The Apex Book of World SF

Edited by Lavie Tidhar. Cover art by Randall McDonald.

The Apex Book of World SF, edited by Lavie Tidhar, features award-winning science fiction and fantasy short stories from Asia, Eastern Europe and around the world.

The world of speculative fiction is expansive; it covers more than one country, one continent, or one culture. Collected here are sixteen stories penned by authors from Thailand, the Philippines, China, Israel, Pakistan, Serbia, Croatia, Malaysia, and other countries across the globe. Each one tells a tale breathtakingly vast and varied, whether caught in the ghosts of the past or entangled in a postmodern age.

Among the spirits, technology, and deep recesses of the human mind, stories abound. Kites sail to the stars, technology transcends physics, and wheels cry out in the night. Memories come and go like fading echoes and a train carries its passengers through more than simple space and time. Dark and bright, beautiful and haunting, the stories herein represent speculative fiction from a sampling of the finest authors from around the world.

Contents:

• "The Bird Catcher" by S.P. Somtow (Thailand)
• "Transcendence Express" by Jetse de Vries (Netherlands)
• "The Levantine Experiments" by Guy Hasson (Israel)
• "The Wheel of Samsara" by Han Song (China)
• "Ghost Jail" by Kaaron Warren (Australia/Fiji)
• "Wizard World" by Yang Ping (China)
• "L'Aquilone du Estrellas (The Kite of Stars)" by Dean Francis Alfar (Philippines)
• "Cinderers" by Nir Yaniv (Israel)
• "The Allah Stairs" by Jamil Nasir (Palestine)
• "Biggest Baddest Bomoh" by Tunku Halim (Malaysia)
• "The Lost Xuyan Bride" by Aliette de Bodard (France)
• "Excerpt from a Letter by a Social-realist Aswang" by Kristin Mandigma (Philippines)
• "An Evening in the City Coffehouse, With Lydia on My Mind" by Aleksandar Žiljak (Croatia)
• "Into the Night" by Anil Menon (India)
• "Elegy" by Mélanie Fazi (France, translated by Christopher Priest)
• "Compartments" by Zoran Živkovic (Serbia, translated by Alice Copple-Tosic)