New Voices of Science Fiction is a brand new anthology showing us where the future of science fiction is going. Compare this collection to an anthology from thirty or forty years ago and you'll find that time travel has been reimagined. No more time machines. Just a creepy fog that takes over everything and makes it impossible to get from one skyscraper to another. Telepathy has gone places where barely would have expected and forget surfing with a computer. What's a relationship without knowing everything, and I mean everything. Openness takes us places we never knew we wanted to go. And, of course, what a long strange trip it's been with a story that makes touring with the Grateful Dead seem passé. Although there are a few stories here I never got into, there are some gems worth ferreting out. The future will be here sooner than you expect.

An anthology from well-established science fiction writers, never mind new authors, can be a very mixed bag. Not so The New Voices of Science Fiction. They are superb examples of very engrossing and affecting storytelling.

These writers demonstrate the breadth of concepts and worlds with which science fiction writers can create a delicious buffet of stories for readers to gorge themselves on and that, for emerging writers in the genre, there will always be plenty of room for stunning originality.

It was also interesting to see how light a touch could be used in worldbuilding, and yet keep the tales firmly located in the science fiction realm, even though the character’s surroundings were not lavish with detail.

Many of the stories were woven around interesting concepts where the technology was left to the reader’s imagination and quietly placed off the page. Instead, the characters and their responses were placed centre stage, leading to some very interesting and particularly heart-rending reading.

One of the stories concerned the decision someone had to make when giving over, and therefore giving up, the capacity to communicate in their native in order to pay for their child’s education. This not only took me through an emotional rollercoaster, but also made me think hard about the value of being able to communicate effectively, birth right and identity.

After reading the book I am still left mulling over the type of important contemporary issues that well written science fiction stories are so good at highlighting.

I will certainly be looking out for these authors over the next few years.

It’s a tough thing to edit an anthology – finding stories that match the anthology theme, making sure the stories are varied enough that readers will enjoy most of the offerings and hopefully find new writers to follow, and somehow keeping it all sequenced to showcase the individual offerings.

Hannu Rajaniemi, too, as an author is, for me, right out on the edge of the current generation of hard scifi writers – technical, fiercely explorative and vibrant – so I was excited to see what he selected. The result is a good range of contemporary and diverse scifi voices and stories: robots, climate change, time travel, progressive gender and familial dynamics, new diasporas and cultural shifts.

I was familiar with some of the stories here already (not uncommon, very good pieces often get reprinted in multiple anthologies and I read a fair number of them each year) but I was pleased that some of my recent favourites were included: Sarah Pinsker’s Our Lady of the Open Road, Mother Tongues by S. Qiouyi Lu, and Openness by Alexander Weinstein.

Of those new to me my favourites were: The Secret Life of Bots by Suzanne Palmer, Tender Loving Plastics by Amman Sabet, and Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™ by Rebecca Roanhorse.

My only gripe was with the ‘new’ part. This is likely subjective, but a lot of these authors have won Hugos for their work, have been writing for almost a decade, have been collected in ‘years best anthologies’ or are otherwise established short fiction writers. It’s a minor thing and doesn’t take away from the strength of the stories collected here, but the title does imply the collection will be casting further afield or finding cutting edge, emerging writers.

If you want a great roundup of what this generation’s scifi looks like – the topics and dilemmas it’s grappling with and the breadth of voices and experiences being included and portrayed, this is well worth your time.

An advance copy of this book was kindly provided by Tachyon Publications and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

If you liked this collection, you may also be interested in the companion volume published in 2017: The Best New Voices of Fantasy.

A strong collection that introduced me to some new writers I'm excited to explore further. If you want to know what's happening in the sci-fi world right now, this is a great place to sample a lot of the flavors that are emerging right now.

I love science fiction, I love finding new authors, and this delivered perfectly! There were so many interesting perspectives and voices that even in spite of its weaknesses I couldn't help but love it. It touched on all my favorite topics like technology, robots, climate and foreign worlds, with many stories having familial themes (which I didn't know I would enjoy so much! For my taste and preferences, there weren't many stories that were just 'okay.' It either felt like I loved them and I really did not like them (a risk, for me, with collections that feature multiple authors). All in all, would highly recommend!

