Search Worlds Without End

In the field of mad science, women have for too long been ignored, their triumphs misattributed to mere men. Society has seen the laboratory as the province of men. Jacob's Ladder electric arcs, death rays, even test tubes have phallic connotations, subliminally reinforcing the patriarchy. Thankfully, the women working to dangerous and/or questionable ends in the pages of Daughters of Frankenstein are unafraid of the patriarchy--indeed, as lesbian mad scientists, they prefer the company and comforts of their own gender.

Table of Contents:

• 1 - Introduction (Daughters of Frankenstein: Lesbian Mad Scientists) - essay by Connie Wilkins
• 3 - From Alexander Pope to Splice - essay by Jess Nevins
• 13 - Infusion of Waking Dreams - short story by Aynjel Kaye
• 31 - Doubt the Sun - short story by Faith Mudge
• 49 - Meddling Kids - short story by Tracy Canfield
• 59 - Eldritch Brown Houses - short story by Claire Humphrey
• 67 - The Moorehead Maze Experiment - short story by Tim Lieder
• 85 - The Eggshell Curtain - short story by Romie Stott
• 101 - Poor Girl - short story by Traci Castleberry
• 121 - Bank Job Blues - short story by Melissa Scott
• 139 - The Long Trip Home - short story by A. J. Fitzwater
• 159 - Imaginary Beauties: A Lurid Melodrama - short story by Gemma Files
• 179 - Riveter - short story by Sean Eads
• 193 - A Shallow Grave of Orange Peel and Eggshells - short story by Thoraiya Dyer
• 203 - Alraune - short story by Orrin Grey
• 211 - Preserving the Integrity of the Feminine Mystique - short story by Christine Morgan
• 231 - Hypatia and Her Sisters - short story by Amy Griswold
• 245 - The Lady of the House of Mirrors - short story by Rafaela Ferraz
• 261 - The Ice Weasels of Trebizond - short story by Mr. and Mrs. Brenchley
• 281 - Love in the Time of Markov Processes - short story by Megan Arkenberg

In a small New Jersey town, a lonely teen walking along a highway one autumn evening meets the boy of his dreams, a boy who happens to have died decades ago and haunts the road. Awkward crushes, both bitter and sweet, lead him to face youthful dreams and childish fears. With a cast of offbeat friends, antiques, and Ouija boards, Vintage offers readers a memorable blend of dark humor, chills and love.

The canon of Edgar Allan Poe, one of the foremost writers of dark and atmospheric fiction and poetry, offers readers haunted shores teeming with various erudite men brooding in the waning light over their feelings for unobtainable women. Yet, whether the tales or verses are grotesque or sinister, Poe's narrators are Outsiders, dealing with emotions that so many queer individuals feel: isolation and abandonment as well as loneliness and lost love. In Where Thy Dark Eye Glances, editor Steve Berman has assembled a range of tales that queer the prose and poetry of the Poe, the man himself, as well as dark and eerie stories about reading Poe's work.

Twenty-six poems and stories by:

• Christopher Barzak
• Steve Berman
• Richard Bowes
• Satyros Phil Bucato
• Seth Cadin
• Máiréad Casey
• Matthew Cheney
• Ray Cluley
• Peter Dubé
• L.A. Fields
• Alex Jeffers
• Kyle S. Johnson
• Collin Kelley
• Terra LeMay
• Chip Livingston
• Heather Lojo
• Clare London
• Ed Madden
• Ronna Magy
• Nick Mamatas
• Jeff Mann
• John Mantooth
• Silvia Moreno-Garcia
• Tansy Rayner Roberts
• Cory Skerry
• Daniel Nathan Terry

Table of Contents:

• Introduction (Where Thy Dark Eye Glances) - (2013) - essay by Steve Berman
• The City and the Stranger - (2013) - short fiction by Seth Cadin
• Matthew Brady, The Gallery of Illustrious Americans - (2013) - short fiction by Daniel Nathan Terry
• Poetaster - (2013) - short fiction by Steve Berman
• The House - (2013) - short fiction by Ed Madden
• The House of the Resonate Heart - (2013) - short fiction by L. A. Fields
• The Raven and Her Victory - (2013) - short fiction by Tansy Rayner Roberts
• Corvidae - (2013) - short fiction by Peter Dubé
• The Man Who Was - (2013) - short fiction by Ray Cluley
• Gwendolyn - (2013) - short fiction by Máiréad Casey
• Telltale - (2013) - short fiction by Claire London
• The Lord's Great Jest - (2013) - short fiction by Satyrus Phil Bucato
• His Hideous Heart - (2013) - short fiction by Kyle S. Johnson
• Variations of Figures Upon the Wall - (2013) - short fiction by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
• For the Applause of Shadows - (2013) - short fiction by Christopher Barzak
• By that Sweet Word Alone - (2013) - short fiction by Heather Lojo
• Two Men in a Bedchamber, as Observed by the Ghost of the Girl in the Oval Portrait - (2013) - short fiction by Terra LeMay
• Midnight at the Feet of the Carayatides - (2013) - short fiction by Cory Skerry
• Surrounded by Death - (2013) - short fiction by Ronna Magy
• The Bells - (2013) - short fiction by Chip Livingston
• The Demon and the Dove - (2013) - short fiction by Collin Kelley
• The Death of Beautiful Men - (2013) - short fiction by Jeff Mann
• Eureka! - (2013) - short fiction by Nick Mamatas
• Seven Days of Poe - (2013) - short fiction by Richard Bowes
• The Chicken Farmer and His Boy: A Metaphysical History - (2013) - short fiction by John Mantooth
• A Portrait in India Ink by Harry Clarke - (2013) - short fiction by Alex Jeffers
• Lacuna - (2013) - short fiction by Matt Cheney

It's a wonder humanity ever survived into the twenty-first century. Even Neanderthals knew to bury the dead beneath stones to prevent corpses from rising. Ancient civilizations feared slain warriors would return from battlefields, medieval physicians worried that bodies would rise from plague pits, many cultures buried the dead at crossroads to prevent the dead from walking. In Zombies: Shambling Through the Ages, editor Steve Berman has collected stories that reveal the threat of revenants and the living dead is far from recent. From the Bronze Age to World War II, this anthology guides us through millennia of thrills, chills, kills, carnage, horror, and havoc wreaked throughout history by the walking dead.

Table of Contents:

• 11 - Untitled Prologue (Zombies: Shambling Through the Ages)
• 15 - Blood Marker -short fiction by Victoria Janssen
• 17 - Selected Sources for the Babylonian Plague of the Dead (572-571 BCE) - short fiction by Alex Dally MacFarlane
• 21 - Immortals - short fiction by Nathan Southard
• 23 - The Cost of Moving the Dead - short fiction by Erinn L. Kemper
• 27 - Hauntings and Hungers on the Banks of the Vipasa - short fiction by Rajan Khanna
• 43 - A Frenzy of Ravens - short fiction by Christopher M. Cevasco
• 59 - The Wedding of Osiris - short fiction by Adam Morrow
• 67 - The Hyena's Blessing - short fiction by Alex Jeffers
• 79 - The Good Shepherdess - short fiction by Selena Chambers
• 84 - The Fledglings of Time - short story by Carrie Laben
• 93 - Hung from a Hairy Tree - short fiction by Samantha Henderson
• 96 - Good Deaths - short fiction by Paul M. Berger [as by Paul Berger]
• 114 - Dead Reckoning - short fiction by Elaine Pascale
• 124 - Grit in a Diseased Eye - short fiction by Lee Thomas
• 126 - Theater Is Dead - short story by Raoul Wainscoting
• 141 - Deathless - short fiction by Ed Kurtz
• 161 - Tantivy - short fiction by Molly Tanzer
• 169 - Cinereous - short story by Livia Llewellyn
• 179 - The Wailing Hills - short fiction by L. Lark
• 196 - As the Crow Flies - short fiction by Rita Oakes
• 210 - Seneca Falls: First Recorded Outbreak of Strain Z - short fiction by Dayna Ingram
• 234 - Pegleg and Paddy Save the World - short story by Jonathan Maberry
• 248 - Dead in the Water - short fiction by Richard Larson
• 250 - Starvation Army - short story by Joe McKinney
• 262 - Lonegan's Luck - novelette by Stephen Graham Jones
• 285 - The Rickshaw Pusher - short fiction by Mercurio D. Rivera
• 291 - The Revenge of Oscar Wilde - short fiction by Sean Eads
• 309 - The Gringo - short fiction by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
• 312 - The End of the Caroll A. Deering - short fiction by Bob Hole
• 314 - Promised Land (Wineville, 1928) - short fiction by Richard E. Gropp
• 316 - Tell Me Like You Done Before - short story by Scott Edelman
• 332 - The Fated Sky - short fiction by Aimee Payne
• 348 - The Crocodiles - novelette by Steven Popkes
• 369 - Gedenkschrift Authors

