Shapers of Worlds Volume II

Science fiction and fantasy by authors featured on the Aurora Award-winning podcast The Worldshapers

by Edward Willett; Helen Dale; Marie Brennan; Candas Jane Dorsey; Jeffrey A. Carver; David D. Levine; Barbara Hambly; Tim Pratt; James Alan Gardner; Nancy Kress; Carrie Vaughn; ira Nayman; Lisa Kessler; Edward Savio; Adria Laycraft; Heli Kennedy; Kelley Armstrong; Matthew Hughes; Susan Forest; Lisa Foiles; Bryan Thomas Schmidt; Jeremy Szal; Garth Nix & S. M. Stirling

tagged: short stories

Description

Explore twenty-four imaginative tales crafted by some of today's best writers of science fiction and fantasy, all guests on Aurora Award-winning podcast The Worldshapers during its second year, including international bestsellers and winners of every major award in the field as well as newer authors just beginning what promise to be stellar careers.

There are brand-new stories from Kelley Armstrong, Marie Brennan, Garth Nix, Candas Jane Dorsey, Jeremy Szal, Edward Willett, Bryan Thomas Schmidt, Lisa Foiles, Susan Forest, Matthew Hughes, Heli Kennedy, Helen Dale, Adria Laycraft, Edward Savio, Lisa Kessler, Ira Nayman, James Alan Gardner, and Tim Pratt, plus fiction by Jeffrey A. Carver, David D. Levine, Carrie Vaughn, Nancy Kress, Barbara Hambly, and S.M. Stirling.

A woman seeking the power to see the evil hiding within others regrets receiving it. Letters written by a wizard in the past threaten a queen's reign in the present. Competing for Earth, a human wrestler faces an alien shapeshifter in an interstellar tournament. A guide in Tibet must weigh the good of his people when asked to lead a westerner to the fabled realm of Shangri. An activist imprisoned for illegal genetic modification works with the materials at hand and the threads of the multiverse to make the world-aworld, at least-a better place. A demonic agent sent to help a human turns the tables on his summoner.

Like the "cabinets of curiosities" created by collectors of the sixteenth century, Shapers of Worlds Volume II displays a varied array of thought-provoking delights: tales of humour and sorrow, darkness and light, and hope and despair that are full of adventure, full of life, and sometimes full of regret. There are stories set in alternate histories, in possible futures, near and far, and in the here-and-now, taking place on Earth, on distant planets, or in fantastic realms. All arise from the innate need of human beings to create, to imagine . . . to shape worlds.

About the Authors

Edward Willett is the author of more than sixty books of science fiction, fantasy, and nonfiction for readers of all ages. Marseguro (DAW Books) won the Aurora Award (honouring Canadian science fiction and fantasy) for Best Long-Form Work in English; his young adult fantasy Spirit Singer won a Saskatchewan Book Award. Several other of his books have been shortlisted for those and other awards. Ed's most recent novel is the far-future humorous outer-space adventure The Tangled Stars (DAW Books). His nonfiction runs the gamut from science books to biographies to history. He hosts Aurora Award-winning podcast The Worldshapers podcast (theworldshapers.com), in which he talks to other authors about their latest books, and has Kickstarted four previous Shapers of Worlds anthologies featuring guests of the podcast. In 2018, Ed founded Shadowpaw Press, which publishes an electic list of books ranging from children's books to literary fiction to young adult novels to science ficton and fantasy. In addition to being a writer, Ed is a professional actor and singer. He lives in Regina, Saskatchewan, with his wife, Margaret Anne Hodges, P. Eng., a past president of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Saskatchewan. They have one daughter, Alice, and a black Siberian cat, Shadowpaw. You can find Ed online at www.edwardwillett.com.

When librarians finally granted Kelley Armstrong an adult card, she made straight for the epic fantasy and horror shelves. She spent the rest of her childhood and teen years happily roaming fantastical and terrible worlds, and vowed that someday she'd write a story combining swords, sorcery, and the ravenous undead. That story began with the New York Times bestselling Sea of Shadows and continues with Empire of Night.

Armstrong's first works for teens were the New York Times bestselling Darkest Powers and Darkness Rising trilogies. She lives in rural Ontario with her husband, three children, and far too many pets.

