The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 25 (Mammoth Books) (7 page)

All of these genres showed a sharp increase in young adult novels, up to 24 percent from 2010’s 20 percent in science fiction, up to 35 percent from 2010’s 34 percent in fantasy, and up to 31 percent from 2010’s 24 percent for horror. In SF, dystopian and post-apocalyptic YA SF novels were one of the year’s hottest trends.

As usual, busy with all the reading I have to do at shorter lengths, I didn’t have time to read many novels myself this year, so I’ll limit myself to mentioning those novels that received a lot of attention and acclaim in 2011.

A Dance with Dragons
(Bantam), by George R. R. Martin;
Earthbound
(Ace), by Joe Haldeman;
City of Ruins
(Pyr), by Kristine Kathryn Rusch;
Embassytown
(Del Rey), by China Miéville;
Cowboy Angels
(Pyr), by Paul McAuley;
The Wise Man’s Fear
(DAW Books), by Patrick Rothfuss;
Among Others
(Tor), by Jo Walton;
This Shared Dream
(Tor), by Kathleen Ann Goonan;
Hex
(Ace), by Allen Steele;
Deep State
(Orbit), by Walter Jon Williams;
The Children of the Sky
(Tor), by Vernor Vinge;
Rule 34
(Ace), by Charles Stross;
Planesrunner
(Pyr), by Ian McDonald;
Vortex
(Tor), by Robert Charles Wilson;
Betrayer
(DAW Books), by C. J. Cherryh;
Home Fires
(Tor), by Gene Wolfe;
Count to a Trillion
(Tor), by John C. Wright;
The Magician King
(Viking), by Lev Grossman;
All the Lives He Led
(Tor), by Frederik Pohl;
Daybreak Zero
(Ace), by John Barnes;
After the Golden Age
(Tor), by Carrie Vaughn;
Kitty’s Big Trouble
(Tor), by Carrie Vaughn;
Leviathan Wakes
(Orbit), by James S. A. Corey;
7th Sigma
(Tor), by Steven Gould;
The Dragon’s Path
(Orbit), by Daniel Abraham;
Deathless
(Tor), by Catherynne M. Valente;
The Heroes
(Orbit), by Joe Abercrombe;
Bronze Summer
(Gollancz), by Stephen Baxter;
Stone Spring
(Gollancz), by Stephen Baxter;
Endurance
(Tor), by Jay Lake;
The Tempering of Men
(Tor), by Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear;
Goliath
(Simon Pulse), by Scott Westerfeld;
The Cold Commands
(Del Rey), by Richard Morgan;
Grail
(Spectra), by Elizabeth Bear;
Fuzzy Nation
(Tor), by John Scalzi;
The Islanders
(Gollancz), by Christopher Priest;
Reamde
(HarperCollins), by Neal Stephenson;
By Light Alone
(Gollancz) by Adam Roberts;
Firebird
(Ace), by Jack McDevitt;
The Hammer
(Orbit), by K. J. Parker;
The Highest Frontier
(Tor), by Joan Slonczewski;
The Kings of Eternity
(Solaris), by Eric Brown;
Remade
(William Morrow), by Neal Stephenson;
The Kings of Eternity
(Solaris), by Eric Brown;
Raising Stony Mayhall
(Del Rey), by Daryl Gregory;
11/23/63
(Scribner), by Stephen King; and
Snuff
(HarperCollins), by Terry Pratchett.

I still hear the complaint that there are no SF books left to buy these days, that they’ve all been driven off the shelves by fantasy books, but although there’s a good deal of fantasy in the titles given here, the Haldeman, the Rusch, the Miéville, the McAuley, the Goonan, the Steele, the Williams, the Vinge, the Stross, the McDonald, the Wilson, the Wright, the Corey, the Pohl, the McDevitt, and a number of others are unquestionably core science fiction, and many more could be cited from the lists of small press novels and first novels. There’s still more good core SF out there than any one person could possibly have time to read in the course of a year.

Small presses are active in the novel market these days, where once they published mostly collections and anthologies. Novels issued by small presses this year included:
The Clockwork Rocket
(Night Shade Books), by Greg Egan;
Dancing with Bears
(Night Shade Books), by Michael Swanwick;
Osama: A Novel
(PS Publishing), by Lavie Tidhar;
Wake Up and Dream
(PS Publishing), by Ian R. MacLeod;
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making
(Feiwel and Friends), by Catherynne M. Valente;
The Folded World
(Night Shade Books), by Catherynne M. Valente;
The Uncertain Places
(Tachyon Publications), by Lisa Goldstein;
The Other
(Underland Press), by Matthew Hughes;
Heart of Iron
(Prime Books), by Ekaterina Sedia;
Infidel
(Night Shade Books), by Kameron Hurley;
Scratch Monkey
(NESFA Press), by Charles Stross; and
Dark Tangos
(Subterranean Press), by Lewis Shiner.