As such literary movements as interstitial and slipstream gain momentum, more and more authors interweave their traditional stories with gay themes as coming out, homophobia, and self-as-other, with a bit of the strange and weird. Named after one of the founding fathers of gay speculative fiction, Wilde Stories is a new annual anthology that offers readers the best of such stories from the prior year. Editor Steve Berman, a finalist himself for both the Lambda Literary and Andre Norton Awards, has collected an engaging selection of the fantastical, the strange, and the scary from such notable authors as Victor J. Banis, Hal Duncan, Joel Lane, and Lee Thomas.

Contents

• Introduction - Steve Berman
• The Woman in the Window - Jameson Currier
• Awkward - Francisco Ibáñez-Carrasco
• Acid and Stoned Reindeer - Rebecca Ore
• City of Night - Joel Lane and John Pelan
• Lycaon - by Peter Dubé
• Lycanthropy - Jonathan Harper
• The Emerald Mountain - Victor J. Banis
• An Apiary of White Bees - Lee Thomas
• The Burial - Polly Buckinham
• The Island of the Pirate Gods - Hal Duncan
• Ever So Much More Than Twenty - Joshua Lewis

The latest edition of Wilde Stories promises readers a range of gay-themed fiction published the prior year, tales that ranges from the horrorific (Lee Thomas' "I'm Your Violence") to the surreal (Sven Davisson's "Dim Star Descried") to the fantastical ("Firooz and His Brother" by Alex Jeffers). These are imaginative stories that seek to press new boundaries of loneliness, loss and love between men and monsters (and those men who happen to be monsters).

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Steve Berman
• Bluff - (2008) - shortstory by L. A. Fields
• Firooz and His Brother - (2008) - shortstory by Alex Jeffers
• Dim Star Descried - (2008) - shortstory by Sven Davisson
• The Bloomsbury Nudes - (2008) - novelette by Jameson Currier
• Echo - (2008) - shortstory by Peter Dubé
• I'm Your Violence - (2008) - novelette by Lee Thomas
• A Troll on a Mountain with a Girl - (2008) - shortstory by Steve Berman
• Behind the Curtain - (2008) - shortstory by Joel Lane
• Aka St. Mark's Place - [Dust Devil] - (2008) - novelette by Richard Bowes
• In the Night Street Baths - (2008) - novelette by Chaz Brenchley
• The Behold of the Eye - (2008) - novelette by Hal Duncan

A newcomer to San Francisco falls in love too fast despite the warnings of a cadre of ghosts haunting his uncle; a businessman comes to regret his ennui when faced with the machinations of an outsider artist; on a train traveling through a dangerous Russian winter, a passenger encounters a wolf on two legs; a mining colony where love has become dangerous but no less passionate; a young man, mourning those loss of his ballet career, may yet get his chance to fly.

These are some of the stories included in this anthology, stories chosen from magazines, anthologies, literary journals, and single author collections to represent the best gay male speculative fiction of the year.

Contents:

• Introduction - Steve Berman
• Strappado - Laird Barron
• Tío Gilberto and the Twenty-Seven Ghosts - Ben Francisco
• Lots - Marc Andreottola
• I Needs Must Part, the Policeman Said - [Dust Devil] - Richard Bowes
• Ne Que Von Desir - Tanith Lee
• Barbaric Splendor - Simon Sheppard
• Like They Always Been Free - Georgina Li
• Some of Them Fell - Joel Lane
• Where the Sun Doesn't Shine - Rhys Hughes
• Death In Amsterdam - Jameson Currier
• The Sphinx Next Door - Tom Cardamone
• The Far Shore - Elizabeth Hand

Celebrate a decade of gay speculative fiction with Wilde Stories 2011! This expanded volume from Lethe Press brings stories of undead lovers, stranded astronauts, ghosts and phantom reflections, men lost in an inhospitable wilderness, and fiends who hide under handsome veneers, all written by award-winning authors (Laird Barron, Richard Bowes and Joel Lane) and fresh voices in the field (Nick Poniatowski and Jeffrey Ricker) No other anthology provides readers the widest variety of gay men men facing the weird, the fantastic, and the horrific.

