The Mammoth Book of Best New Science Fiction: 23rd Annual Collection (6 page)

Small presses once published mostly collections and anthologies, but these days they’re active in the novel market as well. Novels issued by small presses this year, some of them among the year’s best, included:
The Empress of Mars
(Subterranean Press), by Kage Baker;
The Hotel Under the Sand
(Tachyon Publications), by Kage Baker;
Lifelode
(NESFA Press), by Jo Walton;
The Shadow Pavillion
(Night Shade Books), by Liz Williams;
Madness of Flowers: A Novel of the City Imperishable
(Night Shade Books), by Jay Lake;
The Proteus Sails Again
(Subterranean Press), by Thomas M. Disch; and
Those Who Went Remain There Still
(Subterranean Press), by Cherie Priest.

The year’s first novels included:
The Windup Girl
(Night Shade Books), by Paolo Bacigalupi;
The Manual of Detection
(Penguin Group), by Jedediah Berry;
Lamentation
(Tor Books), by Ken Scholes;
Harbinger
(Fairwood Press), by Jack Skillingstead;
Prospero Lost
(Tor Books), by L. Jagi Lamplighter;
Total Oblivion, More or Less
(Ballantine Spectra), by Alan DeNiro; and
The Adamantine Palace
(Gollancz), by Stephen Deas. Of these,
The Windup Girl
got by far the best notices, with several critics calling it not only the best first novel of the year but the best science fiction novel of the year, period.

Associational novels by people connected with the science fiction and fantasy fields included:
Four Freedoms
(HarperCollins), by John Crowley;
The Dead Man’s Brother
(Hard Case Crime), by Roger Zelazny;
Mariposa
(Vanguard Press), by Greg Bear;
The Asylum Prophecies
(Leisure Books), by Daniel Keyes; and
Chronic City
(Doubleday), by Jonathan Lethem. Ventures into the genre, or at least the ambiguous fringes of it, by well-known mainstream authors, included:
Inherent Vice
(Penguin Press), by Thomas Pynchon;
The Year of the Flood
(Doubleday), by Margaret Atwood; and
Her Fearful Symmetry
(Scribner), by Audrey Niffenegger. A surprise bestseller,
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
(Quirk Books), by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith, has already spawned several sequels, and may launch a whole new subgenre, the literary classic/horror mash-up.

There were again some good individual novellas published as chap-books, although perhaps nothing that really stood out. Subterranean Press published
The Women of Nell Gwynne’s
, by Kage Baker;
The God Engines
, by John
Scalzi; Seven for a Secret
, by Elizabeth Bear;
and Alpha and Omega
, by Patricia Briggs. PS Publishing brought out
Starfall
, by Stephen Baxter;
Ars Memoriae
, by Beth Bernobich;
The Night Cache
, by Andy Duncan; and
Gilbert and Edgar on Mars
, by Eric Brown. NewCon Press brought out
The Push
, by David Hutchinson, and
Starship Fall
, by Eric Brown. MonkeyBrain Books published
Death of a Starship
, by Jay Lake. Hadley Rille Books published
The Priestess and the Slave
, by Jenny Blackford.

Novel omnibuses this year included:
The Books of the Wars
(Baen Books), by Mark Geston;
Divisions
(Orb), by Ken MacLeod;
Exile and Glory
(Baen Books), by Jerry Pournelle;
Fires of Freedom
(Baen Books), by Jerry Pournelle;
Triplanetary
(Cosmos Books), by E.E. Smith;
This Fortress World
(Fantastic Books), by James Gunn; and
VALIS and Later Novels
(Library of America), by Philip K. Dick, as well as many omnibus novel volumes published by the Science Fiction Book Club. (Omnibuses that contain both short stories
and
novels can be found listed in the short story section.)

