The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Volume 2

by Stephen King, Charles de Lint, Jane Yolen

Overview

A mutant baby goes on a rampage through Central Park. An immigrant reveals secrets in the folds of a perfect gift. Lucky Cats extend their virtual paws to salute a generous revolution. The Internet invades a third-world village.

The premier speculative-fiction magazine Fantasy & Science Fiction continues to discover and showcase many of the most inventive authors writing in any genre. Now drawing even more deeply upon F&SF’s impressive history, this extraordinary companion anthology expands upon sixty-five years’ worth of top-notch storytelling. The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Volume Two is a star-studded tribute to the continuing vision of F&SF.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781616961633
Publisher:	Tachyon Publications
Publication date:	07/15/2014
Pages:	432
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.80(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Two-time Hugo Award winner Gordon Van Gelder has been the editor of Fantasy & Science Fiction since 1996. As an editor at St. Martin’s Press for twelve years, he worked with such writers as Christopher Priest, George Pelecanos, and Kate Wilhelm. Van Gelder has also received the World Fantasy, and Locus awards. He lives Hoboken, New Jersey.

Charles de Lint is the best-selling author of more than seventy adult, YA, and children’s books, including Moonheart, The Onion Girl, Widdershins, Medicine Road, and Under My Skin. He is the recipient of the World Fantasy, YALSA, Crawford, and Aurora awards. De Lint is a poet, songwriter, performer, and folklorist, and he writes a book review column for Fantasy & Science Fiction.

Stephen King is the bestselling author of more than forty novels and over 100 short stories, such as Carrie, The Dark Tower, Under the Dome, and Children of the Corn. He is the recipient of the Hugo, Shirley Jackson, Bram Stoker, British Fantasy, Horror Guild, and World Fantasy awards. King's work has been made into major motion pictures, such as The Dead Zone, Carrie, The Shining, and Misery.

Jane Yolen is an American author of close to 300 books. Her books are primarily fantasy, science fiction, folktales and children's books. Her Nebula nominated novella "The Devil's Arithmetic" was made into a movie starting Kristin Dunst and Brittany Murphy. She is also known for her Pit Dragon Quadrilogy.

Paolo Bacigalupi's debut novel The Windup Girl, took the science fiction field by storm, winning the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, Compton Crook, and John W. Campbell Memorial awards. He is also the author of the young adult novel, Ship Breaker, which won the Michael L. Printz Award and was a finalist for the National Book Award. His latest novel is The Drowned Cities, a companion novel to Ship Breaker.

Harlan Ellison has written or edited more than 75 books and more than 1,700 stories, essays, articles, and newspaper columns as well as two dozen teleplays and a dozen movies. His work includes such classics as Deathbird Stories, I, Robot, Strange Wine, Shatterday, and Angry Candy. He has won multiple Hugo, Nebula, Edgar, Stoker, Locus, and Audie awards as well as the Silver Pen, World Fantasy, British Fantasy, Bradbury, and American Mystery awards.

Hometown:

Bangor, Maine

Date of Birth:

September 21, 1947

Place of Birth:

Portland, Maine

Education:

B.S., University of Maine at Orono, 1970

Website:

http://www.stephenking.com

Read an Excerpt

Excerpt from "The Paper Menagerie" by Ken Liu

One of my earliest memories starts with me sobbing. I refused to be soothed no matter what Mom and Dad tried.

Dad gave up and left the bedroom, but Mom took me into the kitchen and sat me down at the breakfast table.

"Kan, kan," she said, as she pulled a sheet of wrapping paper from on top of the fridge. For years, Mom carefully sliced open the wrappings around Christmas gifts and saved them on top of the fridge in a thick stack.

She set the paper down, plain side facing up, and began to fold it. I stopped crying and watched her, curious.

She turned the paper over and folded it again. She pleated, packed, tucked, rolled, and twisted until the paper disappeared between her cupped hands. Then she lifted the folded-up paper packet to her mouth and blew into it, like a balloon.

"Kan," she said. "Laohu." She put her hands down on the table and let go.

A little paper tiger stood on the table, the size of two fists placed together. The skin of the tiger was the pattern on the wrapping paper, white background with red candy canes and green Christmas trees.

I reached out to Mom's creation. Its tail twitched, and it pounced playfully at my finger. "Rawrr-sa," it growled, the sound somewhere between a cat and rustling newspapers.

I laughed, startled, and stroked its back with an index finger. The paper tiger vibrated under my finger, purring.

"Zhe jiao zhezhi," Mom said. This is called origami.

I didn't know this at the time, but Mom's kind was special. She breathed into them so that they shared her breath, and thus moved with her life. This was her magic.

Table of Contents

“The Third Level” by Jack Finney
“Fondly Fahrenheit” by Alfred Bester
“The Cosmic Charge Account” by C. M. Kornbluth
“The Anything Box” by Zenna Henderson
“The Prize of Peril” by Robert Sheckley
“——All You Zombies——“ by Robert A. Heinlein
“Green Magic” by Jack Vance
“The Doors of His Face, the Lamps of His Mouth” by Roger Zelazny
“Narrow Valley” by R. A. Lafferty
“Sundance” by Robert Silverberg
“Attack of the Giant Baby” by Kit Reed
“The Hundredth Dove” by Jane Yolen
“Jeffty Is Five” by Harlan Ellison
"Salvador" by Lucius Shepard
“The Aliens Who Knew, I mean, Everything” by George Alec Effinger
“Rat” by James Patrick Kelly
“The Friendship Light” by Gene Wolfe
“The Bone Woman” by Charles de Lint
“The Lincoln Train” by Maureen McHugh
“Maneki Neko” by Bruce Sterling
“Winemaster” Robert Reed
“Suicide Coast” by M. John Harrison
“Have Not Have” by Geoff Ryman
“The People of Sand & Slag” by Paolo Bacigalupi
“Echo” by Liz Hand
"The New York Times at Special Bargain Rates" by Stephen King
“The Paper Menagerie” by Ken Liu

Reading Group Guide

Excerpt from "The Paper Menagerie" by Ken Liu

One of my earliest memories starts with me sobbing. I refused to be soothed no matter what Mom and Dad tried.

