heart of her story:

My study of living things, part inquiry and part the urge to possess, became inevitably a study of predation and decay. I had to feed my pets, and most preferred live food. The mantises always died, their seasons short. The chameleons died, too delicate for my care. The alligator died. I tried to embalm it, with limited success - just good enough for an excellent presentation at show-and-tell. When one of my turtles died, my brother and I buried it in my mother's rose bed to see if we could get an empty turtle shell, which would be quite a good thing to have. When we dug it up a few weeks later, there was almost nothing left - an outcome I had not anticipated, and one that left me with a strange, disturbed feeling. The earth was more fierce than I had guessed (p. 8)

Buddhism in its heart is an answer to our questions about suffering and loss, a response to the inexplicable; it is a way to live with life. Its explanations, its particular vocabulary and shorthand, its gentle pressures - they have been with me throughout my adult life; they are part of my language, my thought, my view. Buddhism saved my life and controlled it; it has been liberation and censure at once.

Buddhism is blunt about suffering, its causes and its cures. The Buddha taught that nothing is permanent. He taught this in a great many ways, but most of what he said came down to this: Things change. Change hurts; change cannot be avoided. "All compounded things are subject to dissolution" - this formula is basic Buddhist doctrine, it is pounded into us by the canon, by the masters, by our daily lives. It means all things are compounded and will dissolve, which means I am compounded and I will dissolve. This is not something I readily accept, and yet I am continually bombarded with the evidence. I longed to know this, this fact of life, this answer - that we are put together from other things and will be taken apart and build anew - that there is nothing known that escapes this fate. When one of his disciples struggled with lust or felt pride in his youth or strength, the Buddha recommended that the follower go to the charnel ground, and meditate on a corpse - on its blossoming into something new (pp. 13-14)

Tisdale's take on death serves as a near-perfect opener for this anthology issue, as the dualism of change/decay and of the first-person narrator's intense desire to explore/probe is balanced by the Buddhist beliefs the narrator attempts to practice. Many times in life, I have come into contact with people who seek detachment, but whose basic personalities are those of intense, driven, world-absorbed people. The inherent contradictions in this relate well with the seemingly paradoxical observation that death ceremonies serve the living and not the dead.

Another take on death that grabbed my attention was Michael Logan's "The Pressure Points." Told in a series of flashbacks involving the husband/narrator and his dying (then later dead) wife, who has breast cancer, Logan's tale reflects the anger, hatred, and irrational reactions that the spectre of Death can raise among the living and the dying.

Weeks not hungry punctuated by specific cravings for olives, chocolate, pistachio nuts, and pills - waiting for the death pregnancy test to register positive. Teen year erotic wet dreams discharged between clenched night teeth into amputation nightmares. Biology needed another host to continue. We had no children. The whole family should be dead. I am willing to go back several generations. I understand vampire stories now. (p. 351)

Logan's short story, with its rapid-fire changes in perspective and point of view, captures much of the confusion and frustration that comes from watching a disease like cancer conducting its slow, inexorable fatal march across the features of a loved one. It reminded me of my reactions at the age of 14, watching (before I finally turned away, three months before her death) my paternal grandmother die of stomach, lung, and liver cancer.

These are but two stellar stories in a collection that contains more very good stories than poor or average tales. In reading this anthology this past weekend, I recalled so many of the emotions that I felt over the years when friends and family died, or when I learned that a then-current or former student of mine had died in an accident. Coming to grips with these sorts of situations supposedly is a sign of maturation, of "growing up," even if so often we fail to grow towards a greater understanding of what is transpiring when a living body ceases to be alive. However, the tales contained in Conjunctions 51: The Death Issue touch upon so many of our nerve points that for any wanting to read thoughtful, challenging, and sometimes provocative tales on death and how it affects both the living and the dying (a separate entity with its own rules, or just part and parcel of the former? Such a question is addressed in several ways in this anthology.), this might be the anthology for them. Highly recommended.

Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (eds.), Best American Fantasy 2

When the first volume of Best American Fantasy came out in the summer of 2007, I wrote a review praising it for exploring facets of "fantasy" that remained true to the various interpretations of that ancient word while each story managed to avoid feeling repetitive with their motifs, styles, and story progressions. That anthology was one of my favorite anthologies for 2007, but if it contained an Achilles Heel, it would be that in covering so much ground that other best of year anthologies failed to do, there weren't as many readily-identifiable "hook" stories (and writers) that would draw in a casual fan.

In the second iteration of this new anthology series, Ann and Jeff VanderMeer return for a second tour of duty as guest editors, with Matthew Cheney serving as the overall series editor. Unlike the 2007 anthology, Best American Fantasy 2 is a slimmer volume, clocking in at just over 330 pages, compared to BAF1's 450 pages. But in many aspects, this anthology serves as an example of why often less can mean more.

As the VanderMeers note in their introduction, BAF2 contains fewer stories from non-genre sources, due in large part to a seeming lack of interesting fantastical fiction being published in 2007 compared to the 2006 stories that were included in BAF1. Furthermore, the stories follow a more "rigorous" definition of fantasy that excludes for the most part tales that employ fantastical elements as mere metaphor for concrete, mimetic settings. But although this does constrain the possibilities for each story included, this more narrow focus also served to create a greater sense of thematic unity among the included short fictions, as there was not quite as much disparity in styles.

The 19 stories included in BAF2 contain entries from several award-winning authors, such as M. Rickert, Kelly Link, Peter Beagle, and Jeffrey Ford. Their stories were uniformly outstanding. A personal favorite was Beagle's "The Last and Only, or, Mr. Moscowitz Becomes French," where the title characters sudden mutation into a Frenchman reminded me not only of the old Monty Python skit where an alien race turns ordinary Englishmen and Englishwomen into Scotsmen/women, but also of my own personal struggles to master the nuances of a different culture and language. In many ways, it is both comic and serious at the same time, forcing the reader to confront his/her own sense of dislocation as Moscowitz's story proceeds to its conclusion.

One inevitably sad aspect of the editors' decision to narrow the focus in BAF2 is that there were fewer "pleasant surprises" or discoveries in this volume. While newer writers such as Rachel Swirsky ("How the World Became Quiet") and Matt Bell ("Mario's Three Lives") wrote outstanding stories (I chuckled quite a bit at first at Bell's description of Mario the Plumber using his ass to eat and to destroy, before the story progressed to a very serious, contemplative conclusion), there were comparatively fewer "bookless" writers in this collection compared to BAF1. In that sense, a bit of the wonder that I felt while reading BAF1 back in August 2007 was lost.

However, that was balanced by the fact that there were no stories that I would call "weak." Some were not as appealing to me as others (Kage Baker's "The Ruby Incomparable" did not capture my attention as much as many of her other stories have in the past), but the worst I could say would be that those tales were solid, but not spectacular. Considering that most original or reprint anthologies generally contain a few clunkers for me, BAF2 perhaps is one of the more uniformly good anthologies that I have read in the past couple of years.

On the whole, BAF2 builds upon the elements that I thought made BAF1 a successful new entrant into a rather crowded best of year anthology market. Despite the retooling that narrowed the selections from around 30 to 19, this second volume managed to avoid feeling stagnant. I am curious to see what new directions this series will take in the upcoming third volume, now that Kevin Brockmeier will be the guest editor and that Underland Press will be assuming publishing duties from Prime. If BAF2 is any indication, it will be a different, fresh take on selecting exemplary short fiction of the fantastic.

Publication Date: February 2009 (US), Tradeback.

Publisher: Prime Books

Query regarding 2008 anthologies and story collections

In about a month's time, I'm going to begin writing a series of posts focusing on what I consider to be the best fiction that I've read in 2008 (mostly devoted to books released this year). I know there'll be quite a bit devoted to covering anthologies and short story collections and while I already have a dozen or more in mind for coverage, I can't help but think that I might have overlooked a few. So here's a chance for you, dear reader, to nominate certain anthologies/story collections for me to consider. And to make it extra fun, I won't even tell you which ones I've read and/or own.

So...willing to help a reviewer out, please?

