The Mammoth Book of Best New Science Fiction: 23rd Annual Collection (7 page)

Perhaps the best reading bargain among the year’s stand-alone reprint anthologies is
The Very Best of Fantasy & Science Fiction
(Tachyon Publications), edited by Gordon Van Gelder, a retrospective ranging across the magazine’s sixty-year history, and containing classic stories by Alfred Bester, Daniel Keyes, Roger Zelazny, Ursula K. Le Guin, Damon Knight, Peter S. Beagle, Ted Chiang, and others. Another of the year’s prominent reprint anthologies is
The Secret History of Science Fiction
(Tachyon Publications), edited by James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel; you don’t have to agree with the polemical agenda being promulgated here – which I have my doubts about – to realize that you’re getting a great bunch of reprint stories for your money, with a list split between SF writers like Ursula K. Le Guin, Maureen F. McHugh, Gene Wolfe, and Kessel and Kelly themselves, and writers usually more identified as ‘mainstream,’ such as Michael Chabon, George Saunders, T.C. Boyle, and Margaret Atwood.
The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Mystery and the Imagination Detailing the Adventures of the World’s Most Famous Detective, Mr. Sherlock Holmes
(Night Shade Books), edited by John Joseph Adams, is a mixed reprint (mostly) and original cross-genre anthology of Sherlock Holmes pastiches by various hands, some of them by SF/fantasy writers and some by writers known better for their work in the mystery genre; there’s reprint work here by Neil Gaiman, Stephen Baxter, Laurie R. King, Sharyn McCrumb, Tanith Lee, Stephen King, Peter Tremayne, Vonda N. McIntyre, Chris Roberson, Mary Robinette Kowal, Michael Moorcock, and others, and good original work by Naomi Novik and others.

Lots of fang-flashing vampire stories were reprinted this year, perhaps not surprisingly considering the commercial success of
Twilight
both on the page and on the screen. One such reprint (mostly) anthology was
By Blood We Live
(Night Shade Books), edited by John Joseph Adams, which featured strong reprints by Garth Nix, Tad Williams, Joe Hill, Neil Gaiman, and others, and an original novella by John Langan.
By Blood We Live
and the Otto Penzler anthology mentioned below, bring 121 vampire stories back into print between them, with only one overlap! There have been a
lot
of vampire stories in recent years. The ranks of that other ever-popular monster, the zombie, were a bit thin this year, but there was a dedicated zombie anthology,
The Dead That Walk: Flesh-Eating Stories
(Ulysses Press), edited by Stephen Jones, which has reprints from Joe Hill, Stephen King, Harlan Ellison, Robert E. Howard, H. P. Lovecraft, Clive Barker, and others. Will they ever catch up to the number of vampire stories published? Probably not, since vampire stories had a head start and show no sign of slowing down, but zombie stories are giving it their best shot.

Big retrospective reprint anthologies this year included
American Fantastic Tales, Volume One: Terror and the Uncanny from Poe to the Pulps
(Library of America), edited by Peter Straub;
American Fantastic Tales, Volume Two: Terror and the Uncanny from the 1940s to Now
(Library of America), edited by Peter Straub; and
The Vampire Archives, The Most Complete Volume of Vampire Tales Ever Published
(Vintage), edited by Otto Penzler.

A perspective on SF from other parts of the world is given by
The Apex Book of World SF
(Apex Books), edited by Lavie Tidhar;
Philippine Speculative Fiction IV
(Kestrel IMC), edited by Dean Francis Alfar and Nikki Alfar; and
A Mosque Among the Stars
(ZC Books – also available on Kindle), edited by Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad and Ahmed A. Khan.

There were several strong autobiographical, semi-autobiographical, and biographical books out in 2009, and they were probably your best bet for enjoyable reading in the nonfiction category. Most entertaining of these was probably
This is Me, Jack Vance! (Or, More Properly, This is “I”)
(Subterranean Press), by Jack Vance, a wry autobiography, but the collection of semiautobiographical essays by Robert Silverberg,
Other Spaces, Other Times
(Nonstop Press), is also great reading.

