Twenty-First Century Science Fiction

Twenty-First Century Science Fiction
Ed. by David G. Hartwell and Patrick Nielsen Hayden

SF is a genre especially well-suited to the short story, and nearly every month sees the publication of a great new anthology. This one, co-edited by David G. Hartwell, who formerly presided over the popular Year’s Best SF series, doesn’t present a selection of the “best” SF of the twenty-first century so much as it provides a showcase of some of the genre’s top new writers.

One thing this means is that the stories collected here “were written in a world in which SF, far from being marginal, is a firmly established part of the cultural landscape.” The future, in other words, is now. Among the standard-bearers for the new millennium are Paolo Bacigalupi, John Scalzi, Elizabeth Bear, Jo Walton, Cory Doctorow, and Karl Schroeder. Expect a great variety of destinations, with the one constant throughout being high-energy storytelling.