The Del Rey Book Of Science Fiction and Fantasy - Ellen Datlow

This book turns out to be just another not very good original anthology. 3.16 average only. Although billed as The Del Rey Book Of Science Fiction and Fantasy, you could uncharitably call it the Del Rey Book Of Fantasy with a fair helping of mundane and a bit of Science Fiction. The subtitle mentions Speculative Fiction - perhaps that would have been a better actual title as far as content goes. However, the McAuley/Newman novella is a long piece, and clearly SF, and also probably the only story with anything resembling humour. Perhaps not so surprising given the editor's predilection for horror. Lanagan and Barron may well appeal to the horror fan, too, and maybe some of the other stories.

In general though, there is too much average, mediocre, and dull to be found here, and a certain sameness of tone perhaps in the inferior examples. The better tales clearly depart from this sort of atmosphere: McHugh's future China again, Lanagan's not just fractured by actually fracked fairy tale and McAuley and Newman's whacky island, to name a few.

Here's what the editor says in the intro : "This volume reflects the kinds of fiction I published while at SCI FICTION: fantasy, science fiction, a touch of horror—and even a possibly unclassifiable or two. I did not go out and try to pick a story to represent every type of SF, every type of fantasy or dark fantasy. You won’t find off-planet stories or hard science fiction, but you will find two very different alternate histories, some aliens, and some powerful, very timely political science fiction. There’s no sword and sorcery or elves but there are cities in bottles, a twisted fairy tale, and a woman who loves filming volcanoes."

In other words, if you are looking for a variety of centre-core science fiction stories, second world fantasy or the more mainstream urban fantasy to any significant degree, then you should definitely look elsewhere, you definitely won't find it here. Those that like the more mundane or mainstream type stuff will likely find this appealing. Perhaps a strange approach if trying to establish a series title and turn it into a success. Maybe there idea is to be the flipside of the Solaris effort and try and get a different audience. This one isn't in mass market form I don't think though, however the ebook is available and how I managed to get it for a price I thought was worth it. Good thing it was at a nice fictionwise discount as it turns out.

The best story here, Elizabeth Bear's 'Sonny Liston Takes the Fall' is an example of the above approach, it would seem: it has one minor if you are aware of it mention of another character from a supernatural urban fantasy story of hers. 'One-Eyed Jack and the Suicide Kings' which you can find at Subterranean Online and says it is an exceprt from a novel. Otherwise as you should be able to tell from the title, it is a story about a boxer.

There are other stories like that, chop out a line or two and you wouldn't notice it was any sort of fantasy at all.

Del Rey Book Of Science Fiction and Fantasy : The Elephant Ironclads - Jason Stoddard
Del Rey Book Of Science Fiction and Fantasy : Ardent Clouds - Lucy Sussex
Del Rey Book Of Science Fiction and Fantasy : Gather - Christopher Rowe
Del Rey Book Of Science Fiction and Fantasy : Sonny Liston Takes the Fall - Elizabeth Bear
Del Rey Book Of Science Fiction and Fantasy : North American Lake Monsters - Nathan Ballingrud
Del Rey Book Of Science Fiction and Fantasy : All Washed Up While Looking for a Better World - Carol Emshwiller
Del Rey Book Of Science Fiction and Fantasy : Special Economics - Maureen McHugh
Del Rey Book Of Science Fiction and Fantasy : Aka Saint Marks Place - Richard Bowes
Del Rey Book Of Science Fiction and Fantasy : The Goosle - Margo Lanagan
Del Rey Book Of Science Fiction and Fantasy : Shira - Lavie Tidhar
Del Rey Book Of Science Fiction and Fantasy : The Passion of Azazel - Barry N. Malzberg
Del Rey Book Of Science Fiction and Fantasy : The Lagerstätte - Laird Barron
Del Rey Book Of Science Fiction and Fantasy : Gladiolus Exposed - Anna Tambour
Del Rey Book Of Science Fiction and Fantasy : Daltharee - Jeffrey Ford
Del Rey Book Of Science Fiction and Fantasy : Jimmy - Pat Cadigan
Del Rey Book Of Science Fiction and Fantasy : Prisoners of the Action - Paul McAuley and Kim Newman

Uranium power deal flunkies.

3 out of 5

Volcano junkie gets the horn.

3.5 out of 5

...more clarity.

2.5 out of 5

Taking one for Ali.

4 out of 5

So, in the shed, why then?

3 out of 5

That about covers it.

3 out of 5

Getting a Chinese Wal-Mart New Life revolution.

3.5 out of 5

The finding of a Ray Light.

3 out of 5

Arsebanditry better than cannibalry.

3.5 out of 5

Poetry pass-over.

2.5 out of 5

Kill that scapegoat.

