The Best American Science Fiction And Fantasy 2016

by Karen Joy Fowler, John Joseph Adams

Overview

From quiet, elegiac, contemporary tales to far-future, deep-space sagas, the stories chosen by series editor John Joseph Adams and guest editor Karen Joy Fowler for The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2016 demonstrate the vast spectrum of what science fiction and fantasy aims to illuminate, displaying the full gamut of the human experience, interrogating our hopes and our fears—of not just what we can accomplish or destroy as a person, but what we can accomplish or destroy as a people—and throwing us into strange new worlds that can only be explored when we shed the shackles of reality.

The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2016 includes Rachel Swirsky, Sofia Samatar, Charlie Jane Anders, Ted Chiang, Kelly Link, Maria Dahvana Headley, Kij Johnson, Catherynne M. Valente, Dexter Palmer and others
 
KAREN JOY FOWLER, guest editor, is the author of six novels and four short story collections, including We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves. She is the winner of the 2014 PEN/Faulkner Award, a finalist for the Man Booker Prize, and has won numerous Nebula and World Fantasy awards.
 
JOHN JOSEPH ADAMS, series editor, is the best-selling editor of more than two dozen anthologies, including Brave New Worlds and Wastelands. He is the editor and publisher of the digital magazines Lightspeed and Nightmare and is the editor of John Joseph Adams Books, a new science fiction/fantasy novel imprint from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780544555204
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	10/04/2016
Series:	Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy Series
Edition description:	2016 ed.
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	1,011,452
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 7.60(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

KAREN JOY FOWLER is the author of six novels and four short story collections, including We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves and Black Glass. She is the winner of the 2014 PEN/Faulkner Award, a finalist for the Man Booker Prize, and has won numerous Nebula and World Fantasy Awards.

John Joseph Adams is the series editor of The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy and the editor of the Hugo Award–winning Lightspeed, and of more than forty anthologies, including Lost Worlds & Mythological Kingdoms, The Far Reaches, and Out There Screaming (coedited with Jordan Peele).

Hometown:

Davis, California

Date of Birth:

February 7, 1950

Place of Birth:

Bloomington, Indiana

Education:

B.A., The University of California, Berkeley, 1972; M.A., The University of California, Davis, 1974

Editorial Reviews

09/05/2016
In this second book in the annual series, acclaimed series editor Adams and this year’s guest editor, Fowler, deliver a thoughtful array from a star-studded assemblage of writers. The 20 stories here were first published in American venues, but their subject matter travels far and wide in time, space, and human memory. Ghost stories “Meet Me in Iram” by Sofia Samatar and “Interesting Facts” by Adam Johnson explore the anguish of loss. Salman Rushdie’s “The Duniazát” and Rachel Swirsky’s “Tea Time” highlight fantastical lovers and obsession. Technology challenges humankind in “The Daydreamer by Proxy” by Dexter Palmer, Charlie Jane Anders’s provocative “Rat Catcher’s Yellow,” and the dystopian “Headshot” by Julian Mortimer Smith. Seth Dickinson’s “Three Bodies at Mitanni,” Ted Chiang’s “The Great Silence,” and “Planet Lion” by Catherynne M. Valente explore how people identify—or fail to detect—intelligence. Equally memorable are Will Kaufman’s old-fashioned “Things You Can Buy for a Penny” and the fungoid body snatching of “The Mushroom Queen” by Liz Ziemska. The anthology doesn’t strike gold with every entry, but it will leave readers with plenty to think about. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"A thoughtful array from a star-studded assemblage of writers. . . . [whose] subject matter travels far and wide in time, space, and human memory." —Publishers Weekly "Intellectually demanding. . . . A very elite, highly curated set of stories; an obvious taste is at work." —Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review "A standout. The initial entry was a huge success, and 2016 editor Karen Joy Fowler brings a unique, refreshing perspective to this curated collection of the year’s best sci-fi and fantasy short stories. Salman Rushdie, Charlie Jane Anders, Kelly Link, and Dexter Palmer lead a strong field of contributors who offer up some of modern genre’s best writing and most intriguing ideas."—B&N SciFI & Fantasy Blog “All in all, this second edition provides a comprehensive overview of the themes and troupes of science fiction and fantasy that continue to fascinate readers. . . the impact of the stories more than makes up for its comparatively smaller package. Highly recommended, especially for those interested in the finest short stories the two genres produced over the past year, but missed reading them when originally published.” —Bookgasm "The second edition to the Best American Science Fiction and Fantsy, edited by Karen Joy Fowler (Mariner), is just as strong as the first, if not stronger. . . . With heavy-hitting authors such as Salman Rushdie, Anders and Sofia Samatar, this volume showcases the nuanced, playful, ever-expanding definitions of the genre and celebrates its current renaissance." —The Washington Post "There has never been a better time in science fiction and fantasy short fiction, and you need look no further than this collection to see that truth. Within, you will find magic, aliens, dystopia, fairy tales, terrifying technology, far-flung futures, uncanny planets, and more. But you’ll also find heartbreak, laughter, compassion, complex morality, acceptance, strength in numbers, love, justice, the absurd, and the bittersweet. Let this collection take you to lands uncharted, and lands unknown, and lands unseen—you will be glad you went, and in these countries, there is something for everyone." —Tor.com —

From the Publisher

★ 2016-10-06
The second in an annual series of intellectually demanding genre anthologies.“Best” is, of course, an incredibly subjective term. This is clearly a very elite, highly curated set of stories; an obvious taste is at work. To select the stories for this volume, series editor John Joseph Adams chose 80 stories from hundreds. He then passed those 80 to guest editor Fowler (We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, 2013, etc.), who picked 10 science fiction and 10 fantasy stories. She made her choices without knowing who the authors were, but it’s unsurprising that some very familiar names from the literary end of the genre spectrum (Kelly Link, Catherynne Valente, Ted Chiang, and even Salman Rushdie, among others) appear here. There are no rip-roaring space operas or epics of castles and dragons; instead, this fairly cerebral collection includes many stories in the style of fable or myth. The tales include a sentient mushroom collective who takes the place of an unhappy woman, a virtual world of forgotten and sentient dating profiles sadly caught within an endless party, a well-dwelling “wet gentleman” who grants wishes with a nasty twist, a secret history of the Stonewall riots, a man coming to terms with the artificial eyes that replaced his cancer-riddled ones, and a trio of space travelers charged with determining which post-Earth colonial societies should be allowed to exist. A set of primal, classic-seeming tales from our past, present, and future.

Kirkus Reviews