The year’s first novels included:
Robopocalypse
(Doubleday), by Daniel H. Wilson;
Ready Player One
(Crown Publishers), by Ernest Cline;
Soft Apocalypse
(Night Shade Books), by Will McIntosh;
Debris
(Angry Robot), by Jo Anderton;
Mechanique
(Prime Books), by Genevieve Valentine;
Necropolis
(Night Shade Books), by Michael Dempsey;
The Falling Machine
(Pyr), by Andrew Mayer;
The Traitor’s Daughter
(Spectra), by Paula Brandon;
No Hero
(Night Shade Books), by Jonathan Wood;
The Girl of Fire and Thorns
(Greenwillow), by Rae Carson;
2030: The Real Story of What Happens to America
(St. Martin’s Press), by Albert Brooks;
God’s War
(Night Shade Books), by Hurley Kameron;
Reality 36
(Angry Robot), by Guy Haley;
Spellcast
(DAW Books), by Barbara Ashford;
Sword of Fire and Sea
(Pyr), by Erin Hoffman;
Low Town
(Doubleday), by Daniel Polansky;
Kindling the Moon
(Pocket Books), by Jenn Bennett;
Farlander
(Tor), by Col Buchanan;
Revolution World
(Night Shade Books), by Katy Stauber;
A Discovery of Witches
(Viking), by Deborah Harkness;
The Tiger’s Wife
(Random House), by Téa Obreht;
The Night Circus
(Doubleday), by Erin Morgenstern;
The Desert of Souls
(Thomas Durine Books), by Howard Andrew Jones;
The Unremembered
(Tor), by Peter Orullilan;
Seed
(Night Shade Books), by Rob Ziegler;
Of Blood and Honey
(Night Shade Books), by Stina Leicht;
Among Thieves
(Roc), by Douglas Hulick;
Awakenings
(Tor), by Edward D. Lazellari;
Miserere: An Autumn Tale
(Night Shade Books), by Teresa Frohock; and
The Whitefire Crossing
(Night Shade Books), by Courtney Schafer. Unlike last year, when Hannu Rajaniemi’s
The Quantum Thief
soaked up most of the attention, none of these novels seemed to have a real edge in attention or acclaim.

Night Shade Books obviously published a lot of novels this year, particularly for a small press, and was particularly active in first novels.

The strongest novella chapbook of the year, by a good margin, was
Silently and Very Fast
(WSFA Press), by Catherynne M. Valente, but there were other good novella chapbooks as well, such as
Jesus and the Eightfold Path
(Immersion Press), by Lavie Tidhar;
Angel of Europa
(Subterranean Press), by Allen Steele;
Blue and Gold
(Subterranean Press), by K. J. Parker;
Gravity Dreams
(PS Publishing), by Stephen Baxter;
The White City
(Subterranean Press), by Elizabeth Bear;
A Brood of Foxes
(Aqueduct), by Kristin Livdahl;
The Affair of the Chalk Cliffs
(Subterranean Press), by James P. Blaylock; and
The Ice Puzzle
(PS Publishing), by Catherynne M. Valente.

Novel omnibuses this year included:
Flandry’s Legacy
(Baen Books), by Poul Anderson;
Rise of the Terran Empire
(Baen Books), by Poul Anderson;
Introducing Garrett, P.I.
(Roc), by Glen Cook;
Galactic Courier
(Baen Books), by A. Bertram Chandler;
The Crystal Variation
(Baen Books), by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller;
Moonsinger’s Quest
(Baen Books), by Andre Norton; and
Kurt Vonnegut: Novels and Stories 1963–1973
(The Library of America), an omnibus of four novels, three stories, and three non-fiction pieces by Vonnegut. Novel omnibuses are also frequently made available through the Science Fiction Book Club.

Not even counting print-on-demand books and the availability of out-of-print books as ebooks or as electronic downloads from Internet sources such as Fictionwise, a lot of long out-of-print stuff has come back into print in the last couple of years in commercial trade editions. Here are some out-of-print titles that came back into print this year, although producing a definitive list of reissued novels is probably impossible. Tor reissued
The Dragons of Babel,
by Michael Swanwick;
A Fire Upon the Deep,
by Vernor Vinge;
Gods of Riverworld,
by Philip José Farmer;
Territory,
by Emma Bull;
Mindscan,
by Robert J. Sawyer;
Sati,
by Christopher Pike;
The Season of Passage,
by Christopher Pike;
Fleet of Worlds,
by Larry Niven and Edward M. Lerner;
The Darkest Part of the Woods,
by Ramsey Campbell; and
A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!,
by Harry Harrison. Orb reissued:
Stations of the Tide,
by Michael Swanwick;
A Bridge of Years,
by Robert Charles Wilson;
The Chronoliths,
by Robert Charles Wilson;
Stand on Zanzibar,
by John Brunner; and
Trouble and Her Friends,
by Melissa Scott. Tor Teen reissued
Sister Light, Sister Dark,
by Jane Yolen. Baen Books reissued
Starman Jones,
by Robert A. Heinlein. Night Shade Books reissued
An Ill Fate Marshalling, Reap the East Wind,
and A
Matter of Time,
all by Glen Cook. Small Beer Press reissued
The Child Garden,
by Geoff Ryman,
Stories of Your Life and Others,
by Ted Chiang; and
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 ebooks, 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 non-retrospective 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.