Paolo Bacigalupi's "The Gambler" Nominated for Nebula

Wonderful news this morning. Paolo Bacigalupi's "The Gambler", which originally appeared in our anthology Fast Forward 2, has been nominated for a Nebula Award in the Novelette category. Congratulations to Paolo on this, and also on his nomination in the Novel category for The Wind-Up Girl (from Night Shade Books).

"The Gambler" was previously a Hugo award and a Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award nominee. So if you haven't read it already, you might want to read "The Gambler" in its entirety on the Pyr Sample Chapters blog here.

And here is the full SFWA press release:

SFWA is proud to announce the nominees for the 2009 Nebula Awards.

The Nebula Awards are voted on, and presented by, active members of  SFWA. The awards will be announced at the Nebula Awards Banquetthe evening of May 15 at the Hilton Cocoa Beach Oceanfront, just 20 minutes from the Kennedy Space Center in Fla. Other awards to be presented are the Andre Norton Award for Excellence in Science Fiction or Fantasy for Young Adults, the Bradbury Award for excellence in screenwriting and the Solstice Award for outstanding contribution to the field.

 Short story
"Hooves and the Hovel of Abdel Jameela," Saladin Ahmed (Clockwork Phoenix 2, Norilana Press, Jul09)
"I Remember the Future," Michael A. Burstein (I Remember the Future, Apex Press, Nov08)
"Non-Zero Probabilities," N. K. Jemisin (Clarkesworld, Nov09)
"Spar," Kij Johnson (Clarkesworld, Oct09)
"Going Deep," James Patrick Kelly (Asimov's Science Fiction, Jun09)
"Bridesicle," Will McIntosh (Asimov's Science Fiction, Jan09)

Novelette
"The Gambler," Paolo Bacigalupi (Fast Forward 2, Pyr Books, Oct08)
"Vinegar Peace, or the Wrong-Way Used-Adult Orphanage," Michael Bishop (Asimov's Science Fiction, Jul08)
"I Needs Must Part, The Policeman Said," Richard Bowes (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Dec09)
"Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast," Eugie Foster (Apex Online, Nov09)
"Divining Light," Ted Kosmatka (Asimov's Science Fiction, Aug08)
"A Memory of Wind," Rachel Swirsky (Tor.com, Nov09)

Novella
The Women of Nell Gwynne's, Kage Baker (Subterranean Press, Jun09)
"Arkfall," Carolyn Ives Gilman (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Sep09)
"Act One," Nancy Kress (Asimov's Science Fiction, Mar09)
Shambling Towards Hiroshima, James Morrow (Tachyon, Feb09)
"Sublimation Angels," Jason Sanford (Jason Sanford, Nov09)
The God Engines, John Scalzi (Subterranean Press, Dec09)

Novel
The Windup Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi (Nightshade, Sep09)
The Love We Share Without Knowing, Christopher Barzak (Bantam, Nov08)
Flesh and Fire, Laura Anne Gilman (Pocket, Oct09)
The City & The City, China Miéville (Del Rey, May09)
Boneshaker, Cherie Priest (Tor, Sep09)
Finch, Jeff VanderMeer (Underland Press, Oct09)

Bradbury Award
Star Trek, JJ Abrams (Paramount, May09)
District 9, Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell (Tri-Star, Aug09)
Avatar, James Cameron (Fox, Dec 09)
Moon, Duncan Jones and Nathan Parker (Sony, Jun09)
Up, Bob Peterson and Pete Docter (Disney/Pixar, May09)
Coraline, Henry Selick (Laika/Focus Feb09)

Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy
Hotel Under the Sand, Kage Baker (Tachyon, Jul09)
Ice, Sarah Beth Durst (Simon and Schuster, Oct09)
Ash, by Malinda Lo (Little, Brown & Company, Sep09)
Eyes Like Stars, Lisa Mantchev (Feiwel and Friends, Jul09)
Zoe's Tale, John Scalzi (Tor Aug08)
When You Reach Me, Rebecca Stead (Wendy Lamb Books, 2009)
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship Of Her Own Making, Catherynne M. Valente (Catherynne M. Valente, Jun09)
Leviathan, Scott Westerfeld (Simon, Oct09)
For more information, visit www.nebulaawards.com or www.sfwa.org

About SFWA
Founded in 1965 by the late Damon Knight, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America brings together the most successful and daring writers of speculative fiction throughout the world.
Since its inception, SFWA® has grown in numbers and influence until it is now widely recognized as one of the most effective non-profit writers' organizations in existence, boasting a membership of approximately 1,500 science fiction and fantasy writers as well as artists, editors and allied professionals.  Each year the organization presents the prestigious Nebula Awards® for the year’s best literary and dramatic works of speculative fiction.