Reading the World: Amanda Michalopoulou and Etgar Keret

As I blogged about last week, I am going to be making occasional short reviews of books from the Reading the World consortium of publishers of recently-translated fiction. The first two books I chose were short story collections, I'd Like, by Greek author Amanda Michalopoulou, and The Girl on the Fridge by Israeli writer Etgar Keret. If these two are indicative of the quality of this collection of 25 books, then it bodes well for the other 23, as I enjoyed both of these books for very different reasons.

Michalopoulou's collection of 13 short stories reads more like 13 beginnings and middle portions of an unfinished, untamed draft to a novel. In the eponymous first story, a wife and her husband, a frustrated writer, have a fateful meeting with a distinguished author:

"What do you want me to ask? How exactly he beats her? If he pushes her down and kicks her? Is that what you want? To gossip?"

"I want to feel your surprise. You know why your stories have become so hollow? Your characters hear the strangest things in the world and just go on eating their cake. Or smoking."

"Thanks for the constructive criticism! That's just what I need at six in the morning!"

My finger burns inside its splint.

"Why don't we continue this conversation in the morning?" my husband says.

"It is morning."

"All of a sudden I'm exhausted."

"You're always exhausted, every time anything happens to upset the status quo. Just don't take up smoking, please. We've got enough to deal with already, what with the drinking and the constant fault-finding."

He closes the shutters and night falls again, just for the two of us. His exhaustion is contagious. First my brain goes numb, then my hands, then my knees. How will I ever find the strength to take off my clothes and slip into bed? It seems like the most difficult thing in the world. So I just watch him undress.

First his shirt. Then his shoes. He pulls his socks off together with his pants.

A failed writer in boxer shorts.

A failed painter, fully dressed.

We don't hit each other. And we don't embrace.

There are other ways. (pp. 10-11)

From there, the next story, "A Slight, Controlled Unease," takes up the reins of this story, revealing it to be a story within a story, one that the writer is musing over while another seeks domination. Like matrioshka dolls, each story is nested within each other, creating a vivid, insightful, sometimes ironic or cynical tapestry that sucks the reader into its whirling vortex of character and story. Michalopoulou is a very talented storyteller and her prose cuts through those wasted, idle spaces between words, creating an emotional connection between characters and reader.

Etgar Keret's latest collection, The Girl on the Fridge, reminded me of a harsher, even more cynical and ironic version of David Sedaris. The book description gave some hint of this: "A birthday-party magician whose hat tricks end in horror and gore; a girl parented by a major household appliance; the possessor of the lowest IQ in [the]Mossad..." Keret's stories revel in the cruelties that lie behind the humor, or perhaps in the humor that lies behind the blackest urges in our lives. Told mostly in very brief 1-3 page stories, here is one example, from "Slimy Shlomo Is a Homo":

The sub told them to line up in pairs. Slimy Shlomo Is a Homo was the odd man out. "I'll be your partner," the sub said and gave him her hand.

Then they went for a walk in the park, and Slimy Shlomo Is a Homo looked at the boats in the artificial lake, and at a gigantic sculpture of an orange, and then a bird pooped on his hat.

"Shit sticks to shit," Yuval shouted at them from behind, and the other kids laughed.

"Ignore them," the sub said and rinsed his hat off under a faucet. Next came the ice-cream man, and everyone bought ice cream. Slimy Shlomo Is a Homo ate his Popsicle, and when he finished, he pushed the stick between the tiles in the pavement and pretended it was a rocket. The other kids were fooling around on the grass, and only Slimy Shlomo Is a Homo and the sub, who was smoking a cigarette and looking pretty tired, stayed on the pavement.

"Why do all the kids hate me?" Slimy Shlomo Is a Homo asked her.

"How should I know?" The sub shrugged her drooping shoulders. "I'm just a sub." (pp. 99-100)

While this might seem to be of the blackest and perhaps most unfunny of humors, it is an element that underlies the more bizarre tales, such as a mother firing a gun at snot-nosed kids who have begun stoning her soldier son, or that of the least intelligent member of the Israeli secret intelligence force, the Mossad. Often cruel things happen, and yet underneath that is an absurdness that made for some uncomfortable chuckles and laughs. Keret's humor is biting and acerbic, but yet it translates well into English and it makes for some startling considerations long after the last word of a story is read.

