The Sword and Laser discussion

I recently read 'Fragile Things' and 'Smoke and Mirrors' and I absolutely loved them. And now I'm curious if it was because I'm a big Neil Gaiman fan or if it's because I like short stories (I'd guess both, but I need more data).

So I was wondering if anyone could recommend a good anthology of short stories, either SciFi or Fantasy or both.

Hi Matthew

I've always been a huge fan of the annual Best Fantasy and Horror collections that were edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling until recently. They started with Demons and Dreams: The Best Fantasy and Horror 1 in 1989, and were always a collection of stunningly good and varied work. Neil Gaiman had a story in most years, and you find a mix of well-known fantasy, literary and entirely unknown authors. There was a similar annual collection for SF although, oddly as I am a bigger SF reader than fantasy, I have less experience of it. I think, generally speaking, short form fantasy 'tends' to be more inventive whereas I usually prefer my Sf in novels.

That said, I've got quite a lot of older SF anthologies, mostly edited by Asimov, Pohl or Martin Greenberg. I tend to collect short story collections whenever I go into a second hand or charity book shop. It's a great way to discover new authors.

Oh, for SF the first couple of Interzone anthologies are excellent. I used to subscribe to most of the magazines - Interzone, Asimov's and F&SF - but found I'd often not read them so couldn't justify the cost.

George RR Martin's Dunk and Egg stories were released in anthologies.

Legends, Legends II, and Warriors

This was the text for my high school literature of science fiction class. Lots of classic stories.

I really enjoyed Dark and Stormy Knights. It is an anthology of short urban paranormal stories. I found some interesting new authors in it. It also has my favorite Dresden File short story (Even Hand) for the fans of the series. It is not the best rated anthology of all time but I found it really fun.

Sarah Monette is one of my favourite short story writers. Her first unthemed collection, Somewhere Beneath Those Waves, was published this year and I delighted in it. She mostly writes fantasy but there are one or two sf stories included.

If you're into the 'buttoned up academic discovers eldrich horror' end of Lovecraftian horror she also has a wonderful collection of linked short stories called The Bone Key, about a cursed museum archivist's encounters with the supernatural.

Mike wrote: "George RR Martin's Dunk and Egg stories were released in anthologies.

Legends, Legends II, and Warriors"

I just bought these anthologies explicitly for the Dunk and Egg stories. I figure I'll read Dunk and Egg and then get to the rest at some other point...

I really loved Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse (yay apocalypse) and also have Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology and The New Weird on my wish list.

Jenny wrote: "...Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology...on my wish list."

That one's on my wishlist, too! Though I don't know if I ever added it to my GR "to-read" shelf.

I have an urban fantasy one on there somewhere too but can't remember the name,,,,

Jenny wrote: "I really loved Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse (yay apocalypse) and also have Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology and The New Weird on my wish list."

Ooh, I didn't know about The New Weird. I'll have to have a look for that.

You could also try The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories. It's quite a tome but it looks good from what I have read so far

If you're trying to get a feel for which short fiction authors you like without making a financial investment there are oodles of high quality sff magazines that release their content online free.

SF Signal do a really good job of regularly wrapping up what's available at http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/tag/...

Wow thanks for all the suggestions, and thankfully now that I'm actively using GoodReads I have a good way to keep track of them all. I'm especially interested in the Cyberpunk Anthology, I've been looking to get into that subgenre too.

I read part of Harlan Ellison's Dangerous Visions as a kid. Maybe I should check it out again. :)

Mike wrote: "George RR Martin's Dunk and Egg stories were released in anthologies.

Legends, Legends II, and Warriors"

Is it just me, or does anyone else cringe when they read George RR Martin and anthology in the same sentence?

George R.R. Martin: The Complete Collection

The Best of the Best: 20 Years of the Year's Best Science Fiction is a *phenomenal* collection of short stories.

Alex wrote: "Jlawrence wrote: "The Best of the Best: 20 Years of the Year's Best Science Fiction is a *phenomenal* collection of short stories."

This is sitting on my shelf, just waiting to be read!"

There's a bunch of authors I want to read more of thanks to it. Favorites from it included Greg Bear's 'Blood Music', Nancy Kress's 'Trinity', Gibson's 'The Winter Market', John Kessel's 'The Pure Product', Greg Egan's 'Wang's Carpets', Brian Stableford's 'Mortimer Gray's History of Death', Tony Daniel's 'A Dry, Quiet War', Ted Chiang's 'Story of Your Life' and Geoff Ryman's 'Have Not Have'.

Blood Music and Trinity were good.

Great suggestions!

