June 2025 SFFKIT - Anthologies and Collections

Anglophone SFF readers often refer to the 1940s and 1950s as the Golden Age of Science Fiction. At that time one of the main ways SFF stories were published was in magazines and later these stories were published in books as fix-ups - stories originally published separately which were combined into single novels - and in collections and anthologies, a form which has already popular and has been ever since. Obviously in the days before ebooks, there were practical limitations on the size of collections/anthologies and so they mainly consisted of shorter fiction - short stories, novellas, and novelettes, however defined.

For our purpose a collection consists of stories by a single author while an anthology consists of stories from different authors, which may be related topically or chronologically. Some examples from my collection:



If you are so inclined, please add your reading to the wiki at https://wiki.librarything.com/index.php/2025_SF%26FKIT#June:_-_Robertgreaves_-_A...

I have had Tangled Lands by Paolo Bacigalupi on my shelf for quite some time. Hopefully, I will get to it in June.

I've been trying to get my hands on more solarpunk, and picked up the anthology Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-Speculation, so that's my plan for this month!

I'm planning to read The New Space Opera, edited by Jonathan Strahan and Gardner Dozois. It was one of my SantaThing gifts last year, and a very well-chosen gift it was.

My husband recommended Dragon Age: Tevinter Nights to me, an anthology of short stories set in the world of the video game. I don't play but he thinks I might enjoy the stories anyway, so I'll give them a go.

Not the book I'd been planning on, but I finished The Locus Awards, edited by Charles N. Brown & Jonathan Strahan.

I just read Moira's Pen by Megan Whalen Turner, which is a collection of stories, essays, etc. set in the world of her Queen's Thief series. Worth a read only if you love the main series -- it definitely doesn't stand alone!

Currently reading Other Worlds, Other Gods, an anthology of religious-themed SF, edited by Mayo Mohs. Also still dipping in and out of The Long List Anthology Volume 7

COMPLETED Other Worlds, Other Gods, edited by Mayo Mohs. My review:

A book of SF short stories with religious themes written between 1940 and 1970. It has one of my favourite of such stories, Arthur C. Clarke's "The Nine Billion Names of God", which I still think has one of the best last sentences ever. All of the stories were interesting enough to hold my attention without being too demanding. Just what I was looking for.

Of course it is noticeable from a 2020s standpoint what or rather who is left out of this collection of 13 stories, but I don't know which of these stories I would omit to make room for other voices.

I finished Unfettered: Tales by Masters of Fantasy edited by Sean Speakman. This was a collection that was put together by Speakman as a way to raise money for his cancer treatment. There really were some great fantasy writers here, Terry Brooks, Patrick Rothfuss, Naomi Novik, Jacqueline Carey, Tad Williams and more. Overall, I really enjoyed this. My favorite stories were from Rothfuss and Willaims.

The July thread is now up here

Finished Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-speculation, and really enjoyed it overall. The few poems and illustrations didn't come close to living up to the short fiction, but since fiction takes up probably 90% of the anthology, that's not a real issue. This is definitely one I'd recommend.

I have finished my read of The Tangled Lands by Paolo Bacigalupi, a fantasy collection of four stories all set in the same city.

The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster contains only two short stories, but both are taken from larger collections, and both are very surprising in their subject matter. I liked them well enough to look out for the complete collections.

COMPLETED The Long List Anthology Volume 7, edited by David Steffen, an anthology of stories nominated for Hugos.

The Moment of Tenderness

Most of these stories were never published before L'Engle's death in 2007, although a few had featured in literary magazines and the like. They were all written before her famous A Wrinkle in Time, and many before she had ever even started on her first novel. They are mostly realistic and contemporary to the time they were written in, though some are historical and 3 have fantasy/sci-fi elements (the back-of-book blurb had me expecting half or more of the stories to be SFF, but no joy. Or rather, 3/18 joy). Many are somewhat sad, but a few (and the collection itself) end on a hopeful note.

Full review on my thread.

The Essential Bordertown is an anthology set in the shared world of Bordertown.
Where Faerie and the human world meet, there lies a city, Bordertown, where elves, humans and halflings and other oddities live together in strained peace.

I think the time has passed on this one, it is very end of the last century.

I read both of Ted Chiang's story collections, Stories of Your Life and Others and Exhalation.

I read Kelly Link's White Cat, Black Dog, which was good and a bit strange.

Thank you for playing along everyone. I hope you found some authors you would like to explore further.