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austinbeeman's review against another edition
4.0
The Big Book of Science Fiction. edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer
Rated 81% Positive. Story Score: 3.83 out of 5
107 Stories : 26 Great / 52 Good / 18 Average / 8 Poor / 2 DNF
Full Review: https://www.shortsf.com/reviews/bigbooksf
By any definition, The Big Book of Science Fiction was a massive undertaking for Ann and Jeff Vandermeer. Attempting to cover the entire history of science fiction: from 1897 to 2007 is to find yourself awash in a supernova of stories. No one’s choices were going to please everyone and this book certainly can be polarizing. In a Facebook group that I belong to, we read this book over many months and responses ranged from consistent “That’s my favorite story from that author” to “That isn’t Science Fiction” to “Too much horror” to “This is quite the slog.”
In lieu of highlighting the Stories that made my All Time Great List - and there were 26 of them (!) - I’ll got brief thoughts that emerged during my reading of this book.
This reads like a textbook. Most of the stories seem to be selected to inspire discussion in a classroom or to illustrate some point about either the genre or its history.
The introductions from the Vandermeers are worth the price of the book. Even when I didn’t like a story, that introduction was insightful and detailed.
“Curation is Creation.” The Vandermeers are writing the history of Science Fiction from the perspective of the present. The stories selected embody the values and emphasis of the 21st century reader.
Many of the genre’s legendary authors and stories have been replaced with stories by women, minorities, and foreign language authors. A reader who thinks they are getting an anthology full of the classics of the genre will be disappointed.
This is book of SF as “Literature” not as storytelling. Stories with messages and stories with innovation prose techniques are prioritized over fun adventures. There is definitely a chip on this book’s shoulder. It wants Science Fiction to be ‘taken seriously.”
I recommend that you buy it and read it, but know what it is.
And PLEASE don’t make this your first foray into short Science Fiction.
The Big Book of Science Fiction. edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer is rated 81%
107 Stories : 26 Great / 52 Good / 18 Average / 8 Poor / 2 DNF
How do I arrive at a rating?
The Star • (1897) • short story by H. G. Wells
Great. An almost dreamlike tale of apocalyptic disaster started with a collision in the sky.
Sultana's Dream • (1905) • short story by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain
Good. A woman dreams a tour of a feminist utopia where women rule everything and men are kept secluded.
The Triumph of Mechanics • short story by Karl Hans Strobl (trans. of Der Triumph der Mechanik 1907)
Good. A mechanic toy maker is fired from his firm and gets revenge with rapidly multiplying robotic rabbits.
The New Overworld • short story by Paul Scheerbart (trans. of Die neue Oberwelt. Eine Venus-Novellette 1911)
Average. Turtle people and many-handed people coexist on the face of Venus.
Elements of Pataphysics • short story by Alfred Jarry (trans. of Éléments de pataphysique 1911)
DNF. A bunch of pseudoscience and thought experiments that never comes together into any story.
Mechanopolis • short story by Miguel de Unamuno (trans. of Mecanópolis 1913)
Good. At an oasis, a man stumbles into a world run only by machines.
The Doom of Principal City • short story by Ефим Зозуля? (trans. of Гибель Главного города? 1918) [as by Yefim Zozulya]
Average. Kindly (?) conquerors build a city overtop of the city that they just conquered.
The Comet • (1920) • short story by W. E. B. Du Bois
Good. A comet apocalypse finds a poor black man and a rich white woman the only people left in the world.
The Fate of the Poseidonia • (1927) • short story by Clare Winger Harris
Average. Are the Martians stealing Earth’s water? And also the protagonist’s girlfriend?
The Star Stealers • (1965) • novelette by Edmond Hamilton (variant of The Star-Stealers 1929)
Great. Frolicking Space Opera! A captain in the space navy is sent on a mission to prevent a planet in Dark Space from stealing the Sun.
The Conquest of Gola • (1931) • short story by Leslie F. Stone
Good. Feminist Venus is invaded by Men from Earth. Suffering ensues.
A Martian Odyssey • (1934) • novelette by Stanley G. Weinbaum
Great. A masterpiece featuring a spaceman who crashed on Mars, met an interesting alien named Tweel, and trekked across the surface of the planet.
The Last Poet and the Robots • (1934) • short story by A. Merritt
Poor. An underground brilliant poet helps deal with a robot menace on the surface of earth.
The Microscopic Giants • (1936) • short story by Paul Ernst
Good. An exploration for copper is disrupted when very small, but powerful beings are discovered. They can move through concrete.
Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius • (1998) • short story by Jorge Luis Borges (trans. of Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius? 1940)
Good. The discovery of a fictional city and its legend of a fiction planet works as commentary about ‘modern day’ Argentina.
Desertion • (1944) • short story by Clifford D. Simak
Great. Men are being transformed and sent into Jupiter’s inhospitable maul. Non have returned. One of the most memorable end scenes in all of science fiction.
September 2005: The Martian • (1951) • short story by Ray Bradbury (variant of The Martian 1949)
Good. A elderly couple meet a Martian who wants to live with them as their son.
Baby HP • short story by Juan José Arreola (trans. of Baby H. P. 1952)
Good. “You too can harness your baby’s energy to run your household!”
Surface Tension • [Pantropy] • (1952) • novelette by James Blish
Great. An epic adventure of small aquatic humans - seeded by a galactic civilization - and their exploration above the surface of their watery world.
Beyond Lies the Wub • (1952) • short story by Philip K. Dick
Good. Should you eat the pig-like Wub after it has shown sentience?
The Snowball Effect • (1952) • short story by Katherine MacLean
Good. A science experience gone wrong as a sewing society is given the tools for rapid expansion.
Prott • (1953) • short story by Margaret St. Clair
Average. Telepathic attempt at communication with a very strange alien species in deep space.
The Liberation of Earth • (1953) • short story by William Tenn
Great. Absolute brutal satire of Cold War justifications for foreign intervention, retold as an alien invasion story.
Let Me Live in a House • (1954) • novelette by Chad Oliver
Good. Creepy tale of two couples living in a controlled environment where nothing every changed. One day there is a knock on the door.
The Star • (1955) • short story by Arthur C. Clarke
Good. A science-minding priest loses his faith with the discovery of a supernova that killed a beautiful civilization.
Grandpa • (1955) • novelette by James H. Schmitz
Good. A young man - a troublemaker on a new world - must rise to the occasion when a semi-sentient large raft starts behaving in new and dangerous ways.
