Tag Archives: Jonathan Strahan

A Look at Jonathan Strahan’s Year’s Best Collection

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strahan years best 10The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Vol. 10
Jonathan Strahan, ed.
Solaris
trade paper $19.99
ebook $7.99

So back at the beginning of the summer, I decided to try to read through all of the year’s best anthologies, or at least as many as I could. That project hasn’t gone very well for the same reason I’ve not gotten much blogging done in general. Life has been happening, in other words, and I’ve had to devote my time to other things.

But I’m going to try to get as many of these volumes finished as I can before the end of the year. Jonathan Strahan’s series is probably the second longest running after Gardner Dozois’s, a series which had its 33rd installment released earlier this year. I’ve gotten a couple of review copies of previous volumes of Strahan’s series in the past, but this is the first one I’ve finished. Solaris only made the review copies available in PDF format, which my ereader didn’t deal with very well. I would need to resize the font, and doing so messed up the formatting. This year I spent my own money and sprung for the print edition.

Unlike Neil Clarke’s volume (reviewed here), which was exclusively science fiction, Strahan mixes the sf with fantasy.  Here are my thoughts. Continue reading →

A Review of Fearsome Magics

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FEARSOME MAGICS COVERFearsome Magics The New Solaris Book of Fantasy
Jonathan Strahan, ed.
Solaris Books
Release date October 7, 2014 US, October 9, UK
Mass market paperback $9.99 US,  £7.99 UK
ebook: There’ll be one, but I have no specifics at this time

Solaris is one of the few publishers who still do anthologies on a regular basis. And I don’t mean one or two. I mean at least four or five a year, and well put together ones, at that. And Jonathan Strahan is one of the field’s premier editors at short length. Any anthology with his name on it is going to get my attention. Put the two together, and it’s like peanut butter and chocolate. I’ve got several of his anthologies from Solaris in my virtual TBR pile. (Yes, I’m behind on my reading.)

The one I want to talk about today is his their next one. It’s Fearsome Magics. It’s a followup to Fearsome Journeys (which is in the real TBR pile). A number of years ago, and I won’t look up how many because I don’t want to depress myself with contemplating the passage of time, Solaris published three volumes of The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction and one of The Solaris Book of New Fantasy. They were great anthologies, but for some reason, Solaris didn’t continue them.

Now both series are back. The science fiction can be found in the Solaris Rising series (review of the first volume here). Fearsome is the operating title of the fantasy, with a loose them being defined by the second word.

The theme of this volume is magic.  There’s a lot of variety here, enough that I can almost guarantee that there will be multiple stories that will appeal to any reader and a high likelihood that there will be at least one that won’t be to your taste.  As long time readers of my reviews know, I consider that to be a strength.  An anthology which has a great deal of variety will be a strong anthology.

This one is no exception.  Here are a few of my favorites, in the order they appear in the book. Continue reading →