It's hard to believe this is the seventh – seventh! – World SF bundle I've had the privilege to put together. It's been a trip, collecting novels and stories from around the world, both here with StoryBundle and with the early Apex Book of World SF anthologies and the more recent Best of World SF hardbacks from Head of Zeus. It's a constant joy to see how much more international the science fiction and fantasy fields become year after year, more accessible, more diverse and more interesting.

Just a few years ago books from outside the Anglophone world, let alone books in translation, seemed rarer than gold dust. That much of the work is still done in the small and independent press is telling – but things are definitely getting better, and it's always interesting when I come round to look for this year's titles, unearthing new treasures and bringing some back that may have been unjustly left behind.

I hope you enjoy this year's crop, and find something you like in the selection. Remember that the bundles not only support the authors and their publishers directly, but also our partner charity. At a time when the world seems ever more strained and polarised, literature joins us together, and speculative fiction offers us that rarest of things, hope. So dive in, and I hope you enjoy these stories!

–Lavie Tidhar