The Game of Rat and Dragon • [The Instrumentality of Mankind] • (1955) • short story by Cordwainer Smith
Great. A shockingly original look at the manner and costs of war amongst the stars through the lives of damaged people and their strange partnerships.
The Last Question • (1956) • short story by Isaac Asimov
Great. Classic story of a giant computer which tries to discover how entropy might be reversed.
Stranger Station • (1956) • novelette by Damon Knight
Great. On a space station, a man and an alien suffer because of the other’s presence. Slowly, the man starts to understand why.
Sector General • (1957) • novelette by James White
Good. A sprawling adventure story about doctors on a space station who treat all sorts of aliens.
The Visitors • novelette by Аркадий Стругацкий? and Борис Стругацкий? (trans. of Извне? 1958) [as by Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky]
Average. Matter-of-fact story of first contact with aliens.
Pelt • (1958) • short story by Carol Emshwiller
Good. Hunting on an alien planet, told from the perspective of a sentient hunting animal.
The Monster • (1965) • short story by Gérard Klein? (trans. of Le monstre 1958)
Good. A compelling story of a woman who hears about the police dealing with an arrived alien, and instinctively knows it has absorbed/eaten her husband.
The Man Who Lost the Sea • (1959) • short story by Theodore Sturgeon
Great. A literary masterpiece of a dying astronaut and his entire life.
The Waves • short story by Silvina Ocampo (trans. of Las ondas 1959)
Poor. Science will classify people in the future based on their ‘waves.”
Plenitude • (1959) • short story by Will Mohler
Good. A family that lives in the wild is intensely affected by a trip to ‘the city’ where people have are changed in horrific ways. Intense and sharp vignette.
The Voices of Time • (1960) • novelette by J. G. Ballard
Great. A serious literary story that balances death, symbols, sleeping, radiation, and life legacy in a way that is very adult and complex.
The Astronaut • short story by Валентина Журавлёва? (trans. of Астронавт? 1960) [as by Valentina Zhuravlyova]
Good. A story of heroic sacrifice with astronauts that have to take hobbies and the importance that hobbies can embed in your life.
The Squid Chooses Its Own Ink • short story by Adolfo Bioy Casares (trans. of El calamar opta por su tinta 1962)
Average. A comic Argentine sci-fi story about a small town dealing with an alien that has come to protect us from crazy people with The Bomb.
2 B R 0 2 B • (1962) • short story by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Good. A comic dystopia of a future where each new life must cause the end of another … and one man’s wife is going to have triplets.
A Modest Genius • (1973) • short story by Вадим Шефнер? (trans. of Скромный гений? 1963) [as by Vadim Shefner]
Good. Light romantic science fiction about a fantastic inventor and the women in his life. Very cute.
Day of Wrath • novelette by Север Гансовский? (trans. of День гнева? 1965) [as by Sever Gansovsky]
Great. A journalist and a forester travel out into the wilderness to study the Otarks. The Otarks are super-intelligent creature that escaped from a lab years ago. Brutal and powerful.
The Hands • (1965) • short story by John Baxter
Great. Creepy bit of alien body horror. Earthmen, captured and tortured by an alien, arrive back home with very deformed bodies; multiple arms, heads, torso, etc….
Darkness • (1972) • short story by André Carneiro (trans. of A Escuridão 1963)
Good. In a world strangely plunged into darkness, one man survives with help from the blind.
"Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman • (1965) • short story by Harlan Ellison
Good. The Harlequin disrupts the perfectly scheduled work as a protest and is hunted by the Ticktockman.
Nine Hundred Grandmothers • (1966) • short story by R. A. Lafferty
Average. Asteroid miners with unusual names meet a race of people who may never die.
Day Million • (1966) • short story by Frederik Pohl
Good. A snarky, tongue-in-cheek tale of dating and society a million days in our future.
Student Body • (1953) • novelette by F. L. Wallace
Average. A bit of fluff about space settlers who must deal with an evolving rodent issue.
Aye, and Gomorrah • (1970) • short story by Samuel R. Delany (variant of Aye, and Gomorrah ... 1967)
Great. Masterful new age sexual allegory about neutered spacers and the perverse(?) human who pay to have sex with them.
The Hall of Machines • (1968) • short story by Langdon Jones
Great. A haunting description of complex machines in the Hall of Machines.
Soft Clocks • (1989) • short story by 荒巻義雄? (trans. of 柔らかい時計? 1968) [as by Yoshio Aramaki]
Average. Psychiatrist summoned to Mars to evaluate potential husbands for Dali’s granddaughter. Surreal and strange, but not engaging.
No Cracks or Sagging • [Moderan] • (1970) • short story by David R. Bunch (variant of No Cracks or Saggings)
Average. Amateurish story of a traveler from far away that meets a foreman whose robots are stretching and flattening everything.
New Kings Are Not for Laughing • [Moderan] • (1971) • short story by David R. Bunch
Good. A traveler - converted to a cyborg - meets a severely injured man with whom he fought in the war.
The Flesh Man from Far Wide • [Moderan] • short story by David R. Bunch (variant of The Flesh-Man from Far Wide 1959)
Good. The man in a Stronghold meets a traveler who has traveled far to discover a happiness machine.
Let Us Save the Universe (An Open Letter from Ijon Tichy) • [Ze wspomnień Ijona Tichego / From the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy] • (1981) • short story by Stanisław Lem? (trans. of Ratujmy kosmos 1964)
Great. Hilarious and masterful. Ijon Tichy reports on the effects of exploitation and tourism on the solar system. Some highlights are the strange animals that prey on unwary tourists.
Vaster Than Empires and More Slow • [Hainish] • (1971) • novelette by Ursula K. Le Guin
Good. A crew that is seething at each other starts to explore a planet with a strange expansive type of consciousness.
Good News from the Vatican • (1971) • short story by Robert Silverberg
Good. The Catholic Church is about to elect a robot Pope.
When It Changed • [Whileaway] • (1972) • short story by Joanna Russ
Good. On a world made up of only women, men have finally arrived and they pose a creeping threat.
And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill's Side • (1972) • short story by James Tiptree, Jr.
Great. A reporter meets a ragged worker at a spaceport who tells about how fascination with aliens has lead to his ruin …. and will lead to the ruin of humanity. Brilliantly written with incredible things to say about humanity, culture, sexual addiction, and much more.
Where Two Paths Cross • short story by Дмитрий Биленкин? (trans. of Пересечение пути? 1973) [as by Dmitri Bilenkin]
Good. Fun SF adventure with humans arriving on a planet and running afoul of the dimly-sentient plant-based aliens. A nice alien creature and a pleasant story.
