Solitaire, by Kelley Eskridge. Angry Robot reissued Infernal Devices and Morlock Night, both by K. W. Jeter. Subterranean Press reissued Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper, by Robert Bloch. Tachyon Publications reissued Promises to Keep, by Charles de Lint. Ace reissued The Terminal Experiment, by Robert J. Sawyer. Ballantine Spectra reissued The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. Ballantine Del Rey reissued Conan the Barbarian, by Robert E. Howard. William Morrow reissued American Gods, The Tenth Anniversary Edition, by Neil Gaiman. Harper Perennial reissued The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman. HarperCollins reissued Abarat, by Clive Barker. Prime Books reissued The Bone Key: The Necromantic Mysteries of Kyle Murchison Booth, by Sarah Monette. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt reissued The Divine Invasion, by Philip K. Dick. Titan Books reissued Anno Dracula, by Kim Newman. Harper reissued On Stranger Tides, by Tim Powers. St. Martin’s Griffin reissued The Space Merchants, by Frederik Pohl and C. M. Cornbluth.
Many authors are now reissuing their old back titles as e-books, either through a publisher or all by themselves, so many that it’s impossible to keep track of them all here. Before you conclude that something from an author’s backlist is unavailable, though, check with the Kindle and NOOK stores, and with other online vendors.
* * * 2011 was another good year for short-story collections. The year’s best nonretrospective collections included: After the Apocalypse (Small Beer Press), by Maureen McHugh; Gothic High- Tech (Subterranean Press), by Bruce Sterling; Paradise Tales (Small Beer Press), by Geoff Ryman; The Bible Repairman and Other Stories (Tachyon Publications), by Tim Powers; The Universe of Things (Aqueduct Press), by Gwyneth Jones; The Inheritance and Other Stories (Harper Voyager), by Robin Hobb and Megan Lindholm; Unpossible and Other Stories (Fairwood Press), by Daryl Gregory; and Sleight of Hand (Tachyon Publications), by Peter S. Beagle. Also good were Wind Angels (PS Publishing), by Leigh Kennedy; Kitty’s Greatest Hits (Tor), by Carrie Vaughn; The Wild Girls (PM Press—omnibus of one story, two essays, one interview, and four poems), by Ursula K. Le Guin; Yellowcake (Allen & Unwin), by Margo Lanagan; Professor Moriarty: The Hound of the D’Urbervilles (Titan Books), by Kim Newman; Translation Station (The Merry Blacksmith Press), by Don D’Ammassa; Diana Comet and Other Improbable Stories (Lethe Press), by Sandra McDonald; Dragon Virus (Fairwood Press), by Laura Anne Gilman; Somewhere Beneath These Waves (Prime Books), by Sarah Monette; Love and Romanpunk (Twelfth Planet Press), by Tansy Rayner Roberts; Manhattan in Reverse (Pan MacMillan), by Peter F. Hamilton; Steel and Other Stories (Tor), by Richard Matheson; Something More and More (Aqueduct Press—omnibus of two stories, three essays, and an interview), by Nisi Shawl; The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (PM Press—omnibus of a long novella, plus essays and interviews), by Cory Doctorow; Never at Home (Aqueduct Press), by L. Timmel Duchamp; and Aurora in Four Voices (ISFIC Press), by Catherine Asaro.
Noted without comment is When the Great Days Come (Prime Books), by Gardner Dozois.