Both Michalopoulou and Keret display quite a bit of talent with using the le mot juste to set up their tales and to execute them with élan. Their translators, Karen Emmerich for Michalopoulou and Miriam Shlesinger and Sondra Silverston for Keret, have done outstanding work with making these stories feel as though the reader were experiencing the author's tale first-hand and not via the translation medium. Both of these are highly recommended works and right now they might be the two best short story collections I've read so far this year.

Publication Dates:

I'd Like - April 10, 2008 (US), tradeback.

The Girl on the Fridge - April 15, 2008 (US), tradeback.

Publishers:

I'd Like - Dalkey Archive Press

The Girl on the Fridge - Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Anthology Reviews: Paper Cities

Cities have fascinating and often troubled histories. So much so that the older cities begin to secrete layers of historical clashes and cultural shifts, with elements of the old mutating to fit the needs of the present. Prod a bit under a city's surface and you are bound to turn up a few skeletons and other rotting vestiges of the older cultural orders. Perhaps it might be best to say instead that if one digs deep enough, one will find all sorts of mythical alligators lurking underneath the surface layer.

This comment of mine regarding Ekaterina Sedia's The Secret History of Moscow can just as easily be applied to a recent anthology that she edited, Paper Cities: An Anthology of Urban Fantasy. A city is not a monolithic entity; it shifts and warps the viewer's perception from one street corner or block to the next. If New York's Brooklyn and Bronx neighborhoods differ so much that each has its own accent, why can't there be wildly different cities of the fantastic? As Sedia herself notes in the Editor's Note:

I selected these stories because they share the insight into the cities as living entities, benign or sinister, that can shape the existence of their inhabitants. And they share the passion for those agglomerations of flesh and inanimate matter, with all their foibles, glories, and hidden truths.

In addition, these stories typically do not represent the facets of the subgenre "urban fantasy;" werevolves and vampires in a modern "real" city do not constitute a major part of what transpires in this anthology of 21 stories. What does happen is that in cities real and imagined, with stories that sometimes stretch for many years or historical periods, people interact with these amorphous entities of brick and mortar, or stone and cement, or perhaps wood and iron and tin, all to create vistas that can be exciting or terrifying.

Forrest Aguirre's "Andretto Walks the King's Way" sets the tone early by describing a rural traveler's travels into the city. With its shifting perspectives and Andretto's perplexity on full display, by the time the story concludes, one begins to get the sense of the mysterious allure that cities can have for those who grow up in the countryside. Hal Duncan's "The Tower of Morning Bones" is set in yet another fold of the Vellum, mixing other mythologies together to create a story that is dense, but ultimately rewarding for those who engage the story.

Other stories that I thought were highlights of this collection were Ben Peek's "The Funeral, Ruined," Michael Jasper's "Painting Haiti," and Catherynne M. Valente's excerpt from her upcoming novel, Palimpsest. In each of these tales, there is a beauty to the prose, one that offsets what is transpiring within the stories, creating a dissonance that enticed me to pay even closer attention to what was occurring. The other stories were only a small step behind these in quality, as I do not recall a story that disappointed me.

Paper Cities is an excellent anthology whose stories ought to appeal to a wide range of readers, especially those curious about "urban fantasy" but who may be uncertain if any of the authors who write in this amorphous field might be worth reading. Like real cities, each city presented has its own facets, its own charms, and its own dangers that the characters come to experience. Highly recommended.

Publication Date: April 1, 2008 (US); tradeback.

Publisher: Senses Five Press

Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, The New Weird

weird (wîrd)

adj. weird·er, weird·est

1. Of, relating to, or suggestive of the preternatural or supernatural.

2. Of a strikingly odd or unusual character; strange.

3. Archaic Of or relating to fate or the Fates.

n.

1.

a. Fate; destiny.

b. One's assigned lot or fortune, especially when evil.

2. often Weird Greek & Roman Mythology One of the Fates.

tr. & intr.v. weird·ed, weird·ing, weirds

Slang To experience or cause to experience an odd, unusual, and sometimes uneasy sensation. Often used with out.

