Summary: Small Press Anthologies, 2009
Small Press Anthologies, 2009
Here are five books I decided to characterize as being from the small press. That's a dodgy definition, I know -- what is "small" these days? And are these presses any smaller than many of the others put in other categories? No ... but these were kind of left over when I had assigned the others to categories. I will also apologize for the quick treatment these books will get ... to be quite honest, little enough was really memorable in most of them, and also I'm trying to get done with this year's project!
The books are:
Rage of the Behemoth, edited by Jason M. Waltz;
Space Sirens, edited by Carol Hightshoe;
Grants Pass, edited by Jennifer Brozek and Amanda Pillar;
Panverse One, edited by Dario Ciriello; and
Triangulation: Dark Glass, edited by Pete Butler.
Collectively these featured 75 new stories (4 novellas, 8 novelettes, 63 short stories (2 short-shorts), about 475,000 words of new fiction. 33 of the stories (44%) were by women, and 41 (55%) were SF.
Rage of the Behemoth was devoted to adventure fantasy, and was pretty successful in delivering just that. Plenty of swords. Plenty of sorcery. Lots of good old fashioned thud and blunder. The quality of the writing was uneven, thought quite good at the top levels. Not surprisingly, the best stories were by a couple of experienced writers. Lois Tilton's "Black Diamond Sands" is rather bitter in tone, as a son must redeem his late father's debt to a vile rival, who has enslaved he and his sister, and who sends the boy to diamond mines in the desert to try to find certain powerful diamonds. (Nice to see a new story from Lois after several years!) And Mary Rosenblum's "Black Ice" is a strong story of ice dragons and of betrayal among a group of nobles of disparate magical power. Other nice work came from Richard K. Lyon and Andrew J. Offut, from C. L. Werner, and from Kate Martin.
Space Sirens comes from Colorado small press Flying Pen, and it's the second in a series called "Full Throttle Space Tales", evidently an attempt to promote more adventure-oriented space-based SF. A good thing, on the whole. And this book's focus is one women protagonists, a good thing too. But on the whole it's not that strong a book -- I read it with some enjoyment, but was never thrilled. Best were probably David B. Riley's "Ruler", about a spoiled princess becoming the governor of an unstable planet, and Sarah A. Hoyt's "Bite the Hand", about a confrontation between humans and cat people far in the future. Also, stories by Rebecca Lickiss, Julia Phillips, and Selina Rosen were worthwhile.
Grants Pass is an anthology of stories set after a worldwide plague, published by Morrigan Books, out of Sweden. A young woman suggests that the survivors all head to Grants Pass, Oregon. The stories concern the journey, the idea of Grants Pass, but not any real attempt to build a new world or any such foolish thing. As with many tightly themed anthologies, the book is hurt by a certain sense of sameness. I'll be quite honest -- I don't remember the book well at all. If truth be told, I'm not a fan of post-apocalyptic stories -- especially essentially despairing ones like the bulk of those in this book -- which I concede is a personal weakness, not a weakness in the stories necessarily. But it did make it harder for me to warm to the book, especially with so many pieces back to back. In general I felt the book was full of well-written work that didn't appeal to me. Stories by Seanan McGuire, Jay Lake, and Pete Kempshall were my favorites.
Panverse One is a collection of novellas. Another good idea. And it the stories included are pretty interesting, on the whole, but again none quite thrilled me. Andrew Tisbert's "Waking the City", Uncle River's "Shiva Not Dancing", and Alan Smale's "Delusion's Song" were perhaps the best -- the last in particular is a strange and original tale, about the Brontë family, Emily in particular, but after some weird event has isolated Haworth from the rest of England. Probably too long, but much there was intriguing.
Finally, Triangulation: Dark Glass, is the latest of an annual series of anthologies sponsored by the Pittsburgh area SF writers' group Parsec. The book is a mix of a few reprints (some revised) and a number of new stories. My favorite story was probably the longest, "A More Beautiful Monster", by Loretta Sylvestre, about the relationship between a sorcerer, a demon, and a priest. I also liked stories by Lon Prater, D. K. Thompson, and Amy Treadwell.
