Thursday, October 30, 2014

Table of contents - "Imaginarium 3: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing" edited by Sandra Kasturi & Helen Marshall

I was relieved when finally news about the new volume of “The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror” reached me, not because there are no more such anthologies of year’s best out there, on the contrary I do have a couple I follow devoutly together with this one, but because this excellent collection showcased some wonderful fiction from Down Under. At a first glance, collections such the Australian Best Fantasy and Horror might seem as a narrowing in selection, but I actually find them a welcome expansion of similar anthologies that have a wider coverage. As time and the first three volumes of “The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror” proved there are plenty of talented voices and outstanding stories that deserved a presence in any year’s best but missed the more established ones due to the available space. Therefore I thrilled with the publication of yearly collection dedicated to a certain country or region, such as the already mentioned “The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror” and “Imaginarium: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing”. The latter sees this year its third edition being published and, after Sandra Kasturi joined forces with Halli Villegas and Samantha Beiko for the editing of the first two volumes, this year none other than the very gifted Helen Marshall is one of the editors. I am as excited as I was with the publication of the first “Imaginarium” two years ago, if not even more enthusiastic since I was rewarded with some high-quality stories in the first two volumes of this “Best Canadian Speculative Writing”. This year seems no different, there are a couple of my nowadays favorite writers on the table of contents together with some who are just waiting to be discovered. And with a release date set for November, 4th it appears that the end of this year I have my hands full with such yearly collections. I see no reasons for complaining however, in such cases the more of them, with such quality, the better.

“The Book with No End” by Colleen Anderson
“Frankenstein’s Monster” by James Arthur
“Social Services” by Madeline Ashby
“The Correspondence between the Governess and the Attic” by Siobhan Carroll
“Red Doc” (excerpt) by Anne Carson
“A Charm for Communing with Dead Pets During Surgery” by Peter Chiykowski
“Turing Tests” by Peter Chiykowski
“In the Year Two Thousand Eleven” by Jan Conn
“Jazzman/Puppet” by Joan Crate
“The Runner of n-Vamana” by Indrapramit Das
“Firebugs” by Craig Davidson
“By His Things You Will Know Him” by Cory Doctorow
“Lost” by Amal El-Mohtar
“:axiom: the calling” (excerpts) by Daniela Elza
“Trap-Weed” by Gemma Files
“Oubliette” by Gemma Files
“Ushakiran” by Laura Friis
“A Cavern of Redbrick” by Richard Gavin
“All My Princes are Gone” by Jennifer Giesbrecht
“A Tall Girl” by Kim Goldberg
“Ksampguiyaeps Woman-Out-to-Sea” by Neile Graham
“The Easthound” by Nalo Hopkinson
“Harvesting Lost Hearts” by Louisa Howerow
“Your Figure Will Assume Beautiful Outlines” by Claire Humphrey
“Salt and Iron Dialogues” by Matthew Johnson
“The Salamander's Waltz” by Catherine MacLeod
“Said the Axe Man” by Tamara MacNeil
“Nahuales” by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
“The Fairy Godmother” by Kim Neville
“Black Hen à la Ford” by David Nickle
“Jinx” by Robert Priest
“Knife Throwing Through Self-Hypnosis” by Robin Richardson
“How Gods Go on the Road” by Robin Richardson
“Conditional Sphere of Everyday Historical Life” by Leon Rooke
“Stemming the Tide” by Simon Strantzas
“Book of Vole” (excerpts) by Jane Tolmie
“Fishfly Season” by Halli Villegas
“Lesser Creek: A Love Story, A Ghost Story” by A.C. Wise

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