James Nicoll Reviews

Tesseracts edited by Judith Merril

The FIRST volume of the ongoing series…

Each year we choose a team of editors from among the best of Canada’s writers, publishers and critics to select innovative and futuristic fiction and poetry from the leaders and emerging voices in Canadian speculative fiction. This is the anthology that started it all!

Tesseracts features fiction by Hugo and Nebula award winning authors Spider Robinson and William Gibson, as well as Élisabeth Vonarburg, Rhea Rose, Robert Zend, Michael G. Coney, Robert Priest, Candas Jane Dorsey, Eileen Kernaghan, Christopher Dewdney, Daniel Sernine, D. M. Price,Terence M. Green, Dorothy Corbett Gentleman, Gerry Truscott, Benjamin Freedman, Phyllis Gotlieb, Gary Eikenberry, Marc Sevigny, Robert John Colombo, Marian Engel, D. M. Price, Margaret McBride, A. K. Dewdney, Susan Swan, Lesley Choyce, Robert Sward, and David Kilpatrick.

About Judith Merril

The late Judith Merril is considered one of the most prolific authors and editors in the field of Science Fiction. Born in New York in 1923, she founded the Futurians, a group of SF writers and editors. Her first SF story, ​‘That Only a Mother,’ was published in 1948. Judith edited numerous SF anthologies including Dell’s Year’s Best SF from 1956 – 1967, and was the ​‘Books’ columnist for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction from 1965 – 69. She helped to establish Toronto’s Rochdale College library (based largely on her own private collection) which is now known as The Merril Collection. Judith founded the speculative fiction writers group Hydra North in 1984, and was awarded two Canadian Science Fiction Lifetime Achievement Awards: for contributions to the field and for achievements in editing. She passed away September 12, 1997 from complications following an angiogram. She is sorely missed by her fans and fellow writers. 

Tesseracts 2 edited by Phyllis Gotlieb and Douglas Barbour

Tesseracts²expands the dimensions of speculative fiction experientially, with startling visions of the future by new and established Canadian authors.

Enter Tesseracts² and celebrate the fifteen-billionth birthday of the Universe … experience Void-link, the ultimate in video games … walk with herds of multi-dimensional creatures that roam Earth’s cities grazing on human flesh … observe the effects of television on alien life … achieve immortality by storing your dreams in ROM.

Tesseracts ² features twenty-three stories by: Élisabeth Vonarburg, Alain Champetier, Candas Jane Dorsey, William Gibson, David Godfrey, Terence M. Green, Tom Henighan, M. Travis Lane, Michael Mirolla, John Park, Wendy G. Pearson, Esther Rochon, Stan Rogal, Leon Rooke, Rhea Rose, Kathryn A. Sinclair, Michael Skeet, Heather Spears, Andrew Weiner, and Margaret Atwood, winner of the Governor General’s Award, the Booker Prize, and the Arthur C. Clarke award for Science Fiction.

About the editors:

Phyllis Gotlieb
The late Phyllis Gotlieb was born in Toronto, Canada. She was married to Calvin Gotlieb, ­professor emeritus of Computer ­Science at the University of Toronto and has three grown children, and four grandchildren. She has published five volumes of ­poetry, nine novels (eight of them ­science fiction), as well as two story collections, and has co-edited an anthology of Canadian science fiction. Versions of her works have appeared in nine languages worldwide. Phyllis Gotlieb passed away Tuesday July 14^th 2009 in Toronto. She was said to have been Canada’s first Science Fiction author. Phyllis Gotlieb was an inspiration for all Canadian Science Fiction authors and will be deeply missed.

Douglas Barbour
Douglas Barbour was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and has been a critic and editor as well as a poet. He has edited the anthologies Inscriptions: A Prairie Poetry Anthology, A Salt Reader, and The Maple Laugh Forever: An Anthology of Comic Canadian Poetry. In 1984 Mr. Barbour was the recipient of the Stephan Stephasson Award for Poetry, from the Writers’ Guild of Alberta. He currently teaches Canadian Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Alberta. 

Tesseracts 3 edited by Candas Jane Dorsey and Gerry Truscott

Explore new worlds …

In this third anthology of modern Canadian speculative fiction, explore new worlds of alternate realities in time and space by new and established Canadian authors.

Travel to a planet where the five senses are not good enough … watch a baseball game on Mars … fly with Garuda, the king of birds, to see what kind of human folly he can find to amuse the gods … visit a laundromat that can take you anywhere in space and time … stroll through a holograph of the last forest on earth … see if time will end with a jolt or a gradual slide.

Tesseracts³ includes works from authors: Dave Duncan, Charles de Lint, Colleen Anderson, Ven Begamudre, Cliff Burnds, Joel Champtier, Leslie Choyce, Pat Forde, Leslie Gadallah, James Alan Gardiner, Leona Gom, Phylis Gotlieb, Kelly Graves, Eileen Kernaghan, Scott Mackay, Judith Merril, P. K. Page, John Park, Ursula Pflug, Claude-Michel Prevost, Esther Rochon, Daniel Sernine, Karl Schroder, Michael Skeet, Jean-Louis Trudel, Elisabeth Vonarburg, Peter Watts, Hugo and Nebula award winner William Gibson, and Margaret Atwood, winner of the Giller Prize, the Governor Generals Award and the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Science Fiction.

About the editors:

Candas Jane Dorsey

Candas Jane Dorsey is an internationally-known writer and editor whose novel Black Wine won the Tiptree, Crawford and Aurora Awards, her various other works have also garnered the WGA Short Fiction Award, and the Sunburst Award for best Canadian fantastic fiction. Her other books include Machine Sex and other stories, and Leaving Marks.

She is the founding president of SF Canada, the professional Canadian speculative writers’ association, and has worked on the boards and committees of other writers organizations in Canada. A native of Edmonton Canada, Candas has been a free lance writer and editor since 1979. 

Gerry Truscott

Gerald L. Truscott has been an editor and publisher for more than 20 years, and has also written several short stories, including ​‘Cee’ in the first Tesseracts anthology, ​‘Transit’, and ​‘In the Court of Crimson King’ (On Spec, Spring 1998). He lives in Victoria, B.C. with his wife and three daughters, and is a publisher/editor for the Royal British Museum.

Tesseracts 4 edited by Lorna Toolis and Michael Skeet

Expanding the future…

Tesseracts⁴ expands the future of speculative fiction in the fourth instalment of this popular anthology of Canadian writers.

Enter worlds where reproductive laws yield a biotechnical marriage of the flesh … take the stage with a rock ​‘n’ roll band, its fame, fortune and phantom … prepare for the gift of flight on eagles’ wings … experience the angst of a mother as she searches for her abducted dream child on video … hand raise a mythical beast in the comfort of your home … go behind a freakshow cage to meet a philosophical man-faced dog … charge a truly animalistic sexuality to your credit card.

Tesseracts⁴ includes works by: Ven Begamudre, Cliff Burns, Mick Burns, Lesley Choyce, John Robert Colombo, Charles de Lint, Candas Jane Dorsey, Dave Duncan, M. W. Field, James Alan Gardner, Charles Shelby Goerlitz, Phyllis Gotlieb, Tom Henighan, Eileen Kernaghan, Yves Meynard, Derryl Murphy, David Nickle, Karl Schroeder, John Park, Ursula Pflug, Jean-Louis Trudel, Elisabeth Vonarburg, Andrew Weiner, Allan Weiss, Robert Charles Wilson, and Tim Wynne-Jones.

About the editors:

Lorna Toolis
Lorna Toolis is the Branch Head of the Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation, and Fantasy in Toronto.

Michael Skeet
Michael Skeet has worked as a writer, journalist, broadcaster and editor since the mid-1970s. In 1992 he won the Aurora Award for his short story ​“Breaking Ball”. Michael is a founding member of SF Canada, the Canadian speculative fiction writers organization, and is also a founding member of the Toronto writers workshop inspired by the late Judith Merril.

Tesseracts 5 edited by Robert Runté and Yves Meynard

Award-winning anthology…

Explore strange new realities on the edge of the imagination, in Tesseracts⁵ the fifth volume of the award-winning anthology of Canadian speculative fiction.