Fabio Fernandes on Fast Forward 2

Over on Fantasy Book Critic, Fabio Fernandes has posted his review of Fast Forward 2.He describes it as being, "an above average anthology" of "strength and quality." Fabio reviews all the stories individually, almost overwhelmingly positively, and then concludes, "The reason I took so long to review this anthology is that I wanted to read it at least twice so I could review all of their stories the way they deserved to be reviewed. Lou Anders has outdone himself as an editor, and all that I have to say is that I´m looking forward to FF 3."

Fast Forward 2: Awards and Best of's Round Up

The anthology itself is a Philip K. Dick Award nominee.

Hugo Award nominees:

Best Novella - “True Names” by Benjamin Rosenbaum & Cory Doctorow
Best Novelette – “The Gambler” by Paolo Bacigalupi

Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award nominees:

"True Names" by Benjamin Rosenbaum & Cory Doctorow
"The Gambler" by Paolo Bacigalupi

2009 Locus Award Finalists:

Best Novella: "True Names" by Benjamin Rosenbaum & Cory Doctorow
Best Short Story: "The Kindness of Strangers" by Nancy Kress

The Year's Best Science Fiction, volume 26, edited by Gardner Dozois:

"The Gambler" by Paolo Bacigalupi
"An Eligible Boy" by Ian McDonald

Year's Best SF 14, edited by David G. Hartwell & Kathryn Cramer:

"Mitigation" by Tobias Buckell & Karl Schroeder

The Best SF and Fantasy of the Year Vol. 3, edited by Jonathan Strahan:

"The Gambler" by Paolo Bacigalupi

Science Fiction: The Best of the Year, 2009, edited by Rich Horton:

"Catherine Drewe" by Paul Cornell

Not too shabby, no?

FF2 up for the PKD: 2008 Philip K. Dick Award Nominees Announced

Fast Forward 2has just been shortlisted for the 2008 Philip K. Dick Award, with the result that I can barely type let alone think. So in lieu of being eloquent, here's the press release:

The judges of the 2008 Philip K. Dick Award and the Philadelphia SF Society, along with the Philip K. Dick Trust, are pleased to announce six nominated works that comprise the final ballot for the award:

EMISSARIES FROM THE DEAD by Adam-Troy Castro (Eos Books)
ENDGAME by Kristine Smith (Eos Books)
FAST FORWARD 2 edited by Lou Anders (Pyr)
JUDGE by Karen Traviss (Eos Books)
TERMINAL MIND by David Walton (Meadowhawk Press)
TIME MACHINES REPAIRED WHILE-U-WAIT by K. A. Bedford (EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing)

First prize and any special citations will be announced on Friday, April 10, 2009 at Norwescon 32 at the Doubletree Seattle Airport Hotel, SeaTac, Washington.

The Philip K. Dick Award is presented annually with the support of the Philip K. Dick Trust for distinguished science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States. The award is sponsored by the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society and the Philip K. Dick Trust and the award ceremony is sponsored by the NorthWest Science Fiction Society. Last year’s winner was NOVA SWING by M. John Harrison (Bantam Spectra) with a special citation to FROM THE NOTEBOOKS OF DR. BRAIN by Minister Faust (Del Rey). The 2008 judges are Tobias Buckell, M. M. Buckner (chair), Walter Hunt, Rosemary Kirstein, and William Senior.

For more information, contact the award administration:

David G. Hartwell (914) 769-5545.

Gordon Van Gelder (201) 876-2551

For more information about the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society, http://www.psfs.org/:

Contact Gary Feldbaum (215) 563-2511

For more information about the Philip K. Dick Trust: www.philipkdick.com

For more information about Norwescon: http://www.norwescon.org/:

Contact NorthWest SF Society: (360) 438-0871

Congrats to all the nominees, and a special shout of gratitude to everyone who contributed to Fast Forward 2!

Update 1/14/09: Kristine Smith's Endgame is apparently ineligible. It has been removed from the list, and replaced with my friend Jeff Carlson's Plague War. Congratulations Jeff! 