A lot of long out-of-print stuff has come back into print in the last couple of years in commercial trade editions. Not even counting Print on Demand books from places such as Wildside Press, the reprints issued by the Science Fiction Book Club, and the availability of out-of-print books as electronic downloads from Internet sources such as Fictionwise, that makes this the best time in de cades to pick up reissued editions of formerly long-out-of-print novels. Here are some out-of-print titles that came back
into
print this year, although producing a definitive list of reissued novels is probably difficult to impossible:

Tor Books reissued
The Currents of Space
, by Isaac Asimov. Orb Books reissued
The Stars, Like Dust
, by Isaac Asimov;
Beyond the Blue Event Horizon
, by Frederik Pohl;
Flashforward
, by Robert J. Sawyer;
Bone Dance
, by Emma Bull; and
Dying Inside
and
A Time of Changes
, both by Robert Silverberg. Baen Books reissued
The Puppet Masters
, by Robert A. Heinlein;
Rx for Chaos
, by Christopher Anvil; and
A Sense of Infinity
, by Howard L. Myers. Pyr reissued
Desolation Road
, by Ian McDonald. Orbit reissued
Against a Dark Background
, by Iain M. Banks; and
The Naked God
and
The Neutronium Alchemist
, both by Peter F. Hamilton. Cosmos reissued
The Moon Pool
, by A. Merritt; and
The 13th Immortal
, by Robert Silverberg. Ace reissued
Ariel
, by Steven R. Boyett. Paizo Publishing reissued
Robots Have No Tails
, by Henry Kuttner; and
The Sword of Rhiannon
, by Leigh Brackett. Fantastic Books reissued
Pennterra
, by Judith Moffett; and
The Dreaming
and
The Judas Mandala
, both by Damien Broderick. New York Review Books Classics reissued
Inverted World
, by Christopher Priest; and
The Chrysalids
, by John Wyndham. Crippen & Landru reissued
A Little Intelligence
, by Robert Silverberg and Randall Garrett. Wyrm Publishers reissued
Shriek: An Afterword
, by Jeff VanderMeer. Hippocampus Press reissued
The Hound Hunters
, by Adam Niswander. Penguin Group reissued
The Prisoner
, by Thomas M. Disch. MonkeyBrain Books reissued
Two Hawks from Earth
, by Philip José Farmer.

As has been true for several years now, this was a good year for short story collections, and it was a particularly good year for career-spanning retrospective collections. The year’s best nonretrospective collection may have been
Cyberabad Days
(Pyr), by Ian McDonald, although it was given a run for its money by
Wireless
(Ace), by Charles Stross, and two collections by Greg Egan,
Oceanic
(Gollancz) and
Crystal Nights and Other Stories
(Subterranean Press). Also first-rate were
We Never Talk About My Brother
(Tachyon Publications), by Peter S. Beagle;
The Buonarotti Quartet
(Aqueduct Press), by Gwyneth Jones;
Thousandth Night/Minla’s Flowers
(Subterranean Press), by Alastair Reynolds;
The Radio Magician and Other Stories
(Fairwood Press), by James Van Pelt;
Are You There and Other Stories
(Golden Gryphon Press), by Jack Skillingstead;
Vacancy & Ariel
(Subterranean Press), by Lucius Shepard; and
Uncle Bones
(Fantastic Books), by Damien Broderick. Also good are
Everland and Other Stories
(PS Publishing), by Paul Witcover;
A is for Alien
(Subterranean Press), by Caitlín R. Kiernan;
Collected Stories
(Subterranean Press), by Lewis Shiner;
Dreamwish Beasts and Snarks
(Golden Gryphon Press), by Michael D. Resnick;
Tides from the New Worlds
(Wyrm Publishing), by Tobias S. Buckell;
Eyes Like Sky and Coal and Moonlight
(Paper Golem Press), by Cat Rambo;
A Book of Endings
(Twelfth Planet Press), by Deborah Biancotti; and
We’ll Always Have Paris
(William Morrow), by Ray Bradbury.

