Jeffrey Ford. The Winter Wraith. (Fantasy and Science Fiction Nov/Dec 2015)
It’s a cold, bleak winter, and the task of taking out the dead christmas tree appears to be not quite as straightforward as it might…
Jeffrey Ford. A Natural History of Autumn. (Fantasy & Science Fiction, July/August 2012)
Ford looks to the East for inspiration for a story that gradually reveals itself to be a horror story, in which all is not what it seems, and a night of passion in a remote retreat becomes a much darker affair.
Rich Horton. The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2009.
A late arrival on my doorstep, and it’s taken much longer to finish the review than I had hoped. Note to self : faster dude, faster!
Jeffrey Ford. Daltharee. (Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2009)
A sort of Horton Hears a Who for smart grownups. Not really, but tenuous enought for a weak pun on the editor’s name.
Eclipse 3. (ed Jonathan Strahan).
Nicely complements the Strahan/Dozois New Space Opera anthology series, starting with several stories of the contemporary, speculative type.
Jeffrey Ford. The Coral Heart. (Eclipse 3).
A warts and all take on the traditional sword and sorcery fantasy milieu, but with the heroicism removed.
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, October/November 2005
Chock full of protein for the brain, with only a bit of excess fat and carbohydrate. To burn off those calories I’m off for a bit of ‘fast-paced’ Asimov’s action…..
Fantasy and Science Fiction, October/November 2002
Charles Coleman Finlay. A Democracy of Trolls. Not an obvious collective noun for the rock-dwelling
Fantasy and Science Fiction May 2002
Paul Di Filippo. The Short Ashy Afterlife of Hiram P. Dottle. The bookish Dottle finds
Fantasy and Science Fiction May 2001
Doing the Unstuck. Paul Di Filippo. The angst of teen Goth Erin is painfully observed,
Extraordinary Engines : the definitive Steampunk Anthology, ed Nick Gevers pub Solaris 2008
An excellent collection, with only a couple of weaker contributions. A couple are more fantasy than steampunk, but there is high quality writing throughout and a couple of stories that linger (Youmans, Lanagan and Lake) for some time.
The Starry Rift. ed Jonathan Strahan, Viking , 2008
The stories are almost without exception an excellent introduction to the genre, covering a wide spread and with something for most readers. If your kids are past the Harry Potter stage, then give them this hefty volume to help them take a step (or rather, a giant leap) in the right direction.
The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume Two. ed Jonathan Strahan, Night Shade Books, 2008.
Stories by : Ted Chiang, Peter S. Beagle, Charles Stross, Greg Egan, Daryl Gregory, Jeffrey Ford, Holly Black, Ted Kosmatka, Alex Irvine, Daniel Abraham, Nancy Kress, Bruce Sterling, Theodore Goss, Neil Gaiman, Stephen Baxter, Ken Macleod, Susan Palwick, Michael Swanwick, M. Rickert, Tony Daniel, Elizabeth Hand, Chris Roberson, Elizabeth Bear, Kelly Link.
The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume One. ed Jonathan Strahan, Night Shade Books, 2007.
Stories by : Neil Gaiman, Peter S. Beagle, Cory Doctorow, Ellen Klages, Christopher Rowe, Margo Langanan, Walter Jon Williams, Jeffrey Ford, Benjamin Rosenbaum, Frances Hardinge, Tim Powers, Paolo Bacigalupi, Geoff Ryman, Jay Lake, Robert Charles Wilson, M. Rickert, Robert Reed, Kelly Link, Elizabeth Hand, Connie Willis, Paul Di Filippo, Gene Wolfe, Benjamin Rosenbaum, Ian McDonald
Science Fiction The Best of 2003, edited by Karen Haber and Jonathan Strahan. ibooks, 2004
Stories by : Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross, David D. Levine, George Saunders, Howard Waldrop, James Patrick Kelly, Jeffrey Ford, Lucius Shepard, Michael Swanwick, Neil Gaiman, Paolo Bacigalupi, Stephen Baxter, Susan Mosser, Ursula K. Le Guin, Vernor Vinge.
Nebula Awards Showcase 2005 – edited by Jack Dann, Roc, March 2005
Jack Dann picks up the editorial reins from Vonda N. McIntyre in the Nebula Awards Showcase series. There’s a lot of high quality fiction in this volume, and the only real beef is that the stories are from 2002, which means that in a number of cases you are reading stories which appeared in the Year’s Best anthologies two years ago.