Standing Woman • (1981) • short story by 筒井康隆? (trans. of 佇むひと? 1974) [as by Yasutaka Tsutsui]
Good. A sad strange story of a world where people are planted like trees as punishment for disobedience to the state.
The IWM 1000 • short story by Alicia Yánez Cossío (trans. of La IWM mil 1975)
Poor. Short short where humans become reliant on small machines and lose their ability to read and write.
The House of Compassionate Sharers • [Glaktik Komm] • (1977) • novelette by Michael Bishop
Good. A rebuilt man who has a phobia of the human body get treatment at an interesting facility that doubles as an offbeat brothel.
Sporting with the Chid • (1979) • short story by Barrington J. Bayley
Good. To save an injured friend, two hunters break the rules and interact with the Chid who have disgusting, but effective, medical skills.
Sandkings • [Thousand Worlds] • (1979) • novelette by George R. R. Martin
Great. A psychopath buys small creatures that war in his terrarium and worship him as a god. Of course, they escape and this ends badly. A classic of SF action horror.
Wives • (1979) • short story by Lisa Tuttle
Great. To survive occupation by men, an alien race has turned themselves into ‘wives.’ One of the ‘wives’ starts to think there may be another way. One of the best feminist and colonialist analogies I've ever seen in science fiction.
The Snake Who Had Read Chomsky • (1981) • novelette by Josephine Saxton
Poor. Very unpleasant people try to get one up on each other through parties with rich people.
Reiko's Universe Box • (2007) • short story by 梶尾真治? (trans. of 玲子の箱宇宙?) [as by Kajio Shinji]
Good. Poetic story of a Japanese woman who becomes fascinated at the universe she sees in a box.
Swarm • [Shaper/Mechanist] • (1982) • novelette by Bruce Sterling
Good. A special agent from a branch of humanity that is bred for intelligence arrives on a symbiotic space station with a mission that will secure victory in an ongoing war. The Swarm is very well described and there is more than enough here for a novel.
Mondocane • short story by Jacques Barbéri? (trans. of Mondocane 1983)
Poor. Surrealists SF where war has resulted in extreme changes for all people.
Blood Music • (1983) • novelette by Greg Bear
Great. A brilliant scientist goes to a friend for help after injecting himself with the intelligent results of illegal experiments.
Bloodchild • (1984) • novelette by Octavia E. Butler
Great. A visceral and amazing story of the bond between humans and an insect-like race. A young boy who is to be host for the aliens offspring is forced to help with an emergency c-section on a pregnant man who is being eaten from within by the aliens larva. Powerful, complex, horrifying, and strangely realistic. With overtones of slavery and colonial oppression.
Variation on a Man • [Deadpan Allie] • (1984) • short story by Pat Cadigan
Good. A woman enters the mind of a man who has had his memories stolen. He once was a famous composer, but now appears to be an entirely different person.
Passing as a Flower in the City of the Dead • short story by Sharon N. Farber [as by S. N. Dyer]
Good. In a sterile environment of an orbital station, people with rare blood diseases are treated. They hate “Fidos:” people who aren’t sick but tag along to be with their loved ones.
New Rose Hotel • (1984) • short story by William Gibson
Good. A beatnik influenced, cyberpunk crime story about a beautiful woman and the attempt to kidnap a corporate genetic engineer.
Pots • (1985) • novelette by C. J. Cherryh
Average. A representative of the Lord Magistrate comes down to a planet to check on an archeological site, but finds that it contradicts the desires of the Lord Magistrate. Good start, but falls apart.
and more https://www.shortsf.com/reviews/bigbooksf
Rated 81% Positive. Story Score: 3.83 out of 5
107 Stories : 26 Great / 52 Good / 18 Average / 8 Poor / 2 DNF
Full Review: https://www.shortsf.com/reviews/bigbooksf
By any definition, The Big Book of Science Fiction was a massive undertaking for Ann and Jeff Vandermeer. Attempting to cover the entire history of science fiction: from 1897 to 2007 is to find yourself awash in a supernova of stories. No one’s choices were going to please everyone and this book certainly can be polarizing. In a Facebook group that I belong to, we read this book over many months and responses ranged from consistent “That’s my favorite story from that author” to “That isn’t Science Fiction” to “Too much horror” to “This is quite the slog.”
In lieu of highlighting the Stories that made my All Time Great List - and there were 26 of them (!) - I’ll got brief thoughts that emerged during my reading of this book.
This reads like a textbook. Most of the stories seem to be selected to inspire discussion in a classroom or to illustrate some point about either the genre or its history.
The introductions from the Vandermeers are worth the price of the book. Even when I didn’t like a story, that introduction was insightful and detailed.
“Curation is Creation.” The Vandermeers are writing the history of Science Fiction from the perspective of the present. The stories selected embody the values and emphasis of the 21st century reader.
Many of the genre’s legendary authors and stories have been replaced with stories by women, minorities, and foreign language authors. A reader who thinks they are getting an anthology full of the classics of the genre will be disappointed.
This is book of SF as “Literature” not as storytelling. Stories with messages and stories with innovation prose techniques are prioritized over fun adventures. There is definitely a chip on this book’s shoulder. It wants Science Fiction to be ‘taken seriously.”
I recommend that you buy it and read it, but know what it is.
And PLEASE don’t make this your first foray into short Science Fiction.
The Big Book of Science Fiction. edited by Ann and Jeff Vandermeer is rated 81%
107 Stories : 26 Great / 52 Good / 18 Average / 8 Poor / 2 DNF
How do I arrive at a rating?
The Star • (1897) • short story by H. G. Wells
Great. An almost dreamlike tale of apocalyptic disaster started with a collision in the sky.
Sultana's Dream • (1905) • short story by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain
Good. A woman dreams a tour of a feminist utopia where women rule everything and men are kept secluded.
The Triumph of Mechanics • short story by Karl Hans Strobl (trans. of Der Triumph der Mechanik 1907)
Good. A mechanic toy maker is fired from his firm and gets revenge with rapidly multiplying robotic rabbits.
The New Overworld • short story by Paul Scheerbart (trans. of Die neue Oberwelt. Eine Venus-Novellette 1911)
Average. Turtle people and many-handed people coexist on the face of Venus.
Elements of Pataphysics • short story by Alfred Jarry (trans. of Éléments de pataphysique 1911)
DNF. A bunch of pseudoscience and thought experiments that never comes together into any story.