Table of Contents:

• Love Will Tear Us Apart - (2010) - shortstory by Alaya Dawn Johnson
• Map of Seventeen - (2010) - novelette by Christopher Barzak
• How to Make Friends in Seventh Grade - (2010) - shortstory by Nick Poniatowski
• Mortis Persona - (2010) - shortstory by Barbara A. Barnett
• Mysterium Tremendum - (2010) - novella by Laird Barron
• Oneirica - (2010) - shortstory by Hal Duncan
• Lifeblood - (2010) - shortstory by Jeffrey Ricker
• Waiting for the Phone to Ring - (2010) - novelette by Richard Bowes
• Blazon - (2010) - shortstory by Peter Dubé
• All the Shadows - (2010) - shortstory by Joel Lane
• The Noise - (2010) - shortfiction by Richard Larson
• How to Make a Clown - (2010) - shortstory by Jeremy C. Shipp
• Beach Blanket Spaceship - (2010) - shortstory by Sandra McDonald
• Hothouse Flowers: or The Discreet Boys of Dr. Barnabas - (2010) - novelette by Chaz Brenchley

"Illusion is the first of all pleasures."
--Oscar Wilde

Prepare to skew your view of the world: where jinn in the clouds of a future Tel Aviv aren't spirits but powerful computer programs; where a suburban garden hides unrecognizable bones; to a colony planet that outlaws color; or the night when a lonely lab tech finds a spambot flirting with him. The latest volume in the acclaimed Wilde Stories series has tales of hitchhikers on the run, dragons in the sky, swordsmen drawing their blades. These are stories fantastic and strange, otherworldly and eerie, but all feature gay men struggling with memories or lovers or simply the vicissitudes of life no matter how wild the world might be.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Steve Berman
• The Arab's Prayer - (2011) - shortstory by Alex Jeffers
• Fairy Tale - (2011) - shortstory by Justin Torres
• Thou Earth, Thou - (2011) - shortstory by K. M. Ferebee
• Hoffmann, Godzilla and Me - (2011) - shortstory by Richard Bowes
• Color Zap! - (2011) - shortstory by Sam Sommer
• All Smiles - (2011) - shortstory by Steve Berman
• The Peacock - (2011) - shortstory by Ted Infinity and Nabil Hijazi
• Ashes in the Water - (2011) - shortstory by Mat Joiner and Joel Lane
• A Razor in an Apple - (2011) - shortstory by Kristopher Reisz
• The Cloud Dragon Ate Red Balloons - (2011) - shortstory by Tom Cardamone
• Filling up the Void - (2011) - shortstory by Richard E. Gropp
• The House by the Park - (2011) - novelette by Lee Thomas
• Pinion - (2011) - shortstory by Stellan Thorne
• We Do Not Come in Peace - (2011) - shortfiction by Christopher Barzak
• The Duke of Riverside - (2011) - shortstory by Ellen Kushner

In the 2013 volume, editor Steve Berman has collected stories of adolescents suffering growing pains in the midst of lake monsters, boyfriends seeking safe pest-free shelter in an infested dystopian world, the most unique story of a boy and his dog ever written, and pirates encountering a living island. A dozen tales written by award-winning authors--including Laird Barron, Richard Bowes, Hal Duncan--and new talent including L. Lark and Rahul Kanakia.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Steve Berman
• Breakwater in the Summer Dark - (2012) - shortfiction by L. Lark
• The Keats Variation - (2012) - novelette by K. M. Ferebee
• Tattooed Love Boys - (2012) - novelette by Alex Jeffers
• Grierson at the Pain Clinic - (2012) - shortstory by Richard Bowes
• Wave Boys - (2012) - shortfiction by Vincent Kovar
• Renfrew's Course - (2012) - shortstory by John Langan
• Wetside Story - (2013) - shortfiction by Steve Vernon
• Next Door - (2012) - shortfiction by Rahul Kanakia
• A Strange Form of Life - (2012) - shortfiction by Laird Barron
• Night Fishing - (2012) - shortstory by Ray Cluley
• Sic Him, Hellhound! Kill! Kill! - (2012) - shortstory by Hal Duncan
• Keep the Aspidochelone Floating - (2012) - novelette by Chaz Brenchley
• The Contributors - essay by uncredited

