Paula Guran's Blog, page 4

FAR OUT: RECENT QUEER SF & FANTASY

Far Out: An Anthology of Recent Queer Science Fiction and Fantasy

Edited by Paula Guran

Cover art by Julie Dillon

Publisher: Night Shade/Start (May 4, 2021)

Length: 432 pages / Price: $16.99

ISBN13: 9781949102550

Pre-order: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Far-Out/Paula-Guran/9781949102550

Speculative fiction imagines drastically diverse ways of being and worlds that are other than the one with which we are familiar. Queerness is a natural fit for such fiction, so one would expect it to be customarily included. That has not always been the case, but LGBTQ+ representation in science fiction and fantasy—in both short and long form—is now relatively common. Even so, most of the queer science fiction and fantasy anthologies published in the last thirty-five years have been narrowly focused: specifically gay male or lesbian (or, more recently, transgender) themes, or all science fiction or all fantasy, or adhering to a specific theme or subgenre.

Far Out: Recent Queer Science Fiction and Fantasy features both science fiction and fantasy short fiction from the last decade and includes characters, perspectives, and stories that span the rainbow. With stories from incredible authors ranging from Seanan McGuire to Charlie Jane Anders to Sam J. Miller, it’s an essential read for anyone interested in queer science fiction and fantasy.

Contents

The River’s Children by Shweta Narayan

Introduction: Over the Rainbow and into the Far Out by Paula Guran

Destroyed by the Waters by Rachel Swirsky

The Sea Troll’s Daughter by Caitlín R. Kiernan

And If the Body Were Not the Soul by A. C. Wise

Imago by Tristan Alice Nieto

Paranormal Romance by Christopher Barzak

Three Points Masculine by An Owomoyela

Das Steingeschöpf by G. V. Anderson

The Deepwater Bride by Tamsyn Muir

The Shape of My Name by Nino Cipri

Otherwise by Nisi Shawl

The Night Train by Lavie Tidhar

Ours Is the Prettiest by Nalo Hopkinson

Don’t Press Charges and I Won’t Sue by Charlie Jane Anders

Driving Jenny Home by Seanan McGuire

I’m Alive, I Love You, I’ll See You in Reno by Vylar Kaftan

In the Eyes of Jack Saul by Richard Bowes

Secondhand Bodies by JY Yang

Seasons of Glass and Iron by Amal El-Mohtar

Né łe! by Darcie Little Badger

The Duke of Riverside by Ellen Kushner

Cat Pictures Please by Naomi Kritzer

The Lily and the Horn by Catherynne M. Valente

Calved by Sam J. Miller

The River’s Children by Shweta Narayan

Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, Volume One: Release Day!

I’m Baaack!

Things here on the site are pretty much back up and running. I’ll be adding more as time allows, but I’ve included the Introduction to Halloween (which is a simplified history of the holiday) and Introduction to Halloween: Magic, Mystery, and the Macabre: New Boo! (2013).

Yes, Things Are Not as They Should Be

A month or so ago, this site (and all my other sites) were destroyed. The HTML sites were restored, but the WordPress sites weren’t. So, this one has to be rebuilt completely. I’m not quite there yet, but hope to finish soon.

The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, Vol. 1

The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, Vol. 1

(Eleventh in the Series; Stories from 2019)

There will also be an extensive “recommended” list

Listed Alphabetically by Author:

“A Strange, Uncertain Light” by G. V. Anderson (F&SF July/Aug)

“About the O’Dells” by Pat Cadigan (Echoes: The Saga Anthology of Ghost Stories, ed. E. Datlow)

“The Fourth Trimester is the Strangest” by Rebecca Campbell (F&SF, May/June)

“Hunting by the River” by Daniel Carpenter (Black Static #69)

“Conversations with the Sea Witch” by Theodora Goss (Snow White Learns Witchcraft)

“Read After Burning” by Maria Dahvana Headley (A People’s Future of the United States, eds. V. LaValle & J.J. Adams)

“Nice Things” by Ellen Klages (Uncanny #28)