Dad gave up and left the bedroom, but Mom took me into the kitchen and sat me down at the breakfast table.

"Kan, kan," she said, as she pulled a sheet of wrapping paper from on top of the fridge. For years, Mom carefully sliced open the wrappings around Christmas gifts and saved them on top of the fridge in a thick stack.

She set the paper down, plain side facing up, and began to fold it. I stopped crying and watched her, curious.

She turned the paper over and folded it again. She pleated, packed, tucked, rolled, and twisted until the paper disappeared between her cupped hands. Then she lifted the folded-up paper packet to her mouth and blew into it, like a balloon.

"Kan," she said. "Laohu." She put her hands down on the table and let go.

A little paper tiger stood on the table, the size of two fists placed together. The skin of the tiger was the pattern on the wrapping paper, white background with red candy canes and green Christmas trees.

I reached out to Mom's creation. Its tail twitched, and it pounced playfully at my finger. "Rawrr-sa," it growled, the sound somewhere between a cat and rustling newspapers.

I laughed, startled, and stroked its back with an index finger. The paper tiger vibrated under my finger, purring.

"Zhe jiao zhezhi," Mom said. This is called origami.

I didn't know this at the time, but Mom's kind was special. She breathed into them so that they shared her breath, and thus moved with her life. This was her magic.

Editorial Reviews

06/16/2014
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction—aka F&SF—has been one of the flagships of speculative fiction since its founding in 1949. While similarly lauded magazines, like Galaxy, Galileo, and If, have fallen by the wayside, F&SF steadfastly soldiers on. Van Gelder, the magazine’s current editor in chief, offers 27 stories arranged in chronological order, providing a demonstration of the magazine’s evolution over six decades. Longtime readers will recognize justly famous stories such as Zenna Henderson’s touching “The Anything Box,” Kit Reed’s amusing “The Attack of the Giant Baby,” and Maureen F. McHugh’s stark “The Lincoln Train.” Less deserving is Robert Silverberg’s “Sundance,” in which stylistic daring fails to distract from an unfortunate portrayal of Native Americans. Van Gelder provides a short foreword and includes a charmingly irascible introduction by acclaimed critic Michael Dirda. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for The Very Best of Fatansy & Science Fiction, volume 2

"The best stand-alone reprint anthology of the year was probably the retrospective anthology The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Volume 2.”
—Gardner Dozois, editor of Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine and The Year’s Best Science Fiction, Volumes 1-31

"If you like quality short fiction and you’re looking for an anthology that collects together stories both old and new, I’d warmly recommend that you check out The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Volume Two.”
—SF Crowsnest

"The first [was] an all-star anthology, the second, also edited by Gordon van Gelder, possesses just as much impact, history, and sheer enjoyability, and is a welcome retrospective of one of the genre’s bastions.... Just a superb anthology.”
—Speculition

"Gordon Van Gelder is the current editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and as with his earlier volume of this series, has put together a killer anthology of the very best from F&SF.”
—Galaxy’s Edge

"Van Gelder set out to provide a taste of some of the most renowned speculative fiction authors over the last half-century, and he succeeded brilliantly”
—Book Likes

"...a collection of some of the best sci-fi and fantasy short stories out there.”
—Starburst

"This is an excellent place to see not only gems from Fantasy and Science Fiction, but also great stories from over 60 years of the field.
—Tangent

"This is the second part of an anthology of incredible short stories edited by Gordon van Gelder (who has won two Hugo’s for Best Editor, Short Form). The stories themselves are, purposefully, incredibly varied. Some are funny, others heartbreakingly sad and others thrilling. The common thing across the board is that these are excellent stories.”
—World of Books

"...a must read.”
—Beauty in Ruins

"The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Volume 2 is a great addition to any reader’s library because it chronicles the genres’ changes over time. All of the stories are enjoyable....”
—Lit Reactor

"If the previous two anthologies had heavy-hitters, this one has legends: Brian Aldiss, Paolo Bacigalupi (the remarkable “The People of Sand and Slag”), Jack Finney, Elizabeth Hand, Robert A. Heinlein, Stephen King, Kit Reed, Robert Silverberg — oh, hell, why bother listing them? The stories in this book are so good (and surprisingly, many of them are funny) that you need to buy it.”
—Lit/Rant

“The Very Best of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Volume 2, edited by Gordon van Gelder is a book that can’t help but appeal to anyone who already loves the genre and is a great way to introduce great science fiction and fantasy to new readers.”
—Looking for a Good Book


Praise for Fantasy & Science Fiction

"Still the gold standard for short fiction in America"
"Stephen King

Praise for The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction

"For sheer reading pleasure, this anthology is unparalleled."
—Publishers Weekly, starred review

"A landmark anthology"
—The Guardian

"For a long time, F&SF has been a leader in expanding the terrain of speculative fiction. Judging from this volume, it intends to continue in this role.
—Booklist

"It's obvious why F&SF has thrived while competitors have vanished. Eloquent, scintillating, often sublime."
—Kirkus

"Half an hour's reading, and I spent the next day or so catching myself staring off into space muttering, 'Oh wow.'"
—io9.com

From the Publisher