#The Best New SF & Fantasy of the Year

[danielleurbansblog]

Review: Writers of The Future Vol. 39

Synopsis: In the world of speculative fiction… Your favorite authors…Have selected the best new voices of the year. 24 Award-winning Authors and Illustrators. 3 Bonus Short Stories by Kevin J. Anderson • L. Ron Hubbard • S. M. Stirling. Art and Writing Tips by Lazarus Chernik • L. Ron Hubbard • Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Edited by Dean Wesley Smith • Jody Lynn Nye. 16-page color gallery of artwork…

[grapevynerendezvous]

The Sopwith Camel - Sopwith Camel A prime example of how fast things can develop, The Sopwith Camel released their only hit single less than one year after they had started rehearsing as a band. Within a week after founder Peter Kraemer met guitarist Terry MacNeil (later known as Nandi Devam) at Big Little Book Store in San Francisco they had written several songs, including Hello Hello, Frantic Desolation and You Always Tell Me Baby. By the end of 1965 they added three other band members guitarist William Sievers, drummer Norman Mayell, and bassist Bobby Collins who soon gave way to Martin Beard. The band started rehearsals in a former firehouse on Sacramento St. In April they laid down six tracks for a demo recording.

Thanks to Bobby Collins, who had briefly played bass for Kraemer and MacNeil in the beginning, a copy of the demo ended up in the hands of Erik Jacobson. A New York producer with Sweet Reliable Productions, Jacobsen had been responsible for seven top ten hits for The Lovin’ Spoonful in one year. He had also worked with Tim Hardin as well as with The Charlatans, another fledgling SF band. Particularly attracted to Sopwith Camel’s Hello Hello, Jacobsen came to California to meet with them in May. Within the week the band signed a contract with his Sweet Reliable Productions. In late summer he took them into Coast Studio in SF to do the basic track of Hello Hello. The band then relocated to New York City to record the album and while there, signed with Kama Sutra, for which Jacobsen had produced two albums with The Lovin’ Spoonful. The Sopwith Camel was the second San Francisco band of the era to be signed to a label. Recording was done intermittently throughout the Fall while The Sopwith Camel also toured as an opener for The Lovin’ Spoonful. This meant they spent an extended period of time in New York.

Not long after Hello Hello b/w Treadin’ had been released as a single the band returned to San Francisco. After the release of their next single, Postcard From Jamaica b/w Little Orphan Annie, in April 1967. Sopwith Camel went back into Coast Recorders and recorded one more track, The Great Morpheum. In May the eponymous album was released. By this time Hello Hello had gone off the charts and that next single, had not been successful. Considering this, a sticker was placed on the album upon release that said, Remember Hello Hello! In early October a third single, Saga of the Low Down Let Down b/w The Great Morpheum was released but did not chart. It took over five months for the album, Sopwith Camel, to enter the Billboard Top 200 and after two weeks it went off the chart. By this time the band had started slowly disintegrating. 

Hello Hello was not the song one would have expected to be the first Top 40 hit to herald the up-and-coming San Francisco psychedelia music era. It was released in mid-November 1966, b/w Treadin’. It entered the Billboard Hot 100 on Dec. 24 and by January ’67 crested at No.26 on the Top 100,y becoming the first San Francisco band in that era to have a Top 40 hit song. It did very well in some markets across the country: No.2 in San Jose CA, No.3 in San Diego CA, No.4 in San Francisco CA, and Louisville KY, and No.5 in San Antonio TX and Boston MA. It was one of the first songs written by band founder Peter Kraemer and guitarist Terry MacNeil right after the first met. The style harkens back to the days of Vaudeville, which was the primary live music source from the the late 1800’s to the early 1930s. The lyrics are about a simple desire to meet someone, get to know them, to share with them.

Song two of the album, Frantic Desolation, was also one fo the first songs Peter Kraemer and Terry MacNeil wrote together, but , according to MacNeil, they didn’t perform it early on. They decided to record it because they needed songs for the album. It was a distinct shift from the good timey vaudevillian Hello Hello to a distinctly psychedelic sound. The fuzztone guitar played by Terry MacNeil was noted by Elvis Costello to be ‘one of the best examples of psychedelic guitar from the period’. In an interview with the The Psychedelic Guitar MacNeil said that he wanted to reflect the meaning of the words desolation, desperation, in his guitar playing. He sat close to the amp for feed-back and played as weird as he could. In later reincarnations of Sopwith Camel it was regularly played.