Wilde Stories 2014 showcases the best gay-themed speculative fiction of the prior year. That means readers can anticipate strange stories about smart phone apps that stalk their prey, replacement arms built by a tinker for a wounded WWI soldier, and a world where water cascades down on anyone who tells a lie. Zombies, vampires, and ghosts are as much a woe to the men in these stories as being an outsider or an outcast. Featuring fifteen stories that will leave readers with a sense of dread--or wonder--when the last page is turned. Enjoy the creative tales of John Chu, R.W. Clinger, Matthew Cheney, Sean Eads, Eli Easton, Casey Hannan, Clayton Littlewood, Sam J. Miller, J.E. Robinson, Damon Shaw, Cory Skerry, Robert Smith, Nghi Vo, andKai Ashante Wilson.

Wilde Stories showcases the previous year's best offerings in short gay fantasy, horror, weird, and science fiction. This volume offers readers the secret missives of Roman emperors, an ungrateful ghost haunting her father's lover, werewolves, possible vampires, and more tales of the strange and eerie blended with bit of loss and passion. Editor Steve Berman has been collecting the finest stories in the field for nearly a decade.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Steve Berman
• The Love of the Emperor Is Divine - (2014) - shortfiction by Tom Cardamone
• The Vampire of Xanthos - (2014) - shortfiction by Andrew Warburton
• The True Alchemist - (2014) - shortfiction by Sonya Taaffe
• The Mortuaries - (2014) - shortfiction by Katharine E. K. Duckett
• What Glistens Back - (2014) - shortstory by Sunny Moraine
• Passion, Like a Voice - That Buds - (2014) - shortfiction by Steve Berman
• True North - (2014) - shortstory by Chaz Brenchley
• The Oily Man - (2014) - shortfiction by Alex Jeffers
• Werewolves of Northland - (2014) - shortfiction by Patrick Pink
• Notes for "The Barn in the Wild" - (2014) - shortstory by Paul G. Tremblay
• Conjuring Shadows - (2014) - shortfiction by Craig Laurance Gidney
• The God Within - (2014) - shortfiction by Damien Kelly
• A Gift in Time - (2014) - shortstory by Maggie Clark

Reality and memory; imagination and oblivion. Somewhere between these signposts can be found the events of Wilde Stories 2016: a future world has forbidden the songs of dancefloor divas but on one night the show returns as a cautionary exhibition; high school outcasts create a fictional scapegoat and then his body is found; and let us not forget that colonial Mars needs Oscar Wilde, but then, who doesn't?

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Steve Berman
• Imaginary Boys - (2015) - shortfiction by Paul Magrs
• Wallflowers - (2015) - shortfiction by Jonathan Harper
• Camp - (2015) - short story by David Nickle
• The Ticket Taker of Cenote Zaci - (2015) - short story by Benjamin Parzybok
• The Duchess and the Ghost - (2015) - shortfiction by Richard Bowes
• Lockbox - (2015) - shortfiction by E. Catherine Tobler
• What Lasts - (2015) - short story by Jared W. Cooper
• He Came From a Place of Openness and Truth - (2015) - short story by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam
• The Language of Knives - (2015) - short story by Haralambi Markov
• To Die Dancing - (2015) - shortfiction by Sam J. Miller
• Edited - (2015) - shortfiction by Rich Larson
• Envious Moons - (2015) - shortfiction by Richard Scott Larson
• Utrechtenaar - (2015) - shortfiction by Paul Evanby
• To the Knife-Cold Stars - (2015) - shortfiction by A. Merc Rustad
• The Astrakhan, the Homburg, and the Red Red Coal - (2015) - novelette by Chaz Brenchley

A man named Turing visits a museum to see its rarest automata; during the Plague Years, three artists seeking to express a voice for their friends lost to AIDS unwittingly create life; a far-future restaurant offers patrons questionable cuisine; an immortal assassin may be one step closer to a paranoid king, despite his unspeakable precautions; the very existence of a mysterious and ancient golden android challenges a clergyman's faith...

