All posts by Jonathan Strahan

ToC Reveal: The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Thirteen

 

Cover for The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Thirteen by JIm Burns
Coming in 2019! (Art by Jim Burns)

 

The year is moving a little closer to done. Yesterday afternoon I sent the manuscript for The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Thirteen to my wonderful editor, David Thomas Moore. There are still some things to do – copyedits and so on – but it is complete.

I could easily have added more stories – especially more novellas – but any book has to fit between a single set of covers and I’m very happy with these selections:

  • “Dreadful Young Ladies”, Kelly Barnhill (Dreadful Young Ladies and Other Stories)
  • “Okay, Glory”, Elizabeth Bear (Twelve Tomorrows)
  • The Only Harmless Great Thing, Brooke Bolander (Tor.com Publishing)
  • “If at First You Don’t Succeed, Try, Try Again”, Zen Cho (B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog, 11/31/18)
  • “The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington”, P Djeli Clark (Fireside Magazine)
  • “Flint and Mirror”, John Crowley (The Book of Magic)
  • “An Agent of Utopia”, Andy Duncan (An Agent of Utopia)
  • “The Bookcase Expedition”, Jeffrey Ford (Robots vs. Fairies)
  • “Nine Last Days on Planet Earth”, Daryl Gregory (Tor.com)
  • “A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies”, Alix E. Harrow (Apex Magazine)
  • “You Pretend Like You Never Met Me, and I’ll Pretend Like I Never Met You”, Maria Dahvana Headley (Lightspeed,)
  • “When We Were Starless”, Simone Heller (Clarkesworld)
  • “The Woman Who Destroyed Us”, SL Huang (Twelve Tomorrows)
  • “Golgotha “, Dave Hutchinson (2001: An Odyssey in Words)
  • “The Storyteller’s Replacement”, N K Jemisin (How Long Till Black Future Month?)
  • “The Rose MacGregor Drinking and Admiration Society”, T. Kingfisher (Uncanny)
  • “Field Biology of the Wee Fairies”, Naomi Kritzer (Apex, 9/4/18)
  • “Meat and Salt and Sparks”, Rich Larson (Tor.com)
  • “Firelight”, Ursula K Le Guin (The Paris Review 225)
  • “The Starship and the Temple Cat”, Yoon Ha Lee (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
  • “Quality Time”, Ken Liu (Robots vs. Fairies)
  • “A Brief and Fearful Star”, Carmen Maria Machado (Slate)
  • “The Blue Fairy’s Manifesto”, Annalee Newitz (Robots vs. Fairies)
  • “The Staff in the Stone”, Garth Nix (The Book of Magic)
  • “Blessings”, Naomi Novik (Uncanny)
  • “Mother Tongues”, S. Qiouyi Lu (Asimov’s Science Fiction)
  • “Intervention”, Kelly Robson (Infinity’s End)
  • “Widdam”, Vandana Singh (F&SF)
  • “Yard Dog”, Tade Thompson (Fiyah #7)
  • “Olivia’s Table”, Alyssa Wong (A Thousand Beginnings and Endings)

My sincere thanks to all of the authors, agents, and editors who’ve helped make the book possible.  The book will be out in April 2019.

Note: The cover has placeholder names on it. This ToC is accurate.

Pre-order

Episode 340: Andy Duncan and the Road to Utopia

The 2018 World Fantasy Convention was held in Baltimore, Maryland over the first weekend of November. People from all over the globe gathered, including Gary and Jonathan, to engage in discussion, appreciate art, and generally share their love of the fantasy genre. 

Somewhere in there, Gary and Jonathan found time to sit down with Andy Duncan to discuss his brand new short story collection, Agent of Utopia. The book is a fine one and the conversation was wonderful.  As always, we’d like to thank Andy for making the time to talk to the podcast, and we’d like to thank you for listening.

Episode 339: The Road to Baltimore

With the 2018 World Fantasy Convention just weeks away, Gary and Jonathan sit down to discuss the upcoming convention, the life achievement recipients, nominees and much more.

This episode is a bit of ramble and includes digressions on questions like whether this really is an outstanding year for story collections (with new collections from N.K. Jemisin, Michael Bishop, and others) or if great collections coming out regularly is the new norm and whether we should devote any time at all on the podcast to such things as movies and TV (hint: Jonathan is sceptical).

We hope to see many of you in Baltimore. Until then, though, we hope you enjoy the podcast.

Episode 338: Alec Nevala-Lee, Andy Duncan, and the Astounding Legacy

Astounding by Alec Nevala-Lee

Worldcon 76 in San Jose, California this past August was a busy time. Thousands of science fiction and fantasy writers, readers, artists, publishers, and fans of every stripe travelled across the country and, in some cases, around the world to celebrate the best in SF.

We (Gary and Jonathan) had a wonderful time while we were there and managed to record four special episodes. Our final conversation is one of our favourites. Alec Nevala-Lee‘s Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction is a fascinating and probably definitive examination of Astounding, John W. Campbell and the writers who made up that time.  Andy Duncan, a long-time friend of the podcast, also just published “New Frontiers of the Mind”, his first story for Analog (successor to Astounding) which examines the connection between Campbell and Rhine. Both Alec and Andy sat down with us in San Jose to discuss Campbell, Astounding, and their own work. 

As always, we’d like to thank Alec and Andy for making time to talk to us and we hope you enjoy the conversation!

 

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