Authors featured in this volume:

Sally McBride, Jan Lars Jensen, Francine Pelletier, Dale Sproule, Elizabeth Vonarburg, Marlene Dean, Sansoucy Kathenor, Andrew Weiner, Cliff Burns, Jean-Louis Trudel, Candas Jane Dorsey, Sandra Kasturi, Keith Scott, Tracey Halford, Michel Martic, Michael Coney, Ian Driscoll, James Alan Gardner, Jocko, Peter Such, Karl Schroeder, Paul Stockton, Eileen Kernaghan, Annick Perrot-Bishop, David Nickle, Daniel Sernine, Sandra Kasturi, Peter Watts, Choo, Natasha Beaulieu, Heather Fraser, and John Park.

About the editors:

Robert Runté
Robert Runté is an editor and critic specializing in speculative fiction. He contributed the essay on ​‘Science Fiction and Fantasy’ to The Encyclopedia of Literature in Canada, and has served as editor, for many years, for New Canadian Fandom, the first Canadian national SF newsletter. He won Aurora Awards in 1989 and 1990 for his contributions to Canadian SF and was Fan Guest of Honour at ConAdian, the 52^nd World Science Fiction Convention. He is currently an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Lethbridge.

Yves Meynard
Yves Meynard is a five time Aurora Award winner, and has received the Prix Boréal four times. In 1994 he also received the Grand prix de la science-fiction et du fantastique québécois. His stories have appeared in numerous English-language magazines in Canada and his novel, The Book of Knights, was published by Tor in 1998. Yves currently lives in Montreal, where he works as an anthropologist and editor. 

Tesseracts 6 edited by Robert J. Sawyer and Carolyn Clink

Best Canadian fiction…

Edited by Hugo and Nebula Award winning author Robert J. Sawyer and poet Carolyn Clink, Tesseracts⁶ brings together the best new Canadian SF including English translations from French authors.

This volume includes fiction and poetry by: Jacquline Pearce, Sandra Kasturi, Katie Harse, Edward Baranowsky, Laura Houghton, Yves Meynard, Caterine MacLeod, Douglas Smith, Rhea Rose, James Alan Gardner, Nalo Hopkinson, Derryl Murphy, Dora Knez, Hayden Trenholm, Robyn Herrington, Scott Mackay, Clelie Rich, Jena Snyder, Nancy Bennett, Sylvie Bérard, Peter Bloch-Hansen, Eric Choi, Candas Jane Dorsey, Jean-Louis Trudel, Michael Vance, Élisabeth Vonarburg, Lia Pas, Jan Lars Jensen, Carolyn Clink, Andrew Weiner, and Robert Charles Wilson.

About the editors:

Robert J. Sawyer
Robert J. Sawyer is the only writer in history to have received SF awards in the United States, Japan, France, and Spain. He has won seven Auroras, as well as both the Hugo and Nebula awards and has written seventeen bestselling novels including The Terminal Experiment (winner of the Nebula Award), Frameshift, Factoring Humanity, Flashforward, Calculating God, and the popular ​‘Neanderthal Parallax’ trilogy (Hominids which won the 2003 Hugo for best novel, Humans, and Hybrids). [MORE]

Carolyn Clink
Carolyn Clink has published SF poetry in Analog, On Spec, TransVersions, Tesseracts⁴, and four volumes of the Northern Frights series. She currently lives in Thornhill, Ontario. 

Tesseracts 7 edited by Paula Johanson and Jean-Louis Trudel

Includes works are translated into English…

Readers will find both familiar and new authors in this seventh volume of speculative fiction and poetry showcasing the very best in Canadian literature (including French-Canadian authors whose works are translated into English), as well as a special international Spanish translation.

Tesseracts⁷ includes top Canadian talents such as: M. A. C. Farrant, J. Marc Piche, Jan Lars Jensen, Eileen Kernaghan, Gerald Truscott, Andrew Weiner, Lydia Langstaff, Judy McCrosky, Scott Ellis, Nancy Johnston, Richard Stevens, Natash Beaulieu, Melissa Yuan-Innes, Pierre Sormany, Dora Knez, Lia Pas, Carl Sieber, Allan Weiss, Jacko Benoit, Carolyn Clink, Eduardo Frank, Aaron Humphrey, E. B. Klassen, Candas Jane Dorsey, Bob Boyczuk, Cory Doctorow, Teresa Plowright, Yves Meynard, Karl Schroder, Shirley Meier, David Annandale, Michael Skeet, Mildred Trembley, Paula Johanson, Eileen Kernaghan, and Élisabeth Vonarburg.

About the editors:

Paula Johanson
Paula Johanson’s first book of real-life stories was No Parent is an Island. She lives on a farm north of Edmonton, and teaches writing classes in Victoria, BC in the winter. Her critical essays on works of fantasy, SF and classic books appear in volumes 12 through 15 of Beacham’s Guide to Literature for Young Adults and in Scribner’s Supernatural Fiction Writers. [MORE]

Jean-Louis Trudel
Jean-Louis Trudel is the author of twenty-three books in French, including the novel Le Ressuscité de l’Atlantide. He is also the author of over fifty short stories in French, published in magazines such as Imagine and Solaris, and has won the Aurora Award in 1994, 1996, 1997, 1999, and 2001. In addition he was awarded the Prix Boréal, in 1999 and 2002 as well as the Grand Prix de la Science-Fiction et du Fantastique québécois in 2001. His stories have been translated into English, French, Russian, and Romanian. 

Tesseracts 8 edited by John Clute and Candas Jane Dorsey

Established and new authors…

Readers of all types of speculative fiction — science fiction, fantasy, magic realism and horror — will find their flavor in the eighth anthology in the renowned Tesseracts series.

Tesseracts⁸ brings together twenty of the best pieces of Canadian speculative fiction, selected from both established and new, English and French writers by award-winning editors John Clute and Candas Jane Dorsey.

Amazing stories by: Hugh D. Spencer, Daniel Sernine, Jean-Louis Trudel, John Park, Francine Pellier, Ursula Pflug, Sally McBride, Sandra Kasturi, Sara Simmons, M. Arnot, A. M. Dellamonica, Peter Bloch-Hanson, Cory Doctorow, Susan A. Manchester, J. Michael Yates, Yves Meynard, Karl Schroder, Rene Beaulieu, David Nickle, and Candas Jane Dorsey.

About the editors:

John Clute
Canadian John Clute is perhaps best known for his work on The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (co-edited with Peter Nicholls) and The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (co-edited with Peter Grant). His extensive criticism in numerous publications is collected in part in Strokes and Look at the Evidence. He currently lives in London, England. [MORE]

Candas Jane Dorsey
Candas Jane Dorsey is an internationally-known writer and editor whose novel Black Wine won the Tiptree, Crawford and Aurora Awards, her various other works have also garnered the WGA Short Fiction Award, and the Sunburst Award for best Canadian fantastic fiction. Her other books include Machine Sex and other stories, and Leaving Marks. She is the founding president of SF Canada, the professional Canadian speculative writers’ association, and has worked on the boards and committees of other writers organizations in Canada. A native of Edmonton Canada, Candas has been a free lance writer and editor since 1979. 

Tesseracts Nine (New Canadian Speculative Fiction) edited by Nalo Hopkinson and Geoff Ryman

Edited by Award winning authors…

Each year Tesseract Books chooses a team of editors from amongst the best of Canada’s writers, publishers and critics to select innovative and futuristic fiction and poetry from the leaders and emerging voices in Canadian speculative fiction.

Tesseracts Nine (New Canadian Speculative Fiction) expands the dimensions of speculative fiction experientially, with startling visions of the future by new and established Canadian authors.

Featuring twenty-three stories and poems by: Timothy J. Anderson, Sylvie Bérard, René Beaulieu, E. L. Chen, Candas Jane Dorsey, Pat Forde, Marg Gilks, Sandra Kasturi, Nancy Kilpatrick, Claude Lalumière, Anthony MacDonald, Jason Mehmel, Yves Meynard, Derryl Murphy, Rhea Rose, Dan Rubin, Daniel Sernine, Steve Stanton, Jerome Stueart, Sarah Totton, Élisabeth Vonarburg, Peter Watts, Allan Weiss, Alette J. Willis and Casey June Wolf.

