Monday Original Content: An Interview with Vandana Singh

Interview by Charles Tan. Hi! Thanks for agreeing to do the interview. First off, what's the appeal of speculative fiction for you? Do you think it's an appropriate term for your writing, or is there another descriptor you deem more appropriate? Thanks for interviewing me!  Speculative fiction is indeed an appropriate term for my writing. ...

Apex Book of World SF Now Available for the Kindle

The Apex Book of World SF is now available in a Kindle edition! Please note this, and other electronic editions, do not include Zoran Živković's story, which is only present in the paperback edition.

Stanislaw Lem on Philip K. Dick: “A Visionary Among the Charlatans”

Stanislaw Lem's classic essay, translated from the Polish by Robert Abernathy, is online at the Science Fiction Studies archives. If anyone is dissatisfied with SF in its role as an examiner of the future and of civilization, there is no way to make an analogous move from literary oversimplifications to full-fledged art, because there is...

Henry Jenkins on “The Pleasures of Not Belonging”

Henry Jenkins discusses genre, globalization and interstitial art: We are seeing greater cultural churn as more and more works move across national borders, get picked up by new artists and audiences, get combined in new ways, paving the way for nouvelle culture in the same way that the global availability of spices and ingredients has...

Original Content: Hugh Cook – The Wordsmith and the Warrior

Hugh Cook – The Wordsmith and the Warrior by Dan Rabarts Hugh Cook might not be a name instantly recognised by readers of the fantasy genre, but to his legion of dedicated fans across the world, mention of the man and his work inspires a sense of reverence. Cook remains one of New Zealand’s unsung...

Short Fiction Summaries, 2009: Fantasy Magazine

Prompted by a conversation with Jeff Ford, we thought we’d take a look at what stories have been published in 2009 from people who could be termed world SF writers. We're focusing on people from outside of the traditional Anglophone world (so no US, UK, English-speaking Canada or Australia – all of whom have an...

Strange Horizons feature on The Apex Book of World SF

Over at Strange Horizons, Nicholas Seeley takes an in-depth look at the themes and concerns of The Apex Book of World SF in Universal Language? Authors from the Apex Book of World SF Discuss the Global Reach of Speculative Fiction: There is a particular problem that often accompanies the reading of "foreign" literature. It is (to...

Wednesday Editorial: The Raw and the Cooked, by Anil Menon

Editorial: The Raw And The Cooked by Anil Menon   In the months of June and July this year, I found myself at IIT-Kanpur in the completely unexpected role of a workshop instructor in speculative fiction. It was a first for me, and I discovered what all gurus discover: you can learn a lot teaching....

Electronic Edition of The Apex Book of World SF Released!

Available immediately, you can purchase an electronic copy of The Apex Book of World SF (for the discounted price of only £3.27!) over at Fictionwise. Please note: this edition does not include Zoran Zivković's story, "Compartments" (which closes the print edition of the book).

Larry Nolen on “International SF” and Problems of Identity

Over at the Nebula Awards Blog, Larry Nolen discusses “International SF” and Problems of Identity. This problem raises what might be a central problem involving “international SF,” that of possible conflicts between Anglo-American expectations of what “SF” constitutes and what the various non-Anglophone countries might view as being an essential story.  Some might argue that...