Mechanopolis • short story by Miguel de Unamuno (trans. of Mecanópolis 1913)
Good. At an oasis, a man stumbles into a world run only by machines.
The Doom of Principal City • short story by Ефим Зозуля? (trans. of Гибель Главного города? 1918) [as by Yefim Zozulya]
Average. Kindly (?) conquerors build a city overtop of the city that they just conquered.
The Comet • (1920) • short story by W. E. B. Du Bois
Good. A comet apocalypse finds a poor black man and a rich white woman the only people left in the world.
The Fate of the Poseidonia • (1927) • short story by Clare Winger Harris
Average. Are the Martians stealing Earth’s water? And also the protagonist’s girlfriend?
The Star Stealers • (1965) • novelette by Edmond Hamilton (variant of The Star-Stealers 1929)
Great. Frolicking Space Opera! A captain in the space navy is sent on a mission to prevent a planet in Dark Space from stealing the Sun.
The Conquest of Gola • (1931) • short story by Leslie F. Stone
Good. Feminist Venus is invaded by Men from Earth. Suffering ensues.
A Martian Odyssey • (1934) • novelette by Stanley G. Weinbaum
Great. A masterpiece featuring a spaceman who crashed on Mars, met an interesting alien named Tweel, and trekked across the surface of the planet.
The Last Poet and the Robots • (1934) • short story by A. Merritt
Poor. An underground brilliant poet helps deal with a robot menace on the surface of earth.
The Microscopic Giants • (1936) • short story by Paul Ernst
Good. An exploration for copper is disrupted when very small, but powerful beings are discovered. They can move through concrete.
Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius • (1998) • short story by Jorge Luis Borges (trans. of Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius? 1940)
Good. The discovery of a fictional city and its legend of a fiction planet works as commentary about ‘modern day’ Argentina.
Desertion • (1944) • short story by Clifford D. Simak
Great. Men are being transformed and sent into Jupiter’s inhospitable maul. Non have returned. One of the most memorable end scenes in all of science fiction.
September 2005: The Martian • (1951) • short story by Ray Bradbury (variant of The Martian 1949)
Good. A elderly couple meet a Martian who wants to live with them as their son.
Baby HP • short story by Juan José Arreola (trans. of Baby H. P. 1952)
Good. “You too can harness your baby’s energy to run your household!”
Surface Tension • [Pantropy] • (1952) • novelette by James Blish
Great. An epic adventure of small aquatic humans - seeded by a galactic civilization - and their exploration above the surface of their watery world.
Beyond Lies the Wub • (1952) • short story by Philip K. Dick
Good. Should you eat the pig-like Wub after it has shown sentience?
The Snowball Effect • (1952) • short story by Katherine MacLean
Good. A science experience gone wrong as a sewing society is given the tools for rapid expansion.
Prott • (1953) • short story by Margaret St. Clair
Average. Telepathic attempt at communication with a very strange alien species in deep space.
The Liberation of Earth • (1953) • short story by William Tenn
Great. Absolute brutal satire of Cold War justifications for foreign intervention, retold as an alien invasion story.
Let Me Live in a House • (1954) • novelette by Chad Oliver
Good. Creepy tale of two couples living in a controlled environment where nothing every changed. One day there is a knock on the door.
The Star • (1955) • short story by Arthur C. Clarke
Good. A science-minding priest loses his faith with the discovery of a supernova that killed a beautiful civilization.
Grandpa • (1955) • novelette by James H. Schmitz
Good. A young man - a troublemaker on a new world - must rise to the occasion when a semi-sentient large raft starts behaving in new and dangerous ways.
The Game of Rat and Dragon • [The Instrumentality of Mankind] • (1955) • short story by Cordwainer Smith
Great. A shockingly original look at the manner and costs of war amongst the stars through the lives of damaged people and their strange partnerships.
The Last Question • (1956) • short story by Isaac Asimov
Great. Classic story of a giant computer which tries to discover how entropy might be reversed.
Stranger Station • (1956) • novelette by Damon Knight
Great. On a space station, a man and an alien suffer because of the other’s presence. Slowly, the man starts to understand why.
Sector General • (1957) • novelette by James White
Good. A sprawling adventure story about doctors on a space station who treat all sorts of aliens.
The Visitors • novelette by Аркадий Стругацкий? and Борис Стругацкий? (trans. of Извне? 1958) [as by Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky]
Average. Matter-of-fact story of first contact with aliens.
Pelt • (1958) • short story by Carol Emshwiller
Good. Hunting on an alien planet, told from the perspective of a sentient hunting animal.
The Monster • (1965) • short story by Gérard Klein? (trans. of Le monstre 1958)
Good. A compelling story of a woman who hears about the police dealing with an arrived alien, and instinctively knows it has absorbed/eaten her husband.
The Man Who Lost the Sea • (1959) • short story by Theodore Sturgeon
Great. A literary masterpiece of a dying astronaut and his entire life.
The Waves • short story by Silvina Ocampo (trans. of Las ondas 1959)
Poor. Science will classify people in the future based on their ‘waves.”
Plenitude • (1959) • short story by Will Mohler
Good. A family that lives in the wild is intensely affected by a trip to ‘the city’ where people have are changed in horrific ways. Intense and sharp vignette.
The Voices of Time • (1960) • novelette by J. G. Ballard
Great. A serious literary story that balances death, symbols, sleeping, radiation, and life legacy in a way that is very adult and complex.
The Astronaut • short story by Валентина Журавлёва? (trans. of Астронавт? 1960) [as by Valentina Zhuravlyova]
Good. A story of heroic sacrifice with astronauts that have to take hobbies and the importance that hobbies can embed in your life.
The Squid Chooses Its Own Ink • short story by Adolfo Bioy Casares (trans. of El calamar opta por su tinta 1962)
Average. A comic Argentine sci-fi story about a small town dealing with an alien that has come to protect us from crazy people with The Bomb.
2 B R 0 2 B • (1962) • short story by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
Good. A comic dystopia of a future where each new life must cause the end of another … and one man’s wife is going to have triplets.
A Modest Genius • (1973) • short story by Вадим Шефнер? (trans. of Скромный гений? 1963) [as by Vadim Shefner]
Good. Light romantic science fiction about a fantastic inventor and the women in his life. Very cute.
Day of Wrath • novelette by Север Гансовский? (trans. of День гнева? 1965) [as by Sever Gansovsky]
Great. A journalist and a forester travel out into the wilderness to study the Otarks. The Otarks are super-intelligent creature that escaped from a lab years ago. Brutal and powerful.