William “Willie” Sievers penned The Saga of the Low Down Let Down. This has a good time feel to it musically, but it is about a low down let down none the less.. MacNeil again shines on the all too short, but effective guitar solo. Little Orphan Annie is a musical version of the syndicated newspaper comic strip that first appeared in 1924. Back to the vaudeville era, but with just a hint of the ‘60s hippie chick as well. The tongue-in-cheek performance has a a very winning way about it, with a skillful instrumental interlude featuring twelve-string guitar. One can’t help conjuring up images of Annie and Sandy in this winning “comic strip” tune.

The final two songs on side one each have their own character about them. You Always Tell Me Baby recites a complaint about how the protagonist is being told how to do things by their counterpart. It features flowing harmonies behind the lead vocals and well placed trumpet throughout. The conclusion of the song seems poised for the following song. Maybe in a Dream is basically an instrumental until the final quarter of the song. It has an optimistic feel as guitars and keyboards soar and glide throughout. The most arresting song on the album, Cellophane Woman, starts off side two. It is the other psychedelic number but with a harder, almost punk quality to it. The lyrics, written by Willy Sievers, seem to be an anti-materialism metaphor that doesn’t quite hit it’s mark. Yet the angst is there and the instrumentation takes it over the top right to the finish. Returning to the roots of the album, The Things That I Could Do With You takes it straight  back to the vaudeville era. Again written by Kraemer and MacNeil, this one is a fantasy about all the things someone could be doing together with their girl. Well, not quite that kind of fantasy, unless you let your imagination run wild. It features a nice little harmonium solo. Walk in the Park continues in the vein of old-time vaudeville, only this time going back to the 19th century for inspiration. While very original in many ways, composer Willy Sievers seems to take a cue from British songwriter Harry Dacre’s 1892 “Daisy Bell (A Bicycle Built for Two)”. Sievers replaces a ride on a bicycle with a walk in the park. The ragtime-style piano style fits in perfectly as do the background harmonies. On top of all this, the comedic voice-over in the middle is priceless as William, shyly but slyly, asks Daffney to take a walk in the park with him. The Great Morpheum was the last song written and recorded for the album. Like Hello Hello, it was recorded in San Francisco. It was in April 1967, the month before the album release. The band had just recorded four 45-second commercials for Levi Strauss. Peter Kraemer recalls that he and Terry MacNeil went into a smaller studio at Coast Recorders to write the song. Along with guest saxophonist Terry Clements, Martin Beard and Norman Mayell had the basic track cut on the second take. After inclusion in the album it later became the B-side of their third single. The pace of the song slows considerably from the other cuts on the album. It has variation within itself though and the highlight happens when Clements’ saxophone comes to the fore. The song is about a surreal movie at a theater (the Morpheum). I was recently enlightened by none other than Peter Kraemer, that the Great Morpheum is in fact, about the Vietnam War. I agree that, with a bit of thought and understanding, makes perfect sense. Thanks to Peter for pointing this out. Who else would know better than he? The song’s conclusion builds to a dramatic finish, but once again the last note, so to speak, hangs in mid-air. It also leads into the final song.

Postcard From Jamaica begins with a postman ringing a doorbell announcing a mail delivery. It’s a message from a girlfriend who is visiting Jamaica, and an invitation for the reader to take a trip to see her there. As the album had not come out as yet, Postcard From Jamaica b/w Little Orphan Annie was released as second single. The haste to get it out created a scenario as told by Peter Kraemer, "Sopwith Camel was being interviewed by the DJ at a radio studio in Dallas when a guy named Richie, from Cavallo’s (the band’s manager) office, brought the 45 in from New York. When the engineer in the sound booth dropped the tone arm it bounced and skated right off the record. He tried again; it did the same thing. He looked at the band through the double glass and sadly shook his head; the bass was cut too hot and the record wouldn't track. It would play on the more primitive equipment in jukeboxes and became what was called a 'jukebox hit' in some parts of the country and in Canada.”

The album featured poster artist Victor Moscoso’s first great pop-art cover. Essentialy the design already was used for a Matrix poster back in February. The back liner cover had the first infra-red band photo, shot by Jim Marshall.

While Hello Hello wasn’t precisely one of my favorite songs, when I spotted the album at the record store I decided to find out what the rest of it sounded like. I thought it strange that there was a sticker on the cover that said REMEMBER HELLO, HELLO. Of course I remembered it, but at the time I perhaps didn’t completely get that their only hit song had come and gone three or four months before the album hit the market. I immediately enjoyed what I heard though, and quickly added it to my small but growing collection.

