Year's Best Weird Fiction: Volume Two
Edited by Kathe Koja and Michael Kelly. Cover art by Tomasz Alen Kopera.
Acclaimed author Kathe Koja brings her expert eye and editorial sense to the second volume of the Year's Best Weird Fiction. Contributing authors include Julio Cortazar, Jean Muno, Karen Joy Fowler, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Nick Mamatas, Carmen Maria Machado, Nathan Ballingrud, and more. No longer the purview of esoteric readers, weird fiction is enjoying wide popularity. Chiefly derived from early 20th-century pulp fiction, its remit includes ghost stories, the strange and macabre, the supernatural, fantasy, myth, philosophical ontology, ambiguity, and a healthy helping of the outre. At its best, weird fiction is an intersecting of themes and ideas that explore and subvert the Laws of Nature. It is not confined to one genre, but is the most diverse and welcoming of all genres.
Contents:
- “The Atlas of Hell” by Nathan Ballingrud (Fearful Symmetries, ed. Ellen Datlow, ChiZine Publications)
- “Wendigo Nights” by Siobhan Carroll (Fearful Symmetries, ed. Ellen Datlow, ChiZine Publications)
- “Headache” by Julio Cortázar. English-language translation by Michael Cisco (Tor.com, September 2014)
- “Loving Armageddon” by Amanda C. Davis (Crossed Genres Magazine #19, July 2014)
- “The Earth and Everything Under” by K.M. Ferebee (Shimmer Magazine #19, May 2014)
- “Nanny Anne and the Christmas Story” by Karen Joy Fowler (Subterranean Press Magazine, Winter 2014)
- “The Girls Who Go Below” by Cat Hellisen (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July/August 2014)
- “Nine” by Kima Jones (Long Hidden: Speculative Fiction From the Margins of History, eds. Rose Fox & Daniel José Older, Crossed Genres Publications)
- “Bus Fare” by Caitlín R. Kiernan (Subterranean Press Magazine, Spring 2014)
- “The Air We Breathe Is Stormy, Stormy” by Rich Larson (Strange Horizons Magazine, August 2014)
- “The Husband Stitch” by Carmen Maria Machado (Granta Magazine, October 2014)
- “Observations About Eggs From the Man Sitting Next to Me on a Flight from Chicago, Illinois to Cedar Rapids, Iowa” by Carmen Maria Machado (Lightspeed Magazine #47, April 2014)
- “Resurrection Points” by Usman T. Usman T. Malik (Strange Horizons Magazine, August 2014)
- “Exit Through the Gift Shop” by Nick Mamatas (Searchers After Horror: New Tales of the Weird and Fantastic, ed. S.T. Joshi, Fedogan & Bremer)
- “So Sharp That Blood Must Flow” by Sunny Moraine (Lightspeed Magazine #45, February 2014)
- “A Stretch of Highway Two Lanes Wide” by Sarah Pinsker (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, March/April 2014)
- “Migration” by Karin Tidbeck (Fearsome Magics: The New Solaris Book of Fantasy, ed. Jonathan Strahan, Solaris)
- “Hidden in the Alphabet” by Charles Wilkinson (Shadows & Tall Trees 2014, ed. Michael Kelly, Undertow Publications)
- “A Cup of Salt Tears” by Isabel Yap (Tor.com, August 2014)
Readers also enjoyed
Kathe Koja
Kathe Koja (born 1960) is an American writer. She was initially known for her intense speculative fiction for adults, but over the past few years has turned to writing young adult novels.
Koja is also a prolific author of short stories, including many in collaboration with Barry N. Malzberg. Most of her short fiction remains uncollected. Koja's novels and short stories frequently concern characters who have been in some way marginalized by society, often focusing on the transcendence and/or disintegration which proceeds this social isolation (as in The Cipher, Bad Brain, "Teratisms," The Blue Mirror, etc.). Koja won the Bram Stoker Award and the Locus Award for her first novel The Cipher, and a Deathrealm Award for Strange Angels. Her prose has been described as "stunning".
Year's Best Weird Fiction
Year's Best Weird Fiction consists of five books. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