Best of 2008: FF2 is Bookgasm's Best Book of the Year

Ryun Patterson, at Bookgasm, publishes his 5 Best Sci-Fi Books of 2008, and Fast Forward 2is the pick for the # 1 book of the year!

"Up until last year, I would never have believed that an anthology of new science fiction could be the best sci-fi book put out in a given year. First of all, is there even a demand for such a beast? It seems that a budding anthologist could make a far more successful book by picking a theme, say 'green aliens with tentacles who are really children in search of their parents but are thought of as evil because of a cultural misunderstanding,' and find awesome tales from the genre’s creaky grandmasters that would guarantee an endcap placement at Borders...

But Anders, who has paid his dues many times over in the science-fiction trenches, doesn’t seem to do the predictable thing, and his risk-taking has paid off. Fast Forward 2 is even more electric than last year’s first: Anders has assembled some of the best and brightest current stars of the genre, and they turned in stories that, as a whole, really do represent the cutting edge of fiction. From a fashion designer who grows living gowns to a raid on the doomsday seed bank to a young man getting Cyrano-with-a-twist dating advice in the India of the future, Fast Forward 2 is the book to read this year. It’s the surest of sure things, and a bargain, to boot."

Deeply honored.

FF2: An Instant Classic

Ryun Patterson, of Bookgasm, on Fast Forward 2:

...a worthy successor [to Fast Forward 1]: Anders has assembled a batch of stories that span the breadth of modern science fiction and provide a better introduction to today’s scene than the musty copies of Fahrenheit 451 lingering in high school English classes ever could. ...anybody that loves science fiction (and fans of the recent outpouring of well-written sci-fi television and movies looking for literary sustenence) can put their trust into Mr. Anders and this instant classic.

And I'm grateful that Ryun took time to mention the cover art:

John Picacio’s ridiculously cool jet-legs-ape-in-front-of-rampaging-mob cover infers a story all its own, and readers can use their own imaginations to come up with the plot for that one.

Fast Forward 2: Catching the Zeitgeist

Paul Raven, of Futurismic, reviews Fast Forward 2,proclaiming it, "an excellent anthology." He reviews each story individually, in order of its Futurismic-relevance, concluding:

 ...if you wanted a good argument for buying anthologies of original short science fiction stories - or even a good defence against those who claim the form is ossified and irrelevant - Fast Forward 2 has your back. The economics of sf magazine publishing may be in question, but the quality of fiction available is riding as high as it has ever been. Sincerely recommended.

However, I'm always thrilled when a reviewer takes the time to consider the cover art, so it's his summation of John Picacio's artwork that I really want to call out here:

 ...a real Zeitgeist catch. Below is strife, carnage, religious angst; thrusting upwards is bionic monkey-man, his chains broken asunder, transcending mundane squabbles for the promise of space and rationalism (bubble chamber tracks?). The religious discord is heightened by the DNA motif, explicitly repeated in the exhaust blast of robomonkey… if you wanted to encapsulate the hope for a triumph (or at least secession) of a rational worldview, I think you’d struggle to make a more arresting and vivid image in the process.

Nice when someone gets it.

Fast Forward 2: Best of the Year

In the just-released December issue of Locus, Gardner Dozois breaks down 2008's best sf anthologies in his column, "Gardnerspace".

"This has been an almost unprecedented year for the number of first-rate original SF anthologies published, at least since the heyday of Orbit, New Dimensions, and Universe in the '70's. ...I'd have to say that the three strongest original SF anthologies of the year were Lou Anders' Fast Forward 2,Jonathan Strahan's Eclipse 2, and Strahan's The Starry Rift.... Of these, I think I'd give a very slight edge to Fast Forward 2."

Meanwhile, at Strange Horizons, Alvaro Zinos-Amaro writes:

"Fast Forward 2 proves itself that rare beast among anthologies of the imagination: one whose content actually provides a materialization of its own theoretical blueprint."

Lots of nice things said about each of the individual stories. And (I must add) a very well-written review too, with paragraphs like:

"Catherine Drew" by Paul Cornell is wildly inventive. Its Hero, Hamilton, speaks in a way ("'You've got a problem, Miss Drewe,' he said") that captures the essence of this alternate-history spy thriller in a British Empire-dominated future. The plot, propelled not so much by a single McGuffin as by a combustible gas of intelligent deceptions and counter-deceptions, makes as much sense as it needs to:

'Is that the mission, sir?'
'No. We've created and are ready to plant chaotic information of an unbreakable nature strongly suggesting that this has already happened...' (p. 22)

The alternate history milieu expertly justifies not only the background but the feel of the world that Cornell creates, yet is never so startling as to prove distracting from Hamilton's exploits. Shaken, not stirred? More like vacuum-decompressed.