Intriguing books
about
writers or their work this year included a critical study of the curious career of Hope Mirrlees,
Hope-in-the-Mist: The Extraordinary Career and Mysterious Life of Hope Mirrlees
(Temporary Culture), by Michael Swanwick; an annotated bibliography of the career of Tim Powers,
Powers: Secret Histories
(PS Publishing), by John Berlyne;
Haunted Heart: The Life and Times of Stephen King
(St. Martin’s Griffin), by Lisa Rogak;
On Joanna Russ
(Wesleyan University Press), edited by Farah Mendlesohn;
Kim Stanley Robinson Maps the Unimaginable
(McFarland), edited by William J. Burling;
The Twilight and Other Zones: The Dark Worlds of Richard Matheson
(Citadel Press), edited by Stanley Wiater, Matthew R. Bradley, and Paul Stuve;
The Wizard Knight Companion
(Sirius Fiction), by Michael Andre-Driussi; and
The Authorized Ender Companion
(Tor Books), by Orson Scott Card and Jake Black.

Books of essays and reviews
by
writers included:
Starcombing
(Cosmos Books), by David Langford, undoubtedly the funniest of the lot;
Cheek by Jowl
(Aqueduct Press), by Ursula K. Le Guin;
Canary Fever: Reviews
(Beccon Publications), by John Clute;
Imagination/Space: Essays and Talks on Fiction, Feminism, Technology, and Politics
(Aqueduct Press), by Gwyneth Jones; and
The Fantastic Horizon
(Borgo Press), by Darrell Schweitzer.

Most of the rest of the year’s nonfiction books were more academically oriented. They included:
Unleashing the Strange: Twenty-First Century Science Fiction Literature
(Borgo Press), by Damien Broderick;
The Science Fiction Handbook
(Wiley-Blackwell), by Keith M. Booker and Anne-Marie Thomas;
The Routledge Companion to Science Fiction
(Routledge), edited by Mark Bould, Andrew M. Butler, Adam Roberts, and Sherryl Vint;
Fifty Key Figures in Science Fiction
(Routledge), edited by Mark Bould, Andrew M. Butler, Adam Roberts and Sherryl Vint;
A Guide to Fantasy Literature
(Crickhollow Books), by Philip Martin;
A Short History of Fantasy
(Middlesex University Press), by Farah Mendlesohn and Edward James;
100 Must-Read Fantasy Novels
(A&C Black), by Nick Rennison and Stephen E. Andrews;
Women in Science Fiction and Fantasy: Volume One
(Greenwood Press), edited by Robin Anne Reid;
Women in Science Fiction and Fantasy: Volume Two: Entries
(Greenwood Press), edited by Robin Anne Reid;
The Inter-Galactic Playground: A Critical Study of Children’s and Teens’ Science Fiction
(McFarland), by Farah Mendlesohn;
Red Planets: Marxism and Science Fiction
(Wesleyan University Press), edited by Mark Bould and China Mieville; and
The Fire in the Stone: Prehistoric Fiction from Charles Darwin to Jean M. Auel
(Wesleyan University Press), by Nicholas Ruddick. A book of writing advice is
Booklife: Strategies and Survival Tips for the 21st Century Writer
(Tachyon Press), by Jeff VanderMeer.

It was a pretty good year in the art book market. Artist retrospectives included
From the Pen of Paul The Fantastic Images of Frank R. Paul
(Shasta-Phoenix), by Frank R. Paul;
Imaginative Realism: How to Paint What Doesn’t Exist
(Andrews McMeel), by James Gurney, which doubles as a how-to book;
Norman Saunders
(Illustrated Press), by David Saunders;
Drawing Down the Moon: The Art of Charles Vess
(Dark Horse Comics), by Charles Vess;
Reynold Brown: A Life in Pictures
(Illustrated Press), by Daniel Zimmer and David J. Hornung; and
Gahan Wilson: 50 Years of Playboy Cartoons
(Fantagraphics Books), by Gahan Wilson.

Collections of work by various artists included
Spectrum 16: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art
(Underwood Books), edited by Cathy Fenner and Arnie Fenner, the latest in a long-running ‘Best of the Year’ series for fantastic art;
Imaginaire I: Magic Realism 2008–2009
(Fantasmus-Art), edited by Claus Brusen;
The Future of Fantasy Art
(Collins Design), edited by Aly Fell and Duddlebug;
Exposé 7
(Ballistic), a compilation of digital art, edited by Daniel Wade and Paul Hellard; and
Knowing Darkness: Artists Inspired by Stephen King
(Centipede Press), edited by George Beahm.

Reference books/histories included
Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists of the Twentieth Century: A Biographical Dictionary
(McFarland & Company), by Jane Frank, and
Sci-Fi Art: A Graphic History
(Collins Design), by Steve Holland.