Edited by Sunburst and World Fantasy Award winning authors Nalo Hopkinson and Geoff Ryman, Tesseracts Nine (New Canadian Speculative Fiction) showcases the very best in Canadian speculative fiction literature (including English translations of works by French-Canadian authors).

About the editors:

Nalo Hopkinson
Nalo Hopkinson is the author of three novels (Brown Girl in the Ring, Midnight Robber and The Salt Roads) and a short story collection (Skin Folk). She has edited two anthologies of fiction and co-edited two more. She is the recipient of the Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic, the World Fantasy Award, and the Gaylactic Spectrum Award, and at this writing is currently short listed for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Black Writing. She thinks plurality rocks. [MORE]

Geoff Ryman
Geoff Ryman is an award winning author who has received a number of awards including the World Fantasy Award and the British Science Fiction Association Award for his novella ​“Unconquered Country”, the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for ​“The Child Garden”, the Eastercon Award for ​“Was” and the Philip K Dick Award for ​“253 — the Print Remix”.

Tesseracts Ten (A Celebration of New Canadian Speculative Fiction) edited by Robert Charles Wilson and Edo van Belkom

Stunning Canadian writing…

What do Parisian buttons, nesting spiders, and men from Venus have in common? They are all part of Tesseracts Ten — the sparkling new addition to the 21 year old Tesseracts Collection.

Tesseracts Ten joins volumes One through Nine, and Tesseracts Q — forming an eleven volume anthology of Canada’s best Science Fiction, Fantasy and Speculative Literature.

Following the Tesseracts tradition of having different editors for each collection, Tesseracts Ten was compiled by two of the world’s finest speculative fiction writers.

About the editors:

Robert Charles Wilson, who won a best novel Hugo award for his book Spin, and Edo van Belkom, winner of the Bram Stoker award for horror, reviewed, sorted and carefully selected a remarkable collection of short stories and poems, chosen from submissions that were made from Canadian speculative fiction authors.

What makes Tesseracts Ten special:

• Every story/poem is diverse and distinctive, ranging from futuristic hard core science fiction to alternative history…
• Stories hand picked by award winning editors Robert Charles Wilson and Edo van Belkom.
• Powerful new works by both well known and new Canadian speculative fiction writers.
• Many of the authors have won awards for previous works.
• Part of a long lineage of Tesseracts speculative fiction collections.
• Following Tesseracts Nine, edited by Nalo Hopkinson and Geoff Taylor which won the Aurora award for best works other.

Tesseracts Eleven (Amazing Canadian Speculative Fiction) edited by Cory Doctorow and Holly Phillips

Hand picked authors and a literary legacy…

You may want to read it in one quick bite… Or savor it slowly like fine swiss chocolate… One delicious prose at a time!

For 22 years, SF lovers from around the world have enjoyed the stories and poems of the Tesseracts series, (Tesseracts One through Ten, and Tesseracts Q). This unique collection of books has featured the work of some of Canada’s finest speculative fiction writers, selected and edited by ever changing combinations of editors, hand picked for each edition. For many science fiction writers, Tesseracts was a spring board to their fame.

Tesseracts Eleven brings the series to a new height, with a tasty blend of past and present writers, with their own individual visions of the future. The literature of Tesseracts Eleven has been critically selected and shaped into the collection you see by this year’s editors, two of Canada’s finest writers — acclaimed authors Cory Doctorow and Holly Phillips. Together they have chosen a powerful combination of works by well known writers, as well as newer authors whose futures you will want to follow.

Some favorite Tesseracts ingredients are a featured part of this edition’s literary blend: some very popular award winning names in Canada’s SF scene, like Canada’s grand dame of speculative fiction, Elisabeth Vonarburg, Claude Lalumière, David Nickle and Candas Jane Dorsey, to name just a few.

As well, readers will find some bright new stars in the science fiction world like Yukon’s Jerome Stueart, or Calgary’s Susan Forest — just 2 of the delicious authors featured in this fine offering.

All told, Doctorow and Phillips have presented 22 pieces of literary delights to tantalize your imagination, and although you may want to consume the book in one sitting — take your time, and savor each exquisite morsel — delight in every bite. Grab your favorite beverage, settle down, and enjoy the latest in Canada’s literary legacy — Tesseracts Eleven

About the editors:

Cory Doctorow and Holly Phillips are both established authors with numerous awards for their works.

Featured authors:

Featured in Tesseracts Eleven are the works by: Daniel Archambault, Madeline Ashby, Greg Bechtel, Nancy Bennett, Lisa Carreiro, Peter Darbyshire, Khria Deefholts, Cory Doctorow, Candas Jane Dorsey, Susan Forest, Kim Goldberg, Andrew Gray, Alyxandra Harvey-Fitzhenry, Stephen Kotowych, Claude Lalumière, John Mavin, Randy McCharles, Steven Mills, David Nickle, Holly Phillips, Kate Riedel, Hugh Spencer, Jerome Stueart and Élisabeth Vonarburg.

Tesseracts Twelve (New Novellas of Canadian Fantastic Fiction) edited by Claude Lalumière

Focuses on novellas…

Tesseracts Twelve is unlike any other volume in this critically acclaimed series showcasing the best in Canadian speculative fiction. For the first time in its distinguished history, Tesseracts focuses on novellas, the form believed by many to be the best expression of fantastic and speculative storytelling.

In Tesseracts Twelve, the series’ most ambitious volume to date, celebrated writer, anthologist, and critic Claude Lalumière has gathered seven brand-new novellas from some of Canada’s finest writers of fantastic fiction.

Follow these daring, imaginative, and entertaining writers into new worlds of wonder, with an outlook that is both Canadian and global.

Cavemen and woolly mammoths invade Yukon! Mythological creatures cause havoc in ancient feudal Japan! Women with power over love and death stalk the streets of Montreal! A modern Scheherazade seeks to understand love in a Toronto suffused with magic and fable! A small town in Alberta is rife with pagan rituals! Superheroes tackle Korean politics, maniacal supervillains, and corporate downsizing! As the world faces environmental collapse, reality-TV adventurers battle giant beasts from the ocean depths!

Tesseracts Twelve features all-new exciting and imaginative work by: E.L. Chen, Randy McCharles, Derryl Murphy, David Nickle, Gord Sellar, Grace Seybold, and Michael Skeet & Jill Snider Lum; and introduction by Brett Alexander Savory.

About Claude Lalumière:

Claude Lalumière is a Montreal writer and editor, with six previous anthologies to his credit, including Open Space: New Canadian Fantastic Fiction and Island Dreams: Montreal Writers of the Fantastic. His own fiction has been selected eight times for ​“best of” volumes, most notably Year’s Best Fantasy 6 and Year’s Best SF 12. He writes the Fantastic Fiction column for The Montreal Gazette and the annual best of the year summation for Locus Online.

Tesseracts Thirteen (Chilling Tales From the Great White North) edited by Nancy Kilpatrick and David Morrell

Experience the shadowy side of Canadian speculative fiction...

Tesseracts Thirteen (Chilling Tales From the Great White North) uses the mysterious and bewitching volume number thirteen as the editors’ ​“raison d’être” to select the innovative, thought provoking and disturbing fiction found in this anthology.

Unique to this twenty-plus year Canadian literary legacy, Tesseracts Thirteen features 23 Science Fiction, fantasy and horror writers chosen by award-winning editors Nancy Kilpatrick and David Morrell.

Tesseracts Thirteen (Chilling Tales From the Great White North) features Works by: Kelley Armstrong,Alison Baird, Rebecca Bradley, Mary E. Choo, Suzanne Church, Kevin Cockle, Ivan Dorin, Katie Harse, Kevin Kvas, Michael Kelly, Jill Snider Lum, Catherine MacLeod, Matthew Moore, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, David Nickle, Jason Ridler, Gord Rollo, Andrea Schlecht, Daniel Sernine, Stephanie Short, Jean-Louis Trudel, Edo van Belkom, Bev Vincent

Also included: ​“Out of the Barrens” by Robert Knowlton: an essay detailing the history of ­Canadian dark fantasy and horror for the last two centuries.