2.5 out of 5

Plane crash ghosts.

3.5 out of 5

Bone fondling end.

3 out of 5

Domeworld no Brainiac.

3.5 out of 5

Dead Kennedy bridge being runaway.

3 out of 5

Alien zombie Stalag 13 is highly inventive.

3.5 out of 5




3 out of 5

Steampunk - Ann VanderMeer and Jeff VanderMeer

Another interesting retrospective anthology from the VanderMeer marital team, from the same publisher in Tachyon, too. This one I think with a cooler and more appropriate cover.

The difference here is that neither of the editors are as heavily invested in the subject from a personal writing point of view as with The New Weird. So, there is a Team VanderMeer intro, but then they hand over the non-fictional reins to others more knowledgeable.

For early genre fiction of this ilk, if there is anyone more knowledgeable than Jess Nevins it would be surprising - and they certainly haven't written all the cool stuff on the internet that he has - go and check out his website, it is a marvel. So, pretty much anything he writes on this sort of topic will be worth looking at - and here he gives the early history of work that leads to 'Steampunk'. From before Verne and Wells, to the American explorer-scientist 'Edisonades' as he points out these have been termed, right up to the first 'story 'included here, Michael Moorcock's Oswald Bastable excerpt.

He does talk about the 'punk' element here, and even first and second wave steampunk, and who the first wave authors were - Blaylock, Jeter, etc. Nevins concentrates on prose.

Rick Klaw talks about Steampunk in popular culture in a wide variety of media, film, anime, etc.

Bill Baker gives an overview of Steampunk in graphic format - and there are lots, and gives a reasonable looking bibliography as such, including the awesome Warren Ellis and John Cassaday Planetary and Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen that are must reads, for those that like this sort of thing.

On the whole, reasonably well done, although a couple more lists from Nevins and Klaw wouldn't have gone astray, even though work is mentioned. Such things are good for asking librarians 'here, check these out on Interlibrary Loan for me would you please'?

There is a wide range of stories from the very fluffy-light Molly Brown story through madcap Blaylock, to the, to quote my spousal unit, who read this before me 'the really twisted' Joe Lansdale. The final story is a bit different, nanopunk if you like - from Neal Stephenson's Diamond Age setting. A nice score to get a story from him though, and it, too, is cool.

There are no bad stories here, although the footnote ending of Pollack's is weak, and Chabon's is annoying to read with all the em-dash line beginnings that make it like your eyes are trying to herd ants to follow it.

The publisher shouldn't be shy about making use of spare pages to advertise other anthologies they have done or possible books of interest to those of us that buy these things. I don't think many of us mind that, within reason, if you have the space.

Overall, I'd put it a bit under 4.5, but certainly good enough to round up to there.

Steampunk : Benediction: Warlord of the Air - Michael Moorcock
Steampunk : Lord Kelvin’s Machine - James Blaylock
Steampunk : The Giving Mouth - Ian MacLeod
Steampunk : A Sun in the Attic - Mary Gentle
Steampunk : The God-Clown Is Near - Jay Lake
Steampunk : The Steam Man of the Prairie and the Dark Rider Get Down - Joe Lansdale
Steampunk : The Selene Gardening Society - Molly Brown
Steampunk : Seventy-Two Letters - Ted Chiang
Steampunk : The Martian Agent: An Interplanetary Romance - Michael Chabon
Steampunk : Victoria - Paul Di Filippo
Steampunk : Reflected Light - Rachel E. Pollock
Steampunk : Minutes of the Last Meeting - Stepan Chapman
Steampunk : Excerpt from the Third and Last Volume of the Tribes of the Pacific Coast - Neal Stephenson

Fleet going down.

3.5 out of 5

Magnetic field massacre mouse save snakes into mad scientist volcano shootout showdown.

4 out of 5

Eater machined.

3 out of 5

Archival barbarian reports.

3.5 out of 5

Really getting their goat.

4 out of 5

The Time Traveler vampire show is a rip of a ride.

4.5 out of 5

The Moon? What a load of rubbish.

3.5 out of 5

Foetal experiment orders named.

3.5 out of 5

Airship hopes.

3 out of 5

Newt but a Queen.

4 out of 5

Less handy rebels.

3 out of 5

Tsar Nukeallofus.

3.5 out of 5

Nano Protoctol crossbow source defense samurai chainsword rescue.

3.5 out of 5




4.5 out of 5

The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 21st Annual Collection - Ellen Datlow and Kelly Link and Gavin Grant

You could possibly be exhausted after reading the centuryish long epic introduction to this volume, giving overviews of fantasy and horror in written form, and in video and comics. As far as video goes, sounds like Edward Bryant is a reviewer I could trust. :)

Unfortunately, not up to the standard of last year's great volume (3.52 vs 3.76). The problem, Daniel Abraham and a couple of others excepted is with the fantasy selections. Both editors mentioned some other favorite stories they couldn't fit in here for space reasons, but they certainly could have done better giving some mediocre fantasy the arse and putting in Lucius Shepard.
On the whole a pretty average bunch. The worst offender by far, dragging the rest down is the wretched MacBride Tarzna spooftiche.