---

[Middle English werde, fate, having power to control fate, from Old English wyrd, fate; see wer-² in Indo-European roots.]

Despite the seemingly precise definition cited above, "weird" is something that resists pat explanations or cute labels; it is just there, lurking at the peripheries, making the observers of it quite uncomfortable. In fiction, there have been hints of "weirdness" in the writing, places where it feels almost like a transgression to cross, because of its often alien and grotesque nature. From the beloved ruins of the Romanticists to the dank, dark corridors of an Ann Radcliffe, full of mysterious, odd, and quite possibly malevolent creations, to the rather unsettled end to the rather frightful 20th century, many writers have come to explore those boundaries that contain elements that both fascinate and repel humans. When I heard about Ann and Jeff VanderMeer's latest anthology project, The New Weird, I was reminded of a comment by M. John Harrison in his introduction to the PS Publishing edition of China Miéville's The Tain, "China Miéville & the New Weird" written in October 2002:

Good fiction should make us question our experience of the world; not to say the means by which we scaffold that experience. But it should never do this obviously. The most painfully defamiliarising gesture is the most subtle. Good fiction has an uncanny quality: and that's enough to make it "fantasy" and "mainstream" at the same time. Let's go out there, we might say, meaning, into this mainstream arena, and make readers uncomfortable. Instead of splitting hairs let's do some acts of the countermundane.

In his introduction to The New Weird anthology, Jeff VanderMeer addresses not just the history of this "movement," stretching back to and referencing the near-iconic old pulp magazine Weird Tales, but also the problems inherent in such a purposely vague and yet fitting term. Back then, there were no rigidly-defined terms such as "epic fantasy," "urban fantasy," "horror," or "hard SF." Instead, in pulps such as Weird Tales, writers might mix elements of all of the above into an alchemical brew that would leave their readers feeling in turns fascinated and uncomfortable.
All well and good, one might argue. But what makes this "weird" the New Weird? VanderMeer continues, noting that the often-political, almost-always experimental approach of the New Wave writers of the 1960s and 1970s(M. John Harrison and Michael Moorcock being two prominent writers of this time period), with their appropriations of whatever "mainstream" tropes and concerns that they saw fit to use, made it okay again, after the rather rigid divisions between SF and Fantasy that occurred during the post-World War II Golden Age of SF era, to blend and blur the boundaries. In addition, during the 1980s, some horror writers (Clive Barker being cited as a major influence) began to take a more visceral, unsettling approach to Lovecraftian themes, daring to reveal much more of the hideousness of the imagined and "real" monsters than had been done before.

But experimenters rarely are accepted into the fold and by the 1990s, during a time in which the older political models seemed to be dissolving into a toxic mixture of ethnocentrism, religious fundamentalism, and rising xenophobism in the so-called "First World" nations, some writers influenced by the predecessors mentioned above began to write their own takes on the older fantasy, SF, horror, and "mainstream" tropes. This, VanderMeer postulates, is the beginning point for what later became known as the New Weird.

The term itself, he notes, is quite controversial, as even those associated with its coining, China Miéville, Steph Swainston, and M. John Harrison, later came to distance themselves from the term. Labels, after all, are tricky and confining entities that seek to bind and to standardize. But if "weirdness," this "uncanniness" that unsettles people, is such a slippery, vague word in the first place, how can labels apply? It is around this question that much of the VanderMeers' anthology revolves.

Many anthologies give little more than a brief introduction by the editor(s) of whatever theme(s) that the anthology seeks to explore. Here in The New Weird, the questions raised in the introduction are underscored by how the VanderMeers have divided their book. In the first section, "Stimuli," the reader is introduced to seminal stories such as M. John Harrison's "The Luck in the Head" (originally published in 1984 as part of Viriconium Nights), Clive Barker's "In the Hills, the Cities" (published first in 1984 in the collection Books of Blood, Volume I), and Thomas Ligotti's "A Soft Voice Whispers Nothing" (1997 publication, In a Foreign Town, In a Foreign Land). In each of these stories (and others that I neglect to mention above), there are a few common elements. The settings are very vivid, sometimes set in another "world," sometimes in a very recognizable contemporary Earth. The language of the stories focuses heavily on how the narrator/characters interact with their environs, which often differ from the characters' "norms." It is a classic "Man versus the Environment" clash in part, but there is much more to it than just that. In these stories, the reader can expect to find all sorts of unsettling situations or implications based on plot events, all designed to heighten any unease that the reader might hold. As an introduction to the influences on the latter styles, these stories work very well together.