About the editors:

Nancy Kilpatrick
Award-winning author Nancy Kilpatrick has published 18 novels, over 190 short stories, 5 collections of stories, and has edited 8 anthologies. Much of her body of work involves vampires.

Nancy writes dark fantasy, horror, mysteries and erotic horror, under her own name, her nom de plume Amarantha Knight, and her newest pen name Desirée Knight (Amarantha’s younger sister!) Besides writing novels and short stories, and editing anthologies, she has scripted 4 issues of VampErotic comics. As well, she’s penned a couple of radio scripts, a stage play, and much non-fiction, including the book The goth Bible: A Compendium for the Darkly Inclined (St. Martin’s Press — October 2004).

Nancy won the Arthur Ellis Award for best mystery story, has been a Bram Stoker finalist three times and a finalist for the Aurora Award five times. 

David Morrell
David is the award-winning author of First Blood, the novel in which Rambo was created. He was born in 1943 in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. In 1960, at the age of seventeen, he became a fan of the classic television series, Route 66, about two young men in a Corvette traveling the United States in search of America and themselves. The scripts by Stirling Silliphant so impressed Morrell that he decided to become a writer.

Morrell is the co-president of the International Thriller Writers Organization. Noted for his research, he is a graduate of the National Outdoor Leadership School for wilderness survival as well as the G. Gordon Liddy Academy of Corporate Security. He is also an honorary lifetime member of the Special Operations Association and the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. He has been trained in firearms, hostage negotiation, assuming identities, executive protection, and anti-terrorist driving, among numerous other action skills that he describes in his novels. With eighteen million copies in print, his work has been translated into twenty-six languages. 

Tesseracts Fourteen (Strange Canadian Stories) edited by John Robert Colombo and Brett Alexander Savory

Strange Canadian stories…

Features innovative short stories and poetry by 23 of Canada’s finest speculative fiction writers.

Tesseracts Fourteen features works by: Michelle Barker, Tony Burgess, Suzanne Church, David Clink, Michael Colangelo, Susan Forest, Lisa Hannett, Brent Hayward, Patrick Johanneson, Sandra Kasturi, Claude Lalumière, Michael Lorenson, Catherine MacLeod, Matthew Moore, David Nickle, John Park, Jonathan Saville, Robert J. Sawyer, Daniel Sernine, Leah Silverman, Jerome Stueart, Jon Martin Watts and others.

About the editors:

John Robert Colombo
Mr. Colombo is the Toronto-based author and anthologist whose byline has appeared on over 200 books of quality. These range from volumes of poetry to compilations of quotations. Colombo has been variously dubbed:

• “The Master Gatherer” for his compilations of Canadiana. 
• “John ​‘Bartlett’ Colombo” for his ​‘quote books. 
• “Canada’s Mr. Mystery” for his collections of told-as-true ghost stories. 
• “Superfan” for his pioneering interest in Canadian fantastic literature.

Recently Mr. Colombo was the keynote speaker for the Montreal World Science Fiction Convention’s academic track. Robert J. Sawyer, co-editor of Tesseracts 6 introduced ​“JRC”. This is part of what he had to say…

Colombo has won numerous awards including:

• Ontario Library Association’s Certificate of Merit
• Periodical Distributors of Canada’s Best Paperback of the Year 1976
• Centennial Medal, 1967 
• Esteemed Knight of Mark Twain 
• Order of Cyril and Methodius (1^st class) 
• Harbourfront Literary Prize, 1985 
• D.Litt. (h.c.), York University, Toronto, June 1998 
• Member, Order of Canada, 2004 
• Biographer-biographee: ​“The Canadian Encyclopedia,” ​“The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature,” ​“The Canadian Who’s Who,” ​“Contemporary Poets,” etc. 
• Course leader, Canadian Management Centre of the American Management Association 
• Participant, ideaCity, June 2002 
• Coat of Arms, granted May 2007, with motto ​“Alert” in three languages 
• Associate, Northrop Frye Centre, Victoria College, University of Toronto, 2007 – 2008

Brett Alexander Savory
The Bram Stoker Award-winning Editor-in-Chief of ChiZine: Treatments of Light and Shade in Words, Co-Publisher with Sandra Kasturi of ChiZine Publications (CZP), has had nearly 50 short stories published, written two novels and penned the foreword to Tesseracts Twelve.

In 2006, Necro Publications released his horror-comedy novel The Distance Travelled. September 2007 saw the release of his dark literary novel In and Down through Brindle & Glass, and November brought his first short story collection, No Further Messages, released through Delirium Books. In the works are three more novels. When he’s not writing, reading, or editing, he plays drums for a band that his wife wants him to call Magic Pussy.

Acknowledged by Quill & Quire​’s ​“Best Books of the Year” list in 2007 for his novel In and Down, Brett Alexander Savory lives in Toronto with his wife Sandra Kasturi, whose writing has been featured in previous Tesseracts anthologies. 

Tesseracts Fifteen (A Case of Quite Curious Tales) edited by Julie Czerneda and Susan MacGregor

For the young at heart…

Tesseracts Fifteen (A Case of Quite Curious Tales), edited by Julie Czerneda and Susan MacGregor, is the only volume in the long running Tesseracts series that is themed specifically for young adults and the young at heart. These stories are filled with ​“wonder and astonishment,” say the editors. They are ​“stories that engage the imagination, inspire dreams, and leave hope in their wake. They will become the classics for a new generation of readers, to be remembered, fondly, for years to come.”

This anthology joins a 25+ year Canadian literary legacy that features the writing and editing of more than 250 of Canada’s best known authors.

Tesseracts Fifteen features works by:

Michelle Barker, K. Boorman, Shen Braun, Leslie Brown, E. L. Chen, Kevin Cockle, Julie Czerneda, Claire Eamer, Ed Greenwood, Jennifer Greylyn, Erika Holt, Michele Ann Jenkins, Kurt Kirchmeier, Claude Lalumière, Francine Lewis, Nicole Luiken, Susan MacGregor, Lynne M. MacLean, Helen Marshall, Cat McDonald, Virginia Modugno, Elise Moser, Katrina Nicholson, Tony Pi, Mike Rimar, Robert Runté, Rebecca M. Senese, J. J. Steinfeld, Amanda Sun.

About the Editors:

Julie Czerneda

Julie is a Canadian author and editor whose first novel, ​“A Thousand Words for Stranger”, was published in 1997 by DAW Books. Since then, she has produced over a dozen more novels, edited fifteen anthologies, and written numerous short stories. Her work has won awards, consistently made best seller lists, and garnered praise from readers and reviewers around the world. 

Susan MacGregor

Susan has been an editor with On Spec magazine since 1991. Her published work has appeared in On Spec, Northern Frights, and other magazines. In 1998 her anthology Divine Realms was published through the Ravenstone imprint of Turnstone Books. Her most recent book The ABC’s of How NOT to Write Speculative Fiction was published in 2006 by the Copper Pig Writer’s Society. 

Tesseracts Sixteen (Parnassus Unbound) edited by Mark Leslie

According to Greek Mythology, Mount Parnassus was sacred to Apollo (god of prophecy, music, intellectual pursuits and the arts) and home of the Muses. At the base of the mountain was a fountain named Castalia (a transformed nymph) that could inspire the genius of poetry for anyone who drank her waters or listened to her quiet soothing sounds.

The theme for ​“Tesseracts Sixteen (Parnassus Unbound)” is speculative fiction inspired by literature, music, art and culture.

In selecting stories, editor Mark Leslie’s goal was to capture not only the spirit of what might be found on Mount Parnassus, but to allow it to be released, freed from the mythological Greek mountain and expanded upon in a way that only speculative literature can ​“unbind” such a theme.

“Tesseracts Sixteen (Parnassus Unbound)” features works by 26 modern day Muses gifted with the ability to take the reader on fantastical journeys: Neil Peart & Kevin J. Anderson, Robert J. Sawyer, Ryan Oakley, Steve Vernon, Hugh A. D. Spencer, Sandra Kasturi, Michael Kelly, Rebecca Senese, Randy McCharles, Chadwick Ginther, Stephen Kotowych, Carolyn Clink, J. J. Steinfeld, David Clink, Robert H. Beer, L. T. Getty, Scott Overton, Sean Costello, Virginia O’Dine, Melissa Yuan-Innes, Derwin Mak, Kimberly Foottit, Matthew Jordan Schmidt, Adria Laycraft, and Jeff Hughes.