And then, in a final summation about the purpose of SF:

"What it should do, above all else, is tell stories well, so well that they cannot be disregarded, so well that they cannot but be taken seriously. Fortunately for us, Fast Forward 2 arrives with gifts that do just that. May it be followed by plenty of equally riveting and well-produced sequels."

What a nice start to my Monday.

Podcast: Yours Truly at SciFi Dimensions

John C. Snider interviews me for the SciFiDimensions Podcast. You can hear in streaming from his website, or you can search iTunes for "SciFiDimensions." I've not listened to it yet, so no idea how I come off, but it felt like a very thorough interview at the time. We talk about Fast Forward 2,Pyr, the art of John Picacio, and many more topics besides. He's a good interviewer, (and hit me with a curve ball out of the gate. Not that I'm saying that's a criteria for a good interview!) He also interviews Tim Lasuita, licensing director for Jack Lake Productions, a Canadian company involved in reprinting Classics Illustrated. Cool!

John also reviews Fast Forward 2 on his blog.

There’s no theme to the Fast Forward series, other than excellence in storytelling. The stories in FF2 cover the spectrum of sub-genres, from near-future parables to far-future space opera, from post-cyberpunk to hard SF; from cautionary tales a la The Twilight Zone to uplifting vignettes that affirm the best in human nature. With such a wide selection of styles and themes, it should come as no surprise that not every entry will appeal to every reader. At the very least, FF2 is like a Whitman Sampler; a little something for everyone, and if you find a story you like, it’ll be from a writer with plenty of other work you can chase down later.

Lou is Omnivoracious

Over on Amazon's Omnivoracious blog, an interview with Yours Truly conducted by the great Jeff Vandermeer and regarding Fast Forward 2. Here's a taste:

Amazon.com: When you edit an original anthology series where you solicit stories only, how do you protect against mediocre material creeping in?

Lou Anders: The very wise Jacob Weisman, editor and publisher of Tachyon Publications, once said that when selecting illustrators for book covers, you shouldn’t pick based on the best work in an artists portfolio, but based on their worst. Because, he said, you had to be willing to live with the worst piece in the portfolio if that is what they hand in. That’s one of the most helpful pieces of publishing advice I’ve ever encountered, and it rules all of my own cover art decisions at Pyr. But it also has applications to editing invite-only anthologies. As much as I’d like to, I can't do open-reads anthologies and still fulfill my job as Editorial Director of the Pyr science fiction and fantasy line. There just aren’t enough hours in the year. But I love the short form and I want to always work in it, and so I must do invite-only. Therefore, I believe very strongly that the moment of editorial discernment falls at the point of the invitation. The best piece of general business advice anyone can give you is this hire people smarter than you are and listen to them. I believe, firmly, that I am working with some of the best writers in the business, and I trust them to deliver. I avoid mediocre material by avoiding mediocre writers!

Gonzo Alternate History in Fast Forward 2

The November 2008 issue of Locus has a review of Fast Forward 2by Rich Horton. He calls it "a fine anthology - one of several in what's shaping up to be a remarkable year for original anthologies." But I'm even more excited by his reaction to one story in particular, as the story in question has really set me on fire. So I'm thrilled when Rich writes:

"Another politically charged piece may be the best story here - the opener, Paul Cornell's 'Catherine Drewe'. This is an alternate history, a bit gonzo, about an English spy charged with taking out the title woman, an Irishwoman who seems to be helping the Russians as they try to dominate Mars. I've failed to convey the interest in the steampunkish tech displayed, as well as the bitter political realism at the center of the story."

And, as you may recall, "Catherine Drewe" is available in its entirety on our new Sample Chapters page. Just go there and click on the link to Fast Forward 2 in the right hand margin.
Meanwhile, I expect we'll hear a lot more about Paul Cornell in the near future.

A Host of Pyr Reviews & a Podcast!

Okay, playing mad catch-up:

A podcast with Joe Abercrombie on the Dragon Page. Their description: "This week, Mike, Summer and Mike talk with Joe Abercrombie about Last Argument of Kings,the third book in The First Law Trilogy. We talk about the characters and the more contemporary feel of their speech, the more intimate nature of relationships and intrigues, and about how the buzz about these stories surround the writing style of the battle scenes."

