In this daring anthology of cutting-edge short stories, new science fiction luminaries including Rebecca Roanhorse, Amal El-Mohtar, and Sam J. Miller, are showcased with the rising stars that are transforming their genre. Discover this space-age sequel to the 2018 World Fantasy Award-winning anthology, The New Voices of Fantasy.
In this daring anthology of cutting-edge short stories, new science fiction luminaries including Rebecca Roanhorse, Amal El-Mohtar, and Sam J. Miller, are showcased with the rising stars that are transforming their genre. Discover exciting writers who are already out of this world, in this space-age sequel to the 2018 World Fantasy Award-winning anthology, The New Voices of Fantasy.
Your future is bright! After all, your mother is a robot, your father has joined the alien hive-mind, and your dinner will be counterfeit 3D-printed steak. Even though your worker bots have staged a mutiny, and your tour guide speaks only in memes, you can always sell your native language if you need some extra cash.
In The New Voices of Science Fiction, you’ll find the rising stars of the last five years: Rebecca Roanhorse, Amal El-Mohtar, Alice Sola Kim, E. Lily Yu, Rich Larson, Vina Jie-Min Prasad, Sarah Pinsker, Darcie Little Badger, Nino Cipri, S. Qiouyi Lu, Kelly Robson, and more. These extraordinary stories have been hand-selected by cutting-edge and award-winning author Hannu Rajaniemi (The Quantum Thief, Summerland) and genre expert, World Fantasy Award winner, Jacob Weisman (Invaders, The Sword & Sorcery Anthology).
So go ahead, join the interstellar revolution. The new kids already hacked the AI.
“These authors show us the new new things, from global cataclysms to personal transformations that get us lost in entirely unprecedented landscapes. They are here to wake us, by giving us new waking dreams. Read them, and be changed.” —Hannu Rajaniemi, editor
Praise for The New Voices of Science Fiction
A Barnes & Noble’s Otherworldly Book Arriving in November Amazing Stories: Science Fiction Books to Watch Out For 2019 Locus Recommending Reading List
[STARRED REVIEW] “This collection of stories from up-and-coming sf writers is diverse in terms of plot and setting, yet all share an emphasis on creating a distinct tone and style for their imagined worlds. There are stories that perch on the borderlands between fantasy and sf such as Samantha Mill’s ‘Strange Waters,’ where a woman tries to navigate her way back to her family on literal timestreams while dodging historical records of her own future. There are stories that explore the ways in which the human mind can be changed by an alternate reality such as Alice Sola Kim’s ‘One Hour, Every Seven Years,’ about a woman continually attempting to revise her own childhood on Venus, or Amal El-Mohtar’s ‘Madeleine,’ an aptly titled Proustian story about a woman who is transported into intense visions of her past by an experimental medication. There are also stories that present unique dystopias such as the mist-haunted New York in Jason Sanford’s ‘Toppers’ or the mysterious outside world in David Erik Nelson’s ‘In the Sharing Place.’ Equally wonderful stories by Jamie Wahls, Vina Jie-Min Prasad, Suzanne Palmer, and many others make this a must-read for anyone interested in the latest and most exciting sf writing out there.”
—Booklist, starred review
[STARRED REVIEW] “In the introduction to this superlative anthology, Weisman (The New Voices of Fantasy) declares the future of science fiction resides in the sure hands of the authors of these 20 recent award-winning or award-nominated stories. Rajaniemi, a mathematical physicist and author (The Quantum Thief), adds that their various perspectives create “a tonal freshness” in the genre. Most of the included works extrapolate contemporary technological and social changes into near-future nightmares, as in Jason Sanford’s “Toppers,” a scalding look at survival in a devastated New York; Sam J. Miller’s “Calved,” a heartbreaking vision of parenting gone hopelessly wrong in a warmed Arctic; and Sarah Pinsker’s “Our Lady of the Open Road,” a haunting view of musicians trying to connect to listeners in a future of deep anxiety and isolation. Others explore dangerous extensions of popular science: in Amman Sabet’s “Tender Loving Plastics,” AI foster parents shape human children; Alexander Weinstein’s “Openness” explores the staggering effect of social media gone amok. Vina Jie-Min Prasad’s rollicking “A Series of Steaks” and Suzanne Palmer’s “The Secret Life of Bots” are more lighthearted. All these stories provoke the reader to ponder not only what the future might be but what it should be.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
[STARRED REVIEW]“Rajaniemi and Weisman have curated 20 stories from the last five years, by newer writers who have already started to make their names known for their prose. Sarah Pinsker’s “Our Lady of the Open Road” is the genesis of Pinsker’s first novel, Song for a New Day. The Hugo and Nebula Award–winning “Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™” from Rebecca Roanhorse juxtaposes authenticity and cultural experience against virtual reality, showing how easy it is to lose oneself. In Suzanne Palmer’s “The Secret Life of Bots,” rebellion and autonomy come in the form of tiny worker bots, and S. Qiouyi Lu’s “Mother Tongues” gives—and gives up—the literal voice of language, its importance in immigrant families, and what they will sacrifice for their children’s future. VERDICT While readers may be familiar with many of the names and individual works here, having them together in one volume creates a stunning set of sf shorts. Highly recommended for all collections.