Come sip from the mythical fountain, gaze into the infinite reaches of the universe and explore the endless depths of the mind in Tesseracts Sixteen’s ​“unbound” tales of wonder and imagination!

About the editor:

Mark Leslie is a writer, editor and bookseller. In addition to his fiction writing Mark occasionally writes reviews, conducts interviews and regularly posts to his blog. He was the series editor for the North of Infinity science fiction anthology series. Mark sits on the board of directors for BookNet Canada, is the president of Canadian Booksellers Association and is the Director of Self Publishing and Author Relations for KOBO. As an active member of the book industry, Mark regularly speaks at conferences, conventions and workshops about books, writing, and publishing. 

Tesseracts Seventeen (Speculating Canada from Coast to Coast to Coast) edited by Colleen Anderson & Steve Vernon

With nearly four million square miles of territory and a population of thirty-four million people – Canada lives and breathes storytelling. Editors Steve Vernon and Colleen Anderson have gathered thirty fresh new stories and poems of horror, science-fiction and fantasy from authors residing in EACH of the provinces and territories of Canada.

Find out what cold darkness lurks in the heart of a Tuktoyaktuk blizzard. Hear a long-lost legend, lingering by a lonely lighthouse, perched on the shores of Manitoulin Island. Meet a hambone ghostly actor in search of his next gig in the Ottawa Museum of Nature. Learn the colors of the graffiti that tattoo the grey tenement walls of Montreal. In the Maritimes find out how coming events can be foreseen in a few shards of pottery or solve a murder by reliving the memory of a dead man. Explore a distant future, rife with acronym or trace the delicate fancies of the calligrapher’s daughter.

Come join us on a magnificent cross-country trek through worlds familiar and unknown and enjoy over two dozen stories and poem — fantastic and frightening; inspirational, illuminating and eerily surreal.

Featuring works by: Catherine Austen, Jason Barrett, John Bell, Dave Beynon, Dwain Campbell, Rachel Cooper, Megan Fennell, David Jón Fuller, Ben Godby, Costi Gurgu, Alyxandra Harvey, Dianne Homan, Eileen Kernaghan, Claude Lalumière, Mark Leslie, Catherine MacLeod, William Meikle, Elise Moser, Dominik Parisien, Rhonda Parrish, Vincent Grant Perkins, Lisa Poh, Timothy Reynolds, Patricia Robertson, Rhea Rose, Holly Schofield, Lisa Smedman, J.J. Steinfeld, Steve Vernon, Edward Willett.

About the editors:

Colleen Anderson​’s poetry and fiction have been published in Britain, Canada and the United States. Her work has been nominated for the Aurora and Gaylactic Spectrum Awards; and she’s received several honorable mentions in the Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, the Year’s Best SF, and Imaginarium. Colleen is a member of the Horror Writers of America and SF Canada and has a degree in creative writing. 

First and foremost Steve Vernon is a storyteller. He has written traditional folklore collections such as Halifax Haunts and Haunted Harbours. His short fiction has appeared in the pages of The Horror Show, Cemetery Dance, Flesh & Blood, and Tor’s Year’s Best Horror. 

Wrestling With Gods (Tesseracts Eighteen) edited by Liana Kerzner & Jerome Stueart

A mechanical Jesus for your shrine, the myths of cuttlefish, a vampire in residential schools, a Muslim woman who wants to get closer, surgically, to her god, the demons of outer space, the downside of Nirvana. The 24 science fiction and fantasy stories and poems included in Tesseracts 18: Wrestling with Gods take their faith and religion into the future, into the weird and comic and thought-provoking spaces where science fiction and fantasy has really always gone, struggling with higher powers, gods, the limits of technology, the limits of spiritual experience.

At times profound, these speculative offerings give readers a chance to see faith from the believer and the skeptic in worlds where what you believe is a matter of life, death, and afterlife.

Featuring works by: Derwin Mak, Robert J. Sawyer, Tony Pi, S. L. Nickerson, Janet K. Nicolson, John Park, Mary-Jean Harris, David Clink, Mary Pletsch, Jennifer Rahn, Alyxandra Harvey, Halli Lilburn, John Bell, David Jón Fuller, Carla Richards, Matthew Hughes, J. M. Frey, Steve Stanton, Erling Friis-Baastad, James Bambury, Savithri Machiraju, Jen Laface and Andrew Czarnietzki, David Fraser, Suzanne M. McNabb, andMegan Fennell.

About the editors:

Liana Kerzner is an award-winning TV producer & writer who has also stepped in front of the camera as the co-host of the legendary late night show Ed & Red’s Night Party, the Canadian Comedy Award-winning this Movie Sucks!, and Ed the Sock’s I Hate Hollywood! An episode of I Hate Hollywood was lauded by mental health workers for de-stigmatizing mental illness. Another early episode was well-received for its look at religion in Hollywood.

Liana also provides commentary, reviews and video interviews for video game site gamingexcellence.com. She is co-columnist of 411 Mania’s ​“The 8 Ball”, and host/writer of Liana K’s Geek Download, heard weekly on the internationally syndicated radio program Canada’s Top 20. She has edited and contributed writing to a comic book mini-series: Ed and Red’s Comic Strip.

She has hosted and produced the Prix Aurora Awards ceremony three times. She is founder and chair of the Futurecon organization, which uses Science-Fiction and Fantasy elements to reduce various types of stigma and raise money for various charities.

Her stranger achievements include: modeling for videogames, having her superhero toy & art collection featured on TV’s Space channel, researching and presenting a paper on Mormon Cosmology in the Twilight Saga, and having a DC Comics character named after her. Liana is an avid cosplayer and her costume work made her the face of Western cosplay on Wikipedia.

Jerome Stueart makes his home in the Yukon Territory. Hailing from Missouri and West Texas, Jerome came up to the Yukon to work on northern science fiction. He fell hard for the place. Stueart is a graduate of Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Workshop in San Diego (2007) and of the Lambda Literary Retreat for Emerging LGBT Voices (2013). He has been published in Fantasy, Geist, Joyland, Geez, Strange Horizons, Ice-Floe, Redivider, On Spec, Tesseracts Nine, Tesseracts Eleven, Tesseracts Fourteen and Evolve: Vampire Stories of the New Undead. He earned honourable mentions for both the Fountain Award and Year’s Best Science Fiction 2006. He co-edited Inhuman. As a cartoonist he was featured in the Yukon News, and as a journalist he wrote for Yukon, North of Ordinary, Air North’s in-flight magazine. He’s worked as a janitor, a trolley conductor, an embedded reporter in a remote northern research station, a Religious Education director, and a marketing director. He wrote five radio series for CBC, and one of them, Leaving America, was heard around the world on Radio Canada International. Jerome has taught creative writing for 20 years, and taught an afterschool course in fantasy and science fiction writing for teens for three years. He teaches a workshop he designed called Writing Faith in churches across Canada and the USA.

Superhero Universe (Tesseracts Nineteen) edited by Claude Lalumière & Mark Shainblum

Twenty-four short stories and one poem featuring:

Superheroes! Supervillains! Superpowered antiheroes. Mad scientists. Adventurers into the unknown. Detectives of the dark night. Costumed crimefighters. Steampunk armoured avengers. Brave and bold supergroups. Crusading aliens in a strange land. Secret histories. Pulp action.

Superhero Universe (Tesseracts Nineteen) features all of these permutations of the superhero genre and many others besides!

Edited by Claude Lalumière and Mark Shainblum, Superhero Universe (Tesseracts Nineteen) features some of Canada’s best fantasy and science fiction writers:

John Bell, P. E. Bolivar, Kevin Cockle, Evelyn Deshane, Marcelle Dubé, Chadwick Ginther, Patrick T. Goddard, Kim Goldberg, Geoff Hart, Sacha Howells, Arun Jiwa, D. K. Latta, Michael Matheson, Bernard E. Mireault, Luke Murphy, Brent Nichols, David Perlmutter, Mary Pletsch & Dylan Blacquiere, Jennifer Rahn, Corey Redekop, Alex C. Renwick, Jason Sharp, Bevan Thomas, Leigh Wallace, and A. C. Wise.

