World SF

Suddenly my RSS feeds are full of people posting the table of contents for the upcoming Apex Book of World SF vol. 2, and with good reason -- this is really an exciting ToC, at least at first glance:
Rochita Loenen-Ruiz (Philippines)–Alternate Girl’s Expatriate Life
Ivor W. Hartmann (Zimbabwe)–Mr. Goop
Daliso Chaponda (Malawi)–Trees of Bone
Daniel Salvo (Peru)–The First Peruvian in Space
Gustavo Bondoni (Argentina)–Eyes in the Vastness of Forever
Chen Qiufan (China)–The Tomb
Joyce Chng (Singapore)–The Sound of Breaking Glass
Csilla Kleinheincz (Hungary)–A Single Year
Andrew Drilon (Philippines)–The Secret Origin of Spin-man
Anabel Enriquez Piñeiro (Cuba)–Borrowed Time (trans. Daniel W. Koon)
Lauren Beukes (South Africa)–Branded
Raúl Flores Iriarte (Cuba)–December 8
Will Elliott (Australia)–Hungry Man
Shweta Narayan (India)–Nira and I
Fábio Fernandes (Brazil)–Nothing Happened in 1999
Tade Thompson (Nigeria)–Shadow
Hannu Rajaniemi (Finland)–Shibuya no Love
Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Mexico)–Maquech
Sergey Gerasimov (Ukraine)–The Glory of the World
Tim Jones (New Zealand)–The New Neighbours
Nnedi Okorafor (Nigeria/US)–From the Lost Diary of TreeFrog7
Gail Har’even (Israel)–The Slows
Ekaterina Sedia (Russia)–Zombie Lenin
Samit Basu (India)–Electric Sonalika
Andrzej Sapkowski (Poland)–The Malady (trans. Wiesiek Powaga)
Jacques Barcia (Brazil)–A Life Made Possible Behind The Barricades
Wow -- it's rare that I encounter an SF anthology where I'm not familiar with at least half the writers' names, and it's hard for me to express how truly excited I am to see so few names that I know, along with some folks whose work I really respect.  I know lots of folks who buy anthologies because they are full of familiar names, and I do that, too, but the real excitement for me these days comes from anthologies that really seem to have put effort into mixing things up.  More exciting still is the global representation -- this really is, within the practical limits of any book, a world anthology.

I know what it takes to put an anthology together; it's always a lot of work, but this sort of international anthology usually requires even more work, so huge kudos to editor Lavie Tidhar and all the folks at Apex for being willing to put the effort, time, and resources into it.  I have no idea what I'll think of the individual stories, but I'm already grateful this book will exist, because international collections such as this help us all, I think, have a better perspective on literature and the world. 

For such collections to continue to exist, we're also going to need to buy them, and I hope folks will do so.  The Apex Book of World SF vol. 2 is scheduled for release next year; keep your eyes out!

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