—Library Journal, starred review
“Readers often turn to established writers whose work they’ve previously enjoyed for more of the same. That’s fine, but to add a little variety I also recommend supplementing that with stories by new authors. The New Voices of Science Fiction, edited by Hannu Rajaniemi and Jacob Weisman (Tachyon), is the perfect anthology to do just that.”
—Kirkus
“From the moment Mary Shelley took up her pen [and a dare], science fiction has inspired, challenged, and entertained audiences. That legacy is alive and thriving in Hannu Rajaniemi and Jacob Weisman’s curated collection The New Voices of Science Fiction. Covering the last five years of rising stars and new arrivals, the collection is a breath of fresh, interstellar air.”
—Foreword
“Enriched by its ranged and buoyed by the remarkable talents of its contributors, The New Voices of Science Fiction is a must-read anthology for anyone who loves the genre, demonstrating vividly just how vital it remains.”
—Barnes & Noble Book Blog
“Great and inspiring work from a field that can continue to astound.”
—Tulsa Book Review
“This is a killer collection, full of top-notch stories beautifully written and invested with much care, compassion and thought.”
—Paul Di Filippo, Locus
“The New Voices of Science Fiction collects today’s best and brightest science fiction writers in one extremely entertaining tome.”
—Realms and Robots
“The New Voices of Science Fiction is a stunning collection. There’s a story for every possible future—it’s impossible to put down.”
—Peng Shepherd, author of The Book of M
“The New Voices of Science Fiction speaks in tongues ticklish, rousing, urgent, and forked. This smart, transportive pack of stories shows us our future, shows us ourselves, shows us a hell of a good time.”
—Katie Williams, author of Tell the Machine Goodnight
“This is a stupendous collection. Each story is a wonderful gift. Some are funny, some poignant; all are forward-looking, imaginative, intelligent, and full of heart. The voices are honest and fresh. The themes are contemporary but also universal: love, family, career, alienation, success, loss. There’s something here for everyone. I loved this collection. I simply couldn’t put it down.”
—Michael Blumlein, author of Longer
“In this superb collection, the radical freedom of the digital realm typically contrasts the resource-depleted landscape beyond. Space exploration is limited to resource extraction with the greatest changes happening at home. Reinventions of the body meet backlashes and resistance as often as love. Guided by nostalgia, characters tend to look to the past, fearing the wave of changes the future may bring. Ultimately [this] new generation of writers have very human stories to tell, necessarily complicated by compromises and failures as much as heroics.”
—New Scientist
“This is a wonderful selection of stories highlighting not only some great, writers, but a wealth of fabulous ideas and new twists on old science fiction tropes. It’s just over 400 pages long, giving a decent amount of stories to enjoy and allowing the editors to indulge themselves and include a whole host of interesting authors. If you want a flavour of cutting edge Science Fiction today, this is an excellent choice of reading material.”
—SF Crowsnest
“These writers demonstrate the breadth of concepts and worlds with which science fiction writers can create a delicious buffet of stories for readers to gorge themselves on and that, for emerging writers in the genre, there will always be plenty of room for stunning originality.”
—Strange Alliances
“One of the things I loved most about this was that the writers included in this collection are so diverse, elevating a lot of different cultures, ideas, ways of looking at the world, and storytelling styles, and that is exactly what I hope for when I read any anthology.”
—Fairy Bookmother
“I was surprised by the excellent quality of the stories. I enjoyed every one.”
—Book Lover’s Boudoir
Biographies
Hannu Rajaniemi (editor) is the author of The Quantum Thief, The Fractal Prince, The Causal Angel, and a standalone novel, Summerland. Rajaniemi was born in Finland, and completed his doctorate in Mathematical Physics at the University of Edinburgh. His works have received Finland’s top science fiction honor, the Tahtivaeltaja Award, and he was nominated for the John W. Campbell Award for best first science fiction novel in the United States. He is the and CTO of HelixNano, a synthetic biology startup based in the Bay Area, where he currently lives.
Jacob Weisman (editor) is the publisher at Tachyon Publications, which he founded in 1995. He is a World Fantasy Award winner for The New Voices of Fantasy (co-edited with Peter S. Beagle), and is the series editor of Tachyon’s critically-acclaimed novella line, including the Hugo Award-winner, The Emperor’s Soul by Brandon Sanderson, and the Nebula and Shirley Jackson award-winner, We Are All Completely Fine by Daryl Gregory. Weisman has edited the anthologies Invaders: 22 Tales from the Outer Limits of Literature, The Sword & Sorcery Anthology (with David G. Hartwell), and The Treasury of the Fantastic (with David M. Sandner). He lives in San Francisco.
Sarah Pinsker’s fiction has been published in magazines including Asimov’s SF, Strange Horizons, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Lightspeed, Daily Science Fiction, Fireside, and Uncanny and in anthologies including Long Hidden, Fierce Family, Accessing the Future, and numerous year’s bests. Her stories have been translated into Chinese, Spanish, French, Italian, among other languages. In 2019, Sarah also published her first collection, Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea: Stories and her first novel, A Song For A New Day (Penguin/Random House/Berkley).
Vina Jie-Min Prasad is Singaporean writer who began publishing short stories in 2016 with “The Spy Who Loved Wanton Mee” in Queer Southeast Asia: A Literary Journal of Transgressive Art, at which point she’d already been nominated for The James White Award for the best unpublished work of science fiction. She broke out with two major stories the following year, “Fandom for Robots” and “A Series of Steaks.” The two stories were each nominated for Hugo, Nebula, and Theodore Sturgeon Awards. Prasad was then nominated for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. She graduated from the Clarion West Writers Workshop in 2017.
E. Lily Yu’s fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, The Boston Review, Fantasy & Science Fiction, McSweeney’s Quarterly, Apex, Uncanny, Terraform, Tor.com, and many others. She has been a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, Locus, and WSFA Small Press Awards, and won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2012.
Darcie Little Badger (Lipan Apache, Texas) has written fiction in Strange Horizons, Mythic Delirium, and The Dark. She is also in numerous anthologies, including Lightspeed’s POC Destroy Fantasy special issue, and Moonshoot: The Indigenous Comics Collection Volume Two. She is also co-writing Strangelands, a comics series in the H1 – Humanoids shared universe. When she is not writing indigenous gothic tales, she edits research papers, and has a PhD in Oceanography.
Nino Cipri is a queer and trans/nonbinary writer, editor, and researcher currently enrolled in the University of Kansas’s MFA in Fiction. They are also a graduate of the 2014 Clarion Writers’ Workshop. A multidisciplinary artist, Nino has also written plays, screenplays, and radio features; they have performed as a dancer, actor, and puppeteer; and worked as a backstage theater tech. Their work has appeared in Fireside Fiction, Interfictions, Nightmare Magazine and others. A book of their short fiction, Homesick, is forthcoming from Dzanc Press.
Rich Larson has been an extremely prolific writer of short fiction since 2011, with over a hundred stories sold to Asimov’s, Analog, Clarkesworld, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Lightspeed, Tor.com, and more. He attended the Alpha Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Workshop for Young Writers and was a runner-up for the Dell Award in 2013. He is the author of the Violet Wars trilogy from Orbit and his debut collection is Tomorrow Factory from Talos Press. Born in Niger, he now lives in Ottawa, Canada.
S. Qiouyi Lu lives in California with a black cat named Thin Mint. They are a graduate of the 2016 Clarion West Workshop, and founder of Arsenika. Their short fiction and poetry have been published in Strange Horizons, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Anathema, Uncanny, and more. They have translated Chinese science fiction for Clarkesworld.
Sam J. Miller’s work has been nominated for the Nebula, World Fantasy, Crawford, Locus, Theodore Sturgeon, and Lodestar Awards, long-listed for the Hugo, James Tiptree Jr., and British Science Fiction Association Awards, and won the Shirley Jackson Award and the Andre Norton Award. He is a vegetarian in a line of butchers and got gay-married under a Tyrannosaurus Rex. He is the author of The Art of Starving and Blackfish City, and a co-editor of the critical anthology Horror After 9/11. Miller is a graduate of the 2012 Clarion Writers Workshop and currently lives in New York, New York.
Samantha Mills is an archivist living in Southern California. Her short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Strange Horizons, and Diabolical Plots.
David Erik Nelson is a science fiction author and essayist. He has written reference articles and textbooks, such as Perspectives on Modern World History: Chernobyl, and builds instruments, as he chronicles in Junkyard Jam Band: DIY Musical Instruments and Noisemakers. His short fiction has been featured in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Fantasy & Science Fiction, StarShipSofa, and anthologies like The Best of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Steampunk II: Steampunk Reloaded (Tachyon, 2010), Steampunk III: Steampunk Revolution (Tachyon, 2012), and The Best Horror of the Year, Volume 10).
Jason Sanford’s work has been published in Asimov’s, Analog, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, SF Signal, The New York Review of Science Fiction, and many more, with reprints appearing in many Best Of anthologies. British SF magazine Interzone once published a special issue of his fiction. He has been a finalist for the Nebula Award and his fiction has been translated into several languages. He co-founded storySouth and writes regularly for Czech SF magazine XB-1.
Amman Sabet has designed digital products and services for companies such as BMW, Adobe, Comcast, Wizards of the Coast, and Intel. He is a graduate of the 2017 Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing Workshop.
Kelly Robson’s fiction published in Asimov’s, Tor.com, Clarkesworld, and Uncanny. She has been a wine and spirits writer for Chatelaine Magazine, and has contributed several essays on writing to Clarkesworld’s Another Word column. Her short story “The Three Resurrections of Jessica Churchill” was a finalist for the 2015 Theodore Sturgeon Award, and her story “Two-Year Man” was a finalist for the 2015 Sunburst Award.
