Digital Domains: A Decade of Science Fiction & Fantasy

The Diogenes Club #(Tomorrow Town)

by Ellen Datlow (Editor), James P. Blaylock (Contributor), Howard Waldrop (Contributor)

A girl who eats dreams, a woman who chooses the apes, and a barbarian hero rendered as a collage. These are just a few of the people readers first met online thanks to the explosion of webzines. Ellen Datlow, editor of Omni Online, Event Horizon, and SciFiction, led the charge into the brave new world of online science fiction. Digital Domains collects some of the best and most controversial of those stories — in print for the first time.

Table of Contents (copied from ebook):

Introduction, Ellen Datlow

OMNI Online: September 1996—March 1998
- Thirteen Phantasms, James P. Blaylock
- Mr. Goober’s Show, Howard Waldrop
- Get a Grip, Paul Park

Event Horizon: August 1988—July 1999
- The Girl Detective, Kelly Link
- Pansolapia, Jeffrey Ford
- Harbingers, Severna Park

SCIFICTION: May 19, 2000—December 28, 2005
- Frankenstein’s Daughter, Maureen McHugh
- The Pottawatomie Giant, Andy Duncan
- What I Didn’t See, Karen Joy Fowler
- Daughter of the Monkey God, M.K. Hobson
- Tomorrow Town, Kim Newman
- There’s a Hole in the City, Richard Bowes
- All of Us Can Almost. . ., Carol Emshwiller
- You Go Where It Takes You, Nathan Ballingrud
- Russian Vine, Simon Ings

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Short Stories, Anthologies, Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Ebooks

536 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Ellen Datlow has been editing science fiction, fantasy, and horror short fiction for forty years as fiction editor of OMNI Magazine and editor of Event Horizon and SCIFICTION. She currently acquires short stories and novellas for Tor.com. In addition, she has edited about one hundred science fiction, fantasy, and horror anthologies, including the annual The Best Horror of the Year series, The Doll Collection, Mad Hatters and March Hares, The Devil and the Deep: Horror Stories of the Sea, Echoes: The Saga Anthology of Ghost Stories, Edited By, and Final Cuts: New Tales of Hollywood Horror and Other Spectacles.
She's won multiple World Fantasy Awards, Locus Awards, Hugo Awards, Bram Stoker Awards, International Horror Guild Awards, Shirley Jackson Awards, and the 2012 Il Posto Nero Black Spot Award for Excellence as Best Foreign Editor. Datlow was named recipient of the 2007 Karl Edward Wagner Award, given at the British Fantasy Convention for "outstanding contribution to the genre," was honored with the Life Achievement Award by the Horror Writers Association, in acknowledgment of superior achievement over an entire career, and honored with the World Fantasy Life Achievement Award at the 2014 World Fantasy Convention.

Reviews

[Ira Nayman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am generally tiring of the heavy ponderousness of much science fiction writing. Reading should be pleasurable; when the writing is deadly serious, I do not find it so.

Digital Domains is generally well written and thoughtfully put together, but, because of my aforementioned predilection, I found it very hard to enjoy. (I also think that there was too much horror for an anthology that claimed to focus on science fiction and fantasy.)

The only story which actually took my breath away was Kelly Link's "The Girl Detective," with its elliptical narrative, recurring motifs and spirit of literary adventure. I look forward to reading more of Link's work (when I start buying books again...).

[Levent Pekcan · Rating 2 out of 5]

A mediocre collection of stories. The title claims a decade of scifi and fantasy, but you'll find neither scifi nor fantasy in the book.

The electronic version I bought has some formatting issues separating introductory texts from stories.

[John Albers · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting collection of short stories: no evil empires, no rocket ships, no teenaged heroes saving the universe. Best story is Russian Vine where an alien race has taken control of the world, but it's insistence on a pastoral lifestyle with recorded history, dooms it to failure.

[Aimee · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[Erica · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book felt like it started out very science fiction, but wound up a cross between science fiction and horror. I read the last few stories while eating by myself at a sushi bar, and I can't help but think that the sushi chefs must have been making fun of the faces I was making. Good stories, on the thought-provoking side, and definitely fun!

[Ralyn Longs · Rating 2 out of 5]

The stories were picked from three online magazines, rather than looking widely for better stories. As a result it felt as if fishing from very a tiny pond - no miracle the selection was lacklustre at best.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

This collection of short stories just...didn't stick. I can barely remember which stories were in it, a week or two later. It's not that they were bad. I think perhaps my tastes just don't align with the editor's.

[Nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

As usual for this type of collection, there were some stories I loved and others I barely got through. On the whole I think this was better than average, though.

[Charl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. Only one or two stories were actually SF. Or even fantasy. Most of them could be re-written as contemporary fiction without affecting their quality at all.

[Joanna Chaplin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I only ended up liking about 4 stories in this collection. Bad luck or something. Or perhaps Datlow and I have differing tastes.

[Kenny V · Rating 4 out of 5]

Decent collection of stories. The last two in it (can't remember the authors) were particularly good. May be hit or miss for some but the hits are great.