Old Venus

Locus Award 2016.

Edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois.

Sixteen all-new stories by science fiction’s top talents, collected by bestselling author George R. R. Martin and multiple-award-winning editor Gardner Dozois

From pulp adventures such as Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Carson of Venus to classic short stories such as Ray Bradbury’s “The Long Rain” to visionary novels such as C. S. Lewis’s Perelandra, the planet Venus has loomed almost as large in the imaginations of science fiction writers as Earth’s next-nearest neighbor, Mars. But while the Red Planet conjured up in Golden Age science fiction stories was a place of vast deserts and ruined cities, bright blue Venus was its polar opposite: a steamy, swampy jungle world with strange creatures lurking amidst the dripping vegetation. Alas, just as the last century’s space probes exploded our dreams of Mars, so, too, did they shatter our romantic visions of Venus, revealing, instead of a lush paradise, a hellish world inimical to all life.

But don’t despair! This new anthology of sixteen original stories by some of science fiction’s best writers — edited by #1 New York Times bestselling author George R. R. Martin and award-winning editor Gardner Dozois — turns back the clock to that more innocent time, before the hard-won knowledge of science vanquished the infinite possibilities of the imagination.

Join our cast of award-winning contributors — including Elizabeth Bear, David Brin, Joe Haldeman, Gwyneth Jones, Mike Resnick, Eleanor Arnason, Allen M. Steele, and more — as we travel back in time to a planet that never was but should have been: a young, rain-drenched world of fabulous monsters and seductive mysteries.

FEATURING ALL-NEW STORIES BY

Eleanor Arnason • Elizabeth Bear • David Brin • Tobias S. Buckell • Michael Cassutt • Joe Haldeman • Matthew Hughes • Gwyneth Jones • Joe R. Lansdale • Stephen Leigh • Paul McAuley • Ian McDonald • Garth Nix • Mike Resnick • Allen M. Steele • Lavie Tidhar

And an Introduction by Gardner Dozois

Contents:

• Introduction, by Gardner Dozois
• Frogheads, by Allen M. Steele
• The Drowned Celestrial, by Lavie Tidhar
• Planet Of Fear, by Paul McAuley
• Greeves And The Evening Star, by Matthew Hughes
• A Planet Called Desire, by Gwyneth Jones
• Living Hell, by Joe Haldeman
• Bone of Air, Bones of Stone, by Stephen Leigh
• Ruins, by Eleanor Arnason
• The Tumbledowns Of Cleopatra Abyss, by David Brin
• By Frogsled And Lizardback To Outcast Venusian Lepers, by Garth Nix
• The Sunset Of Time, by Michael Cassutt
• Pale Blue Memories, by Tobias S. Buckell
• The Heart's Filthy Lesson, by Elizabeth Bear
• The Wizard Of The Trees, by Joe R. Lansdale
• The Godstone of Venus, by Mike Resnick
• Botanica Veneris: Thirteen Papercuts By Ida Countess Rathangan, by Ian McDonald