For some reason, this one sticks in my mind: When the Music's Over

There are also the two Wild Cards collections. They are sci-fi ish books where all the stories are set in the same world. George R.R. Martin and another dude edited them, and also wrote ind story in each, I believe.

I think it's similar to the Metatropolis collections Audible did over the last couple of years.

terpkristin wrote: "There are also the two Wild Cards collections. They are sci-fi ish books where all the stories are set in the same world. George R.R. Martin and another dude edited them, and also wrote ind story i..."

GRRM was editor on most of them I think. The other person varied from book to book. Last count I think there were 16 or 17 volumes. From what I recall, the original ones were based on characters in a real life Champions campaign that many of the authors participated in.

Lots of good stuff in Swords & Dark Magic: The New Sword and Sorcery.

I also like a lot of the anthologies Lin Carter edited back in the 1960's/1970's -- The Young Magicians, New Worlds for Old, Kingdoms of Sorcery: An Anthology of Adult Fantasy, etc. His scholarship was dubious but he introduced me to some really amazing old authors.

I'm reading Robot Uprisings right now and there are some really great stories in here.

Some other good ones not mentioned yet:
Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
The Past Through Tomorrow by Robert Heinlein
All The Myriad Ways by Larry Niven
Deathbird Stories by Harlan Ellison
Time Travellers Strictly Cash by Spider Robinson
or a "best of" collection by almost any other author.

Snow White, Blood Red is probably the strongest themed anthology I've ever read.

Sister Emily's Lightship and Other Stories was also a really great collection, along with Skin Folk.

I haven't read any of these, but here are some with some big names that aren't mentioned here either:

Phil wrote: "Some other good ones not mentioned yet:
Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
The Past Through Tomorrow by Robert Heinlein
All The Myriad Ways by L..."

I agree with that "Best of" collection, I'm two stories into



and both of them have been very good stories, very different genres and styles on top of that.

Uncharted Territory
Driving Blind
Storeys from the Old Hotel

I recently read Pump Six and Other Stories and really loved it. Dark stuff.

There are lots of great sources for short fiction and some suit some people more than others

Online - between online magazines such as Clarkesworld and Strange Horizons, sites like Tor.com, author sites etc there are lots of great places to find free fiction. You can either read it online, print it out, use a "send to kindle app or copy and paste to read on your e-reader. freesfonline.de is a good place to find legal free fiction by your favorite authors

Magazines - with the best of contemporary SF with the likes of Asimov's, Clarkesworld and Lightspeed all available as one of issues or subscriptions

Author anthologies - often have a bit of a running theme or sense of connectedness - a few strong examples include At the Mouth of the River of Bees: Stories, What I Didn't See: Stories and Pump Six and Other Stories

Author best ofs - less of a running theme, often less of a sense of connectedness but full of sheer quality. I am particularly enjoying slowly making my way through The Best of Gene Wolfe: A Definitive Retrospective of His Finest Short Fiction at the moment. If you like Gaiman Crackpot Palace: Stories might be worth a try

Year Best ofs - There are several series' of best of the year SF - any of them are good although I particularly like the choices and range of the Jonathan Strahan collections. They are a great way to discover some new authors and read some great fiction but they have no overarching theme or connectedness which make it easy to move from one story to the next

Themed Anthologies - The Weird has already been mentioned and is a great anthology. What I like about themed anthologies is it is often easy to progress from one story to the next and you get different authors' takes on similar sub-genres or ideas. The Time Traveler's Almanac is proving to be a great reading experience so far.

Unthemed anthologies - I really like what I have read of Strahan's Eclipse anthologies. Unthemed anthologies can contain really good fiction. Sometimes when a writer is being tasked with writing on a particular theme it can feel like they are going through the motions....But it can be harder to move from one story to the next.

Given you like Gaiman you will probably like his taste so checking out Stories: All-New Tales which he co-edited as well as other anthologies by him as there is a good chance that they would be an ideal starting point for you.

I'm a big fan of the Best of the Year anthologies. Jonathan Strahan's tastes align best with mine, but I also regularly read David G. Hartwell's series. Strahan also has some notable themed anthologies, a few of which have been mentioned already.

I'm also a big fan of Al Sarrantonio's editing. He helped Gaiman edit Stories: All-New Tales, but earlier, he has a trio of great themed anthologies. 999: Twenty-nine Original Tales of Horror and Suspense covered horror, Flights: Extreme Visions of Fantasy covered fantasy, and Redshift: Extreme Visions of Speculative Fiction covered Science Fiction.

No love for Gardner Dozois?

