Reviewed by Jess
TITLE: Wilde Stories 2018: The Year’s Best Gay Speculative Fiction
SERIES: Wilde Stories annual series #11
AUTHOR: Richard Bowes, Matthew Bright, Martin Cahill, Christopher Caldwell, John Chu, Sean Eads, Greg Egan, Joseph Keckler, Rich Larson, Karin Lowachee, Adam McOmber, Sam J. Miller, A.C. Wise, Devon Wong, and Xen; Ed. by Steve Berman
PUBLISHER: Lethe Press
LENGTH: 300 pages
RELEASE DATE: September 22, 2018
BLURB:
The final volume in the series that offers readers the best gay-themed stories of the strange, uncanny, and fantastical is out! In these pages are work by such acclaimed spec fic authors as Richard Bowes, Sam J. Miller, Sean Eads, and John Chu. Turn a page and walk the halls of a library shelved with every book never completed by authors before they passed away, a fish grants a young man wishes without ever explaining their true cost, ghosts relive their erotic past, Captain Hook and the Greek god Pan finally meet, and even Oscar Wilde himself makes an appearance in this anthology by Lambda Literary Award-winning editor Steve Berman.
REVIEW:
As in all good speculative fiction, the worlds in these stories are recognizable, filled with characters we see in ourselves and our friends, but there’s a twitch in the system—there’s magic, there are monsters, there are robots. There’s something off that piques our interest from the first page. Spec-fic is a fun genre in general, but it hasn’t been terribly diverse or inclusive in the past few years, so this collection is much-needed.
If the loose definition of speculative fiction is “somewhere other than the real world,” then this collection certainly encompasses that idea. I took notes throughout and came up with a short list of descriptive phrases that include: Super-soldier serum meets Inception, the Old West encounters lizard zombies from hell, a love triangle amidst a national Kaiju technology crisis, and drag excellence meets aquatic body horror. If none of these spark your interest, I’m not sure what you’re looking for in your spec-fic.
Three stories in this collection stand out for different reasons, but I have a feeling everyone will have their own opinions. I love “Some Kind of Wonderful” by Richard Bowes because of the gritty old New York feel mixed with Alice In Wonderland weirdness. It’s a trip from beginning to end. “Serving Fish” by Christopher Caldwell digs into the idea of transformation within drag culture, all while having our protagonist turn into a giant fish monster. And “Cracks” by Xen, one of the longer stories in the book, is an urban fantasy love story that could’ve been written by Octavia Butler, it’s so inventive and softly romantic. These stories are all so different, but they test boundaries and transport you into a fantastical, believable space that holds you tight and refuses to let you go.
Some stories veer into the abstract, which I think takes away from the other-world atmosphere a little bit, making it hard to actually speculate on what is happening. And some stories needed to be a little longer to do such good character and plot work justice. But if you’re looking for fiction that you’ve never experienced before, there will undoubtedly be something here for you.
I enjoyed this collection so much that I am sad to discover it will be the last in the series after a yearly volume since 2008. But if you’re hungry for more queer spec-fic, all of the previous volumes are available on the publisher’s website!
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