I won't review all the individual stories, but my favorites from the collection are:
Mother Tongues by S. Qiouyi
The Secret Life of Bots by Suzanne Palmer
Tender Loving Plastics Amman Sabet
Welcome to You Authentic Indian Experience™ by Rebecca Roanhorse
Strange Waters by Samantha Mills

The New Voices of Science Fiction is an anthology of new SF short fiction expertly curated and introduced by Hannu Rajaniemi & Jacob Weisman. Released 13th Nov 2019 by Tachyon, it's 432 pages and available in paperback and ebook formats. These stories (20 by my count), were originally published between 2015 and 2019 and are gathered here for the first time.

This is top shelf fiction. One of the reasons I like anthologies and collections is that they're often full of new-to-me authors for further reading. I've always had a particular fondness for collections/anthologies because short fiction is spare and technically challenging, so you get a better feel for an author's expertise with the form. Short fiction is less of a time commitment as well, so if one story is not working for you, there's another piece readily available in a few pages.This is a showcase of up and coming authors; it's a sister volume to The New Voices of Fantasy from 2017. The short introductions for each story are interesting and well written and add a lot of interest.

The quality of the stories is very high. They are well written, varied, well curated stories. Of the 20 included stories, only a few were from authors familiar to me.

It's unclear from the publishing info available online, but the eARC I received has a handy interactive table of contents. I hope the ebook release version does also. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately. Presumably that feature will carry through to the final release version.

I think this might be the first time I've given an anthology 5 stars. These stories are varied in tone, execution, length, subject matter, but they're all really good.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

I started this ARC while I was waiting at the doctor's (always a good place to read) and I was so engrossed reading the I nearly missed my turn.
It's a great anthology that features tons of great authors new to me.
I loved theirs stories, the different approaches and genres and all of them are well crafted and fascinating.
Back home I started to search books by the authors I read and I hope I will be able to read some of their works.
It was a great reading experience, highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

This collection of previously published short stories highlights authors that Rajaniemi and Weisman believe are rising stars in the genre. As with any anthology, the stories can be hit-or-miss, although the editors picked many award-winning stories for this collection. You may recognize some of them. As a whole, I thought this was a fun and thoughtful collection with some really lovely gems.

My favorite was "Strange Waters" by Samantha Mills, a story about a time-traveling fisherwoman who desperately wants to get home to her children. "Mother Tongues" by S. Qiouyi Lu is similarly heartbreaking, about a mother who is willing to give up her knowledge of her first language in order to give her daughter a better life. "Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™" by Rebecca Roanhorse, about a Native American man working for a virtual reality tourism company that offers guests an "authentic" vision quest experience (read: chock-full of stereotypes and cultural appropriation), is another obvious standout in this collection. "Our Lady of the Open Road" by Sarah Pinsker appears to be connected to (perhaps the inspiration for?) her novel A Song for a New Day, which just came out a few months ago.

I also can't help but applaud an anthology like this that celebrates the talent of so many diverse writers whose work pushes the bounds of the genre in so many ways. I think this collection of stories offers a good view of where the genre is heading, grappling with topics such as gender and sexuality, colonialism, climate change, AI, and more.

Excellent collection with a number of award-winning stories, including Suzanne Palmer’s The Secret Life of Bots (service and heroism even when you’re considered outdated), S. Qiouyi Lu’s Mother Tongues (when you can sell your knowledge of your basic language to buy your child’s future, what should you do?), Rebecca Roanhorse’s Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience TM (also about selling your culture to survive, though very differently), Kelly Robson’s A Study in Oils (surviving the doing of a horrible act in a destructive culture), and a number of others, including Sarah Pinsker and Amar El-Mohtar. Overall, delivers on its promise.