I felt that overall, the song-writing, arrangements, originality, vocals and instrumentality were really top-notch. It’s notable that the music was all band-written, not something usually encountered at that time. What struck me most about some of the writing was its’ droll humor. In particular I was quite taken by Little Orphan Annie and Walk in the Park. They are among those songs on the album that harkened back to vaudevillian style, yet worked so well in the renaissance of the ‘60s. I was equally intrigued by Frantic Desolation and Cellophane Woman, both of which explored the more experimental aspects of the period. While I enjoyed the rest of the songs, the final two took me a bit longer to warm up to. I simply didn’t listen to them as much for quite awhile. Eventually though, I began to appreciate the more elaborate arrangement of The Great Morpheum, and the warmth and optimism of Postcard From Jamaica.

The record quickly became one of my favorites. I can still fairly well sing along with most all the songs. It’s unfortunate that, since the album faded so quickly once it finally appeared, not many people really got to hear all Sopwith Camel had to offer. It turns out that by the time of the release the band had started to fall apart due primarily to bickering and, as one band member called it, immaturity. Willy Sievers had announced in November that he intended to leave to start a solo career, but didn’t actually do that until late spring of the next year. The band members still played in other projects, some of which included two or more of them, but things seemed to be over for good. At least for the time being. I missed a golden opportunity to see not only Sopwith Camel, but Buffalo Springfield and The Standells as well in 1967. The event was a tri-school dance that had been put together by a student named Rod Jew at Cubberley High School in Palo Alto. Held at the high school pavilion, the concert was on April 27th, just prior to the Camel’s album release. All the bands had, or were enjoying, big hits. I thought I had lost any opportunity after that but Sopwith Camel was to have more in store.

Another opportunity unexpectedly came up in 1971. After not hearing anything about Sopwith Camel for nearly four years, they resurfaced playing a dance concert at Foothill Community College in Los Altos Hills CA. By this time I was a student there and attended the show in the gym with my girlfriend/future wife. While he was not aware that this event had occurred, based on information obtained through a blog done by music historian Bruno Ceriotti, it appears that four of the original band members had reunited. Hearing them play songs from that first album live was like a dream come true.

Speaking of Bruno Cerotti, through three decades of research he created a day-by-day diary of The Sopwith Camel as well as other bands. Utilizing information from interviews, as well as gathering many visuals, from several individuals and news media sources, it gives far more details than one would would normally expect to encounter. Particularly for a band that had but two albums (not counting re-releases), three singles, one hit song, and lasted less than a decade at their height. He also documented their return to performing from 2009-2016. Finally looking into what Bruno has accomplished I decided to reach out to him and we have become friends. He was quite amazed and excited to hear of the show at Foothill College. He helped me hone in on the year it must of happened and now all we need to do is get a precise date and any other details. It’s good to be interactive.

http://brunoceriotti.weebly.com/the-sopwith-camel.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sopwith_Camel_(band)

https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-sopwith-camel-mw0000117772

website https://www.sopwithcamel.com

Joel Selvin articles https://www.sopwithcamel.com/stories2.html

https://www.sopwithcamel.com/stories4.html

https://sopwithcamel.org/about-the-band/

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/sopwith-camel-where-are-they-now-93996/

https://www.sopwithcamel.com/Albums.html

https://vancouversignaturesounds.com/hits/hello-hello-sopwith-camel/

http://therockasteria.blogspot.com/2014/09/sopwith-camel-sopwith-camel-1966-67-us.html

https://www.discogs.com/artist/391236-Sopwith-Camel

https://www.sopwithcamel.com/stories4.html

http://www.rockremnants.com/2013/06/22/song-of-the-week-hello-hello-sopwith-camel/

http://andrewdarlington.blogspot.com/2014/01/

https://www.sopwithcamel.com/Terry.html

https://fictionliberationfront.net/erik_jacobsen.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Jacobsen

Hello Hello https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjYsl__loTw

Frantic Desolation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaxiKL-Rzjk

Saga of the Low Down Let Down https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdcMbtkQxaQ

Little Orphan Annie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-y-afIkukg

You Always Tell Me Baby: Maybe in a Dream https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yU2Saf1EKlc

Cellophane Woman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_0LxEQnnVI

The Things That I Could Do With You https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3-kM0brrXQ

Walk in the Park https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CIG6Xc-GFc

The Great Morpheum; Postcard From Jamaica https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU5e3lcHkx0

LP25

[peppersjam]

My Top 10 Albums of 2016

I posted 26 times on this blog this year. That's pretty pathetic — I blame it on 2016.

