On the evening of Tuesday 13 May 2008, in a special, “extracurricular” event, the New York Review of Science Fiction Reading Series hosted a launch party for The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy at the Readings’ venue at the South Street Seaport Museum’s Melville Gallery. “If you’re going to launch something, do it at a seaport,” quipped Series Executive Curator Jim Freund, who is also the host of WBAI-FM’s Hour of the Wolf, a weekly program on sf and fantasy.
In opening remarks before the audience of about 30, Ellen Datlow, the anthology’s editor and the event’s guest curator, spoke briefly about her love for short stories, which she called “the heart and soul of fantastical fiction” and sf. The short form, she noted in her introduction to the volume, particularly lends itself to the imaginative and allows writers to experiment in voice, style, and structure. (It might also be mentioned, as a point of interest, that SF Fandom owes its beginnings to short fiction, specifically to that published in the magazine Amazing and readers’ subsequent exchanges in its letter columns. Short fiction—short stories, novellas, and novelettes—is a form that, many feel, has gotten short shrift in recent years, with readership down in a vogue of multi-novel epic series; it’s heartening to see it thriving, alive and well. Datlow’s love for short fiction has helped her become one of the top editors in the speculative fiction genre. She has won eight World Fantasy Awards, the International Horror Guild Award, the Locus Award for Best Editor three times, and the Hugo Award for Best Editor in 2002 and 2005.
The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy (the title is accurately descriptive, if unimaginative) is an original anthology of 16 stories capturing the range of the genre(s), from aliens to alternate history and “a twisted fairy tale” (no space opera or elves, though). Three authors of stories included in the volume were scheduled to read, the centerpiece of the launch party (which also offered chips, Coke and wine, plus, of course, copies of the book for sale and autographing).
First up was Nebula- and World Fantasy Award-winning author Carol Emshwiller, who read “All Washed Up While Looking for a Better World”. Her unhurried reading (due in part to visual difficulties) suited the reflective pacing of the story’s interior monologue, a wry and quirky tale of a librarian in a midlife crisis who is washed up on a desert island whose odd, not-quite-human natives aren’t what she had hoped for in her quest for a change.
The next (and, as it turned out, last) reader was Richard (Rick) Bowes, World Fantasy- and Lambda Award-winning writer and a familiar face at both NYRSF and KGB Fantastic Fiction readings, who read from his story “Aka St. Mark’s Place”. Set, as with several of his recent stories, in the Greenwich Village and East Village of his youth, it centered on runaways, one of whom, later a rock star, had a touch of ESP. Regrettably, Bowes tended to read too quickly and/or too softly, and was occasionally hard to follow. (So buy the book!)
The third scheduled reader, Barry N. Malzberg (represented in the anthology by “The Passion of Azazel”), unfortunately, got stuck in traffic (at the entrance of the Lincoln Tunnel) and had to cancel. It is hoped that he’ll be rescheduled at a future NYRSF reading (though he may or may not read the aforementioned story).
Among those in attendance were Tempest Bradshaw, Barbara Krasnoff, Matthew Kressel, Colleen Lindsay, Gordon Linzner, Jon Messinger, Andy Porter, and Bill Wagner. Afterward, as customary, the guests and about half the audience adjourned to a nearby pub for dinner and conversation.
Ellen Datlow has posted pictures of the evening on her Flickr account at this link.