The Best from Fantasy Science Fiction: A 45th Anniversary Anthology

The nineteen stories in this compilation comprise an excellent sample from the forty-five-year history of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, with works by such authors as Harlan Ellison, Karen Joy Fowler, and Dale Bailey.

This rewarding collection is chock-full of innovative, inventive and impressive tales drawn from the past five years of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. A number of the stories, award-nominated or -winning, have been anthologized elsewhere, but they still carry an impact and, happily, are ushered in here by introductions by Ferman, retired editor of the bimonthly, and Rusch, its new guiding light. The stories fall, albeit not so neatly, into several categories that indicate recent trends in the field. These include the folkloric/world-building arena (represented here by Mike Resnick and Carolyn Ives Gilman), Vietnam-inspired fiction (Joe Haldeman, Karen Joy Fowler, Alan Brennert), horror with a twist (Harlan Ellison, Thomas Ligotti) and alternate history (James Morrow, Terry Bisson). Elsewhere, Ray Aldridge's "Steel Dogs" mingles old-fashioned mythic heroism with futuristic technology to create an impressive and touchingly original fairy tale, while comedy mixes well with nanotech in Ray Vukevich's delightful bungee-jumping adventure, "Mom's Little Friends." And for what editor Rusch believes to be almost a "quintessential" F&SF story, there's Robert Reed's "Coffins," which explores just how inventive humanity can be when it is finally set free among the stars.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Under former editor Ferman's 25-year stewardship, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction--better known to fans simply as F & SF--has remained very much a writer's magazine in which, as Ferman introductorily states, "anything of quality goes." Since many of the stories in this magazine's latest five-year retrospective were nominated for major sf awards, the quality is outstanding. Veteran sf figures Joe Haldeman, Gene Wolfe, and Harlan Ellison headline the collection with minor masterpieces, while more than a dozen relative newcomers prove the genre is still rich in creative diversity. Ray Vukcevich contributes light satire in "Mom's Little Friends," describing the fate of a mother taken over by miniature robots, and Thomas Ligotti provides horror in "The Last Feast of Harlequin," which strikingly imitates Lovecraft. Perhaps the most brilliant selection (controversial, too), however, is Marcos Donnelly's story, which details the postmortem experiences of Don Quixote during the Gulf War. A superb collection with something to satisfy every kind of taste, from hard sf to fantasy. Carl Hays

This collection of 19 stories written for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction between 1988 and 1993 represents a choice sampling of works by sf veterans as well as newcomers to the genre. Titles include Gene Wolfe's "The Friendship Light," Mike Resnick's "Kirinyaga," and James Morrow's "Abe Lincoln in McDonald's."
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.