Wilde Stories showcases the previous year's best offerings in gay short fantasy, science-fiction, and horror. This edition includes award-winning and critically acclaimed authors Sam J. Miller, A. Merc Rustad, A.C. Wise, Martin Pousson, and more.

The stories in this, the latest volume in this annual series, challenges the definition of life and infamy, existence and reputation, were chosen by Steve Berman, the premier editor of queer speculative fiction for more than a decade.

Table of Contents:

• "The Tale of the Costume Maker" by Steve Carr
• "Das Steingeschöpf" by G.V. Anderson
• "Where's the Rest of Me?" by Matthew Cheney
• "The Gentleman of Chaos" by A. Merc Rustad
• "Frost" by 'Nathan Burgoine
• "Bull of Heaven" by Gabriel Murray
• "The Sound a Raven Makes" by Mathew Scaletta
• "Angel, Monster, Man" by Sam J. Miller
• "Most Holy Ghost" by Martin Pousson
• ?"Ratcatcher" by Amy Griswold
• "The Drowning Line" by Haralambi Markov
• "My Own Heart's Desire" by Robert Levy
• "The Turing Test" by Eric Schaller
• "Of All Possible Worlds" by Eneasz Brodski
• "Carnivores" by Rich Larson
• "It's the End of the World As We Know It" by A.C. Wise
• "The Death of Paul Bunyon" by Charles Payseur

The final volume in the series that offers readers the best gay-themed stories of the strange, uncanny, and fantastical is out! In these pages are work by such acclaimed spec fic authors as Richard Bowes, Sam J. Miller, Sean Eads, and John Chu. Turn a page and walk the halls of a library shelved with every book never completed by authors before they passed away, a fish grants a young man wishes without ever explaining their true cost, ghosts relive their erotic past, Captain Hook and the Greek god Pan finally meet, and even Oscar Wilde himself makes an appearance in this anthology by Lambda Literary Award-winning editor Steve Berman.

Table of Contents

• Ghost Sex - (2017) - short fiction by Joseph Keckler
• Serving Fish - (2017) - short story by Christopher Caldwell
• Some Kind of Wonderland - (2017) - short story by Richard Bowes
• Pan and Hook - (2017) - short fiction by Adam McOmber
• The Summer Mask - (2017) - short story by Karin Lowachee
• The Library of Lost Things - (2017) - short story by Matthew Bright
• Making the Magic Lightning Strike Me - (2017) - short story by John Chu
• Salamander Six-Guns - (2017) - short story by Martin Cahill
• Cracks - (2017) - novelette by Xen Sanders [as by Xen]
• The Future of Hunger in the Age of Programmable Matter - (2017) - short story by Sam J. Miller
• Uncanny Valley - (2017) - novelette by Greg Egan
• Love Pressed in Vinyl - (2017) - short story by Devon Wong
• There Used to Be Olive Trees - (2017) - novelette by Rich Larson
• The Secret of Flight - (2017) - short story by A. C. Wise
• A Bouquet of Wonder and Marvel - (2017) - short story by Sean Eads

Named one of the 2013 Over the Rainbow Project book list, sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Round Table of the American Library Association!

Welcome to a new annual anthology created in honor of the late Joanna Russ, American writer, academic, and feminist whose work shone brightly in the male-dominated field of speculative fiction of the latter part of the twentieth century.

Heiresses of Russ offers readers in one volume the best lesbian-themed tales of the fantastical and otherworldly published during the prior year. Editors JoSelle Vanderhooft and Steve Berman read countless books, periodicals, and webzines to collect a range of tales--from new voices as well as award-winning authors--that celebrate the spirit of Russ's fiction: stories of sorceresses and spectral women, lost daughters and sisters of myth. The transformative power of the written word becomes magic and tests the boundaries of gender, identity, and a woman's dreams.