Suzanne Palmer began her science fiction and fantasy career in painting and sculptures, long before writing, and exhibited her art at various conventions nationwide. Her poetry and short stories have been in Asimov’s, Analog, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, and many others since.
Little is known about the brutally minimalist Jamie Wahls, who presumably lives in a mimetic reality peppered with digital simulacra like the rest of us.
Alice Sola Kim has been published in Tin House, The Village Voice, McSweeney’s, Lenny, BuzzFeed Books, and Fantasy & Science Fiction. She received the prestigious Whiting Award in 2016, and has received grants and scholarships from the MacDowell Colony, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Elizabeth George Foundation.
Lettie Prell’s first novel was in 2008, but more recently she has been published in Clarkesworld, Analog, Tor.com, and Apex Magazine. She currently lives in Des Moines, Iowa.
Amal El-Mohtar is a writer, reviewer, and poet. Her stories and poems have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies including Tor.com, Fireside Fiction, Lightspeed, Uncanny, Strange Horizons, Apex, Stone Telling, and Mythic Delirium, and her articles and reviews have appeared on NPR Books and on Tor.com. Her stories have been nominated for and won the Nebula, Locus, and Hugo Awards, and she her also won the Rhysling Award for Best Short Poem. She is currently the Otherworldly columnist at the New York Times.
Rebecca Roanhorse is an indigenous writer (Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo) whose breakout novel Trail of Lightning was nominated for the 2019 Nebula Award in the Best Novel category. She won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2018.
Praise for Hannu Rajaniemi
“A storytelling skill rarely found from even the most experienced authors.”
—Library Journal
“Writing that’s striking, evocative…. Thoughtful, hard, densely realised and highly patterned, there’s nothing quite like it in contemporary SF”
—The Guardian
“Rajaniemi is a virtuoso idea-smith, with a flair for stylish imagery and clever literary architecture.”
—Strange Horizons
“With his challenging, intellectual high-wire-balancing-act novels, Hannu Rajaniemi is definitely a body thief supreme.”
—Barnes & Noble.com
On The Quantum Thief
“Spectacularly and convincingly inventive, assured and wholly spellbinding: one of the most impressive debuts in years.”
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“The best first SF novel I’ve read in years. Hard to admit, but I think he’s better at this stuff than I am.”
—Charles Stross
“Rajaniemi has spectacularly delivered on the promise that this is likely to be the most important SF novel we’ll see this year.”
—Locus
Praise for Jacob Weisman
On World Fantasy Award-winner, The New Voices of Fantasy (with Peter S. Beagle, ed.)
[STARRED REVIEW] “A stellar anthology that proves not only that fantasy is alive and well, but that it will be for years to come.”
—Kirkus
[STARRED REVIEW] “This anthology represents some of the most exciting and interesting work in the fantasy field today, and anyone interested in the genre should read it immediately.”
—Booklist
On Invaders: 22 Tales from the Outer Limits of Science Fiction
[STARRED REVIEW] “This volume is a treasure trove of stories that draw equally from SF and literary fiction, and they are superlative in either context.”
—Publishers Weekly
On The Treasury of the Fantastic (with David Sandner)
“A marvelous mix of classics and rarely seen works, bibliophile’s finds and old favorites….a treasury in every sense and a treasure!”
—Connie Willis, author of Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog
“The Shape of My Name” by Nino Cipri
“Madeleine” by Amal El-Mohtar
“One Hour, Every Seven Years” by Alice Sola Kim
“Ice” by Rich Larson
“Robo-Liopleurodon!” by Darcie Little Badger
“Mother Tongues” by S. Qiouyi Lu
“Calved” by Sam J. Miller
“Strange Waters” by Samantha Mills
“In the Sharing Place” by David Erik Nelson
“The Secret Life of Bots” by Suzanne Palmer
“Our Lady of the Open Road” by Sarah Pinsker
“A Series of Steaks” by Vina Jie-Min Prasad
“The Need for Air” by Lettie Prell
“Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™” by Rebecca Roanhorse
“A Study in Oils” by Kelly Robson
“Tender Loving Plastics” by Amman Sabet
“Toppers” by Jason Sanford
“Utopia? LOL!” by Jamie Wahls
“Openness” by Alexander Weinstein
“The Doing and Undoing of Jacob E. Mwangi” by E. Lily Yu
The New Voices of Science Fiction
Hannu Rajaniemi and Jacob Weisman
“Superlative.” —Booklist, starred review
“Stunning.”—Library Journal, starred review
“Must-read” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
In this daring anthology of cutting-edge short stories, new science fiction luminaries including Rebecca Roanhorse, Amal El-Mohtar, and Sam J. Miller, are showcased with the rising stars that are transforming their genre. Discover this space-age sequel to the 2018 World Fantasy Award-winning anthology, The New Voices of Fantasy.