This year gave me an all-timer, what might be my favorite album since I started making these top 10 lists in 2010 (My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy be damned). But it was also 2016. Highs and lows.

Before we get to the part where I struggle to find adequate words for my love and obsession, and the sheer perfection of Frank Ocean's Blonde, it's time to revist my top ten albums of 2015, which I only posted 9 months ago. Eight of the albums are still in my regular rotation: Surf, At.Long.Last.A$AP, I Love You, Honeybear, If You're Reading This It's Too Late, Summertime '06, In Colour, Carrie & Lowell, and To Pimp A Butterfly. Only Natalie Prass and OK LADY have fallen off. I don't have a digital copy of the Natalie Prass album because the LP didn't come with a download code (c'mon!), and OK LADY is one of those burn-hot-and-bright-but-maybe-not-for-long things. Eight of ten? That's a big win for 2015 and for my listmaking abilities.

My biggest musical disappointment this year was Childish Gambino's "Awaken, My Love!". It might not be a bad album but it's pretty far out of my wheelhouse, and I would have gone nuts for a more direct descendant of Because the Internet and STN MTN/Kauai. But who knows — maybe this is Donald's 808s & Heartbreak moment, and I'll look back on it and shrug when neo-Drake is making neo-Funk the biggest, hottest music on the planet. Well, duh, now I'm telling everyone that 808s is an essential album but I'll always remember sitting in my dorm room and wondering why "Say You Will" seemed to never end.

Drake's Views wasn't a disappointment so much as a cry for an editor. The Views (Steve Cut) certaintly would've cracked my top 10. But I'm an album man. I takes what they gives.

Views (Steve Cut):

Keep the Family Close

9

U With Me?

Feel No Ways

Hype

Weston Road Flows

Redemption

With You

Faithful

Still Here

Controlla

One Dance

Grammys

Child's Play

Pop Style

Too Good

Summers Over Interlude

Fire & Desire

Views

Hotline Bling

It's not that I dislike Drake-pop, it's just that it doesn't make sense to me at all on this album.

And while we're on Rap Asides, I'm not considering Run The Jewels's sneaky Christmas Eve surprise, RTJ3. It wasn't supposed to be released until January somethingth, so I'll leave it for my 2017 list.

Runners up are always fun because I get to sneak more albums into the post:

Gold Panda - "Good Luck And Do Your Best"

Andrew Bird - "Are You Serious"

Kendrick Lamar - "untitled unmastered."

ScHoolboy Q - "Blank Face"

10. The Avalanches – Wildflower

We waited, what, fifteen years for this album? Twelve year old me wasn't cool enough to be listening to The Avalanches, so for me it's merely a long-overdue folowup to Since I Left You. It doesn't stray too far from that course, but the rest of the music world has caught up to The Avalanches. That is, Wildflower is probably better than I'm giving it credit for. We're spoiled.

9. Solange – A Seat at the Table

I only listened to A Seat at the Table once before it landed at the one spot on Pitchfork's year end list. I feel hacky about that, but I can't ignore my ears. It's an excellent album that, not unlike Views, could use a little editing. For me, there's a not insignificant dip in momentum as the album progresses. But unlike Views, this is a coherent, smart, catchy, emotional, powerful album as is, and "Cranes In The Sky" (which was actually written several years ago) is one of my favorite songs of the year.

8. Chance the Rapper – Coloring Book

There are some clunkers, sure – I'm looking at you, All We Got – and it's a little preachy for my taste, but Chano's got his city (and my city, and probably your city) doing front flips. Acid Rap is a better tape, but Coloring Book is a brilliant introduction of Chance to the mainstream rap listening audience. "No Problem" and "All Night" are destined to become classics, and "Angels" is as good as anything he's written (well, if we pretend that "Sunday Candy" doesn't exist).

My major knock against this album might sound stupid or trivial, and that it's a little bit too happy. Yeah, this is a great party jams album, but I prefer my jams with heaps of introspection (as in the next seven items on this list).

7. Car Seat Headrest – Teens of Denial

See #5.

6. Radiohead – A Moon Shaped Pool

A Moon Shaped Pool jumped around a lot in the top ten while I was making this list. It was as high as #4 at one point. I don't have much to say about it. It's Radiohead. It's phenomenal. It's really, really sad.