Career-spanning retrospective collections this year included: Admiralty: Volume 4 of the Collected Short Works of Poul Anderson (NESFA Press), by Poul Anderson; Shannach— The Last: Farewell to Mars (Haffner Press), by Leigh Brackett; The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg, Volume Six: Multiples 1983–1987 (Subterranean Press), by Robert Silverberg; Hunt the Space-Witch: Seven Adventures in Time and Space (Paizo/Planet Stories), by Robert Silverberg; At the Human Limit, The Collected Stories of Jack Williamson, Volume Eight (Haffner Press), by Jack Williamson; The Universe Wreckers, The Collected Edmond Hamilton (Haffner Press), by Edmond Hamilton; The Collected Captain Future, Man of Tomorrow, Volume Two (Haffner Press), by Edmond Hamilton; The Collected Captain Future, Man of Tomorrow, Volume Three (Haffner Press), by Edmond Hamilton; Terror in the House: The Early Kuttner, Volume One (Haffner Press), by Henry Kuttner; The Miscellaneous Writings of Clark Ashton Smith (Night Shade Books), by Clark Ashton Smith; Scream Quietly: The Best of Charles L. Grant (PS Publishing), by Charles L. Grant; Collected Ghost Stories (Oxford University Press), by M. R. James; The Inhabitant of the Lake and Other Unwelcome Tenants (PS Publishing), by Ramsey Campbell; and Two Worlds and In Between: The Best of Caitlin R. Kiernan (Volume One) (Subterranean Press), by Caitlin R. Kiernan.
As has become usual, small presses again dominated the list of short-story collections, with Haffner Press and Subterranean Press being particularly active in the issuing of retrospective collections.
A wide variety of “electronic collections,” often called “fiction bundles,” too many to individually list here, are also available for downloading online, at sites such as Fictionwise and ElectricStory, and the Science Fiction Book Club continues to issue new collections as well.
* * * As usual, among the most reliable buys in the reprint anthology market are the various Best of the Year anthologies, although this is an area in constant flux, with old series disappearing and new series being born. This year seemed to be relatively stable. At the moment, science fiction is being covered by three anthologies (actually, technically, by two anthologies and by two separate half anthologies): the one you are reading at the moment, The Year’s Best Science Fiction series from St. Martin’s Press, edited by Gardner Dozois, now up to its twenty-ninth annual collection; the Year’s Best SF series (Harper Voyager), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer, now up to its sixteenth annual volume; the science fiction half of The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Five (Night Shade Books), edited by Jonathan Strahan; and the science fiction half of The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy: 2011 Edition (Prime Books), edited by Rich Horton (in practice, of course, these books probably won’t divide neatly in half with their coverage, and there’s likely to be more of one thing than another). The annual Nebula Awards anthology, which covers science fiction as well as fantasy of various sorts, functions as a de facto Best of the Year anthology, although it’s not usually counted among them; this year’s edition was Nebula Awards Showcase 2011 (Tor), edited by Kevin J. Anderson. (A similar series covering the Hugo winners began in 2010, but swiftly died.) There were three Best of the Year anthologies covering horror: The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Three (Night Shade Books), edited by Ellen Datlow; The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror: 22 (Running Press), edited by Stephen Jones; and The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror, 2011 Edition (Prime Books), edited by Paula Guran. This year there was also The Horror Hall of Fame: The Stoker Winners (Cemetery Dance Publications), edited by Joe R. Lansdale, although it’s unclear whether this is going to be a continuing series. Fantasy is covered by the fantasy halves of the Stranhan and Horton anthologies (plus whatever stories fall under the Dark Fantasy part of Guran’s anthology), but with the death of Kevin Brockmeier’s Best American Fantasy series last year, the only remaining Best of the Year anthology dedicated solely to fantasy is David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer’s Year’s Best Fantasy series—Year’s Best Fantasy 10 was announced as forthcoming by Kathryn Cramer in her blog, but I haven’t actually seen a copy, and it isn’t listed on Amazon, so whether this will actually appear is anyone’s guess. There was also The 2011 Rhysling Anthology (Science Fiction Poetry Association), edited by David Lunde, which compiles the Rhysling Award–winning SF poetry of the year.
There were a large number of good stand-alone reprint anthologies this year. Although it’s a bit of an oddity, a discussion of reprint anthologies published in 2011 wouldn’t be complete without mention of Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction (Wildside Press), edited by Leigh Ronald Grossman, which earns the odd distinction of being perhaps the largest SF anthology ever published: almost a
