The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 25 (Mammoth Books) (6 page)

The best of the year’s fantasy anthologies (although an argument could be made for putting it in with the urban fantasy and paranormal anthologies discussed later) was probably
Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy
2 (Subterranean Press), edited by William Schafer, and featuring good stories by K. J. Parker, Bruce Sterling, William Browning Spencer, Jay Lake and Shannon Page, Norman Patridge, Kelley Armstrong, and others.

Pleasant but minor fantasy anthologies included
Courts of the Fey
(DAW Books), edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Russell Davis, and
Hot and Steamy: Tales of Steampunk Romance
(DAW Books), edited by Jean Rabe and Martin H. Greenberg.

There were a number of anthologies exploring the confusing and sometimes contradictory area now known as “urban fantasy,” including
Naked City: Tales of Urban Fantasy
(St. Martin’s Press), edited by Ellen Datlow;
Supernatural Noir
(Dark Horse Books), edited by Ellen Datlow;
Down These Strange Streets
(Ace), edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois;
Ghosts by Gaslight
(HarperCollins Voyager), edited by Jack Dann and Nick Gevers;
Welcome to Bordertown: New Stories and Poems of the Borderlands
(Random House), edited by Holly Black and Ellen Kushner; and
Home Improvement: Undead Edition
(Ace), edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni L. P. Kelner. Original horror anthologies included
Teeth: Vampire Tales
(Harper), edited by Ellen Datlow and Terry Windling;
Blood and Other Cravings
(Tor), edited by Ellen Datlow;
A Book of Horrors
(Jo Fletcher Books), edited by Stephen Jones;
Zombiesque
(DAW Books), edited by Stephen L. Antczak, James C. Basser, and Martin H. Greenberg; and a mixed reprint and original shapeshifter anthology,
Bewere the Night
(Prime Books), edited by Ekaterina Sedia.

Less easily classifiable stuff, dancing on the edge of one genre or another, included the entertaining and vaguely steampunkish
The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities
(Harper Voyager), edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer;
Kafkaesque
(Tachyon Publications), edited by John Kessel and James Patrick Kelly; and
Tesseracts Fifteen: A Case of Quite Curious Tales
(Hades/EDGE Science Fiction), edited by Julie E. Czerneda and Susan MacGregor.

Shared-world anthologies included
In Fire Forged
(Baen Books), edited by David Weber;
Golden Reflections: Stories of the Mask
(Baen Books), edited by Joan Spicci Saberhagen and Robert E. Vardeman; and
Under the Vale and Other Tales of Valdemar
(DAW Books), edited by Mercedes Lackey.

Short-fiction stalwarts such as Robert Reed, Michael Swanwick, and Ken MacLeod published a lot of good work this year, as usual, but so did prolific younger writers such as Lavie Tidhar, Ken Liu, Cat Rambo, Catherynne M. Valente, and Genevieve Valentine. Stories about Mars seemed popular this year, as did stories about ecological terrorists, and stories where SF was disguised as fantasy or even as fairy tales.

(Finding individual pricings for all of the items from small presses mentioned in the Summation has become too time-intensive, and since several of the same small presses publish anthologies, novels,
and
short-story collections, it seems silly to repeat addresses for them in section after section. Therefore, I’m going to attempt to list here, in one place, all the addresses for small presses that have books mentioned here or there in the Summation, whether from the anthologies section, the novel section, or the short-story collection section, and, where known, their website addresses. That should make it easy enough for the reader to look up the individual price of any book mentioned that isn’t from a regular trade publisher; such books are less likely to be found in your average bookstore, or even in a chain superstore, and so will probably have to be mail-ordered. Many publishers seem to sell only online, through their websites, and some will only accept payment through PayPal. Many books, even from some of the smaller presses, are also available through
Amazon.com
. If you can’t find an address for a publisher, and it’s quite likely that I’ve missed some here, or failed to update them successfully, Google it. It shouldn’t be that difficult these days to find up-to-date contact information for almost any publisher, however small.)

Addresses are:
PS Publishing
, Grosvenor House, 1 New Road, Hornsea, West Yorkshire, HU18 1PG, England, UK
www.pspublishing.co.uk
;
Golden Gryphon Press,
3002 Perkins Road, Urbana, IL 61802,
www.goldengryphon.com
;
NESFA Press
, P.O. Box 809, Framingham, MA 01701-0809,
www.nesfa.org/press
;
Subterranean Press
, P.O. Box 190106, Burton, MI 48519,
www.subterraneanpress.com
;
Old Earth Books,
P.O. Box 19951, Baltimore, MD 21211-0951,
www.oldearthbooks.com
;
Tachyon Press,
1459 18th St. #139, San Francisco, CA 94107,
www.tachyonpublications.com
;
Night Shade Books,
1470 NW Saltzman Road, Portland, OR 97229,
www.nightshadebooks.com
;
Five Star Books
, 295 Kennedy Memorial Drive, Waterville, ME 04901,
www.galegroup.com/fivestar
;
NewCon Press
, via
www.newconpress.com
;
Small Beer Press,
176 Prospect Ave., Northampton, MA 01060,
www.smallbeerpress.com
;
Locus Press,
P.O. Box 13305, Oakland, CA 94661;
Crescent Books
, Mercat Press Ltd., 10 Coates Crescent, Edinburgh, Scotland EH3 7AL,
www.crescentfiction.com
;
Wildside Press/Borgo Press,
P.O. Box 301, Holicong, PA 18928-0301, or go to
www.wildsidepress.com
for pricing and ordering;
Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing, Inc. and Tesseract Books, Ltd.
, P.O. Box 1714, Calgary, Alberta, T2P 2L7, Canada,
www.edgewebsite.com
;
Aqueduct Press,
P.O. Box 95787, Seattle, WA 98145-2787,
www.aqueductpress.com
;
Phobos Books
, 200 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10003,
www.phobosweb.com
;
Fairwood Press,
5203 Quincy Ave. SE, Auburn, WA 98092,
www.fairwoodpress.com
;
BenBella Books
, 6440 N. Central Expressway, Suite 508, Dallas, TX 75206,
www.benbellabooks.com
;
Darkside Press
, 13320 27th Ave. NE, Seattle, WA 98125,
www.darksidepress.com
;
Haffner Press
, 5005 Crooks Rd., Suite 35, Royal Oak, MI 48073-1239,
www.haffnerpress.com
;
North Atlantic Press
, P.O. Box 12327, Berkeley, CA 94701;
Prime Books,
P.O. Box 36503, Canton, OH 44735,
www.primebooks.net
;
MonkeyBrain Books
, 11204 Crossland Drive, Austin, TX 78726,
www.monkeybrainbooks.com
;
Wesleyan University Press
, University Press of New England, Order Dept., 37 Lafayette St., Lebanon, NH 03766-1405,
www.wesleyan.edu/wespress
;
Agog! Press
, P.O. Box U302, University of Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia,
www.uow.ed.au/~rhood/agogpress
;
Wheatland Press
, via
www.wheatlandpress.com
;
MirrorDanse Books
, P.O. Box 3542, Parramatta NSW 2124,
www.tabula-rasa.info/MirrorDanse
;
Arsenal Pulp Press,
103–1014 Homer Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6B 2W9,
www.arsenalpress.com
;
DreamHaven Books,
912 W. Lake Street, Minneapolis, MN 55408;
Elder Signs Press/Dimensions Books,
order through
www.dimensionsbooks.com
;
Chaosium
, via
www.chaosium.com
;
Spyre Books
, P.O. Box 3005, Radford, VA 24143;
SCIFI, Inc.,
P.O. Box 8442, Van Nuys, CA 91409–8442;
Omnidawn Publishing
, order through
www.omnidawn.com
;
CSFG,
Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild,
www.csfg.org.au/publishing/anthologies/the_outcast
;
Hadley Rille Books
, via
www.hadleyrillebooks.com
;
ISFiC Press
, 707 Saplilng Lane, Deerfield, IL 60015-3969, or
www.isficpress.com
;
Suddenly Press
, via
[email protected]
;
Sandstone Press
, P.O. Box 5725, One High St., Dingwall, Ross-shire, IV15 9WJ;
Tropism Press
, via
www.tropismpress.com
;
SF Poetry Association/Dark Regions Press
,
www.sfpoetry.com
, send checks to Helena Bell, SFPA Treasurer, 1225 West Freeman St., Apt. 12, Carbondale, IL 62401;
DH Press
, via
diamondbookdistributors.com
;
Kurodahan Press
, via
www.kurodahan.com
;
Ramble House,
443 Gladstone Blvd., Shreveport, LA 71104;
Interstitial Arts Foundation
, via
www.interstitialarts.org
;
Raw Dog Screaming
, via
www.rawdogscreaming.com
;
Three Legged Fox Books
, 98 Hythe Road, Brighton, BN1 6JS, UK;
Norilana Books
, via
www.norilana.com
;
coeur de lion,
via
coeurdelion.com.au
;
PARSECink,
via
www.parsecink.org
;
Robert J. Sawyer Books,
via
wwww.sfwriter.com/rjsbooks.htm
;
Rackstraw Press,
via
http://rackstrawpress
;
Candlewick,
via
www.candlewick.com
;
Zubaan,
via
www.zubaanbooks.com
;
Utter Tower,
via
www.threeleggedfox.co.uk
;
Spilt Milk Press,
via
www.electricvelocipede.com
;
Paper Golem
, via
www.papergolem.com
;
Galaxy Press,
via
www.galaxypress.com
.;
Twelfth Planet Press
, via
www.twelfthplanetpress.com
;
Five Senses Press,
via
www.sensefive.com
;
Elastic Press,
via
www.elasticpress.com
;
Lethe Press,
via
www.lethepressbooks.com
;
Two Cranes Press
, via
www.twocranespress.com
;
Wordcraft of Oregon
, via
www.wordcraftoforegon.com
;
Down East
, via
www.downeast.com
.

Ebooks have not yet driven print books out of existence, as some commentators insist that they eventually will, not by a long shot, although there are indications that they’re definitely having an effect, especially on mass-market paperbacks, and taking an increasing share of the market. There were still plenty of print books around in 2011. In fact, in spite of the recession and the ebook revolution, the number of novels published in the SF and fantasy genres increased for the fifth year in a row.

According to the newsmagazine
Locus,
there were a record 3,071 books “of interest to the SF field” published in 2011, up slightly from 3,056 titles in 2010. New titles hit a new high for the third year in a row, up 2 percent to 2,140, 70 percent of the total, while reprints dropped 3 percent for 931, their lowest point since 2000. (It’s worth noting that this total doesn’t count ebooks, media tie-in novels, gaming novels, novelizations of genre movies, or print-on-demand books – all of which would swell the overall total by hundreds if counted.) The number of new SF novels was up 7 percent to 305 titles as opposed to 2010’s 285. The number of new fantasy novels was up by 7 percent, to 660 titles as opposed to 2010’s total of 614. Horror novels were down 9 percent to 229 titles as opposed to 2010’s 251 titles. Paranormal romances were up 8 percent to 416 titles as opposed to 2010’s 384 titles, second in numbers only to fantasy (although sometimes it’s almost a subjective call whether a particular novel should be pigeonholed as paranormal romance, fantasy, or horror).