“The Thing, With Feathers” by Marissa Lingen (Uncanny #26)

“Thoughts and Prayers” by Ken Liu (Future Tense 1/26)

“Phantoms of the Midway” by Seanan McGuire (The Mythic Dream, eds. D. Parisien & N. Wolfe)

“Haunt” by Carmen Maria Machado (Conjunctions 72)

“Shattered Sidewalks of the Human Heart” by Sam J. Miller (Clarkesworld #154)

“The Surviving Child” by Joyce Carol Oates (Echoes: The Saga Anthology of Ghost Stories, ed. E. Datlow)

“His Heart is the Haunted House” by Aimee Ogden (Apparition Literary Magazine Issue Seven: Retribution)

“The Coven of Dead Girls” by L’Erin Ogle (PseudoPod, episode 651)

“Logic Puzzles” by Vaishnavi Patel (The Dark #54)

“The Blur in the Corner of Your Eye” by Sarah Pinsker (Uncanny #29)

“Burrowing Machines” by Sara Saab (The Dark #44)

“Some Kind of Blood-Soaked Future” by Carlie St. George (Nightmare #85)

“In that Place She Grows a Garden” by Del Sandeen (Fiyah #10)

“The Promise of Saints” by Angela Slatter (A Miscellany of Death, ed. M. Beach)

“Blood Is Another Word for Hunger” by Rivers Solomon (Tor.com 7/24)

“Boiled Bones and Black Eggs” by Nghi Vo (Beneath Ceaseless Skies #275)

“A Catalog of Storms” by Fran Wilde (Uncanny #26)

“Glass Eyes in Porcelain Faces” by Jack Westlake (Black Static #70)

MYTHIC JOURNEYS Now Available!

“The stories are all excellent, and the variety of storytelling makes this a solid choice for fantasy and general readers alike.” – Booklist, starred review

“Fans of fables will find this a delightful exploration of the ways ancient stories can still captivate.” – Publishers Weekly

Award-winning editor Paula Guran presents a diverse reprint anthology collecting classic myths and legends, retold by today’s top fantasy writers.

Myths and legends are the oldest of stories, part of our collective consciousness, and the source from which all fiction flows. Full of magic, supernatural powers, monsters, heroes, epic journeys, strange worlds, and vast imagination, they are fantasies so compelling we want to believe them true. . .

Cover art by BreeAnn Veenstra and design by Claudia Noble

Stories:

“Lost Lake” – Emma Straub and Peter Straub

“White Lines on a Green Field” – Catherynne M. Valente

“Trickster” – Steven Barnes and Tananarive Due

“Our Talons Can Crush Galaxies” – Brooke Bolander

“The Memory of Wind” – Rachel Swirsky

“Leda” – M. Rickert

“Chivalry” – Neil Gaiman

“The God of Au” – Ann Leckie

“Faint Voices, Increasingly Desperate” – Anya Johanna DeNiro

“Ogres of East Africa” – Sofia Samatar

“Ys” – Aliette de Bodard

“The Gorgon” -Tanith Lee

“Dreams in the Mondream Wood.” – Charles de Lint

“Calypso in Berlin” – Elizabeth Hand

“Seeds” – Lisa L. Hannett and Angela Slatter

“Wonder-Worker-of-the-World” – Nisi Shawl

“Thesea and Astaurius” – Priya Sharma

“Foxfire, Foxfire” – Yoon Ha Lee

“Owl vs. the Neighborhood Watch” – Darcie Little Badger

“How to Survive an Epic Journey” – Tansy Rayner Roberts

“Simargl and the Rowan Tree”- Ekaterina Sedia

“The Ten Suns” – Ken Liu

“Armless Maidens of the American West” – Genevieve Valentine

“Give Her Honey When You Hear Her Scream” – Maria Dahvana Headley

“Zhyuin” – John Shirley

“Immortal Snake” – Rachel Pollack

“A Wolf in Iceland Is the Child of a Lie” – Sonya Taaffe

The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror: 2019 Table of Contents

• “Down Where Sound Comes Blunt”, G. V. Anderson (F&SF, Mar-Apr 2018)