About the editors:

Claude Lalumière has edited thirteen previous anthologies, including one prior volume in the Tesseracts series (the Aurora nominee Tesseracts Twelve: New Canadian Fantastic Fiction) and two other superhero anthologies, including Super Stories of Heroes & Villains, which was hailed in a starred review by Publishers Weekly as ​“by far the best superhero anthology.” In addition to being a frequent contributor to Tesseracts anthologies, he’s the author of Objects of Worship, The Door to Lost Pages, and Nocturnes and Other Nocturnes. [MORE]

Mark Shainblum was born and raised in Montreal, where he and illustrator Gabriel Morrissette co-created the comics series Northguard and the bestselling humour book series Angloman, which later appeared as a weekly strip in The Montreal Gazette. Mark also collaborated on the Captain Canuck daily newspaper strip and Canadiana: The New Spirit of Canada, a webcomic featuring the first female Canadian flag superhero with her own series. In the late 1990s he co-edited the Aurora Award-winning anthology Arrowdreams: An Anthology of Alternate Canadas with John Dupuis. Mark currently lives Ottawa.

Compostela (Tesseracts Twenty) edited by Spider Robinson and James Alan Gardner

Compostela (Tesseracts Twenty) is an anthology of hard and soft science fiction stories that best represent a futuristic view of the sciences and how humanity might be affected (for better or worse) by a reliance in all things technological.

The stories contained within the pages of Compostela are a reflection of the world we live in today; where science produces both wonders and horrors; and will leave us with a future that undoubtedly will contain both. Journeys to the stars may be exhilarating and mind-expanding, but they can also be dangerous or even tragic. SF has always reflected that wide range of possibilities.

Featuring works by these Canadian visionaries:

Alan Bao, John Bell, Chantal Boudreau, Leslie Brown, Tanya Bryan, J. R. Campbell, Eric Choi, David Clink, paulo da costa, Miki Dare, Robert Dawson, Linda DeMeulemeester, Steve Fahnestalk, Jacob Fletcher, Catherine Girczyc, R. Gregory, Mary-Jean Harris, Geoffrey Hart, Michaela Hiebert, Matthew Hughes, Guy Immega, Garnet Johnson-Koehn, Michael Johnstone, Cate McBride, Lisa Ann McLean, Rati Mehrotra, Derryl Murphy, Brent Nichols, Susan Pieters, Alexandra Renwick, Rhea Rose, Robert J. Sawyer, Thea van Diepen, Nancy SM Waldman.

Meet the Editors and Authors

Mark Leslie’s interview with the editors: on KOBO Writing Life

About the title of this anthology:

For more than 1,000 years, Santiago de Compostela (Compostela means ​“field of stars”) has attracted pilgrims to walk to the cathedral that holds St. James the apostle’s relics. The stories in this anthology in their own way tell the tale of futuristic travelers who journey into the dark outer (or inner) reaches of space, searching for their own connections to the past, present and future relics of their time.

ABOUT THE EDITORS:

Spider Robinson

Since he began writing professionally in 1972, Spider Robinson has won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, three Hugo Awards, a Nebula, and numerous other international and regional awards. Most of his 36 books are still in print. His short work has appeared in magazines around the planet and in numerous anthologies. The Usenet newsgroup alt.callahans and its many offshoots, inspired by his Callahan’s Place series, were an important non-porn network in early cyberspace.

In 2006 he became the only writer ever to collaborate at novel-length with First Grandmaster of Science Fiction Robert A. Heinlein, posthumously completing VARIABLE STAR at the request of the Heinlein estate. That same year, the US Library of Congress invited him to Washington D.C. to be a guest of the First Lady at the White House for the National Book Festival. In 2008 he shared the Rob­ert A. Heinlein Award for Lifetime Excellence in Literature with his mentor Ben Bova.

Spider was regular book reviewer for Galaxy, Analog and New Destinies magazines for a decade, and contributes occasional book reviews to The Globe And Mail, Canada’s national newspaper, for which he wrote a regular Op-Ed column, The Crazy Years, from 1996 – 2004. As an audiobook reader of his own and others’ work, he has won the Earphones Award and been a finalist for the Audie. In 2001 he released Belaboring The Obvious, a CD featuring original music accompanied by Canadian guitar legend Amos Garrett. He has written songs in collaboration with David Crosby and with Todd Butler.

Spider was married for 35 years to Jeanne Robinson, a writer, choreographer, former dancer and teacher who died of biliary cancer in 2010. She was founder/Artistic Director of Halifax’s Nova Dance Theatre during its 8‑year history. The Robinsons collaborated on the Hugo‑, Nebula- and Locus-winning Stardance Trilogy, concerning zero gravity dance and its role in communication in space. Spider and Jeanne met in the woods of Nova Scotia at the end of the 60s, and lived for their last two decades in British Columbia.

James Alan Gardner

Raised in Simcoe and Bradford, Ontario, James Alan Gardner earned Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Applied Mathematics from the University of Waterloo.

A graduate of the Clarion West Fiction Writers Workshop, Gardner has published science fiction short stories in a range of periodicals, including The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and Amazing Stories. In 1989, his short story ​“The Children of Crèche” was awarded the Grand Prize in the Writers of the Future contest. Two years later his story ​“Muffin Explains Teleology to the World at Large” won an Aurora Award; another story, ​“Three Hearings on the Existence of Snakes in the Human Bloodstream,” won an Aurora and was nominated for both the Nebula and Hugo Awards.

He has written a number of novels in a ​“League of Peoples” universe in which murderers are defined as ​“dangerous non-sentients” and are killed if they try to leave their solar system by aliens who are so advanced that they think of humans like humans think of bacteria. This precludes the possibility of interstellar wars.

He has also explored themes of gender in his novels, including Commitment Hour in which people change sex every year, and Vigilant in which group marriages are traditional.Gardner is also an educator and technical writer. His book Learning UNIX is used as a textbook in some Canadian universities.

A Grand Prize winner of the Writers of the Future contest, he lives with his family in Waterloo, Ontario.

Nevertheless (Tesseracts Twenty-One) edited by Rhonda Parrish and Greg Bechtel

A Collection of Optimistic Speculative Fiction

Nevertheless (Tesseracts Twenty-one) is a collection of optimistic speculative fiction stories, each optimistic in a slightly different way. These stories explore the optimism that drives us to seek out new worlds, that inspires us to sacrifice for others or fuels us to just keep going when everything seems lost.

One of the reasons best reasons doing an anthology of optimistic future this year was because no matter which side of the political or social spectrum you land on, it’s been a tough year. Nevertheless we try to remain optimistic. Nevertheless, we don’t give up. Nevertheless, yes, we persist. The stories in this anthology of optimistic SF are some of the darkest optimistic stories you’ll ever read but, nevertheless, they are optimistic. And powerful.

Featuring works by these Canadian visionaries:

James Bambury, Meghan Bell, Gavin Bradley, Ryan Henson Creighton, Darrel Duckworth, Dorianne Emmerton, Pat Flewwelling, Stephen Geigen-Miller, Jason M. Harley, Kate Heartfield, R. W. Hodgson, Jerri Jerreat, Jason Lane, Buzz Lanthier-Rogers, Alison McBain, Michael Milne, Fiona Moore, Ursula Pflug, Michael Reid, S. L. Saboviec, Lisa Timpf, Leslie Van Zwol, Natalia Yanchak.

ABOUT THE EDITORS:

Rhonda Parrish

Rhonda Parrish is driven by a desire to do All The Things. She founded and ran Niteblade Magazine, is an Assistant Editor at World Weaver Press and is the editor of several anthologies including, most recently, Mrs. Claus and Equus.In addition, Rhonda is a writer whose work has been in publications such as Tesseracts 17: Speculating Canada from Coast to Coast and Imaginarium: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing (2012 & 2015). Her most recent book is Haunted Hospitals, which she co-wrote with Mark Leslie.