It’s hard to make a case for
The Cartoon History of the Modern World, Part 2: From the Bastille to Baghdad
(Harper), by Larry Gonick, the last volume of his famous Cartoon History of the Universe series, as a genre-related nonfiction book of interest, except perhaps that most fans are interested in history and its interface with technology, but it’s such a wonderful book that I’m going to mention it anyway. The Cartoon History series may be one of the best attempts ever to tell genuine and in fact quite erudite and well-researched history in an easily accessible and understandable format, and is very funny to boot (the extensive bibliographies in the back of every book also make it a valuable reference source in itself). If you’ve missed these, you’ve been cheating yourself out of a great reading experience. It’s a bit easier to justify a mention
of The Age of Wonder, How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science
(Pantheon Books), by Richard Holmes, which explores the lives of Victorian scientists and their often complex relationships with poets, artists, and other philosophers of their time. Even easier to justify is
The Day We Found the Universe
(Pantheon Books), by Marcia Bartusiak, which examines the roots of cosmology and the origin of our modern view of the universe.

As has been true for most of a decade now, genre movies dominated the film industry this year, doing huge box-office business – one of them is now the bestselling movie of all time.

According to Box Office Mojo (www.boxofficemojo.com), eight out of ten of the year’s top-earning movies were genre films of one sort or another (the two exceptions were
The Hangover
, a slob comedy, and
The Blind Side
, a sports drama). By my count, and arbitrarily omitting horror movies, thirty-eight out of the hundred top-earning movies were genre films – if you count
Inglourious Basterds
as an alternate history movie, as some critics have argued, and
Sherlock Holmes
as a steampunk movie (it certainly has some minor fantastic elements), then the total rises to forty out of the top-earning movies being genre movies, as long as your definition of ‘genre’ is wide enough to include fantasy movies and animated films.

That’s not really so different from last year, or the year before that. What makes this year somewhat unusual is that there were several actual SF films, as opposed to fantasy films (last year, there were almost no SF films at all, and none among the top ten), with a couple of them among the top-ten grossers. Also unusual, there were no superhero movies among the top ten; the nearest one was
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
in eleventh place; the much-heralded
Watchmen
finished disappointingly in thirtieth place.

The two-billion-pound gorilla in the room, of course, was
Avatar
, which so far has earned $598,453,037 domestically, plus $1,446,989,293 in foreign grosses, bringing its worldwide total to an incredible $2,045,442,330 (and that doesn’t even count future income from DVD sales, action figures, and the inevitable computer game). All of which makes
Avatar
the highest-grossing film of all time (although it’s worth keeping in mind that it was also the most expensive movie to
make
of all time, with a production bud get rumored to be somewhere in the $500 million range).

As a piece of filmmaking, it’s a breathtaking technical achievement, one of those movies, like
2001
in its day and
Star Wars
in its day, that pushes the edge of the envelope and hugely broadens what is possible to show on the screen. Visually, it’s absolutely stunning. As a
movie
, a piece of storytelling, it’s less impressive, with its bad dialogue, cardboard characters, weak science, heavy-handed New Age polemics, and clichéd plot-elements making it mediocre at best, although director James Cameron does keep it moving along at a brisk action-movie pace throughout.

None of that matters. Nobody really cares. It’s the biggest spectacle you can get on the screen at the moment for the price of a ticket, and (visually at least) a movie experience unlike any other – and that’s what’s bringing them through the door. On that level,
Avatar
totally deserves its success.

Although the most common critical reaction is to compare
Avatar
to Disney’s
Pocahontas
, and snide critics have taken to calling it
‘Dancing with Smurfs,’
as a science fiction story it most resembles a mash-up of Poul Anderson’s ‘Call Me Joe,’ Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Word for World Is Forest,’ and Alan Dean Foster’s
Midworld
, which at least makes it a legitimate science fiction film (it has weak science, of course, rather blatantly signaled by the fact that the wonder mineral they’re searching for is called ‘unobtainium’ – but so do many print SF stories and novels that are accepted by all as a legitimate part of the genre), which makes it by far the most successful SF movie since
Star Wars.
After years of all the top-grossing genre films being fantasy, at least three of the top-ten box-office champs this year were science fiction, and I can’t remember the last time that happened. One or two of them even got some degree of critical respect, although there was no real critical darling among the year’s genre films, critics dividing in opinion on almost all of them.