• “Hainted”, Ashley Blooms (F&SF Jul-Aug 2018)

• “The Empyrean Light” Gregory Norman Bossert (Conjunctions:71, A Cabinet of Curiosity, Fall 2018)

• “Raining Street” by J. S. Breukelaar (Black Static #63)

• The Black God’s Drums, P. Djèlí Clark (Tor.com)

• “Faint Voices, Increasingly Desperate”, Anya Johanna DeNiro (Shimmer #43)

• “Big Dark Hole”, Jeffrey Ford (Conjunctions:71, A Cabinet of Curiosity, Fall 2018)

• “And Yet”, A.T. Greenblatt (Uncanny #21)

• “Second to the Left, and Straight On”, Jim C. Hines (Robots vs. Fairies, eds. Parisien & Wolfe)

• “He Sings of Salt and Wormwood”, Brian Hodge (The Devil and the Deep, ed. Datlow)

• “Just Another Love Song” Kat Howard (Robots vs. Fairies, eds. Parisien & Wolfe)

• “Four Revelations from the Rusalka Ball”, Cassandra Khaw (The Underwater Ballroom Society, eds. Trent & Burgis)

• “Rust and Bone”, Mary Robinette Kowal (Shimmer #26)

• “The Thing About Ghost Stories”, Naomi Kritzer (Uncanny #25)

• “A Man Walking His Dog” Tim Lebbon (Phantoms, ed. O’Regan

• “Honey” Valya Dudycz Lupescu (A World of Horror, ed. Guignard)

• “Big Mother”, Anya Ow (Strange Horizons, 1 Jan 2018)

• “Fish Hooks”, Kit Power (New Fears 2, ed. Morris)

• “The Governor”, Tim Powers (The Book of Magic, ed. Dozois)

• “True Crime”, M. Rickert (Nightmare #72)

• “Sour Milk Girls”, Erin Roberts (Clarkesworld, Jan 2018)

• “Every Good-bye Ain’t Gone”, Eden Royce (Strange Horizons, 30 July 2018)

• “Tom Is in The Attic”, Robert Shearman (Phantoms, ed. O’Regan)

• “When We Fall, We Forget”, Angela Slatter, (Phantoms, ed. O’Regan)

• “In This Twilight”, Simon Strantzas (Nothing Is Everything)

• “The Crow Knight”, Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam (Beneath Ceaseless Skies, 11 Oct 2018)

• “Thanatrauma”, Steve Rasnic Tem (New Fears 2, ed. Morris)

• “Sick Cats in Small Places”, Kaaron Warren (A World of Horror, ed. Guignard)

• “Blood and Smoke, Vinegar and Ashes”, D.P. Watt (The Silent Garden, Vol. 1)

• “The Pine Arch Collection”, Michael Wehunt (The Dark #36)

• “In the End, It Always Turns Out the Same”, A. C. Wise (The Dark #37)

• “Asphalt, River, Mother, Child”, Isabel Yap (Strange Horizons, 8 Oct 2018)

• “Music for the Underworld”, E. Lily Yu (Terraform, 29 Mar 2018)

Status: Bogged and Confused

I don’t know how other editors select stories for their “year’s best” anthologies. I am not sure, really, how I do it.

But this is the tenth time I’ve gone through the process for The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror series. (Plus I’ve done four other “best of” volumes) and I am beginning to sense a least a part of a troubling pattern.

I think I am close to being finished with the selections and I begin to get bogged down. Time slows down, progress limps along as if there is no deadline. I feel as if I am treading water in a deep and endless pool of dark fiction.

Part of the problem is practical, primarily word count. (Even determining how many words are in a story can sometimes be time consuming.) Word count equals pages and I am very lucky in that respect as I have a relatively huge number of words (usually a bit over 200,000) and pages: over 500). But at this point, I could easily do 300,000.

And no, I don’t do an “honorable mentions” list for several reasons, one of which that is another source of similar frustrations.