Stories by Georgina Bruce, Jewelle Gomez, Michelle Labbé, Steve Berman, Rachel Swirsky, Ellen Kushner, Zen Cho, Csilla Kleinheincz, Catherine Lundoff, Nora Olsen, N. K. Jemisin

Table of Contetns:

• Introduction - (2011) - essay by JoSelle Vanderhooft
• Ghost of a Horse Under a Chandelier - (2010) - shortstory by Georgina Bruce
• Storyville 1910 - (2011) - shortfiction by Jewelle Gomez
• Her Heart Would Surely Break in Two - (2010) - shortfiction by Michelle Labbé
• Black Eyed Susan - (2010) - shortstory by Tanith Lee
• Thimbleriggery and Fledglings - (2010) - shortfiction by Steve Berman
• The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen's Window - (2010) - novella by Rachel Swirsky
• The Children of Cadmus - (2010) - shortfiction by Ellen Kushner
• The Guest - (2010) - shortfiction by Zen Cho
• Rabbits - (2010) - shortfiction by Csilla Kleinheincz
• The Egyptian Cat - (2010) - novelette by Catherine Lundoff
• World War III Doesn't Last Long - (2010) - shortfiction by Nora Olsen
• The Effluent Engine - (2011) - shortfiction by N. K. Jemisin

In this, the second release in the annual Heiresses of Russ series, Lambda Literary Award winning editor Connie Wilkins joins Steve Berman in choosing the best of the prior year's published speculative fiction with lesbian themes. An unexplained astronomical phenomenon brings a woman and her grandfather closer while she questions the meaning of faith. African villagers are sent automatons rather than human relief workers. Mermaids devour men drawn by their song but what will happen to a steampunk submersible piloted by a woman? Two teenage girls discover that memories are held in the fine aromas of perfumes. A family of sisters in Mexico discover a fallen angel. These are tales of the strange, the wondrous, the eerie but all are richly told stories of women facing the unknown and how they are changed by the experience.

"One of the most compelling aspects of speculative fiction is its ability to fulfill otherwise unattainable desires--whether one wants to create a magical society or travel through time, visit an alien civilization or remake history. It also satisfies more mundane reader desires, the ones it would not seem so hard to fulfill. To call a few of these out, I'll willingly step on this mine: the explosion of 'should.' It should not be easier to find a zombie apocalypse than it is to find a lesbian protagonist in the aisles of your local bookstore. Falling for werewolves and shape shifters should not be more accepted than a transgendered love affair; marginalized people really will still exist in the future; more folks should know that, and more so create like they know it. Someone then must step into the gap, or to be more accurate the gaping holes in the collective visions of our possibilities as human beings. In these pages, someone has. Seventeen someones to be exact."
--from the Introduction by Tenea D. Johnson

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Tenea D. Johnson
• One True Love - (2012) - novelette by Malinda Lo
• Saint Louis 1990 - (2012) - novelette by Jewelle Gomez
• Elm - (2012) - novelette by Jamie Killen
• Winter Scheming - (2012) - shortstory by Brit Mandelo
• Reality Girl - (2012) - novelette by Richard Bowes
• Oracle Gretel - (2012) - shortstory by Julia Rios
• Otherwise - (2012) - novelette by Nisi Shawl
• Harrowing Emily - (2012) - shortstory by Megan Arkenberg
• The Witch Sea - (2012) - novelette by Sarah Diemer
• Barnstormers - (2012) - shortstory by Wendy N. Wagner
• Nightfall in the Scent Garden - (2012) - shortstory by Claire Humphrey
• Beneath Impossible Circumstances - (2012) - shortstory by Andrea Kneeland
• Feed Me the Bones of Our Saints - (2012) - shortstory by Alex Dally MacFarlane
• Narrative Only - (2012) - shortstory by Kate Harrad
• Nine Days and Seven Tears - (2012) - shortstory by JL Merrow
• Chang'e Dashes from the Moon - (2012) - shortstory by Benjanun Sriduangkaew
• Astrophilia - (2012) - novelette by Carrie Vaughn

A book such as this spins not only words but also whole worlds: eighteen of them, representing the best lesbian-themed stories of the fantastic or futuristic published the prior year: An artisan who tests the skills and wares of her friends in the hope of finding the ideal housing for an idealized love. A shape-shifting sidekick ensures that the heroine, who might not even be aware of her, saves the day. The device on a young girl's wrist that counts down the years until she will meet her soul mate poses the ultimate challenge of delayed gratification. A daydreamer wonders how she will face the coming Stone Moon and its gathering when her culture demands fertility yet her heart belongs to her best friend, who is not only female but of a higher caste. The women to be met in these pages will find themselves tested not because of their sexual identity but rather the identity they have composed, constructed, and spun.