5. Mitski – Puberty 2

Puberty 2 and #7 on my list, Teens of Denial both underscore my predilection for highly emotional, borderline angsty indie rock. It's birthed out of my early love of Fall Out Boy, even though I doubt Car Seat Headrest and Mitski would be thrilled at that comparison. Either way- both albums feature great songwriting and catchy melodies (like, uh, Fall Out Boy). Am I talking about Fall Out Boy too much? They didn't even release an album this year.

4. Bon Iver – 22, A Million

While this might not have the best songs of Bon Iver's batting-1000 string of LPs, I think 22, A Million is their most cohesive album. That's saying something, too, because their first two albums were extremely cohesive. The whole thing builds to one of my favorite album climaxes in recent memory, "8 (circle)."

3. Kanye West – The Life of Pablo

I miss the old Kanye...

Well, I don't. I'm not looking for Kanye to run back Late Registration or 808s or, really, even MBDTF. All of Kanye's albums are in my regular rotation, but with every new album I'm looking for innovation. The Life of Pablo is no exception; it's the messiest studio album that he's released, and I love it for that. It's an instructive foil to My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, like saying, "Remember how I made that perfect album? This is what my mind is really like." TLOP encourages us to consider the music not in a sonic, museum-like vacuum, but as a living, breathing artifact that will help future listeners/cultural anthropologists understand who Kanye is and why so many of us cling to his every release.

That, and "Ultralight Beam" is possibly the best Kanye song yet.

2. Beyonce – Lemonade

I am not a member of the Beyhive. I've only listened to Beyonce's previous albums enough to know that they're a little too close to the center of the pop music aisle for me to really care. I'm not saying that to be harsh, I just don't listen to a lot of straight-up pop.

But Lemonade is undeniable. It's no secret that I am not a big JAY Z fan (actually, have I mentioned that on this blog before?), so the clickbait twitterstorm of OMG BEYONCE IS DESTROYING JAY Z ON LEMONADE was hook enough to get me listening. So I listened. And I listened and listened and listened. As if the songs weren't amazing enough on their own, the album-lengthed video was legitimately one of the best things I watched in 2016.

Lemonade is a masterfully crafted pop concept album. I don't know if she's going to be able to top it and keep me as a listener – I mean, it's hard to think of a better hook than JAY Z bashing – but I sure hope she tries.

1. Frank Ocean – Blonde

Both The Life of Pablo and Lemonade are best-of-the-year material. But here's the part where I struggle to explain why Blonde is – what – the best album that's been released in the last 10 years? To Pimp a Butterfly and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy are classics, but there's something different about Blonde. It's a stupid cliche that I don't want to write but I told you I'm going to struggle to write about Blonde so I'm going to struggle to write about Blonde: Blonde is not a first-listen kind of album. I think I was cooking dinner the first time I listened to it, which is not the optimal setting for this album (if you're curious, the optimal setting is driving at night in LA, or walking around SF in a light rain, or, uh, I mean, just not cooking). Point is: it grows on you. It latched onto something deep inside of me. It's still there, latchin' away.

Ok, let's try numbers.

According to last.fm (which doesn't include the dozen or so times I listened to this while it was still an exclusive on Apple Music), I've listened to Blonde 52 times since its release on August 20th – roughly once every three days. For reference, I've listened to The Life of Pablo a similar number of times, but over the last 11 months instead of 5 months. I listened to most of the other albums on this list around 20 times. NUMBERS, man.

Now, feelings:

On average, I get chills multiple times per spin through the album. I can't think of another album that has ever gotten to me so consistently.

This is a perfect album: perfect lyrics; perfect melodies; perfect instrumentation; perfect production. Frank Ocean knows it, too. He has essentially said that he saw no reason to rush out an album that wasn't perfect. Thank you, Frank. Also, it's cool if you never want to release an album again. We're good.

[infactforgetthepark]

[Free eBook] Ten Years to Doomsday by Michael Kurland & Chester Anderson [Military Science Fiction Fantasy]

Ten Years to Doomsday by Michael Kurland, perhaps best known as the author of an Edgar Award-nominated series of Moriarty-based Sherlock Holmes pastiches, & the late Chester Anderson is a standalone military science fiction/fantasy hybrid adventure novel, free for a limited time courtesy of publisher Endeavour Press' Venture imprint.

This was originally published in 1964 by Pyramid Books, translated into a number of foreign languages, and was later reprinted by Penguin's Jove imprint (Pyramid's new name after being acquired by them).

The story is a hybrid science fiction/fantasy adventure set in a far future where humans are part of a multi-species Federation, telling the story of how a space fleet came into conflict with a pseudo-medieval planetary culture whose sword-wielding nobility and apparently mystic power-wielding priesthood have learned too much from the technological uplift and political upheaval sparked by first contact, leading to war.