The New Voices of Science Fiction
by Hannu Rajaniemi and Jacob Weisman
ISBN: Print: 978-1-61696-291-3; Digital: 978-1-61696-292-0
Published: November 2019
Available Format(s): Trade Paperback and Digital
In this daring anthology of cutting-edge short stories, new science fiction luminaries including Rebecca Roanhorse, Amal El-Mohtar, and Sam J. Miller, are showcased with the rising stars that are transforming their genre. Discover exciting writers who are already out of this world, in this space-age sequel to the 2018 World Fantasy Award-winning anthology, The New Voices of Fantasy.
“Superlative.” —Booklist, starred review
“Stunning.”—Library Journal, starred review
“Must-read” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
Your future is bright! After all, your mother is a robot, your father has joined the alien hive-mind, and your dinner will be counterfeit 3D-printed steak. Even though your worker bots have staged a mutiny, and your tour guide speaks only in memes, you can always sell your native language if you need some extra cash.
In The New Voices of Science Fiction, you’ll find the rising stars of the last five years: Rebecca Roanhorse, Amal El-Mohtar, Alice Sola Kim, E. Lily Yu, Rich Larson, Vina Jie-Min Prasad, Sarah Pinsker, Darcie Little Badger, Nino Cipri, S. Qiouyi Lu, Kelly Robson, and more. These extraordinary stories have been hand-selected by cutting-edge and award-winning author Hannu Rajaniemi (The Quantum Thief, Summerland) and genre expert, World Fantasy Award winner, Jacob Weisman (Invaders, The Sword & Sorcery Anthology).
So go ahead, join the interstellar revolution. The new kids already hacked the AI.
“These authors show us the new new things, from global cataclysms to personal transformations that get us lost in entirely unprecedented landscapes. They are here to wake us, by giving us new waking dreams. Read them, and be changed.” —Hannu Rajaniemi, editor
Praise for The New Voices of Science Fiction
A Barnes & Noble’s Otherworldly Book Arriving in November
Amazing Stories: Science Fiction Books to Watch Out For
2019 Locus Recommending Reading List
[STARRED REVIEW] “This collection of stories from up-and-coming sf writers is diverse in terms of plot and setting, yet all share an emphasis on creating a distinct tone and style for their imagined worlds. There are stories that perch on the borderlands between fantasy and sf such as Samantha Mill’s ‘Strange Waters,’ where a woman tries to navigate her way back to her family on literal timestreams while dodging historical records of her own future. There are stories that explore the ways in which the human mind can be changed by an alternate reality such as Alice Sola Kim’s ‘One Hour, Every Seven Years,’ about a woman continually attempting to revise her own childhood on Venus, or Amal El-Mohtar’s ‘Madeleine,’ an aptly titled Proustian story about a woman who is transported into intense visions of her past by an experimental medication. There are also stories that present unique dystopias such as the mist-haunted New York in Jason Sanford’s ‘Toppers’ or the mysterious outside world in David Erik Nelson’s ‘In the Sharing Place.’ Equally wonderful stories by Jamie Wahls, Vina Jie-Min Prasad, Suzanne Palmer, and many others make this a must-read for anyone interested in the latest and most exciting sf writing out there.”
—Booklist, starred review
[STARRED REVIEW] “In the introduction to this superlative anthology, Weisman (The New Voices of Fantasy) declares the future of science fiction resides in the sure hands of the authors of these 20 recent award-winning or award-nominated stories. Rajaniemi, a mathematical physicist and author (The Quantum Thief), adds that their various perspectives create “a tonal freshness” in the genre. Most of the included works extrapolate contemporary technological and social changes into near-future nightmares, as in Jason Sanford’s “Toppers,” a scalding look at survival in a devastated New York; Sam J. Miller’s “Calved,” a heartbreaking vision of parenting gone hopelessly wrong in a warmed Arctic; and Sarah Pinsker’s “Our Lady of the Open Road,” a haunting view of musicians trying to connect to listeners in a future of deep anxiety and isolation. Others explore dangerous extensions of popular science: in Amman Sabet’s “Tender Loving Plastics,” AI foster parents shape human children; Alexander Weinstein’s “Openness” explores the staggering effect of social media gone amok. Vina Jie-Min Prasad’s rollicking “A Series of Steaks” and Suzanne Palmer’s “The Secret Life of Bots” are more lighthearted. All these stories provoke the reader to ponder not only what the future might be but what it should be.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
[STARRED REVIEW]“Rajaniemi and Weisman have curated 20 stories from the last five years, by newer writers who have already started to make their names known for their prose. Sarah Pinsker’s “Our Lady of the Open Road” is the genesis of Pinsker’s first novel, Song for a New Day. The Hugo and Nebula Award–winning “Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™” from Rebecca Roanhorse juxtaposes authenticity and cultural experience against virtual reality, showing how easy it is to lose oneself. In Suzanne Palmer’s “The Secret Life of Bots,” rebellion and autonomy come in the form of tiny worker bots, and S. Qiouyi Lu’s “Mother Tongues” gives—and gives up—the literal voice of language, its importance in immigrant families, and what they will sacrifice for their children’s future. VERDICT While readers may be familiar with many of the names and individual works here, having them together in one volume creates a stunning set of sf shorts. Highly recommended for all collections.
—Library Journal, starred review
“Readers often turn to established writers whose work they’ve previously enjoyed for more of the same. That’s fine, but to add a little variety I also recommend supplementing that with stories by new authors. The New Voices of Science Fiction, edited by Hannu Rajaniemi and Jacob Weisman (Tachyon), is the perfect anthology to do just that.”
—Kirkus
“From the moment Mary Shelley took up her pen [and a dare], science fiction has inspired, challenged, and entertained audiences. That legacy is alive and thriving in Hannu Rajaniemi and Jacob Weisman’s curated collection The New Voices of Science Fiction. Covering the last five years of rising stars and new arrivals, the collection is a breath of fresh, interstellar air.”
—Foreword
“Enriched by its ranged and buoyed by the remarkable talents of its contributors, The New Voices of Science Fiction is a must-read anthology for anyone who loves the genre, demonstrating vividly just how vital it remains.”
—Barnes & Noble Book Blog
“Great and inspiring work from a field that can continue to astound.”
—Tulsa Book Review
“This is a killer collection, full of top-notch stories beautifully written and invested with much care, compassion and thought.”
—Paul Di Filippo, Locus
“The New Voices of Science Fiction collects today’s best and brightest science fiction writers in one extremely entertaining tome.”
—Realms and Robots
“The New Voices of Science Fiction is a stunning collection. There’s a story for every possible future—it’s impossible to put down.”
—Peng Shepherd, author of The Book of M
“The New Voices of Science Fiction speaks in tongues ticklish, rousing, urgent, and forked. This smart, transportive pack of stories shows us our future, shows us ourselves, shows us a hell of a good time.”
—Katie Williams, author of Tell the Machine Goodnight
“This is a stupendous collection. Each story is a wonderful gift. Some are funny, some poignant; all are forward-looking, imaginative, intelligent, and full of heart. The voices are honest and fresh. The themes are contemporary but also universal: love, family, career, alienation, success, loss. There’s something here for everyone. I loved this collection. I simply couldn’t put it down.”
—Michael Blumlein, author of Longer
“In this superb collection, the radical freedom of the digital realm typically contrasts the resource-depleted landscape beyond. Space exploration is limited to resource extraction with the greatest changes happening at home. Reinventions of the body meet backlashes and resistance as often as love. Guided by nostalgia, characters tend to look to the past, fearing the wave of changes the future may bring. Ultimately [this] new generation of writers have very human stories to tell, necessarily complicated by compromises and failures as much as heroics.”
—New Scientist
“This is a wonderful selection of stories highlighting not only some great, writers, but a wealth of fabulous ideas and new twists on old science fiction tropes. It’s just over 400 pages long, giving a decent amount of stories to enjoy and allowing the editors to indulge themselves and include a whole host of interesting authors. If you want a flavour of cutting edge Science Fiction today, this is an excellent choice of reading material.”
—SF Crowsnest
“These writers demonstrate the breadth of concepts and worlds with which science fiction writers can create a delicious buffet of stories for readers to gorge themselves on and that, for emerging writers in the genre, there will always be plenty of room for stunning originality.”
—Strange Alliances
“One of the things I loved most about this was that the writers included in this collection are so diverse, elevating a lot of different cultures, ideas, ways of looking at the world, and storytelling styles, and that is exactly what I hope for when I read any anthology.”
—Fairy Bookmother
“I was surprised by the excellent quality of the stories. I enjoyed every one.”
—Book Lover’s Boudoir
Biographies
Hannu Rajaniemi (editor) is the author of The Quantum Thief, The Fractal Prince, The Causal Angel, and a standalone novel, Summerland. Rajaniemi was born in Finland, and completed his doctorate in Mathematical Physics at the University of Edinburgh. His works have received Finland’s top science fiction honor, the Tahtivaeltaja Award, and he was nominated for the John W. Campbell Award for best first science fiction novel in the United States. He is the and CTO of HelixNano, a synthetic biology startup based in the Bay Area, where he currently lives.
Jacob Weisman (editor) is the publisher at Tachyon Publications, which he founded in 1995. He is a World Fantasy Award winner for The New Voices of Fantasy (co-edited with Peter S. Beagle), and is the series editor of Tachyon’s critically-acclaimed novella line, including the Hugo Award-winner, The Emperor’s Soul by Brandon Sanderson, and the Nebula and Shirley Jackson award-winner, We Are All Completely Fine by Daryl Gregory. Weisman has edited the anthologies Invaders: 22 Tales from the Outer Limits of Literature, The Sword & Sorcery Anthology (with David G. Hartwell), and The Treasury of the Fantastic (with David M. Sandner). He lives in San Francisco.
Sarah Pinsker’s fiction has been published in magazines including Asimov’s SF, Strange Horizons, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Lightspeed, Daily Science Fiction, Fireside, and Uncanny and in anthologies including Long Hidden, Fierce Family, Accessing the Future, and numerous year’s bests. Her stories have been translated into Chinese, Spanish, French, Italian, among other languages. In 2019, Sarah also published her first collection, Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea: Stories and her first novel, A Song For A New Day (Penguin/Random House/Berkley).
Vina Jie-Min Prasad is Singaporean writer who began publishing short stories in 2016 with “The Spy Who Loved Wanton Mee” in Queer Southeast Asia: A Literary Journal of Transgressive Art, at which point she’d already been nominated for The James White Award for the best unpublished work of science fiction. She broke out with two major stories the following year, “Fandom for Robots” and “A Series of Steaks.” The two stories were each nominated for Hugo, Nebula, and Theodore Sturgeon Awards. Prasad was then nominated for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. She graduated from the Clarion West Writers Workshop in 2017.
E. Lily Yu’s fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, The Boston Review, Fantasy & Science Fiction, McSweeney’s Quarterly, Apex, Uncanny, Terraform, Tor.com, and many others. She has been a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy, Locus, and WSFA Small Press Awards, and won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2012.
Darcie Little Badger (Lipan Apache, Texas) has written fiction in Strange Horizons, Mythic Delirium, and The Dark. She is also in numerous anthologies, including Lightspeed’s POC Destroy Fantasy special issue, and Moonshoot: The Indigenous Comics Collection Volume Two. She is also co-writing Strangelands, a comics series in the H1 – Humanoids shared universe. When she is not writing indigenous gothic tales, she edits research papers, and has a PhD in Oceanography.
Nino Cipri is a queer and trans/nonbinary writer, editor, and researcher currently enrolled in the University of Kansas’s MFA in Fiction. They are also a graduate of the 2014 Clarion Writers’ Workshop. A multidisciplinary artist, Nino has also written plays, screenplays, and radio features; they have performed as a dancer, actor, and puppeteer; and worked as a backstage theater tech. Their work has appeared in Fireside Fiction, Interfictions, Nightmare Magazine and others. A book of their short fiction, Homesick, is forthcoming from Dzanc Press.
Rich Larson has been an extremely prolific writer of short fiction since 2011, with over a hundred stories sold to Asimov’s, Analog, Clarkesworld, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Lightspeed, Tor.com, and more. He attended the Alpha Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Workshop for Young Writers and was a runner-up for the Dell Award in 2013. He is the author of the Violet Wars trilogy from Orbit and his debut collection is Tomorrow Factory from Talos Press. Born in Niger, he now lives in Ottawa, Canada.
S. Qiouyi Lu lives in California with a black cat named Thin Mint. They are a graduate of the 2016 Clarion West Workshop, and founder of Arsenika. Their short fiction and poetry have been published in Strange Horizons, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Anathema, Uncanny, and more. They have translated Chinese science fiction for Clarkesworld.
Sam J. Miller’s work has been nominated for the Nebula, World Fantasy, Crawford, Locus, Theodore Sturgeon, and Lodestar Awards, long-listed for the Hugo, James Tiptree Jr., and British Science Fiction Association Awards, and won the Shirley Jackson Award and the Andre Norton Award. He is a vegetarian in a line of butchers and got gay-married under a Tyrannosaurus Rex. He is the author of The Art of Starving and Blackfish City, and a co-editor of the critical anthology Horror After 9/11. Miller is a graduate of the 2012 Clarion Writers Workshop and currently lives in New York, New York.
Samantha Mills is an archivist living in Southern California. Her short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Strange Horizons, and Diabolical Plots.
David Erik Nelson is a science fiction author and essayist. He has written reference articles and textbooks, such as Perspectives on Modern World History: Chernobyl, and builds instruments, as he chronicles in Junkyard Jam Band: DIY Musical Instruments and Noisemakers. His short fiction has been featured in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Fantasy & Science Fiction, StarShipSofa, and anthologies like The Best of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Steampunk II: Steampunk Reloaded (Tachyon, 2010), Steampunk III: Steampunk Revolution (Tachyon, 2012), and The Best Horror of the Year, Volume 10).
Jason Sanford’s work has been published in Asimov’s, Analog, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, SF Signal, The New York Review of Science Fiction, and many more, with reprints appearing in many Best Of anthologies. British SF magazine Interzone once published a special issue of his fiction. He has been a finalist for the Nebula Award and his fiction has been translated into several languages. He co-founded storySouth and writes regularly for Czech SF magazine XB-1.
Amman Sabet has designed digital products and services for companies such as BMW, Adobe, Comcast, Wizards of the Coast, and Intel. He is a graduate of the 2017 Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing Workshop.
Kelly Robson’s fiction published in Asimov’s, Tor.com, Clarkesworld, and Uncanny. She has been a wine and spirits writer for Chatelaine Magazine, and has contributed several essays on writing to Clarkesworld’s Another Word column. Her short story “The Three Resurrections of Jessica Churchill” was a finalist for the 2015 Theodore Sturgeon Award, and her story “Two-Year Man” was a finalist for the 2015 Sunburst Award.
