Here's something to take not of (erm, '... of which to take note') if you're interested in SF. The brilliant Jessica Langer's brilliant Science Fiction and Postcolonialism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) is now available. Three things you should do.

1. Buy a copy.

2. Check out io9.com tomorrow (Tuesday, around 10 AM North American time), who are running an except from the book.

3. Nominate Dr Langer for a best-related Hugo and/or best-related BSFA award, if you have that power.

That is all. (What's that? My 'buy a copy' link goes to a UK site? Oh, right. Here you go).

Luke Yexley is a talented individual presently doing an A-Level in design. As part of his coursework, and in consultation with me, he has designed a cover for a collection of my short stories. And here's the result -- very nice, I think. I'd suggest you click-to-embiggen the above brother-of-simon Jay Pegg, and decide for yourself. [I have signed a contract with Gollancz to issue a collection of short fiction, actually: should be out some time next year I think].

After three previous volumes (two of which contained stories by me) Solaris is rising again, thanks to the metaphorical yeast of Ian Whates, that excellent individual. My contribution this time is a story called 'Shall I Tell You The Trouble With Time Travel?' In this story, I tell you, the reader, the trouble with time travel.

[14 Nov: this just in from amazon.com, whose reader reviews are, as we all know, infallible: 'OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: I first read the Peter Hamilton story ... and the Adam Roberts story which features another crazy explanation of a sf trope, this time the paradoxes of time travel and has the expected superb prose and characters, while not much later I also read the Alastair Reynolds story which contained the author's trademark serious cosmological stuff interspersed with human interest that has made him the leading hard sf voice of our time ... In addition to the trio above, the stories by Eric Brown/Keith Brooke and Jaine Fenn respectively were also excellent ... great prose and characters added these two stories to the A++ top tier ones of the anthology. Overall I would say that Adam Roberts Shall I Tell You the Problem with Time Travel? is my favorite story of the anthology, but all of these five are stories that reminded me again why I love science fiction in the short form too!']

[17 Nov: A signing! A signing in Forbidden Planet, on Saturday 26th November at 1pm!]

[22nd Nov: My last update to this post ... I just saw the SFX review of this volume, sadly not online, which praised the whole thing, and praised my story in particular ('sublimely good ... worth the price of admission alone'). Which is nice.]

Very exciting: the long-awaited, much-expanded 3rd edition of the genre's standard reference work, The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (edited John Clute, Peter Nicholls and David Langford) has at last gone live -- or at least, its Beta edition has (you can find out what the 'beta edition' is, here). I've made some miniscule contribution to this by writing a few entries on SF Music; but really this staggering, amazing achievement belongs to Peter, John and David, not to mention the estimable Graham Sleight. I'm more delighted for them than I can easily say; and I'm very honoured to be associated with the project, even in a marginal sense.

Since going live, there's been a good quantity of feedback from fans and readers, which is an excellent thing. I'm very happy to take corrections where my music entries are concerned, of course; either here or through the site's own contact page (or via Graham's SFE3 blog). It's also good to get suggestions of SF music I've not yet got to: I'm very grateful, for instance, to Jez Winship and Neil Snowdon, whose long, thoughtful response to the release of the SFE3-beta contains a wealth of suggestions for more music entries. I'm writing some of these now, as it happens.

Still: news is -- I've now written a first draft of this title, with some changes (the Captain is now called 'Cloche' instead of 'Mason', for instance). The plan -- if I can persuade him, and he has the time -- is for the most excellent Mahendra Singh to illustrate it, in his initmiable, wonderful way: check out his Carroltastic Snark blog for some examples of what he does. I'm toying with the notion of translating it into French and seeing if les gens Bragelonne would be interested in it. Otherwise, I'm adding a couple more goodies to what will be the e-edition of Jack Glass, my 2012 Gollancz title.

The whole point of SF being a literature of ideas is not that it's supposed to be ideas about geosynchronous satellites that people later actually invent. Well, some fans think that it is, but I don't. It's supposed to be about ideas that de-center you, make you rethink where you are in ways that more realistic literature can't, because reality as we know it doesn't furnish what we need to see our position of privilege. Hard SF is supposed to do that with scientific ideas, ideas that have force because, as far as we know, they're really true. That is what is essential to hard SF, not scientific plausibility in all of the story's supports. So, does Anti-Copernicus work as hard SF? I think it does.

