The Best of the Uncanny

Dust jacket illustration by Tran Nguyen.
Edited by Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas.

Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas have co-edited and co-published Uncanny Magazine since its launch in 2014. They brought readers stunning cover art, passionate science fiction and fantasy fiction and poetry, gorgeous prose, and provocative nonfiction by writers from every conceivable background, including some of science fiction and fantasy’s most fabulous award-winning and bestselling authors. In its first four years, Uncanny Magazine won the Best Semiprozine Hugo Award three times (2016, 2017, 2018), Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas won the 2018 Best Editor—Short Form Hugo Award for their work on the magazine, and numerous stories from Uncanny Magazine have been finalists or winners of Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and World Fantasy Awards-- including the novelette “Folding Beijing” by Hao Jingfang (translated by Ken Liu) which won the 2016 Best Novelette Hugo Award and the novelette “You’ll Surely Drown Here If You Stay” by  Alyssa Wong which won the 2017 Best Novelette Locus Award.

This Best of Uncanny anthology collects those two novelettes and many of the other best stories and poems from the first 22 issues of Uncanny Magazine. Naomi Novik plunges you into a delicious fractured fairy tale retelling in “Blessings.” Delilah S. Dawson explores superpowers, harassment, and revenge in"Catcall." Neil Gaimantakes you along to keep pace with his gorgeous and powerful poem “The Long Run.” Charlie Jane Anders shakes up a haunting cocktail of comedy clubs and love with "Ghost Champagne." Mary Robinette Kowal weaves a heartbreaking tale of marriage, duty, and magical curses in "Midnight Hour." N.K. Jemisin ruminates on dangerous fans, awards, and legacy in “Henosis.” Maria Dahvana Headleyslinks into a Classic Hollywood of animal actors and sleazy secrets with “If You Were a Tiger, I’d Have to Wear White.” Catherynne M. Valente travels to a colony world infested with strange psychic cats in “Planet Lion.” Carmen Maria Machado wrestles with predators, identity, and death in“My Body, Herself.” And Seanan McGuire sings a tragic song of misunderstandings and unfortunate consequences with “Ye Highlands and Ye Lowlands.” 

Those pieces are only the beginning. The Best of Uncanny features some of the uncanniest stories and poetry in SF/F today, by its current leading voices. Sit down and immerse yourself in 44 original science fiction and fantasy stories and poems that can make you feel.

Table of Contents

• The Uncanny Valley—An Introduction — LYNNE M. THOMAS AND MICHAEL DAMIAN THOMAS
• Our Talons Can Crush Galaxies — BROOKE BOLANDER
• Blessings — NAOMI NOVIK
• Folding Beijing — HAO JINGFANG, TRANSLATED BY KEN LIU (translator signing, not the author)
• The New Ways — AMAL EL-MOHTAR (POEM )
• Fandom for Robots — VINA JIE-MIN PRASAD
• Catcall — DELILAH S. DAWSON
• Wooden Feathers — URSULA VERNON
• The Long Run — NEIL GAIMAN (POEM )
• Heat of Us: Notes Toward an Oral History — SAM J. MILLER
• Ghost Champagne — CHARLIE JANE ANDERS
• Translatio Corporis — K AT HOWARD
• Rose Child — BY THEODORA GOSS (POEM )
• The Witch of the Orion Waste and the Boy Knight — E. LILY YU
• Monster Girls Don’t Cry — A. MERC RUSTAD
• Midnight Hour — MARY ROBINETTE KOWAL
• Henosis — N.K . JEMISIN
• The Persecution of Witches — ALI TROT TA (POEM )
• Restore the Heart into Love — JOHN CHU
• I Frequently Hear Music in the Very Heart of Noise — SARAH PINSKER
• You’ll Surely Drown Here If You Stay — ALYSSA WONG
• 肉骨茶 (Meat Bone Tea) — S. QIOUYI LU (POEM )
• She Still Loves the Dragon — ELIZABETH BEAR
• If You Were a Tiger, I’d Have to Wear White — MARIA DAHVANA HEADLE Y
• archival testimony fragments / minersong — ROSE LEMBERG (POEM )
• Sun, Moon, Dust — URSULA VERNON
• Planet Lion — CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
• The Hydraulic Emperor — ARKADY MARTINE
• Starskin, Sealskin — SHVETA THAKRAR & SARA CLETO (POEM )
• Small Changes Over Long Periods of Time — K .M. SZPARA
• god-date — BRANDON O’BRIEN (POEM )
• 7 Auspicium Melioris Aevi — JY YANG
• Clearly Lettered in a Mostly Steady Hand — FRAN WILDE
• An Ocean the Color of Bruises — ISABEL YAP
• Dancing Princesses — ROSHANI CHOKSHI (POEM )
• Those — SOFIA SAMATAR
• Though She Be But Little — C. S. E. COONE Y
• Children of Thorns, Children of Water — ALIET TE DE BODARD
• Protestations Against the Idea of Anglicization — CASSANDRA KHAW (POEM )
• My Body, Herself — CARMEN MARIA MACHADO
• Ye Highlands and Ye Lowlands — SEANAN MCGUIRE
• The Words on My Skin — CAROLINE M. YOACHIM
• And Then There Were (N-One) — SARAH PINSKER
• The Sea Never Says It Loves You — FRAN WILDE (POEM )
• Pockets — AMAL EL-MOHTAR

Trade: Fully cloth bound hardcover edition and sold out at the publisher

Limited: 250 numbered leatherbound copies, signed by all authors (with one exception noted above) and sold out at the publisher