First published 2009
Award-winning anthologist Jonathan Strahan curates twenty-seven stories that chart the changing landscape of speculative fiction. The collection spans diverse worlds and scenarios: Ted Chiang explores consciousness on an argon-atmosphere planet, Elizabeth Bear examines a Black scientist confronting Lovecraftian horrors amid rising fascism, and Peter S. Beagle follows an elderly Jewish artist visited by a celestial being. Jeff VanderMeer presents scavengers piecing together fragments of a mechanical figure, while Paolo Bacigalupi introduces a journalist whose interview could reshape reality. Ian McDonald crafts a tale of a protective steel monkey, and John Kessel imagines a Victorian gentleman's daughter encountering Dr. Victor Frankenstein. Paul McAuley weaves sibling rivalry into stellar communication, and Holly Black reveals how adolescent cruelties shift between reality and fiction. These carefully chosen works demonstrate the genre's expanding boundaries, offering readers both established masters like Stephen King and emerging voices, each contributing to the ongoing evolution of imaginative storytelling.
Genres: short-stories, science-fiction, fantasy
Vibes: atmospheric, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, found-family
513 pages · Paperback · Night Shade
Content warnings: violence