Apropos the topic of this post, I read an item up last week on SF Signal discussing whether the short fiction market is in trouble. A bevy of writers offer their thoughts there. One thing in particular struck me as very true—short fiction magazines are scary.

It’s the “box of chocolates” problem (as noted by Paolo Bacigalupi). With most magazines, you never know what you’re going to get, and so their only effective demographic is the eclectic reader. Now, I’m a pretty eclectic reader, but I also like to pick and choose, and too much variety is seriously off-putting.

Which brings me to one particular box of chocolates, The Solaris Book of New Fantasy (edited by George Mann). It’s a pretty wide-ranging collection, almost a sampler, and part of a series that also includes two volumes of The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction. Now, it probably sounds like I’m about to give TSBoNF a hard time, but I’ll give up the twist right now: I most definitely enjoyed it.

The collection has several excellent stories, and the ones that weren’t quite so excellent were at least competently written (I just didn’t really care for them in some fundamental way).

TSBoNF opens with a short introduction by George Mann. Unfortunately, the opening sentence, “What exactly is fantasy?” really doesn’t push my buttons. I realise that Solaris has a particular goal with these Book of New … anthologies, perhaps with a particular demographic in mind, but it seems to me that this is just excusing the whole “box of chocolates” problem. I can’t imagine that anyone who needs to be convinced that fantasy stories are “real” is going to be interested in such an eclectic mix of tales, but perhaps there is some middle ground I’m no longer equipped to occupy.

Anyway! It doesn’t do to dwell on a three-page introduction when there are hundreds of pages of actual fiction to discuss. The dark, Romantic opener from Mark Chadbourn sets the tone of quality for the collection, but wasn’t entirely to my taste. Janny Wurts’ Wars of Light and Shadow tale leaves the impression of a prologue or opening chapter and will, I’m sure, provide some interest to fans of the series; my recollection of what I’ve read of those novels is not strong and I don’t know how it fits with the rest of the milieu. James Maxey’s short story offers a new beginning for humankind in the dragon-ruled world of his novel Bitterwood, which is also published by Solaris (and was conveniently plugged at the back of TSBoNF).

A little more challenging is T.A. Pratt’s offering, but for it’s complex weirdness more than anything else. It is left to Hal Duncan’s vision of a very strange doom to give a serious intellectual challenge. ‘Challenging’ might also serve to describe Jeff Vandermeer’s tryptych of animal fables, allegories or God-knows what—which, to a proponent of the ‘New Weird’, must be a compliment.

Christopher Barzak provided one of the real standouts—a mysterious urban fantasy that finishes quite unexpectedly, but quite naturally, with true love’s kiss. (Hey, read it yourself then tell me otherwise!) Chris Roberson follows on with an engaging prequel to a Victorian classic, even if the dramatic tension seems to derive primarily from the original work. (Roberson is another Solaris author, and Set the Seas on Fire was also advertised at the rear of the book). I didn’t really connect with Juliet E. McKenna’s tale of the uses and abuses of magical power, but I suppose it might have been an entree into a more satisfying story.

Mike Resnick adds an amusing anecdote to the John Justin Mallory canon, but not having read any of the others I wasn’t particularly enthralled. I thought Steve Savile’s story of one man’s grand gesture of love was sweet, spooky and offered a little excitement, but I took a little convincing. Jay Lake had more success with another kind of grand gesture in a peculiar and complex society, though I had hoped for a little more in the way of revelation at the completion of the quest.

The last several stories formed, for me, the most solid block in the anthology. Conrad Williams’ desperate, future-fantasy London, in which nothing and nowhere is as it seems, is a highlight. Events take a slightly playful turn in Scott Thomas’s story of love magic gone wrong, and Lucius Shepard helps round things out with a superb, dark tragedy of seemingly-good intentions in a world where they simply have no place. I thought they could have finished with something more mainstream than Steven Erikson’s reality-defying contribution, but it does have a memorable and most distinctly varied cast of characters.

Overall? The Solaris Book of New Fantasy lives up to its title. It might not be a Best of … but it got the names and the stories to be worth a look for enthusiasts of short fantastic fiction. Despite my earlier comments, I suspect that it will also do the trick for anyone who imagines that they will appreciate the challenge of keeping up with all that the genre has to offer.

For a rather different take on these stories, but with a similar overall message, try SFFWorld.com’s review, by Rob H. Bedford.

Rating: 3.5/5