Rich knows both astrophysics and environmental science, so I value his judgment on this even more than I usually would. And Liviu Siciu (aka 'Fantasy Book Critic') has the following to say:

Anticopernicus (A+) is very good stuff and worth all the money and more, since it offers in those 40 pages what others offer in 300, while it has a great resolution in true sfnal spirit. Despite being self published, the editing was top notch too, with only one typo that jumped at me. Highly recommended as a blend of literary fiction, space sf and musings on humanity and our place in the Universe. Since the style is so Adam Roberts, I think Anticopernicus serves as a very good introduction to the work of the author, so I also suggest to give it a try if you want to see why I rate Adam Roberts in my top 10 list of contemporary sf writers.

There are some more reactions to the piece on Goodreads.

One more thing: soon after the book's e-publication I got an email from Ange Mlinko (after whom the protagonist is named); she subsequently blogged her reaction on the LRB blog. Interesting stuff.

TWO years ago, Kim Stanley Robinson declared that Adam Roberts ought to have won that year's Man Booker Prize. Roberts, like writers as diverse as China Mieville, Will Self, Ken MacLeod and David Wingrove, exists in that weird hinterland between literary and genre fiction. By Light Alone is both more interesting in terms of its ideas and more memorable in terms of the actual, sentence-by-sentence writing on the page than much of what passes as serious fiction. I once, in a rather exasperated moment, said that I yearned for a literature without dinner parties. By Light Alone, with nauseous and visceral brilliance, manages to be a great contemporary novel that includes even them. ... Roberts is asking important questions about the nature of need, the metaphysics of hunger and how revolutions come about, both technologically and politically. Maybe it's time for a new prize: not for "literary fiction" or "good reads" but for novels that actually challenge.

To have pleased a critic as intelligent and perceptive as Kelly is very gratifying indeed. Here's the equally intelligent Guy Haley at SFX:

Is it possible for a writer to follow the precepts of Moore’s Law, doubling their capacity for excellence with every book? Probably not, but Adam Roberts is giving it a spirited try ... Roberts cunningly pricks out the ridiculous shape of our society with wickedly sharp satire. Inequality and self-obsession are his targets, and yet he manages to hit them while keeping his characters entirely human and sympathetic. No-one does SF parables quite like Roberts, and as usual it’s all spun from the most amazing prose. Taken in isolation, his sentences here tend to the overly candied, but the effect of them en masse is hypnotically poetic. It’s brilliantly effective, and affecting. Roberts’s SF novels are all worthy of praise, but there’s a certain majesty to By Light Alone – better rush out now and buy it, before the mainstream literary establishment sweeps Roberts under its wing and tells us he’s not aloud to play out with the nerds anymore. It’s hard for us sometimes to credit some of the claims made by PR, but when Gollancz calls Roberts one of the most important writers of his generation, it’s something of an understatement: this man puts art at the heart of our genre.

Here's the estimable David Barnett, in the Independent on Sunday:

If By Light Alone were written by David Mitchell or Margaret Atwood, for example, it would doubtless be said to "transcend its science fiction" roots, as all literary fiction which borrows SF trappings must. But By Light Alone is unashamedly SF, and would that half the supposed "literary" novels on the shelves today were as well written, thoughtful and intelligent as this.

And here is James Lovegrove, in the Financial Times:

Adam Roberts is our most intellectually engaged and literary science fiction author, crafting sentences the equal of any by Ian McEwan or Kazuo Ishiguro. His 11th novel, By Light Alone, hinges on the idea that genetic engineering has created hair that can photosynthesise sunlight. The world’s poor survive simply by being outdoors, while the rich shun the treatment and consume expensive food. ... Not only is the novel a satire about the gulfs of understanding between rich and poor but also an affecting study of the gulfs of understanding between parents and children.

Finally here's Gwyneth Jones, in the Guardian. A rather negative review -- though it's an honour to be reviewed by a writer of her stature:

Every element in the story of Leah's disappearence and return will be equally, annoyingly shorn of context, all details blurred and dim – swamped in the mush of Marie's utter indifference, and George's helpless failure to connect. Clearly, one of the targets of Roberts's satire is a fat-headed culture of ignorance. Likewise, there's a righteous purpose, as well as some malicious glee, in the obesity motif. The titanic blimps who stomp through these serious pages, in a pastiche of gross-out reality TV – Very Fat People Having Sex; Very Fat People Sicking Up Their Dinners – are there to teach us a lesson. By making visible the invisible blubber that swaddles our own beautiful people – the sickening cushion of wealth that smothers empathy – Roberts strips the super-rich of glamour and lampoons everyperson's complicity in the toxic religion of greed. If some readers are offended or sceptical of his motives, that's a risk he seems happy to take. At the Ararat resort there is an attraction called the Ice-Cream Mountain, a Brobdingnagian treat obliquely recalling the mountainous diamond in F Scott Fitzgerald's story, "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz". Fitzgerald's influence is cited in the publicity for By Light Alone, and invoked by the novel's handsome cover; and justly so. But Roberts's updating of romantic jazz age pessimism is ironic. The wondrous gem has become an infantile heap of goo. The rich just aren't different enough, these days. Extreme wealth isn't a tragic, interesting disease, it's a planet-wrecking blight. It's not pretty, and it's not romantic.