Greg Bechtel

Greg Bechtel’s occasionally prize-winning stories and essays have appeared in a variety of magazines and anthologies, including Avenue Edmonton, The Fiddlehead, Prairie Fire, two previous Tesseracts anthologies, and Imaginarium 4: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing. His first story collection, Boundary Problems, won the Alberta Book of the Year Award for trade fiction and was a finalist for the ReLit Award, the William L. Crawford Fantasy Award, and the City of Edmonton Robert Kroetsch Book Prize.

Greg currently lives in Edmonton, Alberta where, as of this writing, he is serving for his second year as Writer in Residence for the Alberta Branch of the Canadian Authors Association. He also teaches English Literature, Writing Studies, and Creative Writing at the University of Alberta, where he completed his PhD on Canadian syncretic fantasy.

Alchemy and Artifacts (Tesseracts Twenty-Two) edited by Lorina Stephens and Susan MacGregor

There is nothing new in the world except the history we do not know.

Alchemy and Artifacts (Tesseracts Twenty-Two) is a collection of twenty-three amazing stories based on historical artifacts combined with fantastic historical fiction.

The stories meld culture, concept and incident into a rich collection of ​‘what if’ speculations that provide warnings yet revel in the cultural celebrations we continue to observe today. They are the touchstones that resonate with all who listen to and learn from the past.

For, once the instigators are dead, the wars ended, and the political machines decayed, only artifacts remain. And it’s through these cultural artifacts that we glimpse the possibility of what may have occurred in the past and may yet occur in the future.

You are invited to delve into the motivations behind the events of the past, the quests for power, the fights against repression, and the sacrifices to a greater cause — human dramas that reflect the worst and best of who we are — to see what satisfaction comes from sudden insight and awe.

Featuring works by these Canadian writers:

Colleen Anderson, Lara Apps, Leslie Brown, Katherine Cameron, Chris Patrick Carolan, Geoff Gander & Fiona Plunkett, Bev Geddes, Mary-Jean Harris, Geoffrey Hart, Kate Heartfield, R. W. Hodgson, Kurt Kirchmeier, Jason Lane, Halli Lilburn, Cat McDonald, Tony Pi, Mike Rimar, Bianca Sayan, Holly Schofield, Michael Skeet, Erik Jon Spigel, Liz Westbrook-Trenholm, Michal Wojcik.

The stories in Alchemy and Artifacts (Tesseracts Twenty-Two) nourish those who wander in today’s wilderness, and who, without the benefit of the past, are destined to plunge blindly along a path of ignorance, destroying all that has been, everything that is true and beautiful and that which nourishes our global community. 

ABOUT THE EDITORS:

Lorina Stephens:

Lorina Stephens brings with her over 30 years of experience as a freelance writer, author and editor. She is the author of three novels, a collection of short speculative fiction, two chapbooks of poetry, a cookbook, and a travel guide she wrote with her photographer husband. Her articles have appeared in regional and national print media, and her short fiction in Polar Borealis, On Spec, Neo-Opsis, Postscripts to Darkness, Deluge: Stories of Survival & Tragedy in the Great Flood, Strangers Among Us, and Sword and Sorceress X. [MORE]

Susan MacGregor:

Susan MacGregor is an author and prior editor of of 20+ years with On Spec magazine. She has also edited the anthologies Tesseracts Fifteen: A Case of Quite Curious Tales, (EDGE) and Divine Realms (Ravenstone Press). Her short fiction has appeared in a number of periodicals and anthologies. As well as being a writer and an editor, Susan devotes much of her time practicing and performing her other passion – flamenco – in both dance and song. 

TesseractsQ edited by Élisabeth Vonarburg and Jane Brierley

Quebec’s premiere authors…

Over six years in the making, this massive volume brings together the best speculative fiction from Quebec’s premiere authors from 1976 — 1996.

Superbly translated into English to reach new readers, Tesseracts^Q, includes writing by: Yves Meynard, Jean-Louis Trudel, Michel Lamontagne, Francine Pelletier, Jean Pierre April, Ester Rochon, Denis Cote, Agnes Guitard, Jean Pettigrew, Alain Bergeron, Marie-Claire Lemaire, Daniel Sernine, Andre Carpentier, Joel Champetier, Rene Beaulieu, Michel Martin, Roger Des Roches, Claude-Michel Prevost, Bertrand Bergeron, Jean Dion, Annick Perrot-Bishop, Jane Brierley, and Élisabeth Vonarburg.

About the editors:

Jane Brierley

Jane Brierley is a Montreal literary translator, writer, editor, and former president of the Literary Translators Association of Canada. Her translations of science fiction stories have appeared in a number of Tesseract’s anthologies, and she has translated three of Élisabeth Vonarburg’s science fiction novels: The Silent City, The Maërlande Chronicles, and Reluctant Voyagers. In 1990 she won the Governor General’s Award for best English translation. [MORE]

Élisabeth Vonarburg

Vonarburg is considered one of Canada’s most accomplished Science Fiction writers.

Born in France in 1947, she immigrated to Canada in 1973 and taught French Literature and Writing at various universities in Quebec. More recently, she has been actively involved in the speculative fiction community as a translator, convention organizer, literary editor, and writer.

Her novels include The Silent City, Reluctant Voyagers and In the Mothers’ Land (published as The Maërlande Chronicles), the latter winning the Philip K. Dick Special Award in 1993. She has also received over thirty literary awards in France, Canada, and the US, including the 1998 Prix du Conseil québécois de la Femme en littérature, a one-time literary award given by the Quebecois Council for Women’s Affairs on its twentieth anniversary. Her five book series Tyranaël, received three major awards in Quebec: Dreams of the Sea and A Game of Perfection are English translations of the first two books in the acclaimed series. 

Ark of Ice edited by Lesley Choyce

Drawing from this country’s most skillful and visionary writers, this collection bristles with the unexpected, the whimsical, the foreboding and the fantastic.

Other Canadas: An anthology of science fiction and fantasy edited by John Robert Columbo

Other Canadas is the first anthology of Canadian science fiction and fantasy. It was edited by John Robert Colombo, who combined his encyclopedic knowledge of things Canadian with his long-time love of the literature of the fantastic to produce a book that is at once entertaining to read and an intriguing, speculative look at Canada — its alternate pasts, parallel presents, and possible futures.

(There’s more on the back cover of the book but I don’t feel like typing it all in)

Prairie Fire, Volume 14, Number 2 edited by Candas Jane Dorsey & G. N. Louise Janasson

Special issue ​“Canadian Speculative Fiction” featuring short stories, poems and images. Authors and artists include Catherine Hunter, Jordan van Sewell, Kate Bitney, Steve Gouthro, David Annandale and many more.

Land/Space edited by Candas Jane Dorsey and Judy McCrosky

Set in the prairies…

See the prairies in a whole new light, in this groundbreaking anthology of speculative fiction and poetry, exploring the prairie and the space above it, expressing prairie themes, visions, reality — and unreality!

Land/Space includes short fiction by Alexandra Merry Arrvin, John Baillie, Martha Bayless, Ven Begamudré, Renée Bennett, Steven Michael Berzensky (a.k.a Mick Burrs) Donna Bowman, Tobias Buckell, Ron Collins, Alyx Dellamonica, Candas Jane Dorsey, Carolyn Ives Gilman, Geoff Hart, James A. Hartley, Mark Anthony Jarman, Darren K. Latta, David Levine, Sophie Masson, Judy McCrosky, Derryl Murphy, Carole Nomrahas, Holly Phillips, Ursula Pflug, with concluding essays by the editors.

About the editors:

Judy McCrosky
Judy McCrosky has published two collections of short stories and one novel, and currently focuses on speculative fiction. Two of her books were short-listed for major awards. She lives in Saskatoon with her husband, teenage children, and too many small rodents. [MORE]

Candas Jane Dorsey
Candas Jane Dorsey is an internationally-known writer and editor whose novel Black Wine won the Tiptree, Crawford and Aurora Awards, her various other works have also garnered the WGA Short Fiction Award, and the Sunburst Award for best Canadian fantastic fiction. Her other books include Machine Sex and other stories, and Leaving Marks. She is the founding president of SF Canada, the professional Canadian speculative writers’ association, and has worked on the boards and committees of other writers organizations in Canada. A native of Edmonton Canada, Candas has been a free lance writer and editor since 1979.