Meanwhile, Patrick Rothfus, he of The Name of the Wind,raves about Joe Abercrombie (and Brandon Sanderson) on his blog: "The books are good, really good. They pulled me in. Well-developed world. Unique, compelling characters. I like them so much that when I got to the end of the second book and found out the third book wasn't going to be out in the US for another three months. I experienced a fit of rage, then a fit of depression, then I ate some lunch and had a bit of a lay down... I will also say this. This isn't some cookie-cutter fantasy. It's refreshingly realistic, but also very gritty and dark. It might even be fair to call it grim. You have been warned." Of course, I should point out, the books are all three available in the US now...

Discover Magazine on Fast Forward 2: "It’s a great collection, with a good mix of stories ranging from hard science fiction to near magic realism. Stand outs for me included 'True Names,' a novella by Doctorow and Benjamin Rosenbaum set in a post-post-post-human universe, and 'An Eligible Boy,' written by Ian McDonald, that takes place in the mid-21st century India that McDonald has used as the backdrop for his 2004 book River of Gods." Our friend and frequent commentator Rene also has a nice review on her blog, Little Bits of Everything: "This is a fantastic anthology that I look forward to rereading. I sincerely hope that Fast Forward becomes an annual anthology; the first two volumes are incredibly strong."

Over at Adventures in Reading, Joe Sherry reviews Mike Resnick's Starship: Mercenary. I was struck by a particular comparison he made - "This may be an odd comparison given the length and success of Mike Resnick's career, but Starship: Mercenary is a fun military science fiction novel that fans of John Scalzi's work will want to jump right into. There is a certain comparison and similarity in style." This struck me because I read the manuscript for Mercenary within a month of The Last Colony and thought the same thing.

Also a positive review of Stalking the Vampire at Monsters & Critics: "...features offbeat humor, amusing dialog and a zany cast of characters that is sure to entertain the most jaded sci-fi fan and spark plenty of interest in an emerging series."

And here Intercontinental Ballistic Discourse discusses a host of Mike Resnick works, including the extant Starship series: "I’ve got to say: wow! The characters are engaging, the story is fast and entertaining, and the plots are believable. My favorite form of science fiction is loosly described as military science fiction, or sci-fi that takes place around a starcraft or some form of governmental space navy and this series started off that way and branched out to something even more."

Whew!

Joe Mallozzi on Fast Forward 2

Stargate: Atlantis executive producer/writer and all around good guy Joseph Mallozzi has some nice things to say about my latest anthology, Fast Forward 2:

Long-time visitors to this blog are no doubt familiar with editor Lou Anders through his (all-too) infrequent visits here, and his previous SF collection, Fast Forward: Future Fiction From the Cutting Edge, which was a past book of the month club selection. Well, in Fast Forward 2, Lou has assembled a nice group of stories form the likes of Jack McDevitt, Nancy Kress, and Dr. Who’s Paul Cornell. As is the case with most anthologies, I didn’t like everything. But most of what I did like, I liked a lot. Stand-outs for me included Paolo Bacigalupi’s powerfully dead-on commentary on the challenges of maintaining journalistic integrity in a market increasingly driven by hits and eyeballs (“The Gambler”), Ian McDonald’s delightful tale of a young man in future India who relies on an Hindu A.I. to give him game (“An Eligible Boy“), Mike Resnick and Pat Cadigan’s trippy account of a world in which the borders between dream and reality blur (“Not Quite Alone in the Dream Quarter“), and Jack McDevitt’s amusing and ultimately heartfelt tale of a reluctant A.I. named George. Special mention should also be made of the book’s cover compliments of our pal John Picacio.

Paul Cornell's Short Story From FF2 Free Online!

In support of Fast Forward 2,we've put the entirely of the opening story from the anthology online at the new Pyr Sample Chapters page. (If you are viewing this inside the frame of the Pyr site, you might right click to avoid opening a window in a window).

"Catherine Drewe" by two-time Hugo nominee Paul Cornell is a tale of a Bond-like character in an alternate history where the Great Game never ended and the British Empire - along with the other world powers - extends its reach throughout the solar system.

Paul says of the character:

"I like to think I'm writing in the tradition of Ian Fleming's Bond novels (not the movies) but I'm trying to stay away from pastiche, and instead hope to explore the same debates about masculinity and Britishness he did, while perhaps coming to different conclusions."

