Tesseracts Nine: New Canadian Speculative Fiction [Paperback]

Nalo Hopkinson (Editor), Geoff Ryman (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2005

Tesseracts Nine also made the LOCUS Recommended reading list for 2006.

It was included in the Locus Poll for best anthology!

Many of the stories have now appeared in Year's Best Fantasy and Year's Best Science Fiction anthologies.

While other stories received nominations for the Brandon, Fountain, Sturgeon and Aurora Awards.

"Apparently being in T9 was a Good Thing."

- Derryl Murphy
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 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 showcases the very best in Canadian speculative fiction literature (including English translations of works by French-Canadian authors).

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Although many tales in the ninth edition of this Canadian anthology series take place in that nation's provinces and cities, editor Ryman's introduction emphasizes that Canadian literature is becoming ever less idiosyncratic and more universal. A broad assortment of relatively unknown and established voices accounts for the 23 tales and poems in this showcase of Canada's speculative-fiction imagination. Jerome Stueart opens the volume with a whimsical tale about Yukon researchers who discover the polar bears and lemmings around them can not only talk but are researching them. Rising sf stars Peter Watts and Derryl Murphy collaborate on an intriguing tale about a mentally handicapped child made intelligent by sophisticated genetic programming. Steve Stanton contributes the obligatory time-travel story about a child who becomes a mathematical genius after meeting his future self. Other stories explore animal eugenics experiments gone awry and examine the fate of a man whose marital indifference causes him to literally disappear. An entertaining and diverse collection that deserves to bring its contributors many new readers. Carl Hays
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

Nalo Hopkinson is the internationally-acclaimed author of Brown Girl in the Ring, Skin Folk, and Salt Roads. Her books have been nominated for the Hugo, Nebula, Tiptree, and Philip K. Dick Awards; Skin Folk won a World Fantasy Award and the Sunburst Award. Born in Jamaica, Nalo moved to Canada when she was sixteen. She lives in Toronto.

Geoff Ryman is the author of the novels Air (Clarke and Tiptree Award winner) and The Unconquered Country (World Fantasy Award winner). Canadian by birth, he has lilved in Cambodia and Brazil and now teaches creative writing at the University of Manchester in England.

Product Details

• Paperback: 390 pages
• Publisher: EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing (September 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1894063260
• ISBN-13: 978-1894063265
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,809,992 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I'm a novelist, editor, short story writer. I also teach, and I freelance sometimes as an arts consultant. Most of my books have been published by Warner Books, now known as Grand Central Books. If you like knowing about awards and such, my work has received the Warner Aspect First Novel award, the Sunburst Award for Canadian literature of the fantastic, the World Fantasy Award, the Gaylactic Spectrum Award, and Honourable Mention in Cuba's Casa de las Americas Prize for literature.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Really good stories from Canada, July 15, 2006

By 

Paul Lappen (Manchester, CT USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Tesseracts Nine: New Canadian Speculative Fiction (Paperback)

Here is the latest in a yearly collection of speculative fiction stories and poems from north of the border, in Canada.

At an isolated research station in the north, one story concerns talking lemmings who are looking forward to being eaten by other predators. There is a modern-day vampire story. Mother Teresa moves into an elderly woman's home, and turns it into an orphanage. A group of aliens about to terraform Earth are totally enthralled by the singing of an elderly eskimo woman who knows that she has reached the end of her life. There is a near-future computer-controlled war story. A man wakes up one morning to find himself conscious, but physically unable to get out of bed. Then he finds that he has turned invisible. His wife, who thinks that he left her in the middle of the night, goes into a deep depression. Then civil order collapses as thousands, then millions, of people similarly disappear.

There is a wide variety of stories here; something for everyone. Read this an example of the state of speculative fiction in Canada, or read this as simply a group of really good stories. Either way, read it.

5.0 out of 5 stars collected contemporary sci-fi and fantasy short stories from Canada, April 2, 2006

By 

Henry Berry "Henry Berry" (Southport, CT) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Tesseracts Nine: New Canadian Speculative Fiction (Paperback)

Seven of the 23 collected pieces have been previously published; the others appear here for the first time. While all the authors are from Canada, in introductory and closing sections, the editors each note that there really is no meaningful or helpful classification of "Canadian speculative fiction." In his foreword, Ryman notes that among the selections in this loosely-defined genre of speculative fiction are science fiction, Christian miracle tales, ones based on pagan themes and content, and others depicting inexplicable events. Hopkinson in her closing section "Final Thoughts" cites the variety of humor--satire, buffoonery, camp, etc.--found in many of the stories. A few of the pieces are short-shorts of only a page or two, a couple in verse; the longest is over 60 pages. Detailed biographical notes on the number of authors at the back lead readers to additional works.