Ben wrote: "I'm a big fan of the Best of the Year anthologies. Jonathan Strahan's tastes align best with mine, but I also regularly read David G. Hartwell's series. Strahan also h..."


Hartwell is my absolute favourite anthology editor.


(the last one is largely supernatural horror, but that just means scary fantasy, to me)

And I agree about Jonathan Strahan. I haven't seen Fearsome Journeys mentioned, and it really should be, because it's got some great stories. Scott Lynch's short fiction is so much better than his Gentleman Bastard series.

Galactic North all short stories by Alastair Reynolds and all set in the Revelation Space universe. Game over.

Gardner Dozois is also great but of the recent best of the year collections I prefer the ones that include fantasy as I like fantasy short fiction, I like variety and because I do feel that Dozois needs inevitably to sacrifice a little on quality focusing in a story collection as large as hiss and only covering SF.

I have loved many Novella collections Dozois put out.

David Sven wrote: "Galactic North all short stories by Alastair Reynolds and all set in the Revelation Space universe. Game over."

Well played.

I would also recommendthe Dangerous Visions anthologies-
Dangerous Visions Edited by Harlan Ellison
Again, Dangerous Visions Edited by Harlan Ellison

As well as-
The Hugo Winners Vol 1 and 2 1955-1972 Edited by Isaac Asimov
Galactic Empires 1 Edited by Brian W. Aldiss
Galactic Empires 2 Edited by Brian W. Aldiss

There's this weird anthology combining fantasy and science fiction stories from mostly unknown authors coming out around May 1 you might look into... can't remember the name...

Tom wrote: "There's this weird anthology combining fantasy and science fiction stories from mostly unknown authors coming out around May 1 you might look into... can't remember the name..."

It's coming out already, haven't followed it, where can I buy one.

Tom wrote: "There's this weird anthology combining fantasy and science fiction stories from mostly unknown authors coming out around May 1 you might look into... can't remember the name..."

Oh yeah, The Last Dangerous Visions, forgot that was coming out.

Michal wrote: "Oh yeah, The Last Dangerous Visions, forgot that was coming out."

I don't think Tom was referring to The Last Dangerous Visions, which to my knowledge is NOT coming out. I am assuming that Tom was subtly referring to the Sword and Laser Anthology. Which apparently now has a release date? MAY 1

They said on a recent podcast that they were sending them to the authors...then they'd do the kickstarter backers, then they'd go for general sale.

I hope it's soon for the KS backers, I really can't wait to dive in! :)

I dunno if you'd qualify this as an anthology per se, but all of Robert E. Howard's original Conan stories were short form, and they've since been collected in some very pretty TPB edition like...

They're some of the original great sword & sorcery tales, and not nearly as tough to read for modern audiences as some of his contemporaries (namely, Lovecraft).


Also of the "original greats" variety, ANY collection of the tales of Richard Mathson that you can get your hands on is well worth your money.



Matheson is the godfather of supernatural suspense, and probably he probably has had more of his stories adapted to film and TV than any other author (I don't know this for certain, but it's a safe bet). He's another one whose writing style is so natural, it's easy for modern audiences to pick up.


And finally, one of my all time favorite anthologies that I don't think many people have heard of...



The Touch is a science fiction anthology centered around a disease that gives anyone who has it the ability to deprive other people of one of their five senses (sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch) just by touching them. The stories are arranged in chronological order so that they document the evolution of the disease, from its discovery in the late 20th century all the way to the dystopian future it causes.

The collection was so successful, one of its stories was expanded into a full length novel... ...and was even being looked at for a TV adaptation at one point (though it sadly never happened).

Louie wrote: I don't think Tom was referring to The Last Dangerous Visions, which to my knowledge is NOT coming out. coming out. I am assuming that Tom was subtly referring to the Sword and Laser Anthology."

...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xECUr...

(The Last Dangerous Visions is NEVER coming out. *Grumble grumble never allowed to have some fun on April Fools' Day grumble grumble*)

Joey wrote: "Matheson is the godfather of supernatural suspense, and probably he probably has had more of his stories adapted to film and TV than any other author"

I guess if you count each episode of Twilight Zone separately, then you could make a good case!

Cattfish wrote: "I guess if you count each episode of Twilight Zone separately, then you could make a good case!"

Don't mind if I do! :D

Naked City had a couple cool stories in it if you like urban fantasy. As with all anthologies, not every story hits the mark. But I'm glad I bought it.

http://www.amazon.com/Naked-City-Tale...

I just finished off , a pretty great anthology that's coming out soon. 17 stories and I think there were only 2 that I didn't enjoy, overall. Here's my overall review if anyone's interested.