Author copies arrived today. Looks even more beautiful when held in the hand than it does online. You can pre-order a copy, or wait until the 18th August when it hits the shops.

Another thing occurs to me: I'm proud of this one.

Adam Roberts, Anticopernicus (2011). £0.86p, or equivalent. Available for Kindle download on Amazon now.

Update: also available for download in EPUB format from Wizard Tower books (same price). While you're there, you may want to check out their other many excellent books.

A tentative dipping of one of my toes into the world of e-publishing, this: a Dwarf Novel called Anticopernicus: four chapters (about 15,000 words) never before published, and not to be made available in any other way, yours for the low-low price of eighty-six pence, or equivalent prices in cents, American or European. And yes, that is the proper terminology: it's the same across the world -- in French (roman nain), German (Zwergroman), Russian (карликовая роман), Arabic (كوكب قزم), Chinese (矮行星) and so on.

The book is a brief but I hope readable and thought-provoking Alien First Contact/space flight yarn, and it also happens to contain the answers to the following two questions, which have been tormenting modern science -- (a) what, precisely, is dark energy? and (b) what is the solution to the celebrated Fermi Paradox? I think I'm right in saying that the answers to both questions proposed in Anticopernicus are new and original; and I hope they have some dramatic effectiveness, although I can't claim they're necessarily right. But you never know. If you have a Kindle, or have downloaded the (free) Kindle app to your smartphone or iPad, then I ask you politely to go to amazon and spend 0.86p on this short tale. I'll be very grateful if you do.

At any rate, this is my first endeavour in the world of auto-ePublishing. I don't expect to the book to sell enormously or make me much money; but if it does reasonably well (and 'reasonably' means: anything that isn't catastrophically badly) I may publish another dwarf novel via the same route at some point in the future. (Remember: 30% of that 86p goes straight into my pocket! Alternatively you could just give me 28p when you see me next).

One final note: the splendid cover art you can see there was done by the very talented Bruce Asher. If you're looking for cover- or poster-art for any reason, I recommend him: he works quickly, to a high standard, and his rates are very reasonable.

Ah!

The importance of science fiction to undergraduate literary studies cannot be underestimated. Its capacity to challenge students' social, political and cultural perspectives makes it invaluable in highlighting the contingent nature of contemporary society and the potential for change. Teaching Science Fiction is the first book in thirty years to address how science fiction might be taught to this effect. It presents comprehensive treatments of the major phases in the development of the genre including the scientific romance, Golden Age science fiction, the New Wave and science fiction's engagement with the postmodern. The book identifies and explores innovative teaching strategies which will both engage and challenge students whilst providing practical advice on how an sf course can be designed, delivered and evaluated. Sample syllabuses, a detailed chronology, a compact history of the genre and an extensive bibliography make this an invaluable guide for anyone teaching, or considering teaching, science fiction at undergraduate level.

Contributors include the currently BSFA nominated Paul Kincaid, Gary K Wolfe, Chris Ferns, Gary Westfahl, Lisa Yaszek, Rob Latham, Andrew M. Butler (he was using the stylish 'M' middle-initial to differentiate himself long before Iain Banks got in on that act), Brain Attebery, Uppinder Mehan, M, Elizabeth Ginway, Mark Brake, Neil Hook and of course the editors Andy Sawyer and Peter Wright, estmable SF scholars both. I mention it here because I'm in there too (my chapter is called 'Teaching Scientific Romance'); but there is a great deal of critical, theoretical and --as you'd expect from the title -- pedagogicaly practical meat between these covers.

I'm wondering about putting out an ebook edition of an as-yet unpublished book. Not sure about it, to be frank; but I am at least wondering. And following this piece of good advice from [namedrop] Paul McAuley [/namedrop] ('one bit of advice - covers. Even a 70p short story needs a good cover. If you don't have any graphic design background get someone who has') I've been thinking about cover design. I wrote a novel called A Solid Gold Penny which hasn't yet been published; and in the absence of regular publishers badgering me to put it out themselves, I'm wondering if it might suit ePub -- either the whole thing, or else the first third, a self-contained novella-length piece about a seventeenth-century orphan who picks up the power of life or death after an alien encounter. Copyediting my own title, proofing it, putting it on amazon and so on are all ahead of me, and all more or less unappealing prospects: but Paul's point about covers is something else again. Probably I should pay someone who has graphic design experience to do a better job. What do we think of the above?
___
Update: another go, less funereally rendered, and taking on board Sensawunda's helpful pointers in the comments:

Update 2: still tinkering.