The Hands • (1965) • short story by John Baxter
Great. Creepy bit of alien body horror. Earthmen, captured and tortured by an alien, arrive back home with very deformed bodies; multiple arms, heads, torso, etc….
Darkness • (1972) • short story by André Carneiro (trans. of A Escuridão 1963)
Good. In a world strangely plunged into darkness, one man survives with help from the blind.
"Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman • (1965) • short story by Harlan Ellison
Good. The Harlequin disrupts the perfectly scheduled work as a protest and is hunted by the Ticktockman.
Nine Hundred Grandmothers • (1966) • short story by R. A. Lafferty
Average. Asteroid miners with unusual names meet a race of people who may never die.
Day Million • (1966) • short story by Frederik Pohl
Good. A snarky, tongue-in-cheek tale of dating and society a million days in our future.
Student Body • (1953) • novelette by F. L. Wallace
Average. A bit of fluff about space settlers who must deal with an evolving rodent issue.
Aye, and Gomorrah • (1970) • short story by Samuel R. Delany (variant of Aye, and Gomorrah ... 1967)
Great. Masterful new age sexual allegory about neutered spacers and the perverse(?) human who pay to have sex with them.
The Hall of Machines • (1968) • short story by Langdon Jones
Great. A haunting description of complex machines in the Hall of Machines.
Soft Clocks • (1989) • short story by 荒巻義雄? (trans. of 柔らかい時計? 1968) [as by Yoshio Aramaki]
Average. Psychiatrist summoned to Mars to evaluate potential husbands for Dali’s granddaughter. Surreal and strange, but not engaging.
No Cracks or Sagging • [Moderan] • (1970) • short story by David R. Bunch (variant of No Cracks or Saggings)
Average. Amateurish story of a traveler from far away that meets a foreman whose robots are stretching and flattening everything.
New Kings Are Not for Laughing • [Moderan] • (1971) • short story by David R. Bunch
Good. A traveler - converted to a cyborg - meets a severely injured man with whom he fought in the war.
The Flesh Man from Far Wide • [Moderan] • short story by David R. Bunch (variant of The Flesh-Man from Far Wide 1959)
Good. The man in a Stronghold meets a traveler who has traveled far to discover a happiness machine.
Let Us Save the Universe (An Open Letter from Ijon Tichy) • [Ze wspomnień Ijona Tichego / From the Memoirs of Ijon Tichy] • (1981) • short story by Stanisław Lem? (trans. of Ratujmy kosmos 1964)
Great. Hilarious and masterful. Ijon Tichy reports on the effects of exploitation and tourism on the solar system. Some highlights are the strange animals that prey on unwary tourists.
Vaster Than Empires and More Slow • [Hainish] • (1971) • novelette by Ursula K. Le Guin
Good. A crew that is seething at each other starts to explore a planet with a strange expansive type of consciousness.
Good News from the Vatican • (1971) • short story by Robert Silverberg
Good. The Catholic Church is about to elect a robot Pope.
When It Changed • [Whileaway] • (1972) • short story by Joanna Russ
Good. On a world made up of only women, men have finally arrived and they pose a creeping threat.
And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill's Side • (1972) • short story by James Tiptree, Jr.
Great. A reporter meets a ragged worker at a spaceport who tells about how fascination with aliens has lead to his ruin …. and will lead to the ruin of humanity. Brilliantly written with incredible things to say about humanity, culture, sexual addiction, and much more.
Where Two Paths Cross • short story by Дмитрий Биленкин? (trans. of Пересечение пути? 1973) [as by Dmitri Bilenkin]
Good. Fun SF adventure with humans arriving on a planet and running afoul of the dimly-sentient plant-based aliens. A nice alien creature and a pleasant story.
Standing Woman • (1981) • short story by 筒井康隆? (trans. of 佇むひと? 1974) [as by Yasutaka Tsutsui]
Good. A sad strange story of a world where people are planted like trees as punishment for disobedience to the state.
The IWM 1000 • short story by Alicia Yánez Cossío (trans. of La IWM mil 1975)
Poor. Short short where humans become reliant on small machines and lose their ability to read and write.
The House of Compassionate Sharers • [Glaktik Komm] • (1977) • novelette by Michael Bishop
Good. A rebuilt man who has a phobia of the human body get treatment at an interesting facility that doubles as an offbeat brothel.
Sporting with the Chid • (1979) • short story by Barrington J. Bayley
Good. To save an injured friend, two hunters break the rules and interact with the Chid who have disgusting, but effective, medical skills.
Sandkings • [Thousand Worlds] • (1979) • novelette by George R. R. Martin
Great. A psychopath buys small creatures that war in his terrarium and worship him as a god. Of course, they escape and this ends badly. A classic of SF action horror.
Wives • (1979) • short story by Lisa Tuttle
Great. To survive occupation by men, an alien race has turned themselves into ‘wives.’ One of the ‘wives’ starts to think there may be another way. One of the best feminist and colonialist analogies I've ever seen in science fiction.
The Snake Who Had Read Chomsky • (1981) • novelette by Josephine Saxton
Poor. Very unpleasant people try to get one up on each other through parties with rich people.
Reiko's Universe Box • (2007) • short story by 梶尾真治? (trans. of 玲子の箱宇宙?) [as by Kajio Shinji]
Good. Poetic story of a Japanese woman who becomes fascinated at the universe she sees in a box.
Swarm • [Shaper/Mechanist] • (1982) • novelette by Bruce Sterling
Good. A special agent from a branch of humanity that is bred for intelligence arrives on a symbiotic space station with a mission that will secure victory in an ongoing war. The Swarm is very well described and there is more than enough here for a novel.
Mondocane • short story by Jacques Barbéri? (trans. of Mondocane 1983)
Poor. Surrealists SF where war has resulted in extreme changes for all people.
Blood Music • (1983) • novelette by Greg Bear
Great. A brilliant scientist goes to a friend for help after injecting himself with the intelligent results of illegal experiments.
Bloodchild • (1984) • novelette by Octavia E. Butler
Great. A visceral and amazing story of the bond between humans and an insect-like race. A young boy who is to be host for the aliens offspring is forced to help with an emergency c-section on a pregnant man who is being eaten from within by the aliens larva. Powerful, complex, horrifying, and strangely realistic. With overtones of slavery and colonial oppression.
Variation on a Man • [Deadpan Allie] • (1984) • short story by Pat Cadigan
Good. A woman enters the mind of a man who has had his memories stolen. He once was a famous composer, but now appears to be an entirely different person.