Table of Contents:

• "The Gold Mask's Menagerie" by Chante McCoy
• "Counting Down the Seconds" by Lexy Wealleans
• "The Other Bridge" by Alex Jeffers
• "Love Over Glass, Skin Under Glass" by Penny Stirling
• "Hungry" by Robert E. Stutts
• "Liquid Loyalty" by Redfern Jon Barrett
• "Her Infinite Variety" by Sacchi Green
• "The Coffinmaker's Love" by Alberto Yanez
• "Terminal City" by Zoe Blade
• "The Bride in Furs" by Layla Lawlor
• "Your Figure Will Assume Beautiful Outlines" by Claire Humphrey
• "Blood, Stone, Water" by A.J. Fitzwater
• "Vector" by Benjanun Sriduangkaew
• "Of Selkies, Disco Balls, and Anna Plane" by Cat Rambo
• "Selected Program Notes from the Retro-spective Exhibition of Theresa Rosenberg Latimer" by Kenneth Schneyer
• "Difference of Opinion" by Meda Kahn
• "Boat in Shadows, Crossing" by Tori Truslow
• "The Raven and Her Victory" by Tansy Rayner Roberts

Stories about lesbians, women who choose women as primary partners, lovers, playmates, and co-conspirators, tend to go where few men have gone before. Most of the real-life issues that lesbians must deal with, as women and as members of non-mainstream communities, appear in these stories in metaphorical form or as plausible scenarios in a future or alternate world. Lesbianism itself was routinely described by the conservatives of the past as "impossible." The formula of "woman + woman" is thus logically connected with other phenomenon formerly considered impossible: magic, witchcraft, folk cures, scientific discoveries, alternate methods of producing offspring, space travel, communication with beings who are not human or not living in human bodies, historical accounts that have been suppressed or denied. The Heiresses of Russ series seeks to offer readers the best lesbian-themed speculative fictions stories published the prior year.

The latest volume in the acclaimed Heiresses of Russ series features stories that are anything but invisible: the women in these tales are not hiding and are not easily overlooked but rather are choosing the harder path, the more dangerous route, whether that leads to love or loss or adventure. Included in these pages are stories that have won a World Fantasy Award, a Tiptree Award, and a British Fantasy Award... but every one of these stories chosen by guest editor A.M. Dellamonica (herself an award-winning writer of queer speculative fiction) is emblematic of the new vitality to be found in lesbian-themed tales of wonder, the eerie, and the miraculous.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (2016) - essay by A. M. Dellamonica
• Grandmother-nai-Leylit's Cloth of Winds - (2015) - novelette by Rose Lemberg
• The Occidental Bride - (2015) - short story by Benjanun Sriduangkaew
• The Devil Comes to the Midnight Café - (2015) - novelette by A. C. Wise
• And We Were Left Darkling - (2015) - short story by Sarah Pinsker
• A House of Her Own - (2015) - short story by Bo Balder
• Love in the Time of Markov Processes - (2015) - short story by Megan Arkenberg
• Where Monsters Dance - (2015) - short story by A. Merc Rustad
• Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers - (2015) - short story by Alyssa Wong
• Fabulous Beasts - (2015) - novelette by Priya Sharma
• The Wollart Nymphs - (2015) - short story by Melissa Scott
• The New Mother - (2015) - novella by Eugene Fischer
• Eldritch Brown Houses - (2015) - short story by Claire Humphrey
• The Tip of the Tongue - (2015) - short story by Felicia Davin
• Where Can a Broken Glass Mend? - (2015) - short story by Sonya Taaffe
• A Residence for Friendless Ladies - (2015) - novelette by Alice Sola Kim
• The Deepwater Bride - (2015) - novelette by Tamsyn Muir
• Doubt the Sun - (2015) - short story by Faith Mudge