Datlow's horror selections are pretty strong though, headed by the great Laird Barron.

So, I'd call this book perhaps a bit over 3 for fantasy, a bit over 4 for horror, extra for the very well done overview, and give it a four overall. Good but not great.

Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 21 : The Cambist and Lord Iron: A Fairy Tale of Economics - Daniel Abraham
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 21 : Vampires in the Lemon Grove - Karen Russell
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 21 : Holiday - M. Rickert
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 21 : Hum Drum - Gary McMahon
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 21 : Splitfoot - Paul Walther
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 21 : The House of Mechanical Pain - Chaz Brenchley
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 21 : The Last Worders - Karen Joy Fowler
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 21 : The Monsters of Heaven - Nathan Ballingrud
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 21 : The Fiddler of Bayou Teche - Delia Sherman
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 21 : Mr. Poo Poo - Reggie Oliver
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 21 : Winter's Wife - Elizabeth Hand
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 21 : The Tenth Muse - William Browning Spencer
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 21 : The Drowned Life - Jeffrey Ford
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 21 : The Swing - Don Tumasonis
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 21 : The Forest - Laird Barron
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 21 : Fragrant Goddess - Paul Park
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 21 : Up the Fire Road - Eileen Gunn
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 21 : The Gray Boy's Work - M.T. Anderson
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 21 : The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate - Ted Chiang
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 21 : Valentine, July Heat Wave - Joyce Carol Oates
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 21 : A Thing Forbidden - Donald Mead
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 21 : Reversal of Fortune - Holly Black
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 21 : Rats - Veronica Schanoes
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 21 : A Perfect and Unmappable Grace - Jack Haringa
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 21 : The Boulder - Lucy Kemnitzer
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 21 : The Hill - Tanith Lee
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 21 : The Ape Man - Alexander MacBride
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 21 : The Hide - Liz Williams
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 21 : England and Nowhere - Tim Nickels
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 21 : Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz Go to War Again - Garth Nix
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 21 : Toother - Terry Dowling
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 21 : The Evolution of Trickster Stories Among the Dogs of North Park After the Change - Kij Johnson
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 21 : Closet Dreams - Lisa Tuttle

Life exchange rate.

4.5 out of 5

Sour suckage.

3 out of 5

Dead kid clowning just like the old man.

4 out of 5

Widow con beaten.

4 out of 5

Lizard lancer mercenary godbothering, no dummy.

3.5 out of 5

Would up paedophile plate family.

4 out of 5

Partner door bitch ditch.

3 out of 5

Limp angel bloody love.

4 out of 5

Dance marathon bet.

3.5 out of 5

Fundamentally sticky marriage.

3.5 out of 5

A rocky end for local entrepreneur's saga.

4 out of 5

Same book ritual.

4 out of 5

Octopus advice maybe dodgy.

3 out of 5

Dying of cancer won't bug me, at least until the sun goes out, anyway.

4.5 out of 5

Alchemical history.

2.5 out of 5

Bigfoot baby makes talk show host disappear!

3 out of 5

Deserter addition.

3 out of 5

Wormhole time tender's raconteur replay.

4 out of 5

No flies on this marriage

4 out of 5

Dead Billy not, but Christ and priest rather tasty.

3 out of 5

Devil frog chomp, plus 1.

4 out of 5

Junkie gutted.

3 out of 5

Who dropped you the dead nude chick?

2.5 out of 5

Rocky grail riddance.

3 out of 5

Lizard meat puppets.

4 out of 5

Pathetic monkeying around.

2 out of 5

Shag flyers, multiple.

3 out of 5

Dad beach film girl.

4 out of 5

Lizard lancer mercenary godbothering, no dummy.

3.5 out of 5

Forced in denture.

4 out of 5

Dogs like chicken and chips, too.

3 out of 5

Locked up loop.

3.5 out of 5



4 out of 5

The Living Dead - John Joseph Adams

Note that the print version apparently has more stories than this ebook. In this case the luddite dorkbrains who think what is good for Stephen King isn't good for them include Dan Simmons and This Year's Class Picture, Sherman Alexie's Ghost Dance and Douglas E. Winter's Less than Zombie. Alexie's Ghost Dance isn't very good so leaving it out improves the book. I think Winters might be a lawyer, so maybe not surprising, as they are a big part of the fool complex that brought us DRM etc. Simmons however does sell his books electronically, and even multiformat occasionally, so he must have had a sudden attack of stupidity in this case of this multiple award winner.