The New Voices of Science Fiction is an excellent companion to The New Voices of Fantasy published by Tachyon in 2017. So often genre is lumped together, especially science fiction and fantasy, but, just like me, if you enjoyed The New Voices of Fantasy, you will almost certainly enjoy The New Voices of Science Fiction. All of the stories included in this anthology were originally published or written within the last five or so years? Some of the names are unfamiliar to me, but a lot of these names have come to critical acclaim within those last five years, so it's an excellent introduction if you're also wondering where to begin with the genre. Yes, the entire SF genre. A lot of the older "classic" science fiction feels dated in tone, terminology, and technology and can at times feel intimidating for someone who may be unfamiliar with the genre, and this anthology elevates the newer voices we should be paying attention to. And yes, there are foundational genre works that act as cornerstones, but sometimes we have to smash the past and build something new.

My favorite stories in this anthology were Rebecca Roanhorse's "Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience," Amal El-Mohtar's "Madeleine," and Suzanne Palmer's "Madeleine," but all of them have something to consider and were all enjoyable to read. One of the things I loved most about this was that the writers included in this collection are so diverse, elevating a lot of different cultures, ideas, ways of looking at the world, and storytelling styles, and that is exactly what I hope for when I read any anthology, and this one ticked all of the boxes for me. This collection also made me want to go read the longer works by the authors included, and I realized I've had several books on my shelves already!

Depending on who you talk to, short form science fiction is either dead or thriving. Those who espouse the theory that it is dead must be basing their opinion on the fact that the print magazine appears to be dying, or at least hanging by a thread. Circulation figures for the big three - Asimov's, Analog, and Fantasy and Science Fiction - are either dropping annually or staying level. However, there is a huge online presence for short fiction. I won't list all the online magazines here, mostly because there are way to many to do so. And a lot of the fiction is free. There are more sources for short science fiction than there have ever been, more stories than there have ever been, and more writers than there have ever been. And I'd guess many readers who follow short fiction might not even know who some of those writers are.

The New Voices of Science Fiction, edited by Hannu Rajaniemi and Jacob Weisman - both highly respected people in the field, contains a treasure trove of short fiction published in roughly the last five years. Among the stories in this book you will find award finalists and winners. These writers are just making their impact felt in the field, and every one of these stories is a gem.

Three of the stories in the collection were the stars of the 2018 Hugo ballot. “The Secret Life of Bots” by Suzanne Palmer won the Hugo for Best Novelette, while “A Series of Steaks” by Vina Jie-Min Prasad was a runner up in the same category that year. Meanwhile, Rebecca Roanhorse, whose 2018 novel TRAIL OF LIGHTNING was a finalist for the Best Novel Hugo this year, won the Hugo for Best Short Story in 2018 for “Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™”. "The Secret Life of Bots" was good the first time when I was reading for the Hugos, but it was much better the second time around. "A Series of Steaks" was just as sly the second time around as it was the first. “Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™” did not disappoint upon a second reading as well.

The rest of the stories are outstanding in their own right. "Openness", by Alexander Weinstein is a tale of trying to make a relationship work in a time when you know everything about your partner - and they know everything about you. Jameie Wahls' "Utopia, LOL?" is a tale of AIs, virtual reality, and the future of mankind. It's an amusing and lighthearted story that has a nice ending.

A story that I had read in another collection, "Mother Tongues", by S. Qiouyi Lu, is a sad tale of what a mother will do for her child when she wants the best for her. A really tough ending. Rich Larson, who is as prolific a short story writer as any and who won the Dell Award for Undergraduate Excellence in Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing (that's mouthful) in 2014, gives us "Ice", a story of sibling rivalry on, what else, an ice planet. It's been hard to avoid Larson, so I've read quite a few of his stories and I have never been disappointed.

One of my absolute favorites in the book is “Our Lady of the Open Road” by Sarah Pinsker. I love music, and I love going to concerts, and I'm old school. This story hit all my buttons. It tells the tale of a band of aging rockers who continue to tour and play live shows in the face of modern virtual reality entertainment. The band does what it does for the love of music, the love of the road, and their version of integrity. This story is barely science fictional, but it doesn't need the genre trappings to make it an emotionally touching story. Much like Larson, I never met a Sarah Pinsker story I didn't like.

