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Anthologies: Miscellaneous, 2004
And finally a catchall category to fit some books I couldn't fit elsewhere. (Some may have been arguably "small press", I suppose.) These five books were:
- Absolutely Brilliant in Chrome, edited by Keith Olexa;
- Synergy SF, edited by George Zebrowski;
- Agog! Smashing Stories, edited by Cat Sparks;
- The Mammoth Book of Sorcerer's Tales, edited by Mike Ashley;
- McSweeney's Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories, edited by Michael Chabon.
Subtotals: 5 books, 59 stories total (3 novellas, 24 novelettes, 32 short stories (1 a short-short), about 467,000 words of new fiction. (The Mammoth Book of Sorcerer's Tales is indeed a "Mammoth" book, but the great bulk of it is reprints. However, it features 6 new stories, mostly novelettes, for about 60,000 words of fiction (more than the shortest book of all new stories in my list), so I included it. Only the originals are included in the stats above.
At last, I am nearly done. (Though there is a good chance I will read at least one more 2004 anthology.)
Absolutely Brilliant in Chrome is an anthology in the continuing Phobos series, in this case featuring stories from previous Phobos context winners. (The Phobos books feature winners of the Phobos contest, which concentrates on "emerging" writers.) Synergy SF is a new book in George Zebrowski's series of original anthologies. This book reputedly was originally prepared in the mid-90s. Agog! Smashing Stories is the third in a new series of Australian original anthologies. The Mammoth Book of Sorcerer's Tales is the latest in a long series of books edited by Mike Ashley. These books are mostly reprint, but usually feature at least a couple of originals. And the McSweeney's book follows a successful earlier anthology, also edited by Chabon, in promoting sort of a fusion of "genre fiction", complete with plots, and "literary fiction".
The best of the three novellas, by far, was Eleanor Arnason's "The Garden", one of her Hwarhath stories. In this case the story is conceived as Hwarhath science fiction. It is about a Hwarhath male, rather eccentrically an avid gardener, who is so frustrated by his enforced military service (in a war against, as it turns out, humans) that he is driven to disgrace his family.
Of the novelettes, I liked Stephen King's "Lisey and the Madman", from the McSweeney's book, though I don't consider it SF at all. (Some disagree.) Carl Frederick's "Deep Flows the River of Time" (Absolutely Brilliant in Chrome) was fairly enjoyable thought not fully successful. Michael Kurland's "The Rite Stuff" (The Mammoth Book of Sorcerer's Tales) is a fun fantastical mystery.
Of the short stories, there were some more good ones from McSweeney's. Daniel Handler's "Delmonico" is a nice locked-room mystery. China Miéville's "Reports of Certain Events in London" is a neat piece about streets that move around from place to place. (It's also 7400 words by my count, so perhaps it's a novelette.) And my favorite from that book was Jason Roberts's "7C", a first sale, a horror story that's also SF, about the end of the world and astronomical mysteries and a madman -- maybe. I have to say I was less happy with Agog! Smashing Stories than with its predecessors. I felt that plenty of the stories were decent enough but none really thrilled me. Best perhaps were Robert Hood's "Regolith" and Simon Brown's "Water Babies". From Absolutely Brilliant in Chrome, Daniel Conover's "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" (another near novelette) was pretty fun satirical stuff about aliens kept under wraps by the White House for the technological knowledge they promise. The two shorter stories from _The Mammoth Book of Sorcerer's Tales_, Tom Holt's "The Infestation" and James Bibby's "The Last Witch", were both decent work.
In then end, one reason I listed these books as "miscellaneous" was a general sense that they featured mostly decent stuff with little really exciting stuff. Perhaps McSweeney's Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories is an exception -- its best stories (for me, the Roberts and Miéville) are quite good -- but it's a terribly uneven anthology. Arnason's "The Garden" is also likely to show up in Best of the Year anthologies. But aside from those, the stories in these five books are more steady than exceptional.