Offered worldwide, available at Amazon.

Free for a limited time @ Amazon (should be available worldwide).

Description The image in the battle cruiser's screens grew - and it was clear that this was a new kind of ship, a new race, the first new civilization the Federation had met in three hundred years. The crew's excitement mounted - the newcomers would be invited to join the Federation, the crew would all be heroes and be awarded enormous bonuses, and -

The stranger opened fire with an impressive battery of weapons; the cruiser's defenses cut in automatically, and in a few seconds the unidentified ship was nothing but an expanding cloud of radiant gases.

After a thousand years of peace in space, there was a war on. But who was the mysterious and deadly enemy?

[infactforgetthepark]

[Free eBook] Soulmates by Mike Resnick & Lezli Robyn [Science Fiction & Fantasy Collection]

Soulmates by Mike Resnick, prolific Hugo & Nebula Award-winning author, & Australian author Lezli Robyn is their collection of science fiction & fantasy shorts, free for a limited time courtesy of publisher Phoenix Pick Press.

This is their featured Free Book of the Month selection for July, and the title story was voted to 2nd place for Asimov's Reader's Choice Award for Best Novelette.

These stories were written together in collaboration and published in assorted anthologies and magazines, alongside a bonus solo story from each author.

Offered worldwide through July, available DRM-free directly from the publisher.

Free for a limited time until the end of July, available worldwide @ the publisher's dedicated promo page (DRM-free ePub & Mobi available worldwide, requires valid email address; follow the instructions on the page to reset the price in the cart to $0.00 during checkout)

The tie-in offer is for a bundle of issues #1-3 of Galaxy's Edge magazine which is edited by Resnick for just $3.99, with each issue containing a mix of new stories and reprints by up-and-coming and well-known authors, plus portions of a novel serialization and reviews. IIRC, this tie-in deal has previously been offered with another BOTM or as part of a special sale in the past, so you might already have it, but it's otherwise a good deal.

Description Multiple award-winning authors, Mike Resnick and Lezli Robyn, get to the heart of the matter in Soulmates, which showcases all the words they have penned together over their years as collaborators (with a bonus solo piece by each). Whether a robot, alien, some kind of supernatural being or human, rising above our prejudices and ignorance allows us to make emotional connections that can have a profound effect on our lives.

Each of these stories examine a facet of the simple, yet incredibly complex, concept of companionship. They will make you laugh; will make you cry…but most importantly they will make you look at the very basic notion of soul-mates in a different light.

[infactforgetthepark]

[Free eBook] Some of the Best from Tor.com: 2016 Edition [Science Fiction & Fantasy Anthology]

Some of the Best from Tor.com: 2016 Edition is the latest volume in the eponymous anthology series of sf/fantasy short stories, free for a limited time courtesy of publisher Tor Books.

This series compiles selected stories (which are all free to read online) which originally appeared in 2016 on the Tor.com website into a handy portable ebook. Contributors include award-nominated authors like Aliette de Bodard, Cixin Liu, N. K. Jemisin, Alyssa Wong, and many more.

Offered DRM-free through January 17th Eastern Standard Time, available worldwide directly from the publisher as a giveaway promotional special.

Free for a limited time until just before midnight January 17th Eastern Time @ the publisher's special giveaway page (DRM-free ePub & Mobi available worldwide in return for newsletter signup with a valid email address; you will receive a link to download the book, for which you must re-confirm your email)

You can read more about the book on the blog announcement post for the giveaway, and see the complete list of stories and contributors.

Sorry about the short notice on this one. I meant to post it much earlier along with some other blog revamp stuff, but some RL stuff got in the way.

At least all the actual stories are free to read online, and if you've been following sf/fantasy blog news, you've probably seen an announcement of it somewhere or other already?

Description We are very excited to offer a free download of the 2016 edition of Some of the Best from Tor.com, an anthology of 25 of our favorite short stories and novelettes from the last year. The ebook edition will be available as a free download here until January 17th, it will also be made available wherever ebooks are sold for the duration of 2017.

Of course, you can always enjoy all of our free weekly short stories by visiting Tor.com's fiction index.

These stories were acquired and edited for Tor.com by Ellen Datlow, Ann VanderMeer, Carl Engle-Laird, Liz Gorinsky, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Justin Landon, Diana Pho, and Miriam Weinberg. Each story is accompanied by an original illustration.