Another terrific story is E. Lily Yu's “The Doing and Undoing of Jacob E. Mwangi”, about a gamer who believes that he can be the best of the best in his world until he finds out that he can do so much more by leaving his life behind and joining the makers and doers. It's a wonderful tale. Another engaging story is “Toppers” by Jason Sanford. It tells the tale of people trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic New York City, and the strange things that live in the strange mist that engulfs the metropolis. It's good stuff.

The book has many stories that deal with parenting and parent/child relationships. A good one is “The Need for Air” by Lettie Prell. It's the story of a mother and son trying to adapt to living in a virtual reality environment, but the son just isn't ready for that. A different take on child rearing is Amman Sabet's "Tender Loving Plastics", in which children are raised by AIs. “The Shape of My Name” by Nino Cipri is a story about a strained family relationship using time travel as a way to try to make things work. Quite touching.

Another particular favorite is Amal El-Mohtar's "Madeleine", a disturbing tale about a woman voluntarily taking part in a medical trial. She encounters all sorts of side-effects, including what appears to be time travel and hallucinations. The tale takes a creepy turn at the end. I love it.

The list goes on. “One Hour, Every Seven Years” by Alice Sola Kim, “Robo-Liopleurodon!” by Darcie Little Badger, “Calved” by Sam J. Miller, “In the Sharing Place” by David Erik Nelson, “Strange Waters” by Samantha Mills and “A Study in Oils” by Kelly Robson would all be worthy of inclusion in a Year's Best Anthology for whatever year they were originally published. Then again, this is a sort of "Best of" anthology, so in a sense they are already included in one of those types of volumes.

Rajaniemi and Weisman have done an outstanding job compiling some of the best short science fiction by up and coming (although I would argue that if you've won the Hugo you're past that point) new writers. In a collection like this, I usually find one or two that aren't to my taste. Not this time. To me, every one is a winner. The future of short form science fiction is in good hands.

The New Voices of Science Fiction by Hannu Rajaniemi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This short story collection caught my eye primarily because Hannu Rajaniemi's name was on the cover, but I wasn't fooled. Not really. This just happens to be a collection of the best SF stories to come out in the last five-ish years, as selected by him and Jacob Weisman.

Was I still interested? Yeah! After all, those guys have good taste. :) And when it comes to good tales as a whole, I enjoyed this entire book.

I've read a number of these stories already, and if I have, I'm lightly skimming over them. Otherwise...

Openness by Alexander Weinstein - A cool, scary look at intimacy worthy of a Black Mirror episode, where giving another person access to all your secret kinks, buttons, and memories can be either a great boon or a relationship killer. Me likey.

The Shape of My Name by Nino Capri - Time travel done in a very interesting way, focusing more on a strained familial relationship than anything else. The focus is clear but all the side discoveries are quite visceral.

UTOPIA, LOL by Jamie Wahls - Clever take on virtual reality and memes, with the added benefit of AIs and badass choices. Cool twist.

Mother Tongues by S. Qiouyi Lu - Linguistics-focused tale of parenthood and only wanting the best for the child with a very dark twist. It made me very sad.

In The Sharing Place by David Erik Nelson - What seems to be a tale set in the brackets of the Stages of Grief eventually becomes something much more interesting, more creative. Very chilling.

A Series of Steaks by Vina Jie-Min Prasad - I've read this twice and have seen it reprinted all over the place. If you haven't read it, enjoy a printed tale as tasty as steak. Don't ask if it's a forgery. :)

Secret Life of Bots by Suzanne Palmer - Also a commonly reprinted tale, but quite fun. A Hugo winner.

Ice by Rich Larson - Probably my least favorite of the collection, this was a tale of sibling rivalry on an ice planet. Genetic jealousy.

One Hour, Every Seven Years by Alice Sola Kim - Very oppressive in isolation and loneliness, this time travel tale seems to have lots of hidden gems in it. The descriptions of Venus and Mars and their places in the tale struck me as rather important. Time to see the sun!