Here are five books I decided to characterize as being from the small press. That's a dodgy definition, I know -- what is "small" these days? And are these presses any smaller than many of the others put in other categories? No ... but these were kind of left over when I had assigned the others to categories. I will also apologize for the quick treatment these books will get ... to be quite honest, little enough was really memorable in most of them, and also I'm trying to get done with this year's project!
The books are:
Rage of the Behemoth, edited by Jason M. Waltz;
Space Sirens, edited by Carol Hightshoe;
Grants Pass, edited by Jennifer Brozek and Amanda Pillar;
Panverse One, edited by Dario Ciriello; and
Triangulation: Dark Glass, edited by Pete Butler.
Collectively these featured 75 new stories (4 novellas, 8 novelettes, 63 short stories (2 short-shorts), about 475,000 words of new fiction. 33 of the stories (44%) were by women, and 41 (55%) were SF.
Rage of the Behemoth was devoted to adventure fantasy, and was pretty successful in delivering just that. Plenty of swords. Plenty of sorcery. Lots of good old fashioned thud and blunder. The quality of the writing was uneven, thought quite good at the top levels. Not surprisingly, the best stories were by a couple of experienced writers. Lois Tilton's "Black Diamond Sands" is rather bitter in tone, as a son must redeem his late father's debt to a vile rival, who has enslaved he and his sister, and who sends the boy to diamond mines in the desert to try to find certain powerful diamonds. (Nice to see a new story from Lois after several years!) And Mary Rosenblum's "Black Ice" is a strong story of ice dragons and of betrayal among a group of nobles of disparate magical power. Other nice work came from Richard K. Lyon and Andrew J. Offut, from C. L. Werner, and from Kate Martin.
Space Sirens comes from Colorado small press Flying Pen, and it's the second in a series called "Full Throttle Space Tales", evidently an attempt to promote more adventure-oriented space-based SF. A good thing, on the whole. And this book's focus is one women protagonists, a good thing too. But on the whole it's not that strong a book -- I read it with some enjoyment, but was never thrilled. Best were probably David B. Riley's "Ruler", about a spoiled princess becoming the governor of an unstable planet, and Sarah A. Hoyt's "Bite the Hand", about a confrontation between humans and cat people far in the future. Also, stories by Rebecca Lickiss, Julia Phillips, and Selina Rosen were worthwhile.
Grants Pass is an anthology of stories set after a worldwide plague, published by Morrigan Books, out of Sweden. A young woman suggests that the survivors all head to Grants Pass, Oregon. The stories concern the journey, the idea of Grants Pass, but not any real attempt to build a new world or any such foolish thing. As with many tightly themed anthologies, the book is hurt by a certain sense of sameness. I'll be quite honest -- I don't remember the book well at all. If truth be told, I'm not a fan of post-apocalyptic stories -- especially essentially despairing ones like the bulk of those in this book -- which I concede is a personal weakness, not a weakness in the stories necessarily. But it did make it harder for me to warm to the book, especially with so many pieces back to back. In general I felt the book was full of well-written work that didn't appeal to me. Stories by Seanan McGuire, Jay Lake, and Pete Kempshall were my favorites.
Panverse One is a collection of novellas. Another good idea. And it the stories included are pretty interesting, on the whole, but again none quite thrilled me. Andrew Tisbert's "Waking the City", Uncle River's "Shiva Not Dancing", and Alan Smale's "Delusion's Song" were perhaps the best -- the last in particular is a strange and original tale, about the Brontë family, Emily in particular, but after some weird event has isolated Haworth from the rest of England. Probably too long, but much there was intriguing.
Finally, Triangulation: Dark Glass, is the latest of an annual series of anthologies sponsored by the Pittsburgh area SF writers' group Parsec. The book is a mix of a few reprints (some revised) and a number of new stories. My favorite story was probably the longest, "A More Beautiful Monster", by Loretta Sylvestre, about the relationship between a sorcerer, a demon, and a priest. I also liked stories by Lon Prater, D. K. Thompson, and Amy Treadwell.