Darkness is Overrated

Paul Cornell is interviewed at io9.com today. He talks about writing for Doctor Who (in the book, webisode and television mediums), Marvel comics (Wisdom, Captain Britain and MI-13, Fantastic Four: True Story), and radio (he's adapting Iain Banks' "The State of the Art" for BBC Radio 4).

And he even gets a nice plug in for a few SF anthologies:

So what are you working on now that you're most excited by?

At the moment, I'm most excited by the fact that I've got a story in all three continuing original SF short story anthologies (non-themed, that is). It's a complicated boast, but I like it. Two of the stories are in a series, the "Jonathan Hamilton" stories, which are in the style of Ian Fleming (the books, not the movies) and are vicious espionage tales set in a world where... well, I know what the difference to history is, but I haven't told the audience entirely yet. At any rate, the 'great game' of political balance in Europe continues, and the great European nations have colonised the solar system, while continuing a delicate cold war against each other.

Those two stories, 'Catherine Drewe' and 'One of our Bastards is Missing' are in Fast Forward 2from Pyr and the Solaris Book of New SF 3, respectively. The other story, 'Michael Laurits is: DROWNING' is in the second Eclipse collection, which is I think is going to be launched at Calgary this year. I love SF short stories, and I'm hoping to get into doing more.

And yeah, "Catherine Drewe" is going to blow you away.

Podcast: Lou ex Machina

I'm a guest today on Fantasy author Gail Z. Martin's Ghost in the Machine podcast. We talk about the two anthologies I have out this year, Sideways In Crimeand Fast Forward 2. We also talk about the difference in writing for short form vs novel length, Stephen King's It and The Gunslinger, and much more. Here's the direct link.

Update - And here's the actual podcast: 

Boxers don't get good by avoiding being hit.

Fantastic writing advice from Paul Cornell here in this SFX interview.

"Boxers don't get good by avoiding being hit."

Paul is an old friend, a great guy, a fantastic writer, a two-time Hugo nominee, a superstar in Britain and around the world for his contributions to Doctor Who, a new star at Marvel comics, and his "Catherine Drewe" is the story I chose to open Fast Forward 2with, for reasons you will all understand shortly.

Enjoy!

"Long Eyes" in Hebrew

Excited about Fast Forward 2?

Want a sneak peak?

Read Hebrew?

If you answered "yes" to all three, here's one of the stories - Jeff Carlson's "Long Eyes" with illustrations. The rest of you non-Hebrew readers will just have to wait till October.

Fast Forward 2: "True Names" Podcast

I'm very happy to announce that my anthology Fast Forward 2 is set for an October 2008 publication date. I delivered the manuscript to my production manager just a few weeks ago. I think it's even stronger than Fast Forward 1, which is saying something since FF1 saw seven stories reprinted nine times in four “Year’s Best" anthologies!

One of the highlights of the second volume will undoubtedly be a 32,000 word collaboration between Benjamin Rosenbaum and Cory Doctorow. "True Names" is a tale of galactic wars between vast, post-Singularity intelligences that are competing to corner the universe’s supply of computation before the heat-death of the universe. The title is, of course, a homage to Vernor Vinge’s famous story of the same name. Writing on his blog, Rosenbaum says that "This story came out of a conversation at the Hugo Loser's party at Worldcon 2002 -- the part about 'the second law of thermodynamics as the ultimate party-spoiler in a transhuman utopia of self-spawning consciousness'; it acquired shades of Jane Austen, Voltaire, megamillion year ideological warfare, gender theory, coming-of-age story, and musical theater along the way."

For those wanting a preview, Rosenbaum and Doctorow have begun podcasting "True Names" here on Cory's site. Now here's a peak at the rest of the TOC:

Introduction: The Age of Accelerating Returns - Lou Anders
Catherine Drewe - Paul Cornell
Cyto Couture - Kay Kenyon
The Sun Also Explodes - Chris Nakashima-Brown
The Kindness of Strangers - Nancy Kress
Alone With An Inconvenient Companion - Jack Skillingstead
True Names - Cory Doctorow & Benjamin Rosenbaum
Molly’s Kids - Jack McDevitt
Adventure - Paul McAuley
Not Quite Alone in the Dream Quarter - Mike Resnick & Pat Cadigan
An Eligible Boy - Ian McDonald
SeniorSource - Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Migration - Karl Schroeder and Tobias S. Buckell
Long Eyes - Jeff Carlson
The Gambler - Paolo Bacigalupi

Excited?