Passing as a Flower in the City of the Dead • short story by Sharon N. Farber [as by S. N. Dyer]
Good. In a sterile environment of an orbital station, people with rare blood diseases are treated. They hate “Fidos:” people who aren’t sick but tag along to be with their loved ones.
New Rose Hotel • (1984) • short story by William Gibson
Good. A beatnik influenced, cyberpunk crime story about a beautiful woman and the attempt to kidnap a corporate genetic engineer.
Pots • (1985) • novelette by C. J. Cherryh
Average. A representative of the Lord Magistrate comes down to a planet to check on an archeological site, but finds that it contradicts the desires of the Lord Magistrate. Good start, but falls apart.
and more https://www.shortsf.com/reviews/bigbooksf
yggie's review
4.0
Finally finished this beast! Well over a 100 short stories and novellas, in small print on big pages. I'm both relieved and sad.
This book showed me, once again, that I LOVE the science fiction people wrote in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Older and newer stuff, less so. Too experimental, too preachy, too bleak
That said, this book is an amazing collection, and well worth reading if you like the genre.
This book showed me, once again, that I LOVE the science fiction people wrote in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Older and newer stuff, less so. Too experimental, too preachy, too bleak
That said, this book is an amazing collection, and well worth reading if you like the genre.
madi's review
5.0
Great collection! Wide range of works from classic authors (H.G. Wells, Vonnegut) and newer authors. Each story is prefaced by a biography of the author so you can learn more about them and the time period in which the story was published. And this book really is big! It is like a textbook of science fiction stories. So good. Well curated.
colossal's review
3.0
The SpecFic Buddy Reads group read this mammoth anthology starting in January 2017 at a rate of one story per week and just finished it about a week ago in January 2019. It was a long, often frustrating, but voluminous, education on what one pair of really notable editors consider to be important waypoints from the origins of the genre to its most modern antecedents.
Along the way there are some amazing gems, [b:Bloodchild|21265321|Bloodchild|Octavia E. Butler|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1394278990s/21265321.jpg|40588304] and [b:Story of Your Life|31682219|Story of Your Life|Ted Chiang|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1472180915s/31682219.jpg|52354434] among them, but there are also plenty of stories that would best be described as "of academic interest only", including a lot of literary experimentation. I've read the Vandermeer's stuff before, and it's very clear that their tastes in story selection match their own fiction, with quite a number of these stories stretching science fictional concepts to horror and even bizarro fiction in places.
I nearly always appreciated what I was reading through this anthology, for a look at when different science fictional concepts were showing up in fiction, and also to see some of the genre traditions of other countries. But because the editors have such a strong and obvious preference for certain bents in fiction (highbrow literature, experimental fiction, horror), I never got an impression of a chronicle of science fiction as such, but much more of a "this is what we think was important" list.
And ultimately, other than academic interest, I simply don't share much of the tastes of the Vandermeers in this realm, and I probably only enjoyed (rather than appreciated) one story in three in this anthology. I'm still glad I read it though.
Along the way there are some amazing gems, [b:Bloodchild|21265321|Bloodchild|Octavia E. Butler|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1394278990s/21265321.jpg|40588304] and [b:Story of Your Life|31682219|Story of Your Life|Ted Chiang|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1472180915s/31682219.jpg|52354434] among them, but there are also plenty of stories that would best be described as "of academic interest only", including a lot of literary experimentation. I've read the Vandermeer's stuff before, and it's very clear that their tastes in story selection match their own fiction, with quite a number of these stories stretching science fictional concepts to horror and even bizarro fiction in places.
I nearly always appreciated what I was reading through this anthology, for a look at when different science fictional concepts were showing up in fiction, and also to see some of the genre traditions of other countries. But because the editors have such a strong and obvious preference for certain bents in fiction (highbrow literature, experimental fiction, horror), I never got an impression of a chronicle of science fiction as such, but much more of a "this is what we think was important" list.
And ultimately, other than academic interest, I simply don't share much of the tastes of the Vandermeers in this realm, and I probably only enjoyed (rather than appreciated) one story in three in this anthology. I'm still glad I read it though.
amanda_cattiva's review against another edition
3.0
Most stories were 3. Some 4/5s and some 1/2s. Best thing is getting some authors I want to read more of.
michelle_e_goldsmith's review against another edition
Really enjoyed this. Great stories and lots of authors I will be looking up more from. I also feel like finishing a 1100+ book deserves some kind of fanfare.
nakedsteve's review against another edition
4.0
"The Big Book of Science Fiction" this is called. That really makes it feel like it's aimed at three-year-olds, but these stories are for sure not for three-year-olds.
I got a copy of this massive tome by winning a sweepstakes on the tor.com website, sometime during the summer of 2016, and started reading it in earnest in November of that year. Here it is, 13 months later, and I'm finally done.
"The Big Book of Science Fiction" is a survey of Science Fiction from the very very early days of the form, beginning with H. G. Wells, to pieces that were authored only a few years ago. But the breadth of the selections are what are so impressive here. This is certainly not a collection of the most popular stories during that time frame, rather it's an attempt to show all the different forms and potential sources of inspiration that make up science fiction.
It might start with Wells, but the very next story is from a woman from Bangladesh, where "alternate reality" stories were a means to point out social ills and potentially help redirect the evolution of the society in which it was written.
There are a lot of new translations of non-English authors here, many stories by female authors, and a breadth of underlying topics that I found very refreshing. It really feels to me like the collection has been devised to be the core reader for a number of graduate level literature courses.
I really liked the collection. I struggled with finishing it, though, simply because it was so large, and there are so many other things I want to read!
Highly recommended for people who want to see where the genre of science fiction has come from. Just give yourself a break every now and then to read something else as well.
4.5 of 5 stars.
I got a copy of this massive tome by winning a sweepstakes on the tor.com website, sometime during the summer of 2016, and started reading it in earnest in November of that year. Here it is, 13 months later, and I'm finally done.
"The Big Book of Science Fiction" is a survey of Science Fiction from the very very early days of the form, beginning with H. G. Wells, to pieces that were authored only a few years ago. But the breadth of the selections are what are so impressive here. This is certainly not a collection of the most popular stories during that time frame, rather it's an attempt to show all the different forms and potential sources of inspiration that make up science fiction.
It might start with Wells, but the very next story is from a woman from Bangladesh, where "alternate reality" stories were a means to point out social ills and potentially help redirect the evolution of the society in which it was written.
