An eclipse is a rare and unusual event, when the world is transformed and the sky becomes a dark eldritch thing. It's a time when anything could happen, when any kind of story just might be true. That sense of the strange and wonderful guides Eclipse: New Science Fiction and Fantasy, the first volume in an exciting new annual anthology series edited by acclaimed anthologist Jonathan Strahan.
Set to become a major event on the science fiction and fantasy calendar, Eclipse: New Science Fiction and Fantasy gathers together new science fiction and fantasy stories by the best writers working today. You can see that in Eclipse 1, which features extraordinary tales by Peter S. Beagle, Jack Dann & Paul Brandon, Terry Dowling, Andy Duncan, Jeffrey Ford, Kathleen Ann Goonan, Eileen Gunn, Gwyneth Jones, Ellen Klages, Maureen F. McHugh, Garth Nix, Lucius Shepard, Bruce Sterling and Ysabeau S. Wilce.
Contents: * Unique Chicken Goes in Reverse - Andy Duncan * Bad Luck, Trouble, Death and Vampire Sex - Garth Nix * The Last and Only, or Mr Moscowitz Becomes French - Peter S. Beagle * The Lost Boy: A Reporter At Large - Maureen F. McHugh * The Drowned Life - Jeffrey Ford * Toother - Terry Dowling * Up the Fire Road - Eileen Gunn * In The Forest Of The Queen - Gwyneth Jones * Quartermaster Returns - Ysabeau Wilce * Electric Rains - Kathleen Ann Goonan * She-Creatures - Margo Lanagan * The Transformation of Targ - Jack Dann & Paul Brandon * Mrs Zeno's Paradox - Ellen Klages * The Lustration - Bruce Sterling * Larissa Miusov - Lucius Shepard
To observe an eclipse is to witness a rare and unusual event. Under darkened skies the sun becomes a negative image of itself, its corona transforming the landscape into a strange space where anything might happen, and any story may be true. . .
In the spirit of classic science fiction anthologies such as Universe, Orbit, and Starlight, master anthologist Jonathan Strahan (The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year) presents the non-themed genre anthology Eclipse: New Science Fiction and Fantasy. Here you will find stories where strange and wonderful things happen—where reality is eclipsed by something magical and new.
Following in the footsteps of the multiple-award-nominated Eclipse One, Eclipse Two delivers new fiction by some of the genre's most celebrated authors, including Alastair Reynolds's star-spanning saga of Imperial assassination and courtly intrigue; Stephen Baxter's tantalizing tale of impermanence and memory, as first contact with an alien artificial intelligence has very real consequences; Nancy Kress's claustrophobic fable of shared space, life delayed, and critical choices; and Ted Chiang's evocative story of an all-metal world, its argon-breathing inhabitants, and the scientist who performs the ultimate self-examination.
Contents: Introduction - Jonathan Strahan The Hero - Karl Schroeder Turing's Apples - Stephen Baxter Invisible Empire of Ascending Light - Ken Scholes Michael Laurits is: Drowning - Paul Cornell Night of the Firstlings - Margo Lanagan Elevator - Nancy Kress The Illustrated Biography of Lord Grimm - Daryl Gregory Exhalation - Ted Chiang Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom - David Moles The Rabbi's Hobby - Peter S. Beagle The Seventh Expression of the Robot General - Jeffrey Ford Skin Deep - Richard Parks Ex Cathedra - Tony Daniel Truth Window: A Tale of the Bedlam Rose - Terry Dowling Fury - Alastair Reynolds
Praise for Eclipse One:
". . . it's refreshing to find an editor who is sanguine about short fiction, and who, moreover, can assemble a volume of fresh wonders to justify his optimistic stance. Such is the case with talented compiler Jonathan Strahan and his Eclipse One . . . This is a strong, non-thematic, non-programmatic assemblage of great stories that affirm the power of fabulation in a variety of voices. . . with luck, we'll experience more such volumes on a regular basis." —Paul di Filippo, The Washington Post
