Print Anthologies
Reviews of print anthologies.
The Solaris Book of New Fantasy, edited by George Mann
Solaris Publishing’s anthology series has attracted some major names already, and this latest collection, The Solaris Book of New Fantasy, is no exception. Edited by George Mann, it provides a wide ranging and extremely healthy looking cross section of modern fantasy, with something for readers of every taste.
“Who Slays the Gyant, Wounds the Beast” […]
Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse, edited by John Joseph Adams
Following a brief but insightful preface outlining the history of post-apocalyptic fiction, editor John Joseph Adams begins Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse with Stephen King’s “The End of the Whole Mess,” an Omni story from 1986. King’s narrator, freelancer Howard Fornoy, is a writer with a deadline. He has to tell the story of the […]
Continue ReadingdisLOCATIONS: Tales from the Big Dark, edited by Ian Whates
disLOCATIONS, edited by Ian Whates, is an anthology published by NewCon Press released at the end of 2007 in Britain (but available in the U.S. online). The secondary title of the volume, Tales from the Big Dark, is a fair statement for the tone of the anthology, built around the idea that people would […]
Continue ReadingJabberwocky 3, edited by Sean Wallace
The third volume in Prime Books’ Jabberwocky series is definitely fantasy and tends toward the dark and literary. Bookended by epigraphs from Oscar Wilde’s Salome, Jabberwocky 3 has the air of inevitable tragedy, of a slow encroachment of vines that swallow up the white palace, piercing it with blood-red thorns.
This mood is established and upheld […]
Rewired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology, edited by James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel
The title of Rewired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology is by itself enough to invite comparison with the famed 1986 Mirrorshades cyberpunk anthology. James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel’s introduction to the volume, “Hacking Cyberpunk” (which appeared as a feature in the August 2007 issue of the New York Review of Science Fiction), only reinforces […]
Continue ReadingThe Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps: The Best Crime Stories from the Pulps During Their Golden Age—The ’20s, ’30s & ’40s, edited by Otto Penzler
You would think when you have a book the size of The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps, edited by one of the two or three leading authorities in his field, that it would tax the abilities of even the most florid cover blurb writers to come up with statements that exaggerate the book’s […]
Continue ReadingSails & Sorcery: Tales of Nautical Fantasy, edited by W.H. Horner
In his introduction to Sails & Sorcery: Tales of Nautical Fantasy, edited by W.H. Horner, Lawrence C. Connolly contends that the mystery and glory are in the quest, not the treasure. This may well be true, and there are some fine adventures to be had in this volume, but the treasures are, at times, buried […]
Continue ReadingVisual Journeys: A Tribute to Space Artists, edited by Eric T. Reynolds
Sometimes, if you look at a picture long enough, it will tell you its story. One of them, anyway—every picture contains the essence of many stories, depending on the imagination of the beholder. Contained in Visual Journeys: A Tribute to Space Artists, edited by Eric T. Reynolds, are eighteen pieces of space art, […]
Continue ReadingInferno: New Tales of Terror and the Supernatural, edited by Ellen Datlow
All stories in Inferno: New Tales of Terror and the Supernatural had to conform to one requirement, editor Ellen Datlow (who says she’s not prolific, but she’s just being modest) says in the preface: They had to cause the reader “a sensation of fear so palpable that [he or she] feels impelled to turn up […]
Continue ReadingThe Maker’s Mark: Remnants, edited by Jon Garrad
The Maker’s Mark: Remnants, edited by Jon Garrad, is, we are told, an exercise in “world-building.” Every story in this volume is set on the same desert planet inhabited by robots that scattered from the City that lies at the centre of their world at some indeterminate time (a “generation” at least) in the […]
Continue Reading
Site content copyright © 2007-2008 The Fix. All rights reserved. Banners courtesy Paul J. Iutzi, used with permission.
