I posted a review of "Ardent Clouds" by Lucy Sussex the other day, the fourth story from the Ellen Datlow edited Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy that I found particularly interesting. Overall I thought the anthology was very strong and surprising - lots of entries that read as unique or unexpected, several different styles, different settings, etc. This is a book that leans heavily on broad ideas about science fiction and fantasy - in both cases those elements can be very subtle. But if you like your authors brave and unorthodox (look no further than Margo Lanagan's "The Goosle" or Elizabeth Bear's "Sonny Liston Takes the Fall" for examples of this) then the Del Rey Book is the one to go with.

In the wake of losing the Year's Best Fantasy and Horror collections, a lot of people in the fantasy field have been considering just what the genre has lost. I have always relied heavily on SFF anthologies to find new authors whose own collections or longer works I might enjoy. I'm a fan of Datlow's work (and Terri Windling's) from the YBFH annuals but I've also been impressed by lesser known titles like the new Delia Sherman Interfictions, (to include Chris Barzak as editor this year) Windling's Armless Maiden title which looked at child abuse in fairy tales and the whole slew of Windling/Dalow fairy tale collections for young adults. All of these books are valued by me for individual stories they contain and I certainly have my favorites but I've found them overall to be superior in quality and content and I have gone on to buy many books by authors I've discovered through their pages (Delia Sherman, Ellen Klages, Kelly Link and Christopher Barzak just to name a few). (And I really hope that Kij Johnson comes out with a collection at some point as well.)

In the specific case of The Del Rey Book, what struck me was how each story was unexpected. Carol Emshwiller makes a Robinson Crusoe story read like pure science fiction in "All Washed Up While Looking for a Better World". She also gives it a twist that should resonate with those who have seen one too many episodes of Oprah's "live your best life" series. (For all those women who just need to break out of their boring lives, this is a spin on how extreme that choice can be.)

Maureen McHugh's "Special Economics" is a twist on the current situation with Chinese factory towns and the rush for young people to move in from the rural areas to obtain jobs. There's a lot here about debt and work that will read very much as realist fiction but McHugh has a technological spin that is very much SF and sets it in a China that is reeling from labor shortages due to the bird flu. But the very believability of her story and how it could happen gives it a severe twist and greater significance.

Richard Bowes returns to his familiar 60's Greenwich Village setting for a creepy take on teen runaways in "Aka St. Mark's Place". This one reminded me of Charles de Lint's Newford stories a bit as it exposed the difficulties of street children. But Bowes goes beyond standard fare and into the region of mind control and the cruelty of one (grown-up) child against others. It is urban fantasy but again, like McHugh, a story that runs close enough to reality to carry an extra "shiver" for the reader.

Okay - it sort of creeped me out, but I mean that in a good way, honest.

I was intrigued by Lavie Tidhar's "Shira" which presents a post "Small Holocaust" Middle East where Israel is peaceful and a center for study. Abigail Nussbaum had a more nuanced review of this story than I do - I fell hard for the lost poet/book idea and the romance of the story and its combination of futuristic/old world setting appealed to me greatly. Nussbaum properly points out some issues with the Hebrew scholarship in the story, something that if I was acquainted with I might very well bring up as well. But the atmosphere in this story is killer - the world that Tidhar creates is both familiar and strange. I'm glad in a way that I don't know everything about it so I could like it as it was.

Laird Barron's "The Lagerstatte" about a woman losing her mind due to grief is a wonder of psychological drama and trauma. The question of what is crazy and sane is always a compelling one and Barron does a wonderful job exploring it here with a character who is crashing in a very realistic way and manages to be both sympathetic and disturbing at the same time. Pat Cadigan's "Jimmy", although about a missing child, echoes a bit of Barron's sensibility. When you see something that defies all logic can you be sure that it happened? Will anyone believe you; how do you make them believe you? These are questions both Barron and Cadigan explore in different ways with characters who are sure they know more than everyone else, but aren't sure what to do with that knowledge or if they even want it.

There are several other fine stories in the collection (do read Nussbaum's review as she covers several I've skipped) but specifically four of them appealed to me most directly (they are the ones I reviewed here individually in the past couple of months). "The Goosle" remains one of the bravest and most disturbing fairy tales I have read in ages and what I still believe is the most honest portrayal of "Hansel and Gretel" to come down the pike, ever. "North American Lake Monsters" by Nathan Ballingrud is a favorite because it exposes how monstrous we appear to each other in our family and how hard it can be to break out of that vision. And "Ardent Clouds" appealed to me because it made me wonder what it is we are looking for when we go out in the dark or the dangerous - about how we claim to be so logical and scientific and yet still tempt all notions of sanity and security for the chance to look beyond what anyone can see.

But the big winner for me in this book, the story that impressed me most deeply, is Elizabeth Bear's "Sonny Liston Takes the Fall". Obviously being a boxing fan (or at least having knowledge of Liston and Ali) is very nearly required to fully appreciate this story. I am one of those people. What I loved about it was how easy it would have been to make Ali the hero - how effortlessly anyone can write a story about him that suggest magic or the notion of angels. He's just like that and everyone knows it.

But Liston - Liston is not easy to make a hero. He was a fighter, plain and simple, and we like boxers. We like grace and smart and ability. We like the boxers to beat the fighters. (Mike Tyson = fighter, Sugar Ray Leonard = boxer.) Liston was not a sympathetic sports hero and he made it easy for the media to make him the monster. Whether he wanted that role or not, it was one he filled and he didn't seem to mind. It fit, until the very end (which was so predictable), it fit.

Bear does not change either man in the story, she runs with who they were and instead crafts fantasy around them, creates a conversation wherein Liston is shown to be the hero - where Liston is given the kind of choice we would expect him to turn his back on and instead takes the highest road possible. Ali still wins but Liston knows; Liston knows everything and finds grace in that knowledge. And if ever anyone needed a touch of grace it was Liston.

"Sonny LIston Takes the Fall" is myth making at its best. This is a theme that runs through the entire collection to a certain degree though - different stories playing with well known sets of circumstance (lost children, broken hearts, searches for knowledge or self or answers to questions that can not be answered) and then making them bigger, broader than you would expect. These stories are science fiction and fantasy but as much as they travel in time or distance or include otherworldly elements, they are more than anything journeys deep within the human heart. Some reviewers have questioned if Ellen Datlow fit the book firmly enough in SFF territory and I can't help but think that is only because they do not realize that the most mysterious place in the universe is really deep within each of us. That's the great unknown, the place we will never understand.

Figure out the heart's desires and you will understand everything. Until then, we might as well be in the woods with that wicked witch or the Starship Enterprise with Kirk and crew. The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy works if you wonder about all that, and if you're willing to let some fine writers ponder those mysteries right along with you.