Strong as this year was in collections, it was even stronger for big retrospective career-spanning collections. There was a bumper crop of them, including:
The Best of Gene Wolfe
(Tor Books), by Gene Wolfe;
Wild Thyme, Green Magic
(Subterranean Press), by Jack Vance;
Trips: The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg, Volume Four
(Subterranean Press), by Robert Silverberg;
The Best of Michael Moorcock
(Tachyon Publications), by Michael Moorcock;
The Complete Stories of J.G. Ballard
(W. W. Norton & Company), by J.G. Ballard;
The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny, Volume One: Threshold
(NESFA Press), by Roger Zelazny;
The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny, Volume Two: Power & Light
(NESFA Press), by Roger Zelazny;
The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny, Volume Three: This Mortal Mountain
(NESFA Press), by Roger Zelazny;
The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny, Volume Four: Last Exit to Babylon
(NESFA Press), by Roger Zelazny;
The Collected Short Works of Poul Anderson, Volume 1: Call Me Joe
(NESFA Press), by Poul Anderson;
The Collected Short Works of Poul Anderson, Volume 2: The Queen of Air and Darkness
(NESFA Press), by Poul Anderson;
Rise of the Terran Empire
(Baen Books), by Poul Anderson;
Selected Short Stories of Lester del Rey, Volume I: War and Space
(NESFA Press), by Lester del Rey;
Magic Mirrors
(NESFA Press), by John Bellairs;
The Shadow on the Doorstep
(ISFiC Press), by James P. Blaylock;
The Return of the Sorcerer: The Best of Clark Ashton Smith
(Prime Books), by Clark Ashton Smith;
The Early Work of Philip K. Dick, Volume 1: The Variable Man and Other Stories
(Prime Books), by Philip K. Dick;
The Early Work of Philip K. Dick, Volume 2: Breakfast at Twilight and Other Stories
(Prime Books), by Philip K. Dick;
Mysteries of the Worm
(Chaosium), by Robert Bloch; and
Slow Sculpture, Volume XII: The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon
(North Atlantic Books), by Theodore Sturgeon.

It should be clear from these lists that there would essentially be no such things as genre short-story collections without the small presses; with the occasional exception of a collection from a trade publisher like Tor or Baen or Ace, most collections these days are done by small press publishers. As you can see, Subterranean and NESFA Press have become particularly important in this area in recent years.

It should also be pointed out that a wide variety of “electronic collections,” often called “fiction bundles,” too many to individually list here, are also available for downloading online, at sites such as Fictionwise and ElectricStory; the Science Fiction Book Club continues to issue new collections as well.

There were a good number of big retrospective reprint anthologies this year, particularly in horror. Among the nonretrospectives, the crop of ‘Best of the Year’ anthologies were, as usual, probably your best bet for your money. This crop has been winnowed a bit, and also rearranged, from its peak a couple of years back, but there are still a lot of them. Science fiction was covered by two and a half anthologies (actually, technically, by two anthologies and by two separate half anthologies): the one you are reading at the moment,
The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Sixth Annual Collection
from St. Martin’s Griffin, edited by Gardner Dozois;
Year’s Best SF 14
(Eos), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer; and by the science fiction half of
The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Three
(Night Shade Books), edited by Jonathan Strahan (the “half-a-book,” although, of course, in practice it won’t divide this neatly). Rich Horton’s
Science Fiction: The Best of the Year
series is on hiatus, and will be reinvented in 2010 as
The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy: 2010
, which will dedicate half the book to SF coverage and half to fantasy. There will also be two new series in 2010, one by Ellen Datlow and one by Rich Horton, covering the online world specifically. The annual Nebula Awards anthology, which covers science fiction as well as fantasy of various sorts, functions as a de-facto ‘Best of the Year’ anthology, although it’s not usually counted among them; this year’s edition was
Nebula Awards Showcase 2009
(Roc), edited by Ellen Datlow. In 2010, there’ll be a new series covering the Hugo winners, edited by Mary Robinette Kowal. The long-running Datlow, Link & Grant
Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror
series died early in 2009, after twenty-one years of publication. Datlow immediately went on to start up a new horror series,
The Best Horror of the Year: Volume One
(Night Shade Books); the Kelly Link & Gavin Grant fantasy half has yet to find a new home. There were two Best of the Year anthologies covering horror: the new Datlow book, and
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror
(Robinson, Carroll & Graff), edited by Stephen Jones, up to its twentieth volume.
Horror: The Best of the Year
(Prime Books), edited by John Gregory Betancourt and Sean Wallace, seems to be at least on hiatus, if not gone. David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer’s
Year’s Best Fantasy
is still around, but it has changed form and transmogrified in its ninth volume from a print publication issued by Tachyon to a version available as a download or a Print on Demand title from Tor.com. Since the Link/Gavin half of the old
Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror
is gone, and Rich Horton’s fantasy series will be merged with his science fiction
Best
in 2010, that left fantasy being covered by only two and a half anthologies in 2009, the Hartwell/Cramer, the
Best American Fantasy
(Prime), edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, and by the fantasy half of
The Best SF and Fantasy of the Year: Volume 3
(Night Shade Books), edited by Jonathan Strahan. There was also
The 2009 Rhysling Anthology
(Science Fiction Poetry Association/Prime), edited by Drew Morse, which compiles the Rhysling Award-winning SF poetry of the year.