In the second part, "Evidence," there are reprinted stories by Miéville, Jay Lake, Jeffrey Thomas, Steph Swainston, and Jeffrey Ford, among others. In these tales, the earlier tales' atmospheric settings and unsettled narrative reactions is married to an even closer attention to language and "real-world" concerns. Miéville's "Jack," set in his New Crobuzon universe, explores the machinations of a totalitarian state and the usefulness for that regime of having mythical hero-opponents such as Jack Half-a-Prayer oppose it. Miéville's descriptions of the Remaking process, of how Jack is eventually caught, and what happens to his snitch all serve to focus our attention not just on the wonderfully described situation, but also on how our own political systems are fraught with corruption and how complacent many citizens can be in light of such potential governmental abuses. Although the other stories in this section are not quite overtly political (or Marxist) as is Miéville's, they too have their moments in which the "weirdness" presented often hits a bit too close to home for our comfort.

But as well-written and presented as these stories were, one of the key selling points for this anthology in my mind was the third section, "Symposium." Here the VanderMeers have reproduced the opening salvos of a landmark 2003 discussion that originally appeared on The Third Alternative forums (now archived here) as well as publishing reprinted and original essays on the New Weird theme by Michael Cisco, K.J. Bishop, and a series of non-English language editors from Central, Eastern, and Northern Europe on the impact that such a movement as the New Weird has had in their countries, both in the selling of translated fiction as well as on native writers. It is in this section that the questions presented in the introduction reemerge and take center stage. The reader witnesses the debates over the terminologies employed, the questions over the efficacies of even having such a label, and so forth. For me, it was this section that made this anthology much more than the sum of its parts.

In the final section, "Laboratory," there is a writing project in which authors not often associated with the original New Weird movement, are presented with a story beginning written by Paul Di Filippo and are asked to riff off of that intro, using their own understandings of what "New Weird" might mean. This collaborative exercise on the parts of Di Filippo, Cat Rambo, Sarah Monette, Daniel Abraham, Felix Gilman, Hal Duncan, and Conrad Williams is a very striking look at how the techniques employed by the New Weird writers have influenced those whose stories at first glance might not be associated with such a movement. It was an interesting way to end the anthology and one that will take me multiple reads before I will feel comfortable presenting a cogent discussion of its themes and elements.

Perhaps that was one of the points of that exercise - to shake readers such as myself from our comfort zones and make us contemplate things that are often baffling, sometimes repulsive, but almost always imaginative and vivid. In this, the final section fits in well with the previous three and hints at what may lay ahead in the field. Defined precisely or not, the New Weird certainly has had a major impact on writing both inside and outside the narrowly-defined genre limns. This eponymous anthology does an outstanding job in presenting the New Weird in all its unsettling, vague, weird glory. Highly Recommended.

Publication Date: February 1, 2008 (US), Tradeback.

Publisher: Tachyon Publications

Best of 2007: Anthologies and Story Collections

I made it my goal this year to read more anthologies and short story collections by particular authors. Although I still have a few stories here and there to finish in some of these, I have read enough of the following to justify splitting this into two separate categories, one for anthologies and one for collections by one or two authors. I'll announce my Top 3 picks in each category on Monday in my Best of 2007 writeup.

Anthologies:

Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (eds.), Best American Fantasy

George Mann (ed.), The Solaris Book of New Fantasy

Delia Sherman and Theodora Goss (eds.), Interfictions: An Anthology of Interstitial Writing

John Klima (ed.), Logorrhea

Keith Brooke and Nick Gevers (eds.), Infinity Plus: The Anthology

Kelly Link and Gavin Grant (eds.), The Best of Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet

Peter Wild (ed.), The Flash


Story Collections:

Margo Lanagan, Red Spikes

Sarah Monette, The Bone Key

Richard Parks, Worshipping Small Gods

Michael Cisco, Secret Hours

Cat Rambo and Jeff VanderMeer, The Surgeon's Tale and Other Tales

Tim Pratt, Hart & Boot & Other Stories

I have some very tough decisions ahead. Oh, and in the coming days, do expect some reviews of some of those works above that I have yet to review here.

