James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel have announced the table of contents for The Secret History of Science Fiction, the newest of their anthologies published by Tachyon Publications. According to Kelly, these anthologies “seek to shed light on different parts of the genre and which, in fact, make the case that some genre definitions are eroding or perhaps never really meant very much to begin with.”
The Secret History of Science Fiction, which is scheduled to be published as a $14.95 trade paperback this October, is an “anthology of reprint stories published from 1971-2007, making the case for the convergence of mainstream fiction and literary sf,” according to Kessel. Contents for this volume will be:
“Homelanding” by Margaret Atwood
“Descent of Man” by T.C. Boyle
“The Martian Agent, a Planetary Romance” by Michael Chabon
“Human Moments in World War III” by Don DeLillo
“Angouleme” by Thomas M. Disch
“Standing Room Only” by Karen Joy Fowler
“Interlocking Pieces” by Molly Gloss
“1016 to 1″ by James Patrick Kelly
“Buddha Nostril Bird” by John Kessel
“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” by Ursula K. Le Guin
“The Hardened Criminals” by Jonathan Lethem
“Frankenstein’s Daughter” by Maureen F. McHugh
“The Wizard of West Orange” by Steven Millhauser
“93990” by George Saunders
“The Nine Billion Names of God” by Carter Scholz
“Salvador” by Lucius Shepard
“Ladies and Gentlemen, This is Your Crisis” by Kate Wilhelm
“Schwarzschild Radius” by Connie Willis
“The Ziggurat” by Gene Wolfe
Previous volumes in this Kelly & Kessel “series” from Tachyon include Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology, which came out in 2006, and Rewired: The Post Cyberpunk Anthology (2007).
As a writer, Kelly won Hugo Awards for his novelettes “Think Like a Dinosaur” (in 1996) and “1016 to 1″ (2000, included in this book), and a Nebula Award for his novella “Burn” (2007). Kessel won Nebula Awards for his novella “Another Orphan” (1983) and his novelette “Pride and Prometheus” (2009), and the Theodore Sturgeon Award for his short story “Buffalo” (1992).