There are a lot of new translations of non-English authors here, many stories by female authors, and a breadth of underlying topics that I found very refreshing. It really feels to me like the collection has been devised to be the core reader for a number of graduate level literature courses.
I really liked the collection. I struggled with finishing it, though, simply because it was so large, and there are so many other things I want to read!
Highly recommended for people who want to see where the genre of science fiction has come from. Just give yourself a break every now and then to read something else as well.
4.5 of 5 stars.
kewoodley's review against another edition
4.0
Staggering anthology and the scope is varied and impressive. I felt there’s a lot more misses than hits, but the hits are that good, and the effort in this anthology is hard to fault. It’s a must have for any sci fi reader.
My favourite story in here was Sandkings, which was hugely entertaining and creepy.
My favourite story in here was Sandkings, which was hugely entertaining and creepy.
paladinjane's review against another edition
5.0
Full disclosure: I received an ARC of this book on Goodreads giveaways in exchange for my honest opinion. Secondly, I haven't fully read the book yet. That may take me a long time to do, given the enormous size (1178 pages) of this book. Therefore, an update will be forthcoming once I finish the book.
This is an incredible anthology of science fiction. I think all of these works have been previously published, although a number of them are either newly translated into English or have been retranslated into English, so those stories will probably be new even to the most avid of science fiction readers.
It looks like the VanderMeers decided to create an anthology that is representative of all the major eras and traditions in science fiction, by including stories published over a span of more than 100 years. I'm sure some readers will flip through the book and say, "but why isn't [insert famous/important/incredible author name here] included?" but I would guess that list is fairly short. In this book, you'll find just about every major name in science fiction and some of the most famous stories in science fiction. Flipping through this book, I see a whole bunch of stories that I've wanted to read for a long time now.
The book has a nice introduction to the history of science fiction, and each story has a short biography of the author, demonstrating why that author and that story in particular are so influential. I like that, since it helps me understand how these works fit together and how they've influenced the genre.
Since I haven't seen anyone publish the table of contents anywhere and viewing that is always important to me when I consider buying an anthology, I'm listing it here for anyone who's interested. I'm always wary of buying anthologies because I might have the stories in other volumes, especially when the anthology is full of classics like this one. However, given the size of this and the relative obscurity of most of the translated works, I suggest that this is worth it if you like to collect short science fiction.
Contents:
H. G. Wells: The Star
Rokheya Shekhawat Hossain: Sultana's Dream
Karl Hans Strobl: The Triumph of Mechanics
Paul Scheerbart: The New Overworld
Alfred Jarry: Elements of Pataphysics
Miguel de Unamuno: Mechanopolis
Yefim Zozulya: The Doom of Principal City
W. E. B. Du Bois: The Comet
Clare Winger Harris: The Fate of the Poseidonia
Edmond Hamilton: The Star Stealers
Leslie F. Stone: The Conquest of Gola
Stanley G. Weinbaum: A Martian Odyssey
A. Merritt: The Last Poet and the Robots
Paul Ernst: The Microscopic Giants
Jorge Luis Borges: Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius
Clifford D. Simak: Desertion
Ray Bradbury: September 2005: The Martian
Juan Jose Arreola: Baby HP
James Blish: Surface Tension
Philip K. Dick: Beyond Lies the Wub
Katherine MacLean: The Snowball Effect
Margaret St. Clair: Prott
William Tenn: The Liberation of Earth
Chad Oliver: Let Me Live in a House
Arthur C. Clarke: The Star
James H. Schmitz: Grandpa
Cordwainer Smith: The Game of Rat and Dragon
Isaac Asimov: The Last Question
Damon Knight: Stranger Station
James White: Sector General
Arkady and Boris Strugatsky: The Visitors
Carol Emschwiller: Pelt
Gerard Klein: The Monster
Theodore Sturgeon: The Man Who Lost the Sea
Silvina Ocampo: The Waves
Will Worthington: Plenitude
J. G. Ballard: The Voices of Time
Valentina Zhuravlyova: The Astronaut
Adolfo Bioy Casares: The Squid Chooses Its Own Ink
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.: 2 B R O 2 B
Vadim Shefner: A Modest Genius
Sever Gansovsky: Day of Wrath
John Baxter: The Hands
Andre Carneiro: Darkness
Harlan Ellison: "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman
R. A. Lafferty: Nine Hundred Grandmothers
Frederik Pohl: Day Million
F. L. Wallace: Student Body
Samuel R. Delany: Aye, and Gomorrah
Langdon Jones: The Hall of Machines
Yoshio Aramaki: Soft Clocks
David R. Bunch: Three from Moderan
Stanislaw Lem: Let Us Save the Universe
Ursula K. Le Guin: Vaster Than Empires and More Slow
Robert Silverberg: Good News from the Vatican
Joanna Russ: When It Changed
James Tiptree Jr.: And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill's Side
Dmitri Bilenkin: Where Two Paths Cross
Yasutaka Tsutsui: Standing Woman
Alicia Yanez Cossio: The IWM 1000
Michael Bishop: The House of Compassionate Sharers
Barrington J. Bayley: Sporting with the Chid
George R. R. Martin: Sandkings
Lisa Tuttle: Wives
Josephine Saxton: The Snake Who Had Read Chomsky
Kajio Shinji: Reiko's Universe Box
Bruce Sterling: Swarm
Jacques Barberi: Mondocane
Greg Bear: Blood Music
Octavia E. Butler: Bloodchild
Pat Cadigan: Variation on a Man
S. N. Dyer: Passing as a Flower in the City of the Dead
William Gibson: New Rose Hotel
C. J. Cherryh: Pots
John Crowley: Snow
Karen Joy Fowler: The Lake Was Full of Artificial Things
Angelica Gorodischer: The Unmistakable Smell of Wood Violets
Jon Bing: The Owl of Bear Island
Elisabeth Vonarburg: Readers of the Lost Art
Iain M. Banks: A Gift from the Culture
Jean-Claude Dunyach: Paranamanco
Tanith Lee: Crying in the Rain
Michael Moorcock: The Frozen Cardinal
Pat Murphy: Rachel in Love
Manjula Padmanabhan: Sharing Air
Connie Willis: Schwarzschild Radius
Gene Wolfe: All the Hues of Hell
Geoffrey A. Landis: Vacuum States
Han Song: Two Small Birds
Rachel Pollack: Burning Sky
Kim Stanley Robinson: Before I Wake
Misha Nogha: Death Is Static Death Is Movement
Michael Blumlein: The Brains of Rats
Leena Krohn: Gorgonoids
Kojo Laing: Vacancy for the Post of Jesus Christ
Gwyneth Jones: The Universe of Things
Robert Reed: The Remoras
William Tenn: The Ghost Standard
Geoffrey Maloney: Remnants of the Virago Crypto-System
Stepan Chapman: How Alex Became a Machine
Cixin Liu: The Poetry Cloud
Ted Chiang: Story of Your Life
Cory Doctorow: Craphound
Tatyana Tolstaya: The Slynx
Johanna Sinisalo: Baby Doll
This is an incredible anthology of science fiction. I think all of these works have been previously published, although a number of them are either newly translated into English or have been retranslated into English, so those stories will probably be new even to the most avid of science fiction readers.
It looks like the VanderMeers decided to create an anthology that is representative of all the major eras and traditions in science fiction, by including stories published over a span of more than 100 years. I'm sure some readers will flip through the book and say, "but why isn't [insert famous/important/incredible author name here] included?" but I would guess that list is fairly short. In this book, you'll find just about every major name in science fiction and some of the most famous stories in science fiction. Flipping through this book, I see a whole bunch of stories that I've wanted to read for a long time now.
The book has a nice introduction to the history of science fiction, and each story has a short biography of the author, demonstrating why that author and that story in particular are so influential. I like that, since it helps me understand how these works fit together and how they've influenced the genre.
Since I haven't seen anyone publish the table of contents anywhere and viewing that is always important to me when I consider buying an anthology, I'm listing it here for anyone who's interested. I'm always wary of buying anthologies because I might have the stories in other volumes, especially when the anthology is full of classics like this one. However, given the size of this and the relative obscurity of most of the translated works, I suggest that this is worth it if you like to collect short science fiction.
Contents:
H. G. Wells: The Star
Rokheya Shekhawat Hossain: Sultana's Dream
Karl Hans Strobl: The Triumph of Mechanics
Paul Scheerbart: The New Overworld
Alfred Jarry: Elements of Pataphysics
Miguel de Unamuno: Mechanopolis
Yefim Zozulya: The Doom of Principal City
W. E. B. Du Bois: The Comet
Clare Winger Harris: The Fate of the Poseidonia
Edmond Hamilton: The Star Stealers
Leslie F. Stone: The Conquest of Gola
Stanley G. Weinbaum: A Martian Odyssey
A. Merritt: The Last Poet and the Robots
Paul Ernst: The Microscopic Giants
Jorge Luis Borges: Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius
Clifford D. Simak: Desertion
Ray Bradbury: September 2005: The Martian
Juan Jose Arreola: Baby HP
James Blish: Surface Tension
Philip K. Dick: Beyond Lies the Wub
Katherine MacLean: The Snowball Effect
Margaret St. Clair: Prott
William Tenn: The Liberation of Earth
Chad Oliver: Let Me Live in a House
Arthur C. Clarke: The Star
James H. Schmitz: Grandpa
Cordwainer Smith: The Game of Rat and Dragon
Isaac Asimov: The Last Question
Damon Knight: Stranger Station
James White: Sector General
Arkady and Boris Strugatsky: The Visitors
Carol Emschwiller: Pelt
Gerard Klein: The Monster
Theodore Sturgeon: The Man Who Lost the Sea
Silvina Ocampo: The Waves
Will Worthington: Plenitude
J. G. Ballard: The Voices of Time
Valentina Zhuravlyova: The Astronaut
Adolfo Bioy Casares: The Squid Chooses Its Own Ink
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.: 2 B R O 2 B
Vadim Shefner: A Modest Genius
Sever Gansovsky: Day of Wrath
John Baxter: The Hands
Andre Carneiro: Darkness
Harlan Ellison: "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman
R. A. Lafferty: Nine Hundred Grandmothers
Frederik Pohl: Day Million
F. L. Wallace: Student Body
Samuel R. Delany: Aye, and Gomorrah
Langdon Jones: The Hall of Machines
Yoshio Aramaki: Soft Clocks
David R. Bunch: Three from Moderan
Stanislaw Lem: Let Us Save the Universe
Ursula K. Le Guin: Vaster Than Empires and More Slow
Robert Silverberg: Good News from the Vatican
Joanna Russ: When It Changed
James Tiptree Jr.: And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill's Side
Dmitri Bilenkin: Where Two Paths Cross
Yasutaka Tsutsui: Standing Woman
Alicia Yanez Cossio: The IWM 1000
Michael Bishop: The House of Compassionate Sharers
Barrington J. Bayley: Sporting with the Chid
George R. R. Martin: Sandkings
Lisa Tuttle: Wives
Josephine Saxton: The Snake Who Had Read Chomsky
Kajio Shinji: Reiko's Universe Box
Bruce Sterling: Swarm
Jacques Barberi: Mondocane
Greg Bear: Blood Music
Octavia E. Butler: Bloodchild
Pat Cadigan: Variation on a Man
S. N. Dyer: Passing as a Flower in the City of the Dead
William Gibson: New Rose Hotel
C. J. Cherryh: Pots
John Crowley: Snow
Karen Joy Fowler: The Lake Was Full of Artificial Things
Angelica Gorodischer: The Unmistakable Smell of Wood Violets
Jon Bing: The Owl of Bear Island
Elisabeth Vonarburg: Readers of the Lost Art
Iain M. Banks: A Gift from the Culture
Jean-Claude Dunyach: Paranamanco
Tanith Lee: Crying in the Rain
Michael Moorcock: The Frozen Cardinal
Pat Murphy: Rachel in Love
Manjula Padmanabhan: Sharing Air
Connie Willis: Schwarzschild Radius
Gene Wolfe: All the Hues of Hell
Geoffrey A. Landis: Vacuum States
Han Song: Two Small Birds
Rachel Pollack: Burning Sky
Kim Stanley Robinson: Before I Wake
Misha Nogha: Death Is Static Death Is Movement
Michael Blumlein: The Brains of Rats
Leena Krohn: Gorgonoids
Kojo Laing: Vacancy for the Post of Jesus Christ
Gwyneth Jones: The Universe of Things
Robert Reed: The Remoras
William Tenn: The Ghost Standard
Geoffrey Maloney: Remnants of the Virago Crypto-System
Stepan Chapman: How Alex Became a Machine
Cixin Liu: The Poetry Cloud
Ted Chiang: Story of Your Life
Cory Doctorow: Craphound
Tatyana Tolstaya: The Slynx
Johanna Sinisalo: Baby Doll