Category Archives: News

Content of The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, Volume 3 edited by Paula Guran

(Alphabetical by Author Last Name)

G. V. Anderson, “Shuck” (Deadlands #2)
Seán Padraic Birnie, “Hand-Me -Down” (I Would Haunt You If I Could)
J. S. Breukelaar, “Where We Will Go On Together” (The Dark #70)
Rebecca Campbell, “The Bletted Woman” (F&SF 3-4/21)
Tananarive Due, “The Wishing Pool” (Uncanny #41)
Brian Evenson, “The Sequence” (Conjunctions 77)
Christopher Golden, “The God Bag” (Beyond the Veil, ed. Morris)
Elizabeth Hand, “For Sale By Owner” (When Things Get Dark, ed. Datlow)
Alix E. Harrow, “Mr. Death (Apex #121)
Maria Dahvana Headley, “Wolfsbane” (Nightmare #100)
Glen Hirshberg, “Jetty Sara” (December Tales, ed. Horn)
Stephen Graham Jones. “Refinery Road” (When Things Get Dark, ed. Datlow)
Richard Kadrey, “Across the Dark Water” (Tor.com)
Alison Littlewood, “Jenny Greenteeth” (Mammoth Book of Folk Horror, ed. Jones)
Chimedum Ohaegbu, “And for My Next Trick, I Have Disappeared” (F&SF 7-8/21)
Suzan Palumbo, “Laughter Among the Trees” (The Dark #69)
Sarah Pinsker, “Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather” (Uncanny #39)
David J. Schow, “Caving” (Weird Doom, ed Scoleri)
Molly Tanzer, “In the Garden of Ibn-Ghazi” (F&SF 3-4/21)
Sheree Renee Thomas, “Barefoot and Midnight” (Apex #122)
Steve Toase, “Beneath the Forest’s Wilting Leaves” (To Drown in Dark Water)
Jade Wilburn, “Blood Ties”(Fiyah #18)
A.C. Wise, “The Nag Bride” (The Ghost Sequences)

To published October 2022 by Pyr Books

Content of THE YEAR’S BEST FANTASY, VOLUME ONE, edited by Paula Guran

(Alphabetical by author’s last name)

• Marika Bailey, “The White Road; Or How a Crow Carried Death Over a River” (Fiyah #18)
• Elizabeth Bear, “The Red Mother” (Tor.com)
• Tobias Buckell, “Brickomancer (Shoggoths in Traffic and Other Stories)
• P. Djèlí Clark, “If the Martians Have Magic” (Uncanny #42)
• Roshani Chokshi, “Passing Fair and Young” (Sword Table Stone: Old Legend, New Voices)
• Varsha Dinesh, “The Demon Sage’s Daughter” (Strange Horizons 2/8/21)
• Andrew Dykstal, “Quintessence” (Beneath Ceaseless Skies #324)
• James Enge, “Drunkard’s Walk (F&SF 5-6)
• Karen Joy Fowler, “The Piper” (F&SF 1-2)
• Carlos Hernandez & C. S. E. Cooney, “A Minnow, or Perhaps a Colossal Squid (Mermaids Monthly, April)
• Kathleen Jennings, “Gisla and the Three Favors” (Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #43)
• Allison King, “Breath of the Dragon King” (Fantasy #72)
• PH Lee, “Frost’s Boy” (Lightspeed #128)
• Yukimi Ogawa, “Her Garden the Size of Her Palm (F&SF 7-8)
• Tobi Ogundiran, “The Tale of Jaja and Canti” (Lightspeed #135)
• Richard Parks. “The Fox’s Daughter (Beneath Ceaseless Skies #344)
• Karen Russell, “The Cloud Lake Unicorn” (Conjunctions:76)
• Sofia Samatar, “Three Tales from the Blue Library” (Conjunctions:76)
• Catherynne Valente, “L’Esprit de Escalier” (Tor.com)
• Fran Wilde, “Unseelie Bros, Ltd.” (Uncanny #40)
• Merc Fenn Wolfmoor, “Gray Skies, Red Wings, Blue Lips, Black Hearts” (Apex #121)
• Isabel Yap,“A Spell for Foolish Hearts” (Never Have I Ever)
• E. Lily Yu, “Small Monsters” (Tor.com)

And yes, some of this is dark fantasy, but there will be plenty of dark (darker?) fantasy in THE YEAR’S BEST DARK FANTASY & HORROR, VOLUME THREE. More about that in a couple of months!)