Suzanne Palmer began her science fiction and fantasy career in painting and sculptures, long before writing, and exhibited her art at various conventions nationwide. Her poetry and short stories have been in Asimov’s, Analog, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, and many others since.
Little is known about the brutally minimalist Jamie Wahls, who presumably lives in a mimetic reality peppered with digital simulacra like the rest of us.
Alice Sola Kim has been published in Tin House, The Village Voice, McSweeney’s, Lenny, BuzzFeed Books, and Fantasy & Science Fiction. She received the prestigious Whiting Award in 2016, and has received grants and scholarships from the MacDowell Colony, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Elizabeth George Foundation.
Lettie Prell’s first novel was in 2008, but more recently she has been published in Clarkesworld, Analog, Tor.com, and Apex Magazine. She currently lives in Des Moines, Iowa.
Amal El-Mohtar is a writer, reviewer, and poet. Her stories and poems have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies including Tor.com, Fireside Fiction, Lightspeed, Uncanny, Strange Horizons, Apex, Stone Telling, and Mythic Delirium, and her articles and reviews have appeared on NPR Books and on Tor.com. Her stories have been nominated for and won the Nebula, Locus, and Hugo Awards, and she her also won the Rhysling Award for Best Short Poem. She is currently the Otherworldly columnist at the New York Times.
Rebecca Roanhorse is an indigenous writer (Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo) whose breakout novel Trail of Lightning was nominated for the 2019 Nebula Award in the Best Novel category. She won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2018.
Praise for Hannu Rajaniemi
“A storytelling skill rarely found from even the most experienced authors.”
—Library Journal
“Writing that’s striking, evocative…. Thoughtful, hard, densely realised and highly patterned, there’s nothing quite like it in contemporary SF”
—The Guardian
“Rajaniemi is a virtuoso idea-smith, with a flair for stylish imagery and clever literary architecture.”
—Strange Horizons
“With his challenging, intellectual high-wire-balancing-act novels, Hannu Rajaniemi is definitely a body thief supreme.”
—Barnes & Noble.com
On The Quantum Thief
“Spectacularly and convincingly inventive, assured and wholly spellbinding: one of the most impressive debuts in years.”
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“A stellar debut.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“The best first SF novel I’ve read in years. Hard to admit, but I think he’s better at this stuff than I am.”
—Charles Stross
“Rajaniemi has spectacularly delivered on the promise that this is likely to be the most important SF novel we’ll see this year.”
—Locus
Praise for Jacob Weisman
On World Fantasy Award-winner, The New Voices of Fantasy (with Peter S. Beagle, ed.)
[STARRED REVIEW] “A stellar anthology that proves not only that fantasy is alive and well, but that it will be for years to come.”
—Kirkus
[STARRED REVIEW] “This anthology represents some of the most exciting and interesting work in the fantasy field today, and anyone interested in the genre should read it immediately.”
—Booklist
On Invaders: 22 Tales from the Outer Limits of Science Fiction
[STARRED REVIEW] “This volume is a treasure trove of stories that draw equally from SF and literary fiction, and they are superlative in either context.”
—Publishers Weekly
On The Treasury of the Fantastic (with David Sandner)
“A marvelous mix of classics and rarely seen works, bibliophile’s finds and old favorites….a treasury in every sense and a treasure!”
—Connie Willis, author of Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog
For more information, visit Hannu Rajaniemi. Follow Hannu on Twitter.
Table of Contents
“The Shape of My Name” by Nino Cipri
“Madeleine” by Amal El-Mohtar
“One Hour, Every Seven Years” by Alice Sola Kim
“Ice” by Rich Larson
“Robo-Liopleurodon!” by Darcie Little Badger
“Mother Tongues” by S. Qiouyi Lu
“Calved” by Sam J. Miller
“Strange Waters” by Samantha Mills
“In the Sharing Place” by David Erik Nelson
“The Secret Life of Bots” by Suzanne Palmer
“Our Lady of the Open Road” by Sarah Pinsker
“A Series of Steaks” by Vina Jie-Min Prasad
“The Need for Air” by Lettie Prell
“Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™” by Rebecca Roanhorse
“A Study in Oils” by Kelly Robson
“Tender Loving Plastics” by Amman Sabet
“Toppers” by Jason Sanford
“Utopia? LOL!” by Jamie Wahls
“Openness” by Alexander Weinstein
“The Doing and Undoing of Jacob E. Mwangi” by E. Lily Yu
Other books by this author…
Hannu Rajaniemi: Collected Fiction
Hannu Rajaniemi
$25.95 Read moreThe Sword & Sorcery Anthology
David G. Hartwell and Jacob Weisman, eds.
$15.95 Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product pageThe Treasury of the Fantastic
David Sandner and Jacob Weisman, eds.
$19.95 Select options This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page