The table of contents for the first anthology in the Fiction River series is set and it is very strong. Kristine Kathryn Rusch and I co-edited the volume and we are the series overall editors.
Fiction River: Unnatural Worlds comes out around the 15th of April. You can get copies on any of the normal electronic devices and locations, and you can subscribe to the entire first year in either trade paper or electronic editions.
Fiction River: Unnatural Worlds
Life Between Dreams ………Devon Monk
Finally Family ……….Ray Vukcevich
The Grasshopper and My Aunts……..Esther M. Friesner
True Calling …………Irette Y. Patterson
A Taste of Joie De Vivre ……….Kellen Knowlan
Here, Kitty Kitty …………Annie Reed
That Lost Riddle ………….Dean Wesley Smith
Shadow Side ……………Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Sisters………………..Leah Cutter
The Witch’s House………………..Richard Bowes
Dog Boy Remembers……………Jane Yolen
Barbarians ……………………..David Farland
All stories are original to the volume. The David Farland story is a very powerful Runelords prequel. Kris’s story is a short novella and is wonderful. All the stories are very, very strong. To say I am happy with this first volume of Fiction River would be a huge understatement. I am thrilled and amazed we got such a great line-up.
And the other six volumes coming out the first year are shaping up to be just as strong. Wow, this is fun being back into the editing chair. I had forgotten how much fun it was.
Preorder any of the first seven volumes here.
Subscribe to the entire first year here (by check or credit card through Paypal).
Here is the preliminary first cover. Wait until you see this in wrap-around format. Even more stunning.
Awesome. Let me get my PayPal in order…
Just looking through the author lists, I know it’ll be worth it.
Glad I got in on the kickstarter for this! Looking forward to it.
Looks fantastic, Dean.
Out of curiosity, with 12 stories in there, how high was the word count? Ella has it listed as ~ 300 pages, but I was curious as to the length of the stories in general.
Can’t wait to buy this…
The total word count is around 70,000 words. Kris has a sixteen thousand word story in this first one. All the rest range from 3,000 to 7,000 words.
How are you sourcing the stories?
Michael, “sourcing the stories…”?????? Okay, is that some sort of corporate-speak?
If you mean where are we finding the authors to write us stories, the anthologies are a combination of invite and small professional slush pile. Very small and very professional.
Kris and I both did slush piles before in fiction at F&SF and at Pulphouse and we don’t have the staff or the desire at the moment to do that again. (That might change in the future.) So we are inviting (as did the Daw and Baen anthologies) writers the editors know and think would be appropriate for the topic of the anthology. Then through another source we are gathering about twenty professionals to submit stories to the anthology on speculation and picking five or so from that group. Great fun and it gets us great stories and it doesn’t kill the editor. John Helfers is editing the second one (Kris and I are still overall series editors and read everything for every volume) and Kerrie Hughes is editing the fourth volume. Kristine Grayson is editing one called Christmas Ghosts. We have even more guest editors for the second year.