The Apex Book of World SF: Volume 1 — S.P. Somtow

The Apex Book of World SF, edited by Lavie Tidhar, features award-winning science fiction and fantasy short stories from Asia, Eastern Europe and around the world.

The world of speculative fiction is expansive; it covers more than one country, one continent, one culture. Collected here are sixteen stories penned by authors from Thailand, the Philippines, China, Israel, Pakistan, Serbia, Croatia, Malaysia, and other countries across the globe. Each one tells a tale breathtakingly vast and varied, whether caught in the ghosts of the past or entangled in a postmodern age.

Among the spirits, technology, and deep recesses of the human mind, stories abound. Kites sail to the stars, technology transcends physics, and wheels cry out in the night. Memories come and go like fading echoes and a train carries its passengers through more than simple space and time. Dark and bright, beautiful and haunting, the stories herein represent speculative fiction from a sampling of the finest authors from around the world.

Table of Contents:
S.P. Somtow(Thailand) -- “The Bird Catcher”
Jetse de Vries(Netherlands) -- “Transcendence Express”
Guy Hasson (Israel) -- “The Levantine Experiments”
Han Song (China) -- “The Wheel of Samsara”
Kaaron Warren (Australia/Fiji) -- “Ghost Jail”
Yang Ping (China) -- “Wizard World”
Dean Francis Alfar (Philippines) -- “L'Aquilone du Estrellas (The Kite of Stars)”
Nir Yaniv (Israel) -- “Cinderers”
Jamil Nasir (Palestine) -- “The Allah Stairs”
Tunku Halim (Malaysia) -- “Biggest Baddest Bomoh”
Aliette de Bodard (France) -- “The Lost Xuyan Bride”
Kristin Mandigma (Philippines) -- “Excerpt from a Letter by a Social-realist Aswang”
Aleksandar Ziljak (Croatia) -- “An Evening In The City Coffehouse, With Lydia On My Mind”
Anil Menon (India) -- “Into the Night”
Melanie Fazi (France, translated by Christopher Priest) -- “Elegy”
Zoran Zivkovic (Serbia, translated by Alice Copple-Tosic) -- “Compartments”

“From S.P. Somtow's World Fantasy Award-winning “The Bird Catcher,” a restrained horror tale of a young boy's friendship with Thailand's most infamous human “monster,” to “Wizard World,” Galaxy Award winner Yang Ping's story of high-tech gamers, this extraordinary anthology of 16 tales introduces English-speaking readers to some of the world's best writers of sf, horror, fantasy, and metafiction. Contributors include Jamil Nasir (Palestine), Aleksandar Ziljak (Croatia), Guy Hasson (Israel), Kaaron Warren (Australia/Fiji), and Jetse de Vries (Netherlands). VERDICT This literary window into the international world of imaginative fiction, the first in a new series, is sure to appeal to adventurous sf fans and readers of fiction in translation."
-- Library Journal, August 2009

“The great thing about Tidhar's collection is that it is full of such masterpieces. You do have to get used to having your mind warped as if by some powerful psychedelic. You'll definitely feel that way after Zoran Zivkovic and his Godot-like explorations. Or after Guy Hassan's thought experiment about the nature of mind and thought. But once you get used to the idea, you can settle in and enjoy the ride.”
-- 42SciFi-Fantasy.com, Randy Lazarus