The incredible Elizabeth Bear is getting a “best of” collection! Subterranean Press has announced a “mammoth” volume, coming out next year, that will collect 27 stories and novellas by the two-time Hugo winner—many of which haven’t been collected before.
Here are some details about the contents, from Subterranean Press:
The collection opens with “Covenant,” a tale of serial murder unlike any you have ever read, and closes with the extraordinary “Erase, Erase, Erase.” The latter is a surrealist tour de force in which the unnamed narrator, a former cult member, reflects on her life, her nebulous but guilty past, and her constantly diminishing sense of self. In between these bookends are more than two dozen carefully crafted tales that never fail to resonate beyond the final page.
“Tideline,” winner of both the Hugo and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Awards, tells the surprisingly moving story of Chalcedony, a former “war machine” determined to preserve the memories of her dead human companions. “Shoggoths in Bloom,” another Hugo winner, offers a fresh take on H. P. Lovecraft’s Mythos, setting the action in a pre-WWII II world marked by racism and virulent anti-Semitism. “Faster Gun” is a tale of the Old West in which Doc Holliday and Johnny Ringo encounter an impossible alien artefact. The long novella “In the House of Aryaman, a Lonely Signal Burns” takes place in Bangalore, India fifty years from now and tells the story of a murder in which the victim’s body is literally turned inside out. In the affecting “Sonny Liston Takes a Fall,” we are brought to an entirely new understanding of one of the iconic moments of boxing history.
Bear is the author of countless novels and two previous short story collections: The Chains That You Refuse and Shoggoths in Bloom. You can also read quite a few of her short stories right here on Tor.com.
The Best of Elizabeth Bear will be out next year, with 1000 signed and numbered copies available.
