Steampunk

Steampunk is a collection of short stories in the steampunk subgenre of science fiction. Steampunk mixes Victorian elements with technology from the era that is extrapolated to futuristic powers.

An excellent example of the genre is the story "The Steam Man of the Prairie and the Dark Rider Get Down: a Dime Novel" by Joe R. Lansdale. It features four men piloting a giant metal man into the wilderness to destroy a powerful vampire like creature called the Dark Rider. The Dark Rider is the traveler from H. G. Wells' story The Time Machine. The story is just a little dark and a little humorous, and full of gritty action.

In a different style, Ted Chiang's "Seventy-Two Letters" is about an alternate reality where instead of DNA biology works through homunculi, miniature representations of beings. The main character is trained in the science or art of creating Hebrew letters to animate golems. He learns that a secret society has learned how to adapt the numerology to living tissue. The story mixes two fantastic elements to create a fascinating world. The story deals with interesting ethical dilemmas due to the technological possibilities.

Paul Di Filippo's story "Victoria" presents an amusing juxtaposition: the virgin queen supplanted by her namesake as a sex-crazed human created from a newt. As the story unfolds, the characters visit the seediest parts of England. It's a story about morality and society as much as technology, and it is a fun story to read.

Other fun and playful stories include "Minutes of the Last Meeting" by Stepan Chapman, which describes an attack on the czar Nicholas and his AI intelligence service. Also there is Jay Lake's "The God-Clown is Near" about the creation of a golem with a moral intelligence. The book includes an overview of the genre and descriptions of noteworthy stories, movies, and comic books. It is a fun read. A-

Year's Best Fantasy 9

Year's Best Fantasy 9 was published in 2009, with David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer as the editors. This edition contains some nice fantasy stories.

Marc Laidlaw's "Childrun" is a fantastic tale of a bard finding his way to a strange town. The town gates are closed but the schoolmarm lets him in. All the children have mysteriously disappeared from the town, except for one large infant that the schoolmarm takes care of. The story gets stranger as the townspeople sneak up on the schoolhouse and the bard tries to figure out an escape. The baby changes from weird to sinister.

One of the most striking stories is "The First Editions" by James Stoddard. In this story, the narrator visits a wizard who turns him into a book. The wizard places him on a bookshelf with other books where he gets to know the others who share his fate. The story develops in unexpected ways, surprising the reader. Another gem is Richard Parks' "Skin Deep", about a young woman who inherits from her grandmother the knowledge of the healing arts, as well as a set of skins that she wears to do specific tasks. The skins are not just tools: they affect the wearer and can take strength to control.

Richard Bowes' "If Angels Fight" is a supernatural story about a strong spirit who inhabits the scion of a New England political family. The spirit leaves and the young man dies, but the matriarch asks the narrator to find him again. The story is a little creepy but still somehow moving. Another supernatural story is "The Salting and Canning of Benevolence D.", by Al Michaud. In a lighter vein, it details the haunting of a man after getting a replacement tooth.

The stories range from witches to ghosts, from supernatural to science fantasy. Some are structured differently, like "Reader's Guide" by Lisa Goldstein and "A Buyer's Guide to Maps of Antarctica" by Catherynne M. Valente. Kim Wilkins' "The Forest" is a modern take on Hansel and Gretel. They are a wide variety of stories, all inventive. The best stories give a new take on life and the experience of being human, like "Skin Deep" and "The First Editions". There is enough action and fantastic places here for a lot of enjoyment. A-

McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales

McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales is an anthology of short stories published in 2003. The stories are somewhat thrilling but of mixed quality. They have elements of alternative history, science fiction, and westerns.

One of the highlights is Elmore Leonard's "How Carlos Webster Changed His Name to Carl and Became a Famous Oklahoma Lawman". The story follows the title character in two episodes: the first when he witnesses a mobster kill a police officer, and then when years later when he sets a trap for the mobster and gets the drop on him. The main character is a tough young man who becomes a capable and crafty lawman.

Another interesting tale is Glen David Gold's "The Tears of Squonk, and What Happened Thereafter". It is about the death of a circus elephant, and the history of one of the clowns that may have been involved with the elephant for years. The story is a tragedy with a strange twist. I enjoyed reading "Catskin" by Kelly Link, even when I realized I had read it once in another anthology. It is a very weird tale of fantasy, in which a murdered witch's cat leads the witch's surviving son on a mission of vengeance. The story is full of transformations and strange powers.

Neil Gaiman's "Closing Time" is a gem of a story, told inside a framing story by someone at an English club. The narrator tells of an eerie old house and the spooky woods, where three boys end up getting lost. It evokes the dark side of childhood, when mysteries are everywhere and dark things are just around the corner. Michael Moorcock's "The Case of the Nazi Canary" is a fun alternate history story concerning Adolph Hitler and the death of his niece in 1931. Another fun tale was Michael Chabon's "The Martian Agent, a Planetary Romance". It's another alternate history story in a Wild West where Queen Victoria still rules and General Custer is a rebel fighting for freedom. It follows two sons of one of Custer's rebels as they escape and are caught and try to survive in a tough group home.

Some of these stories were fun and imaginative, with interesting historical twists. The characters are strong and well-drawn, within the confines of a short story. But some of the stories fell a little flat. I was a bit disappointed in the stories by Stephen King and Michael Crichton's stories. Other stories were adequate but hardly what I'd call thrilling. They certainly had a fantastic or strange setting but the story didn't quite come together. The stories cover a wide range of settings, moods, and characters. B-

The Best of Gene Wolfe

The Best of Gene Wolfe is a retrospective of Wolfe's short stories going back to 1970. Wolfe is a great writer of science fiction and fantasy, and can create fascinating short stories as well as novels.

The collection starts with "The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories," a whimsical story about a boy and his mother and his fantasies coming to life. A follow up is "The Death of Dr. Island", a bittersweet story about a boy on an island of land in a sea inside a space sphere. Nicholas is a mental patient taken to the island as a last ditch effort to make him better. However he must interact with two other patients there. The island speaks to him in the whispers of the plants and the ocean. He learns a painful lesson when one of his companions gets better at the expense of the other. The story is enchanting and moving.

"The Fifth Head of Cerberus" is a somewhat dark story about a boy and his brother raised in a mysterious mansion on a colonized world. The boy has a sinister relationship with his father, who calls him forth each night to speak a stream of consciousness until he passes out. Slowly he comes to a realization of his true identity. The tale evokes questions of personhood and determining one's fate.

Most of Wolfe's characters find an inner strength. They are typically young men or boys thrown into an awkward position and forced to change. An example is the protagonist of "The Eyeflash Miracles", a blind boy in an future world who has vivid dreams where he can see. The dreams become more real as the story progresses. He must fight both in real life and his dreams to survive.

One different protagonist is the title character of "Forlesen", who wakes up one morning with a wife and children and a job he knows nothing about. He stumbles through the day trying to fake everything and ends up in a coffin when he comes home from work. To me it is an allegory about stumbling through life.

There are other small gems in the book, such as "The Marvelous Brass Chessplaying Automaton", a story of deception and intrigue. Or "Straw", about medieval warriors in a hot air balloon. All of the stories are fanciful and intriguing. Wolfe is a great writer, and this volume is a great collection of stories. I find the fantasy in his stories very alluring. A-