Northern Frights 2 edited by Don Hutchison

Presenting more dread-darkened images of fear designed to prod happy shudders from the
most jaded imagination. Our initial volume was a World Fantasy Award nominee for Best Anthology of the Year. Readers and reviewers were unanimous in their acclaim. The thrills continue with seventeen more outstanding tales by Mel D Ames, Hugh B Cave, Mary E Choo, Carolyn Clink, Sean Dolittle, Gemma Files, Cindie Geddes, Charles Grant, Edward D Hoch, Nancy Kilpatrick, Shirley Meier, David Nickle, James Powell, Garfield Reeves-Stevens, Dale L Sproule, Edo van Belkom, Diane L Walton and Chet Williamson.

Northern Frights 3 edited by Don Hutchison

There are seventeen stories in this book. They are branded ​“horror” by nature of our title
and cover. But it’s not all fear and loathing. Many of these works are genuinely terrifying, but some darkly humorous, some intriguingly atmospheric, and one, at least, imbued with a sense of cosmological mystery. The thrills continue with seventeen more outstanding tales by Rick Hautala, Nancy Baker, Tanya Huff, Stephanie Bedwell-Grime, Mel D Ames, Carolyn Clink, Sean Doolittle, Nancy Kilpatrick, Rudy Kremberg, David Nickle, James Powell, Micael Rowe, Peter Sellers, David Shtogryn, Tia Travis, Edo van Belkom, Chris Wiggins and Robert Charles Wilson.

Northern Frights 4 edited by Don Hutchison

The fourth installment in the widely acclaimed Northern Frights series, this collection of 20
stories has something for everyone- spine tinglers, vampires, splatterspunk, thoughful stories of character, even humor.

Chillingtales by Colleen Anderson, David Annandale, Stephanie Bedwell-Grime, Benoit Bisson, Robert Boyczuk, Mary E Choo, Carolyn Clink, Mici Gold, Sandra Kasturi, nancy Kilpatrick, Scott Mackay, Stephen Meade, David Nickle, Thomas S Roche, Michael Rowe, Michael Skeet, Dale L Sproule, Edo van Belkom, Carol Weekes, and Robert Charles Wilson.

Northern Frights 5 edited by Don Hutchison

A fine collection of chills for a midwinter night with dark fantasy told by: Rebecca Bradley,
Hugh B cave, Carolyn Clink, Gemma Files, Nalo Hopkinson, Nancy Kilpatrick, Susan MacGregor, Scott Mackay, Sally McBride, David Nickle, Vincent Grant Perkins, James Powell, David Shtogryn, Dale L Sproule, Gregory Ward, Carol Weekes, Andreww Weiner, and Robert Charles Wilson.

Masked Mosaic: Canadian Super Stories edited by Claude Lalumiere & Camille Alexa

Thrilling Tales of Canadian superheroes… and villains! 75 years ago Canadian cartoonist Joe Shuster co-created the world’s premier superhero: Superman. Over the decades the genre has gone from camp to counter-culture, from pop art to postmodern, from noir to new wave. Today’s superheroes feature in bestselling novels, hit TV shows, Hollywood blockbusters … and Masked Mosaic: Canadian Super Stories. Mexican luchadores wrestle primordial evil in Vancouver … The Intrepids battle Nazis in Nova Scotia … A mysterious masked man rescues an adventuring heiress in a steampunk Gold Rush-era Yukon … Zombies and ancient Viking magic are unleashed in downtown Toronto … A godlike oracle wanders Calgary with her cyborg handler … The fearsomeIron Shadow stalks the streets of Kingstonia … The Coachwhip and Cat-Girl fight crime in lurid wartime Montreal … In these 24 tales Canada’s most daring writers reimagine the super genre from its outer limits to its pulp origins, exploring the diverse landscape of Canadian identity and geography. 

Divine Realms: Canadian Science Fiction & Fantasy edited by Susan MacGregor

Divine Realms is an anthology that looks at spiritual questions through the medium of science fiction and fantasy. This is an eclectic lot, and the main theme is faith– or lack thereof. The stories are written by some of Canada’s best and up-and-coming writers.

ON SPEC: The First Five Years edited by The On Spec Editorial Collective

Some of Canada’s best authors…

ON SPEC: The First Five Years, features the best short stories and poetry from the first half-decade of the award-winning Canadian science fiction and fantasy magazine, ON SPEC.

This volume contains incredible stories by: 

Barry Hammond, Eileen Kernaghan, James Alan Garner, Robert J. Sawyer, Karl Schroeder, Catherine Macleod, Jason Kapalka, Wesley Herbert, Wade Bell, Dirk L. Schaeffer, Richard deMeulles, Derryl Murphy, M. J. Murphy, Sally McBride, Keith Scott, Preston Hapon, Robert Boyczuk, Hugh A. D. Spencer, M. A. C. Farrant, Alice Major, Erik Jon Spigel.

About ON SPEC Magazine

For many years, ON SPEC Magazine has consistently delivered some of the most well-written and thought provoking speculative fiction and poetry from both Canadian and international authors. Based in Edmonton, Alberta the magazine has included past works from authors such as W. P. Kinsella, Dave Duncan, Charles de Lint, Spider Robinson, Peter Watts, Monica Hughes and Hugo and Nebula award winner Robert J. Sawyer.

The Maërlande Chronicles by Élisabeth Vonarburg

Sequel to The Silent City…

A future society, where women far outnumber men, has abandoned the models of patriarchy and matriarchy and established new gender roles. But Lisbeï, a young thinker whose gift is exploring the past, confronts the new establishment in order to force changes of her own. The Maërlande Chronicles is a sequel to the critically-acclaimed novel The Silent City.

About Élisabeth Vonarburg

Élisabeth Vonarburg is considered one of Canada’s most accomplished Science Fiction writers.

Born in France in 1947, she immigrated to Canada in 1973 and taught French Literature and Writing at various universities in Quebec. More recently, she has been actively involved in the speculative fiction community as a translator, convention organizer, literary editor, and writer.

Her novels include The Silent City, Reluctant Voyagers and In the Mothers’ Land (published as The Maërlande Chronicles), the latter winning the Philip K. Dick Special Award in 1993. She has also received over thirty literary awards in France, Canada, and the US, including the 1998 Prix du Conseil québécois de la Femme en littérature, a one-time literary award given by the Quebecois Council for Women’s Affairs on its twentieth anniversary. Her five book series Tyranaël, received three major awards in Quebec: Dreams of the Sea and A Game of Perfection are English translations of the first two books in the acclaimed series. 

Reluctant Voyagers by Élisabeth Vonarburg

Enter a new world on the edge of sanity…

Witnessing strange and unexplainable changes in her once-familiar Montreal home, Catherine Rhymer fears for her sanity until the arrest of two students puts her on the trail of a secret revolutionary movement.

Now Catherine must embark on a voyage of discovery, travelling north in search of the truth about her world. She will journey through hail and snow and herds of grazing beasts to a confrontation with the originators of her reality.

The Silent City by Élisabeth Vonarburg

The future of humanity…

In a future Europe, where technology has been driven underground and the Earth’s population has been tribalized by nuclear war and political conflict, a young woman named Elisa is born into the Silent City, a final stronghold of science and knowledge, in which self-perpetuating technology maintains the handful of human survivors with rejuvenation treatments and cybernetics. Unwittingly, Elisa holds the key to the genetic changes which have the potential to preserve the human species. But first she must overcome the resistance of the city’s elite, and discover her unique gift for changing herself and the world around her. But time is running out. The human race is threatened by a virus that prevents the conception of male babies — and women bear the blame. Elisa must determine her future … and the future of humanity.

Slow Engines of Time by Élisabeth Vonarburg

Short story collection…

This collection of short stories by Élisabeth Vonarburg presents works of vivid imagery and emotional intensity, set in the same future as the award winning novels The Silent City and The Maërlande Chronicles.