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A review by kieralesley
The New Voices of Fantasy by Eugene Fisher, Brooke Bolander
4.0
I really enjoyed this collection. It had a nice balance of stories – most of them not too long - showing a good array of work from upcoming authors and somehow maintained a consistent tone despite the variety of authors and tales.
I was familiar with many of these stories from previous anthologies and publications. At first I was disappointed by that, until I thought about the target audience for this book and realised that not only was that perfectly fine - it was what I’d want to be seeing.
This book is aimed at readers who aren’t up to their eyeballs reading the latest issues of SFWA-recognised magazines, who aren’t voting in or following the big awards, and who may not typically follow SFF short fiction at all. It’s aimed at people who want to read a good collection of the key pieces from upcoming authors to watch out for in the future.
In that regard this collection delivers really well.
For an anthology like this you’d hope the stories and authors that would be included would be the big ones you’d think of straight off the bat like Alyssa Wong and Brooke Bolander, right? You’d hope that they’d have some of your favourite short stories from the last few years like Carmen Maria Machado’s “The Husband Stitch”, Ursula Vernon’s “Jackolope Wives” and Max Gladstone’s “A Kiss With Teeth”. You’d hope there were a few outsider surprises, too, like “The Duck” or “Here Be Dragons”.
The editorial team has done a great job and I found their selections are well-balanced.
If I had a friend who asked me for an introduction to what’s good in current fantasy short fiction, this would be up there in my recommendations. It’s a good overview, introduces a lot of the key names to keep an eye on, and gives the reader a place to start and work out from.
In short, this collection does everything it says it will on the tin and it does it very well.
An advance copy of this book was kindly provided by Tachyon Publications and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I was familiar with many of these stories from previous anthologies and publications. At first I was disappointed by that, until I thought about the target audience for this book and realised that not only was that perfectly fine - it was what I’d want to be seeing.
This book is aimed at readers who aren’t up to their eyeballs reading the latest issues of SFWA-recognised magazines, who aren’t voting in or following the big awards, and who may not typically follow SFF short fiction at all. It’s aimed at people who want to read a good collection of the key pieces from upcoming authors to watch out for in the future.
In that regard this collection delivers really well.
For an anthology like this you’d hope the stories and authors that would be included would be the big ones you’d think of straight off the bat like Alyssa Wong and Brooke Bolander, right? You’d hope that they’d have some of your favourite short stories from the last few years like Carmen Maria Machado’s “The Husband Stitch”, Ursula Vernon’s “Jackolope Wives” and Max Gladstone’s “A Kiss With Teeth”. You’d hope there were a few outsider surprises, too, like “The Duck” or “Here Be Dragons”.
The editorial team has done a great job and I found their selections are well-balanced.
If I had a friend who asked me for an introduction to what’s good in current fantasy short fiction, this would be up there in my recommendations. It’s a good overview, introduces a lot of the key names to keep an eye on, and gives the reader a place to start and work out from.
In short, this collection does everything it says it will on the tin and it does it very well.
An advance copy of this book was kindly provided by Tachyon Publications and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.