ReAnimus Press, current publisher of many of my books, has decided that the perfect way to interest you in all those books is ... to get you hooked with one. How better to do that than by exposing you to the broad spectrum of my writing?
Which happens to be exactly what I had in mind when assembling The Best of Edward M. Lerner.
As the title suggests, this book contains some of the best from among my many short stories, novelettes, and novellas. More than a few of these tales evolved into multi-story arcs and even entire novels. What you won't find here are excerpts from novels. Every item in this collection -- however extensible it may eventually have proven itself -- is self-contained. Each is followed by a few words of context. How a story came about, perhaps. What it grew from. What it grew into. Why it's special to me.
You're probably wondering: what determines "the best," because these things don't have official rankings. Fair enough. To select stories for this collection, I gave weight to: awards and award nominations. Editorial interest -- which strives to mirror reader interest -- in seeing a storyline continue. Reviews. Direct reader feedback (I love hearing from readers -- there's a reason I've enabled comments on all my posts). Republications in new markets. To a minor degree, my (purely objective, of course) opinion. On that personal-judgment basis I've included two stories, commissioned by and for small-press anthologies, of which I'm particularly proud. As much fun as such venues can be, they seldom get the reviews or award consideration afforded to stories in the major SF magazines or major-publisher anthologies.
Pieces chosen for this book were first published between 2001 and 2020 (so not quite career-spanning), scattered across four SF magazines and the aforementioned SF anthologies. Given staff turnover at magazines and a pair of editorial dynamic duos, these selections reflect the tastes of eight editors.
As uncomfortable as I am with tooting my own horn, well, this is a career-spanning(ish) collection, and plenty of other people have tooted a horn for me. For example:
"Fans of the genre are sure to find something to fit their tastes."
— Tangent Online
"When people talk about good hard SF—rigorously extrapolated but still imbued with the classic sense-of-wonder—they mean the work of Edward M. Lerner, the current master of the craft."
— Robert J. Sawyer, Hugo Award-winning author of Red Planet Blues
"One of the leading global writers of hard science fiction."
— The Innovation Show
"Lerner’s world-building and extrapolating are top notch."
— SFScope
"He is science fiction down to the bone, but he very often takes the 'serious' stuff not so seriously. Or he does, but he still squeezes a modicum of wit and whimsy into his subjects. He can catch a salient point in a couple of pages or explore a well-trodden road like AI with new insight."
— Galaxy’s Edge
Are you at least a tad curious? Here's that link again for you to check it out :-)
(Final thought: I'd greatly appreciate it if you'd share the word.)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment