Heiresses of Russ 2015: The Year's Best Lesbian Speculative Fiction

Stories about lesbians, women who choose women as primary partners, lovers, playmates, and co-conspirators, tend to go where few men have gone before. Most of the real-life issues that lesbians must deal with, as women and as members of non-mainstream communities, appear in these stories in metaphorical form or as plausible scenarios in a future or alternate world. Lesbianism itself was routinely described by the conservatives of the past as ''impossible.'' The formula of ''woman + woman'' is thus logically connected with other phenomenon formerly considered impossible: magic, witchcraft, folk cures, scientific discoveries, alternate methods of producing offspring, space travel, communication with beings who are not human or not living in human bodies, historical accounts that have been suppressed or denied. The Heiresses of Russ series seeks to offer readers the best lesbian-themed speculative fictions stories published the prior year.

Literature & Fiction

Seanan McGuire

Ken Liu

Alex Dally MacFarlane

Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam

Benjanun Sriduangkaew

Nicola Griffith

Annabeth Leong

Stacia Seaman

Susan Jane Bigelow

Vivien Jackson

Short Stories & Anthologies

Lethe Press

Wilde Stories 2016: The Year's Best Gay Speculative Fiction

Reality and memory; imagination and oblivion. Somewhere between these signposts can be found the events of Wilde Stories 2016: a future world has forbidden the songs of dancefloor divas but on one night the show returns as a cautionary exhibition; high school outcasts create a fictional scapegoat and then his body is found; and let us not forget that colonial Mars needs Oscar Wilde, but then, who doesn't?

Chaz Brenchley

Rich Larson

Benjamin Parzybok

Jonathan Harper

Richard Bowes

E. Catherine Tobler

A. Merc Rustad

Sam J. Miller

Haralambi Markov

David Nickle

Paul Evanby

Jared W. Cooper

Richard Scott Larson

Genre Fiction

<p>There are fantastical stories with actual transgender characters, some for whom that is central and others for whom that isn't. And there are stories without transgender characters, but with metaphors and symbolism in their place, genuine expressions of self through such speculative fiction tropes as shapeshifting and programming. Transgender individuals see themselves in transformative characters, those outsiders, before seeing themselves as human protagonists. Those feelings are still valid. But though the stories involve transformation and outsiders, sometimes the change is one of self-realization. This anthology will be a welcome read for those who are ready to transcend gender through the lens of science fiction, fantasy, and other works of imaginative fiction.</p>

Transcendent: The Year's Best Transgender Speculative Fiction

Everett Maroon

Molly Tanzer

Alexis A. Hunter

Nino Cipri

Jack Hollis Marr

Holly Heisey

Bogi Takács

B.R. Sanders

E. Saxey

Margarita Tenser

Penny Stirling

<p>Review\n"Varied yet intricately connected by themes of memory and loss, these stories are as memorable as they are creative."-Buzzfeed\n"Her remarkable talent for crafting short fiction is on full display here, with stories that range from the dark and twisted to the outright strange. Fans of fiction writers such as Jeffery Ford and Kelly Link are sure to enjoy this dark collection."-Booklist\n"These extraordinary tales prove to be both spine-chilling and profound."-Kirkus\n"No collection has any business being this good, start to finish."-Locus\nBones of extinct species wander a campground, stalking a group of friends in love with the same woman. The object of their affection seeks solace with a couple in a world with rain that kills. A woman moves away from her repressed home town, only to transform into a man-eating monster when she returns. A robot assassin avenges women ruined by capitalism.\nJourney to the liminal space with acclaimed author Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam where interconnected stories span from past to future among the dead and the living.\n"A welcome entry to a flourishing tradition of fabulist short fiction in the vein of Kelly Link and Aimee Bender."-Sequoia Nagamatsu, How High We Go in the Dark\n"Heartbreakingly haunting, Where You Linger is Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam's testament to the ghost of the relationships that never quite leave you."-Jordan Kurella, I Never Liked You Anyway\n"Stufflebeam's voice is an undaunted guide in a wilderness of whispering bones and lingering dreams that will not release the visitor. Do not turn away from this journey."-Andrew S. Fuller, Editor, Three-Lobed Burning Eye magazine\nBonnie Jo Stufflebeam's fiction and poetry has appeared in over 90 publications such as LeVar Burton Reads and Popular Science, as well as in six languages. By night, she has been a finalist for the Nebula Award. By day, she works as a Narrative Designer writing romance games.</p>

Where You Linger

Vernacular Books

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Books by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam