The SF Site: New Books in Science Fiction and Fantasy

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David Hartwell

Art: Photodisc, Inc.

Centaurus: The Best of Australian Science Fiction
and Damien Broderick
Tor (hardcover, 525 pages, $29.95/$41.95 Can)
Publication date: July 7, 1999
Anthologist and SF guru David G. Hartwell has assembled a number of fine collections of international science fiction, including the recent Northern Suns. This time he teams with author Damien Broderick for a look at the best SF from Australia, including stories from Peter Carey, A. Bertram Chandler, Stephen Dedman, Shane Dix, Terry Dowling, Greg Egan, Chris Lawson, Rosaleen Love, Sean McMullen, George Turner, Cherry Wilder, and Sean Williams. "Science fiction is a worldwide literature, and no one knows it better than David G. Hartwell. Over the years Hartwell has produced a number of anthologies, ranging through the decades and across the globe to document science fiction's scope of influence -- and has introduced American audiences to writers beyond our own literary borders. Now Hartwell and Australian SF expert Damien Broderick are bringing a higher profile to Australian science fiction with Centaurus. Here is a showcase of some of the most original voices in SF, selected and introduced by a highly qualified duo of SF professionals. Centaurus includes stories from well-known practitioners of the genre as well as the hottest new writers from the land down under."

John Harris

Year's Best SF 4
editor
HarperPrism (paperback, 484 pages, $6.50/$8.50 Can)
Publication date: June, 1999
If you're serious about keeping up with the cutting edge of science fiction, and you don't have the time to read 30-40 novels every 12 months, the annual Year's Best collections are your best option. Hartwell and Gardner Dozois are the only two serious anthologists left in this specialized field, and of the two Hartwell emphasizes a more pure strain of SF. "Hartwell gathers the best short science fiction of 1998 in this collection of startling visions of our past, present, and future, as seen through the speculative lens of some of today's most vital and popular writers, including Gregory Benford, Terry Bisson, Greg Egan, Nancy Kress, and Michael Swanwick. This is the first time these stories are available in book form."

Northern Suns
and Glenn Grant
Tor (hardcover, 384 pages, $24.95 US)
Publication date: April, 1999
This collection of reprinted short fiction is the promised second volume to 1998's Northern Stars: The Anthology of Canadian Science Fiction. "Margaret Atwood. Robertson Davies. W. P. Kinsella. Not necessarily names one thinks of in connection with science fiction. But they, along with Geoff Ryman, John Clute, Scott Mackay, Nancy Kilpatrick, and sixteen others, here make up a second volume of the superlative speculative fiction that is alive and well and living in Canada. With this dazzling combination of world-renowned masters and bright new lights, Northern Suns is an adventurous mix of visionary futures, otherworldly fantasies, and strange histories that might have been. Complete with a critical essay, introductory notes, and an updated listing of Canadian science fiction awards."

Year's Best SF 3
editor
HarperPrism (paperback, 450 pages, $6.50 US/$8.50 Canada)
Publication date: June, 1998
For the third installment of his already well-established series, Hartwell chose 22 stories from folks such as Ray Bradbury, William Gibson, Gene Wolfe, Gregory Benford, Terry Bisson, Greg Egan, James Patrick Kelly, Robert Silverberg, and Connie Willis -- stories where lonesome comboys ride the English Moors, the Moon sprouts repulsive new life forms, and piracy is the First Protocol of interstellar contact. Hartwell's collection may not have the solid heft of Dozois', but it's a heckuva lot more portable. Best of all, there's very little overlap between the two. Looks like you need 'em both.

Northern Stars
and Glenn Grant
Tor (reprint, trade paperback, 384 pages, $15.95 US/$21.99 Canada)
Publication date: August 13, 1998
Altogether spiffy collection of Canadian-themed short science fiction, by such noted northerners as Robert Sawyer, William Gibson, Donald M. Kingsbury, Robert Charles Wilson, Dave Duncan, Spider Robinson, James Alan Gardner, Garfield Reeves-Stevens, Judith Merril, Charles de Lint, and the SF Site's own Jean-Louis Trudel, among many others. All that's missing is a Trek story by ex-patriot William Shatner. Or perhaps not.

The Science Fiction Century
editor
Tor hard cover
More than 1000 pages of vintage short work assembled by the premiere anthologist in the field, brought together in defense of the thesis that "Science Fiction is the characteristic literary genre of the century." Hartwell has produced definitive collections of horror (The Dark Descent, Foundations of Fear) and hard SF (The Ascent of Wonder, which arrived in trade paperback this week), and now he turns his eye to the stories which have tracked the evolution of the genre over the past 100 years. While the names on the contents page won't surprise you -- including H.G. Wells, C.S. Lewis, Jack London, Roger Zelazny, Poul Anderson, Nancy Kress, William Gibson, and Harlan Ellison -- I think many of the selections may, as Hartwell has done a fine job of choosing overlooked gems.

The Ascent of Wonder: The Evolution of Hard SF
editor with Kathryn Cramer
Tor/Orb trade paper
Have we mentioned that it's been a great week for short-story lovers? Another weighty and ambitious anthology from Hartwell, this time teamed up with Kathryn Cramer, focusing on the cutting edge -- that pure and challenging form known as "hard SF," where science is often a character and the wonders are state-of-the-art. Includes works of short fiction by the field's most important and influential writers -- from Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, H.G. Wells, Jules Verne and C.L. Moore to Isaac Asimov, Philip K. Dick, Arthur C. Clarke and Robert Heinlein, and on to Rudy Rucker, Bruce Sterling, William Gibson, David Brin, Greg Bear, and many others. There's also an interactive intro to the book online.

The Year's Best Science Fiction 1996
editor
Harperprism
Second volume of the well-received anthology series launched last year. Hartwell disagrees with SF's other major Best Of anthologist, Gardner Dozois, about many things, but on this the two are united: the short story is where today's hot new SF authors are emerging, and where the giants of the genre deliver truly new work. Hartwell selection from the magazines and anthologies of 1996 includes short stories from Gregory Benford, Terry Bisson, David Brin, Damon Knight, Joanna Russ, Bruce Sterling, and many others.

The Dark Decent
editor
Tor trade paper
Landmark anthology edited by the author of Age of Wonders. Hartwell's other anthologies include Foundations of Fear, Masterpieces of Fantasy and Enchantment and The World Treasury of Science Fiction.

Age of Wonder
editor
Tor trade paper
Blurbed as an insider's view of the strange and wonderful world of science fiction, by one of the most respected editors in the field.

Year's Best S.F.
editor
Harperprism paperback
A collection billed as bringing together only the best of this year's new SF from established pros and audacious newcomers, folk have started a pool to see what percentage overlap there will be with the Dozois collection due in a few months.

Spirits of Christmas
& Kathryn Cramer, editors

Oh joy, a collection of Christmas ghost stories.

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