Other practical matters include pondering if I have too many of one type of story or another, and deciding which of several by one author to choose, and taking into consideration if particular stories have already been selected by other editors for similar tomes. The latter doesn’t necessarily stop me from choosing a story, but I do have to feel strongly about a “duplicate.”

Then, let’s be honest, there is the matter of “names.” No, I don’t have to worry about that too much, but potential readers do judge at least somewhat by the authors they recognize on a cover.

Then there are the stories you discover at the last minute, the stories that make you worry if you’ve missed other gems. They send you back to the files for even more reading to make sure you haven’t overlooked something.

Of course, one re-reads. A lot.

I bog down.

Doesn’t help that I also begin to forget to do those things one is supposed to do for oneself like exercise and eat properly.

But I survive. And finish.

And find something else to feel stressed about.

Feature: As Irish as the Vampire

[This essay was originally published in February 2000 on Universal Studios Horror Online. I've updated it a wee bit for this Saint Patrick's Day.]

Forget the leprechauns and the green beer. If everyone is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day, then consider celebrating that most Irish of modern monsters, a true creature of the Ould Sod—the vampire.

Aye and begorrah, ’tis the truth I am telling ye, though it may take a while in the telling, so settle in… [Read on]

ToC & Cover Reveal: MYTHIC JOURNEYS

Mythic Journeys: Myths & Legends Retold

ISBN: 9781597809580

Trade Paperback – $15.99

Forthcoming: 05/07/2019

Pre-order now at:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Powell’s

Or your favorite local bookstore

Cover art by BreeAnn Veenstra and design by Claudia Noble

Stories:

“Lost Lake” – Emma Straub and Peter Straub

“White Lines on a Green Field” – Catherynne M. Valente

“Trickster” – Steven Barnes and Tananarive Due

“Our Talons Can Crush Galaxies” – Brooke Bolander

“The Memory of Wind” – Rachel Swirsky

“Leda” – M. Rickert

“Chivalry” – Neil Gaiman

“The God of Au” – Ann Leckie

“Faint Voices, Increasingly Desperate” – Anya Johanna DeNiro

“Ogres of East Africa” – Sofia Samatar

“Ys” – Aliette de Bodard

“The Gorgon” -Tanith Lee

“Dreams in the Mondream Wood.” – Charles de Lint

“Calypso in Berlin” – Elizabeth Hand

“Seeds” – Lisa L. Hannett and Angela Slatter

“Wonder-Worker-of-the-World” – Nisi Shawl

“Thesea and Astaurius” – Priya Sharma

“Foxfire, Foxfire” – Yoon Ha Lee

“Owl vs. the Neighborhood Watch” – Darcie Little Badger

“How to Survive an Epic Journey” – Tansy Rayner Roberts

“Simargl and the Rowan Tree”- Ekaterina Sedia

“The Ten Suns” – Ken Liu

“Armless Maidens of the American West” – Genevieve Valentine

“Give Her Honey When You Hear Her Scream” – Maria Dahvana Headley

“Zhyuin” – John Shirley

“Immortal Snake” – Rachel Pollack

“A Wolf in Iceland Is the Child of a Lie” – Sonya Taaffe

A reprint anthology collecting classic myths and legends, retold by today’s top fantasy writers.

Myths and legends are the oldest of stories, part of our collective consciousness, and the source from which all fiction flows. Full of magic, supernatural powers, monsters, heroes, epic journeys, strange worlds, and vast imagination, they are fantasies so compelling we want to believe them true.

The authors of fantastic literature create new mythologies, heroes, and monsters. Retelling, reinventing, mixing the old with new insight and meaning. Their stories, like the ancient tales, entertain and often offer readers new ways to interpret and understand the world.

Drawn from diverse cultures, modern legends, and mythic tales are told in a variety of ways—amiable or acerbic, rollicking or reflective, charming or chilling—as they take us on new journeys along paths both fresh and familiar.

This new anthology compiles some of the best modern short mythic retellings and reinvention of legend from award-winning and bestselling authors, acclaimed storytellers, and exciting new talents in a captivating collection. Adventure with us on these Mythic Journeys…