The Mammoth Book of Best New Science Fiction 22nd Annual Collection by Gardner Dozois Read Free Book Online Page B

Inside Straight (Tor), edited by George R. R. Martin; Wild Cards: Busted Flush (Tor), edited by George R. R. Martin; Hellboy: Oddest Jobs (Dark Horse), edited by Christopher Golden; and Ring of Fire II (Baen), edited by Eric Flint.
    As usual, novice work by beginning writers, some of whom may later turn out to be important talents, was featured in L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future, Volume XXIV (Galaxy), the last in this long-running series to be edited by the late Algis Budrys. No word yet on whether the series will continue under different editorship.
    There were lots of stories about robots this year, and lots of stories about zombies, including a dedicated zombie anthology. There were at least three retropunk Space Pirate stories, and two stories about really nasty mermaids who kill people. There were two or three pastiches of H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds , and two gritty retellings of Hansel and Gretel. Stories appeared that were obviously inspired by Second Life , as well as by MMORPGs like Worlds of Warcraft, and by anime. There were several stories that tried to put new twists on the idea of people’s minds being uploaded into a computer, including several where survivors were not happy about having to continue to deal with nagging relatives who were now “virtual”. In addition to the dedicated Alternate History magazine, Paradox , there was also lots of Alternate History stuff published elsewhere, most of it leaning towards steampunk – there were three Alternate History anthologies, Sideways in Crime, Extraordinary Engines, and Steampunk , but almost every market featured steampunkish Alternate History stories this year, including a few Alternate History/Mystery crosses in Interzone, Postscripts, and elsewhere that could just as easily have fit into Sideways in Crime.
    Science fiction continued to pop up in unexpected places, both in print and online, from the Australian science magazine Cosmos to the MIT Technology Review . Even The New Yorker published two stories this year that could be considered to be genuine SF, an unheard of occurrence that made some observers glance at Hell to see if it had frozen over (there have been stories by SF writers in The New Yorker before, but they’ve usually been slipstream/surrealist/literary pieces of the sort that is more typical of the magazine).
    (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.)
    Addresses: PS Publishing , Grosvener House, 1 New Road, Hornsea, West Yorkshire, HU18 1PG, England, UK, pspublishing.co.uk; Golden Gryphon Press , 3002 Perkins Road, Urbana, IL 61802, goldengryphon. com; NESFA Press , P.O. Box 809, Framinghan, MA 01701-0809, nesfa. org; Subterranean Press , P.O. Box 190106, Burton, MI 48519, subterra-neanpress.com; Solaris , via solarisbooks.com; Old Earth Books , P.O. Box 19951, Baltimore, MD 21211-0951, oldearthbooks.com; Tachyon Press , 1459 18th St. #139, San Francisco, CA 94107,