Toppers by Jason Sanford - This one really caught my imagination. Apocalyptic New York meets a creepy Whispering Mist that is a lot more than it seems. Two thumbs up.

Tender Loving Plastics by Amman Sabet - AIs and foster care. What could go wrong?

Welcome To Your Authentic Indian Experience by Rebecca Roanhorse - Another Hugo winner. And it's easily one of the best stories I've read in the last few years. :) Quite sharp.

Strange Waters by Samantha Mills - Another re-read for me, Water is not always water, and fishing is not always fishing. Great worldbuilding, interesting mash.

Calved by Sam J. Miller - Another re-read. Excellent setting with a frustrated dad just trying to do right but unable to get a grip on the future world or his own slightly estranged son.

The Need for Air by Lettie Prell - A virtual reality warning. Pretty heartbreaking but my sympathies are all for the son.

Robo-Liopleurodon! by Darcie Little Badger - Nanotech in the ocean. Need I say more? Aren't you excited? I was! And am!

The Doing and Undoing of Jacob E. Mwangi by E. Lily Yu - The transformation from gamer to ... dreamer. Pretty mild, but interesting.

Madeleine by Amal El-Mohtar - Probably one of my favorites in the bunch, it combines a voluntary medical trial with horrible time-travel-ish side effects, reality modifications, and the very uneasy feeling that memory inside time is all that we have. Parts of me would call this a horror.

Our Lady of the Open Road by Sarah Pinsker - Very enjoyable tale of aging traveling rockers butting heads against a VR tech world.

A Study in Oils by Kelly Robson - I can't decide whether I think this is the best one in this collection or not, but it's really close. I'm a sucker for redemption stories... especially when it comes tied to horrible sanctioned free-range revenge and art. :)

There's frankly nothing NOT to like in this excellent collection of perfectly-written short stories. They all brought me back to my childhood days of reading the brilliant works of some of the best science fiction authors of the late 1950s and 1960s - in particular, Dick, Ellison, Asimov, Norton, and Ray Bradbury, whose excellent "All Summer in a Day" is heavily lifted but expanded broadly with a time-travel twist. I felt compelled to read this in a few weeks' time, as I was reading against the clock - sincere thanks to NetGalley for their pre-publication copy in exchange for this review - but this is a book I'll purchase in order to read and enjoy spread throughout the year. A collection of stunning short stories that really brought me back.

Thanks, also, to the editors for expanding my reading list as I chase down other works by these exceptional authors.

I'm loving this science fiction collection of stories. Highly recommend, at least 3/4 of the stories are well worth reading, very impressed by the variety of the selection and writers. Hurrah for New Voices.

Thank you to Netgalley for the oppportunity to read and review this book. One aspect of short story anthologies that attracts me to them is that if a story does not interest me I can easily move on to another. I found mysylf moving on regularly with this book and only a few did I read through to the end. You will not find many aliens and spaceships here. Most stories were vignettes in the lives of future apocolyptic survivors which will have an appeal to certain readers but not me.

This is a great collection of SFF by relatively new writers. While many of them have become well-established by now, getting major awards and big publishing deals, this is still a good introduction to the work of Rebecca Roanhorse, Amal El-Mohtar, Alice Sola Kim, Sam J. Miller, E. Lily Yu, Rich Larson, Vina Jie-Min Prasad, Sarah Pinsker, Darcie Little Badger, S. Qiouyi Lu, Kelly Robson, and others. I love the diverse viewpoints and characters created by this group of writers and recommend this highly for anyone interested in the current state and trends of SFF and its future.

The New Voices of Science Fiction collects today’s best and brightest science fiction writers in one extremely entertaining tome. There are names I’d definitely heard of like Rebecca Roanhorse and Sam J. Miller, and others I wish I’d gotten to know sooner. Each of these stories provide a prime example of strong writing and character work, sending you throughout space and time to discover compelling futures. I was excited to discover a few new authors whose careers I’ll be watching closely.