Excerpt

Introduction

By Edward Willett

Back in the sixteenth century, learned men were known for creating “cabinets of curiosities,” collections of notable objects: relics of archaeological interest, fascinating geological specimens, stuffed animals, valuable books, works of art, and more. These cabinets (at the time, the term referred to rooms, not just pieces of furniture) were precursors to modern museums. They were also a form of entertainment: “learned entertainment,” as the Royal Society in London termed it.

These collections might or might not have a strong central theme. It depended on the collector and his or her specific interests. Some might largely be collections of one type of thing; others might be collections of many different types of things.

Anthologies, it seems to me, are rather like cabinets of curiosities, the collector being the editor. Many anthologies have a strong central theme, such as “stories set on Mars,” or “stories about ancient deities making their way in the modern world,” or “alternate histories of the Civil War.” The curiosities collected in such cabinets are all related to this central theme, and thus, readers know what to expect as they move from tale to tale.

This anthology, and its precursor, Shapers of Worlds, published last year, are far more eclectic. The stories collected here are stories connected not by theme but by something more concrete: every author was a guest during the second year of my podcast, The Worldshapers, where I interview other science fiction and fantasy authors about their creative process.

Both anthologies grew out of a presentation to the annual general meeting of SaskBooks, the association of Saskatchewan publishers of which I’m a member, in 2019. A publisher from Winnipeg explained how she had successfully Kickstarted an anthology of short fiction, and I thought, Hey, I know some authors!

I reached out to the guests from the first year of my podcast, which had begun in August 2018, and eighteen authors agreed to take part, with nine offering to write new stories and nine to provide reprints. After climbing the somewhat steep Kickstarter learning curve, I successfully crowdsourced Shapers of Worlds in early 2020 and published it through my own Shadowpaw Press last fall.

Having done it once, I thought I could do it again, so I reached out to my second-year guests. This time, eighteen authors agreed to write new stories, and six offered reprints, and that’s the volume you now hold in your hand (or are viewing on your ebook reader of choice).

To return to my metaphor, these stories are those which the authors themselves chose to be displayed in this cabinet of curiosities. The result, I think you’ll find, is as varied as the strange assortment of oddities and discoveries those long-ago collectors placed in their personal showcases, ranging from far-future science fiction to modern-day fantasy to stories of alternate histories to tales set in magical realms. Here you will find darkness and danger, but also light and hope; grimness, but also humour; rollicking adventure alongside quieter tales conducive to contemplation.

It has been a great honour both to interview these authors and to collect and edit these stories. I couldn’t be prouder to present Shapers of Worlds Volume II to the world.

And, of course, none of this could have been possible without the generosity of all those who backed the Kickstarter earlier this year that provided the funds to pay the authors and produce this book. I hope you’ll find your support was well worthwhile.

Another term for a cabinet of curiosities was “cabinet of wonder.” In the stories that follow, you will find a great deal of wonder: they are, literally, wonder-full.

Contributor Notes

EDWARD WILLETT is the award-winning author of more than sixty books of science ﬁction, fantasy, and non-ﬁction for readers of all ages, including the Worldshapers series and the Masks of Agyrima trilogy (as E.C. Blake) for DAW Books, the YA fantasy series The Shards of Excalibur, and most recently, the YA SF novel Star Song (Shadowpaw Press). Ed won Canada's Aurora Award for Best Long-Form Work in English in 2009 for Marseguro (DAW) and for Best Fan Related Work in 2019 for The Worldshapers podcast. His humorous space opera The Tangled Stars comes out from DAW in 2022. He lives in Regina, Saskatchewan. Find him at edwardwillett.com or on Twitter @ewillett.

Editorial Review

Praise for Shapers of World (Volume I):

"One of the most wide-ranging volumes I've encountered in terms of sub-genre. It's rather like a speculative fiction buffet, offering steampunk, fantasy, military fiction, magic, space opera, post-apocalyptic, hard science fiction, and others . . . Inventive and varied, the collection has a lot to offer for those seeking an interesting, entertaining, and thought-provoking read." - Lisa Timpf, The Future Fire

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