Review: FAR OUT

th_364f27d0a9e0903ba4ca66b270091c81_lightspeed_135_august_2021Although I’ve not seen it myself, Far Out: Recent Queer Science Fiction & Fantasy has been released. You can find info about where to buy it here.

And there’s a fabulous review by Arley Sorg at Lightspeed #135. Far as I know that’s the only review I’ve seen. Here’s an excerpt:

Guran has done something else which I love to see anthologies do: she has flexed her prodigious genre knowledge to curate a batch of stories which, in many cases, readers might have missed, and might otherwise not know about…In this way, Guran performs a service I believe anthologists should, and she does it with grace and style. She’s telling readers, sure, you might know who these folks are, but did you read this…Believe me, dear readers, the stories here are well worth your time…you could throw a glass slipper at this table of contents and any story you hit is going to be good.

The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, Vol. 2: Content

  • Kelley Armstrong, “Drunk Physics” (Final Cuts: New Tales of Hollywood Horror and Other Spectacles, ed. Ellen Datlow)
  • Dale Bailey, “Das Gesicht” (Final Cuts: New Tales of Hollywood Horror and Other Spectacles, ed. Ellen Datlow)
  • Elizabeth Bear, “On Safari in R’lyeh and Carcosa with Gun and Camera” (Tor.com)
  • Zen Cho, “Odette” (Shoreline of Infinity 18)
  • Wenmimareba Klobah Collins, “Call Them Children” (The Dark #64)
  • Elaine Cuyegkeng, “The Genetic Alchemist’s Daughter” (Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women, eds. Lee Murray and Geneve Flynn)
  • Brian Evenson, “The Thickening,” (Conjunctions:74)
  • James Everington, “The Sound of the Sea, Too Close” (Shadows & Tall Trees, Vol. 8, ed. Michael Kelly)
  • Craig Laurance Gidney, “Desiccant” (Slay: Stories of the Vampire Noire, ed. Nicole Givens Kurtz)
  • Thomas Ha, “Where the Old Neighbors Go” (Metaphorosis, 9/1/20)
  • Elizabeth Hand, “The Owl Count” (Conjunctions:74)
  • Alix E. Harrow, “The Sycamore and the Sybil” (Uncanny #33)
  • Maria Dahvana Headley, “The Girlfriend’s Guide to Gods” (Tor.com)
  • Stephen Graham Jones, “Wait for Night” (Tor.com)
  • Shingai Njeri Kagunda, “And This is How to Stay Alive” (Fantasy #61)
  • Caitlín Kiernan, “Dead Bright Star” (Sirenia Digest #171)
  • Soleil Knowles, “Lusca” (Fiyah #13)
  • Naomi Kritzer, “Monster” (Clarkesworld #160)
  • Victor LaValle, “Recognition” (The New York Times Decameron Project)
  • V. H. Leslie, “Lacunae” (Shadows & Tall Trees, Vol. 8, ed. Michael Kelly)
  • Alison Littlewood, “Swanskin” (After Sundown, ed. Mark Morris)
  • H. Pueyo. “Nobody Lives Here” (The Dark #66)
  • Danny Rhodes, “The Stonemason” (Black Static #75)
  • M. Rickert, “Last Night at the Fair” (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Jul/Aug 2020)
  • Sonya Taaffe, “Tea with the Earl of Twilight” (Nightmare #96)
  • Steve Rasnic Tem, “The Dead Outside My Door” (Black Static #77)
  • Sheree Renée Thomas, “Ancestries” (Nine Bar Blues: Stories from an Ancient Future)
  • Catherynne M. Valente, “Color, Heat, and the Wreck of the Argo“ (Strange Horizons, 9/7/20)
  • A. C. Wise, “To Sail the Black” (Clarkesworld #170)
  • John Wiswell, “Open House on Haunted Hill” (Diabolical Plots #54A)

Announcing: THE YEAR’S BEST FANTASY Series

YBF
I’m very pleased to announce that I will be editing THE YEAR’S BEST FANTASY for Pyr Books. The first volume will cover this year, 2021, and be published July 2022. This means my deadline for the completed manuscript will be 1 January 2021. In other words: I’ll need to read all potential material and make my decisions before December 2021; earlier if possible.

I am looking for fantasy stories of all kinds. Only material published in 2021 will be considered.

If you write or edit/publish short fantasy fiction, an anthology with fantasy in it, or a periodical containing such that will be coming out the final third of 2021—I need to see it as soon as you can get it to me. Do not procrastinate! I’m happy to look at galleys or manuscripts.

I prefer PDFs or documents. Although I love print, I have limited space. Plus, it is easier to keep track of a PDFs. I will accept ebooks if a PDF/document is not available. Even better: If you have PDF, mobi, and epub—send all three. Send material to prlguran@gmail.com.

Authors: please make sure your editor or publishers are sending me review copies. You can always query me to see if I have/need your collection or an anthology/periodical in which you have a story.

FAR OUT: RECENT QUEER SF & FANTASY

FarOutCover
Far Out: An Anthology of Recent Queer Science Fiction and Fantasy
Edited by Paula Guran
Cover art by Julie Dillon
Publisher: Night Shade/Start (May 4, 2021)
Length: 432 pages / Price: $16.99
ISBN13: 9781949102550
Pre-order: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Far-Out/Paula-Guran/9781949102550

Speculative fiction imagines drastically diverse ways of being and worlds that are other than the one with which we are familiar. Queerness is a natural fit for such fiction, so one would expect it to be customarily included. That has not always been the case, but LGBTQ+ representation in science fiction and fantasy—in both short and long form—is now relatively common. Even so, most of the queer science fiction and fantasy anthologies published in the last thirty-five years have been narrowly focused: specifically gay male or lesbian (or, more recently, transgender) themes, or all science fiction or all fantasy, or adhering to a specific theme or subgenre.

Far Out: Recent Queer Science Fiction and Fantasy features both science fiction and fantasy short fiction from the last decade and includes characters, perspectives, and stories that span the rainbow. With stories from incredible authors ranging from Seanan McGuire to Charlie Jane Anders to Sam J. Miller, it’s an essential read for anyone interested in queer science fiction and fantasy.

Contents
The River’s Children by Shweta Narayan
Introduction: Over the Rainbow and into the Far Out by Paula Guran
Destroyed by the Waters by Rachel Swirsky
The Sea Troll’s Daughter by Caitlín R. Kiernan
And If the Body Were Not the Soul by A. C. Wise
Imago by Tristan Alice Nieto
Paranormal Romance by Christopher Barzak
Three Points Masculine by An Owomoyela
Das Steingeschöpf by G. V. Anderson
The Deepwater Bride by Tamsyn Muir
The Shape of My Name by Nino Cipri
Otherwise by Nisi Shawl
The Night Train by Lavie Tidhar
Ours Is the Prettiest by Nalo Hopkinson
Don’t Press Charges and I Won’t Sue by Charlie Jane Anders
Driving Jenny Home by Seanan McGuire
I’m Alive, I Love You, I’ll See You in Reno by Vylar Kaftan
In the Eyes of Jack Saul by Richard Bowes
Secondhand Bodies by JY Yang
Seasons of Glass and Iron by Amal El-Mohtar
Né łe! by Darcie Little Badger
The Duke of Riverside by Ellen Kushner
Cat Pictures Please by Naomi Kritzer
The Lily and the Horn by Catherynne M. Valente
Calved by Sam J. Miller
The River’s Children by Shweta Narayan