A big heaping helping of zombies, as the editor explains :

"In the process of assembling this anthology, I read more zombie stories than you could possibly imagine, and I found more good ones than could possibly fit in one volume, even a mammoth tome like this one. So, in order to help narrow down my selections, I created a few loose guidelines for myself. First, I wanted to avoid taking too many stories from any one source. Second, I wanted to avoid taking too many stories from other zombie anthologies. I discovered a lot of great zombie fiction elsewhere and thought that this book would be more valuable to zombie fans if it were to collect that material."

That is, he wanted to mostly avoid stories you could already get in other zombie anthologies. So there's a variety here, science fiction zombies, non-horror zombies, the origins of Anita Blake, vampire slayer and necromancer and the odd story with no zombies at all that will likely annoy some - and are usually among the weakest stuff, too.

So there's an intro, an introduction to each story, but no zombie bibliography or other reading or viewing lists like in Wastelands. So I suppose this is 'another zombie anthology' as opposed to a retrospective study approach.

Still rather good though, I'd call it a 4.25 rounded up.

Living Dead : Some Zombie Contingency Plans - Kelly Link
Living Dead : Death And Suffrage - Dale Bailey
Living Dead : Blossom - David J. Schow
Living Dead : The Third Dead Body - Nina Kiriki Hoffman
Living Dead : The Dead - Michael Swanwick
Living Dead : The Dead Kid - Darrell Schweitzer
Living Dead : Malthusian's Zombie - Jeffrey Ford
Living Dead : Beautiful Stuff - Susan Palwick
Living Dead : Sex Death And Starshine - Clive Barker
Living Dead : Stockholm Syndrome - David Tallerman
Living Dead : Bobby Conroy Comes Back From the Dead - Joe Hill
Living Dead : Those Who Seek Forgiveness - Laurell K. Hamilton
Living Dead : In Beauty Like The Night - Norman Partridge
Living Dead : Prairie - Brian Evenson
Living Dead : Everything Is Better With Zombies - Hannah Wolf Bowen
Living Dead : Home Delivery - Stephen King
Living Dead : Sparks Fly Upward - Lisa Morton
Living Dead : Meathouse Man - George R. R. Martin
Living Dead : Deadman's Road - Joe R. Lansdale
Living Dead : The Skull-Faced Boy - David Barr Kirtley
Living Dead : The Age Of Sorrow - Nancy Kilpatrick
Living Dead : Bitter Grounds - Neil Gaiman
Living Dead : She's Taking Her Tits To The Grave - Catherine Cheek
Living Dead : Dead Like Me - Adam-Troy Castro
Living Dead : Zora And The Zombie - Andy Duncan
Living Dead : Calcutta Lord Of Nerves - Poppy Z. Brite
Living Dead : Followed - Will McIntosh
Living Dead : The Song The Zombie Sang - Harlan Ellison and Robert Silverberg
Living Dead : Passion Play - Nancy Holder
Living Dead : Almost The Last Story By Almost The Last Man - Scott Edelman
Living Dead : How The Day Runs Down - John Langan

Simple monsters, with jailbait.

3.5 out of 5

Worldwide zombie political comeback.

3.5 out of 5

Zombie bondage asphyxiation nasal dentata.

4 out of 5

Serial killer victim zombie revenge.

3.5 out of 5

Zombies make you obsolete, and sell well as sex toys.

5 out of 5

Zombie fort resident leave school beating right direction.

3.5 out of 5

Horror leftover transform.

3 out of 5

Corpse revival kerfuffle.

3.5 out of 5

Undead theatre.

4 out of 5

Billy please lose my number.

4 out of 5

Romero reunion.

3.5 out of 5

Anita Blake raises a woman's husband from the dead, but realises his death was not as described.

4 out of 5

New model zombies.

4 out of 5

The dead remains.

3 out of 5

Including this story.

2.5 out of 5

Need a zombie plan.

3.5 out of 5

Fundamentalist zombie abortion.

4 out of 5

Dead love handles.

4 out of 5

Undead familiar bugs.

4 out of 5

You're going to be an officer in my zombie army, mate.

4 out of 5

Omega woman.

3.5 out of 5

Coffee girl presentation.

3.5 out of 5

Zombie bimbo.

2.5 out of 5

Zombie faking.

4 out of 5

Jealous writer's Haitian zombie chat.

3.5 out of 5

City Living Dead tour.

4 out of 5

Corpse bad reminder.

3 out of 5

Wired performance.

3.5 out of 5

Anti-zombie performance.

3.5 out of 5

Zombie audience.

3.5 out of 5

In this act, the zombies keep on truckin'.

4 out of 5




4.5 out of 5