Update 3: picking up Paul R's ideas, and the comments thread in general.

Isn't that a lovely piece of cover design? You can, as the Germans put it, 'embiggenklick' that image to make it larger. What's more, Angry Robot Books have done a similarly impressive job on another Jeter re-release, Infernal Devices (see for yourself).

I'm mentioning this particular piece of SF Classic Reissuance not just for the sake of it, but because this particular Angry Robot edition contains not only an introduction by current Clarke nominee and friend-of-Jeter Tim Powers, but also what the blurb on the back of the book calls 'a Scholarly Afterword by Adam Roberts'. So there we are.

So here are “Projekt Stalin” and “Opowieść Zombilijna”, two of my novels rendered into the ancient and beautiful language of Poland and published there by the excellently-named publisher, Zysk i S-ka. I can't judge the skill of the translation, lacking Polish; but I can report that these are lovely examples of book-production, inside as well as out. Projekt Stalin has a some lovely in-cover art and touches, not least a rather startling apparition of, er, me in amongst the saucers on the inside-front cover:

But easier on the eye are the divisions between parts:

And the endpapers:

The UK edition of the Scrooge/Zombie title had illustrations by Zom Leech; but he won't mind that Zysk have commissioned their own striking work:

As I tweeted, upon receipt: 'In the post: copies of Projekt Stalin and Opowieść Zombilijna. Very cool. That the latter is thinner than the former makes me want to sing: 'Zombilijna, Zombilijna, tiny little thing/Zombilijna dance, Zombilijna sing.'

In the meantime, I look about this old place and think to myself: 'hmm, needs more content.' So over the next few days I shall provide some.

Did you grow up on a diet of catastrophe novels? Classics such as "War of the Worlds", "Death of Grass", "Day of the Triffids", "Greybeard", "The Purple Cloud" and so forth? Did you hone your teen angst through a diet of disaster stories?

This book won't exactly take you back to that Golden Age . . . because the purpose of "Catastrophia" is to revitalise this sub-genre of Science Fiction for the early twenty-first century. To bring a modern sensibility and craft to the business of ending the world as we know it. These days, there's plenty of catastrophe on screen - whether it be at the cinema or on TV - but we have somewhat let the subject slip in the literary world. No longer!

Award-winning editor Allen Ashley has collected 18 brilliant brand new stories from a mix of established and emerging authors that will take you way beyond Wyndham and well past Wells. Catastrophe stories are alive and kicking.

Buy this book, read this book . . . while we still have a world in which to do so!

Fade - David Gullen
A Hard Place - Carole Johnstone
Up - Andrew Hook
Stephen's Boat - Billie Bundschuh
Noose - Adam Roberts
Check - Robert Guffey
Something For Nothing - Joe Essid
The Phoney War - Nina Allan
Happy Ending - Simon Clark
Nanoamerica - David John Baker
Pixels on a Screen - Patrick Shuler
Scalped - Jet McDonald
Gravity Wave - Douglas Thompson
In The Face of Disaster - Ian Sales
Trouble With Telebrations - Tim Nickels
The Long Road to the Sea - James L. Sutter
Crashes Stuart Young
Hapless Humanity - Brian W. Aldiss

I re-read my story over lunch. It's not at all bad. Now to read all the other stories.

But wait: they haven't translated my name!

If I'm honest, I am pleased that this book, with its (original, I think) argument about the origins and nature of SF is still in play; although of course it goes without saying that it lacks the quality and influence of Gary K. Wolfe's Soundings.

I look at it and I think: this may be the most lovely of all my covers.

Cool John Howe cover, though, what? And this issue also includes pieces by Elizabeth Hand, John Clute and Roger Luckhurst, so I'm in good company.

I notice that Tony Ballantyne agrees with me on this one.

There have been some other reviews. I was particularly pleased with this David Hebblethwaite review:

I can safely say that New Model Army is like no other book I�ve ever read. I know this because I have no name for the feeling I was left with after I�d finished it. That�s a recommendation, by the way.

That's exactly what I'm trying to do when I write fiction!

On the other hand, Gollancz have chosen not to go with my preferred strapline: 'If Nabokov had written Bravo Two Zero ...' Probably wisely.