Four Fictions

Occasionally, I read a handful of books in rapid succession that while I believe they merit a consideration from readers, I just do not know if I can say much more than "Book X is one of those you had to experience it stories that you really ought to read!" The first two of the four I want to discuss today are the third and fourth volumes in the Leviathan series that Jeff VanderMeer (and continued later by Forrest Aguirre) began as a way of collecting stories that had a bit of this and a dash of that, making it in the end neither the fish of "mainstream" nor the fowl of "traditional" fantasy. Those who have read much of the "modern surrealistic fantasy" or "New Weird" styles of storytelling will recognize authors such as K.J. Bishop, Jay Lake, Michael Moorcock, Zoran Živković, and many others whose commonalities are not as much an inner congruence of motifs between their works as much as a shared sense of wonder and exploration that has led to an increasing estrangement from the prior models for fantasy and "mainstream" short fiction.

Leviathan Three is the larger (almost 500 pages) of the two and its stories are not as thematically obvious as the fourth (which deals with cities of various forms). This collection of tales of madness and of the seeking of other experiences has as its cornerstone the various "library" stories of Živković that comprise his WFA-winning novella, "The Library." Although I shall not explore the ways in which these stories interact to form a larger and very imaginative whole, suffice to say that I consider this anthology to be one of the "must read" books of the past generation. The stories are impressive and the contributors' list will serve curious readers as a touch stone for the more surrealistic (or "New Weird") stories being lauded today by many readers.

Leviathan 4, on the other hand, is not quite nearly as sprawling or attention-grabbing as its immediate predecessor. However, there are quite a few stories contained within (Lake's story makes up the germ of his latter 2006 release, Trial of Flowers, if I'm not mistaken) that ought to appeal to fans of authors such as Lake and Bishop, not to mention newer and more obscure authors such as Ben Peek. There is a greater sense of story unity, as an urban setting is the central theme of the collection and most of the stories use this setting in various ways to drive their stories forward. In many cases, the authors here manage to imbue their urban surroundings with a sense of alienness that makes the cities as much of a "living" character as the sentient beings transversing them.

One author from this series that I purposely neglected to mention until now is Michael Cisco. In the past month, I have read two 2007 releases of his, the short story collection Secret Hours and the just-released novel called The Traitor. In each of them, Cisco displays a fascination with using words to create a stunning visual image, depending upon often-fragile 1st person narrators to capture the reader's attention and to force them to confront the odd and sometimes terrifying world in which his stories take place. Secret Hours contains 14 stories that purportedly were written as an homage of sorts to H.P. Lovecraft and in some of them, this influence (especially in the establishment of a spooky atmospheric setting) is quite evident. While I personally enjoyed many of these stories, I don't know if they would be straightforward enough for many readers who might prefer a more gradual amping of the action than Cisco's stutter-step approach here.

Cisco's recent novel, The Traitor, however is not only more "accessible," but it also contains one of the most powerful stories I've read of the 2007 releases. The title references quite a few layers of possible "betrayals," and the main character (again a 1st person narrator whose reliability can be called into question) seems to have as much in common with a sort of "criminal" associate of his as he does with those around him. While not strictly an allegory, the way that Cisco constructs the story lends itself to being viewed in that way as much as being taken in for a story of struggle, of human identity, and a whole host of other issues that I shall not discuss here due to the nature of this posting. However, those who do consider reading this work are in for an experience that I believe will move many much more than what they might expect when confronted with a 150 page paperback.

So here they are: four fictions, two of them related anthologies, two of them recent releases by a single author who appears in one of the prior anthologies. Each contains at least traces of surrealist influence on how setting is warped, each contains stories that deal with the fractured natures of that pesky thing called "identity." Each are well worth the effort involved in reading them.