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Rich Horton's Market Summaries:
Anthologies: Baen, 2004
I read enough anthologies from Baen Books this year to qualify them for a separate listing like DAW's. A total of four books:
- Cosmic Tales: Adventures in Sol System, edited by T.K.F. Weisskopf;
- Masters of Fantasy, edited by Bill Fawcett and Brian Thomsen;
- Visions of Liberty, edited by Mark Tier and Martin H. Greenberg;
- Turn the Other Chick, edited by Esther M. Friesner.
Subtotals: 4 books, 54 new stories (1 novel, 2 novellas, 17 novelettes, 34 short stories (one a short-short)), for 443,000 words of new fiction, of which about 388,000 words was short fiction. (The novel was "Web of Deception", a 55,000 word self-contained excerpt from David Weber's 2004 book Windrider's Oath.)
I have to say right off the top that I found these books collectively a disappointment. I had some hopes for the Weisskopf book, which is the first of what I believe they hope will be a continuing series. (Cosmic Tales: Adventures in Far Futures is due this February.) But there was not a single really outstanding story in these four books.
To briefly summarize: Cosmic Tales is a collection of stories set in the Solar System. (Duh!) Masters of Fantasy is short stories by Baen fantasy authors set in their familiar continuing worlds. Visions of Liberty is libertarian-oriented SF stories. Turn the Other Chick is the latest "Chicks in Chainmail" anthology of humourous fantasy about women warriors (mostly).
The better of the two novellas was Gregory Benford's "Blood's a Rover", extracted from his novel _Beyond Infinity_, which I understand to be inspired by Arthur C. Clarke's _Against the Fall of Night_, though ultimately quite different. It had plenty of strange ideas and weird physics, but it wasn't very involving. The other novella was "The Cutting Fringe" by new writer (and physicist) Paul Chafe, which I am afraid read only too much like just what you would fear a physicist writing a Baen book would produce. (Both novellas were from Cosmic Tales.)
Of the novelettes I enjoyed Elizabeth Moon's "Gifts" (Masters of Fantasy); two stories by James P. Hogan ("The Colonization of Tharle" (Visions of Liberty) and "Jailhouse Rock" (Cosmic Tales)); Margaret Ball's "Communications Problem" (Cosmic Tales); and Rebecca Lickiss's "Time in Purgatory" (Cosmic Tales).
The best of the short stories were "The Elf House" by David Drake (Masters of Fantasy), Jack McDevitt's "Windows" (Cosmic Tales); and a few reasonably fun stories from _Turn the Other Chick_: Cassandra Claire's "The Girl's Guide to Defeating the Dark Lord" and John G. Hemry's "Mightier than the Sword" perhaps being the best.