For his latest trick, respected critic and SF author Adam Roberts has great fun producing a pastiche of Dickens's seasonal classic, A Christmas Carol, and the horror afficionado and more general reader will find much to enjoy between the covers of I Am Scrooge, not least the tasteful line drawings of Zom Leech.

I'll pass those words on to Zom. He'll be chuffed.

At first I found this book rather forced and the language slightly stilted, with an uncomfortable tension between the scenes of graphic violence and the spirit of the source material, but the story grew on me as it progressed, the lilting cadences of the mock-Dickensian preose insinuating themselves into my consciousness and soon all objections were swept aside. Roberts ... [is] not a writer to engage the emotions, but he does delight the intellect with a wealth of invention and incidental detail, along the way having huge fun with the tropes of the zombie genre. ... A particular pleasure is Roberts' reinvention of the Christmas story, gifting us with a version in which the Slaughter of the Innocents had to do with stopping a zombie plague and Christmas puddings are a sweetmeat reminder of the brains which zombies love to eat. It's an audacious display of twisted logic, coupled with sly wit, as each detail is neatly slotted into the overall pattern and the feeling takes hold that yes, insane as it sounds, this all makes sense and could have happened exactly as Roberts describes it. Zombies are flavour of the month just now in publishing circles, whilst the success of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has carved out a niche for reiterations of the classics. I Am Scrooge shows up that work as the rather dull text it actually was, demonstrating what can be done when you apply intelligence and invention and wit to subvert a classic story instead of simply adding a dollop or two of schlock to the mix. It's also, aside from a few typos (unusual for Gollancz) a very nicely produced book, and at the asking price will make a perfect stocking filler ... that will continue to bring the odd chuckle and pleasurable frisson long after the turkey is eaten and the Queen's speech forgotten.

Until then, I've been noting with pleasure a couple of zombie reviews. Hard, for instance, to think of a more elevating and honourable point of comparison than I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again:

Imagine a historical Shaun of the Dead written with as many bad zombie puns as you can think of � if you�ve got a long memory, add that it�s been written by the I�m Sorry I�ll Read That Again team � and you�ve got an idea of the tone. The narrator�s voice occasionally irritates, with one joke repeated a few too many times, but once the plot kicks in, it�s far more in the background. Given that Roberts is a professor of 19th Century literature, it�s hardly surprising that there are multiple references to different stories, some well-known, others obscure. Like Monty Python at its best though, I Am Scrooge doesn�t talk down to its audience � even when it�s about to make possibly the worst Scooby Doo joke ever! [Paul Simpson]

And here's what the Daily Mail thought:

One man stands between Victorian London and a plague of brain-munching undead: Ebeneezer Scrooge. Yep, it�s that Dickensian zombie novel Eng Lit so obviously lacked. In what you could call a fairly free adaptation, Adam Roberts reworks A Christmas Carol into a zombie-slashing gore-fest, with cameo appearances by Jack the Ripper, Queen Victoria and Dickens himself, plus a bravura performance by the Ghost of Christmas Future as a very funny Ali G-soundalike, Lots of corny jokes and groanworthy one-liners, lots and lots of brain-slurping zombies. Clever and daft in equal measure. [Harry Ritchie, Daily Mail 30 Oct 2009]

British science fiction is now in a golden age.

I say this as a happy fan and an awed colleague: the range, depth, intensity, wit and beauty of the science fiction being published in the UK these days is simply amazing. The eight wonderful writers featured here are only a representative sampling of a community of artists so strong that it is hard to explain. Add to these Brian Aldiss, Neal Asher, Iain Banks, Christopher Evans, Alasdair Gray, Colin Greenland, John Courtenay Grimwood, Peter Hamilton, Nick Harkaway, M. John Harrison, Robert Holdstock, Gwyneth Jones, Garry Kilworth, Doris Lessing, Ian R. MacLeod, China Mi�ville, Richard Morgan, Christopher Priest, Alastair Reynolds, Adam Roberts, Jennifer Rohn, Brian Stableford, Charles Stross, Lisa Tuttle - and no doubt others I have forgotten, or am unaware of (sorry) - and one has to ask, how is it that a group of such intellectual power could be working at one time, and our time at that.

I was enormously chuffed to see my name in there, part of that genuinely exalted company. Now, if somebody staged a four way hike-off between Robinson, Le Guin, Delany and Gene Wolfe for the title 'world's greatest living science fiction author' I'd put my money on Robinson; something that only made the name-check sweeter. But then I turned the page.

Oh, I know there is a Booker prize, I've heard of it even in California - supposedly given to the best fiction published in the Commonwealth every year - but there are no Woolves on those juries, and so they judge in ignorance and give their awards to what usually turn out to be historical novels. Sometimes these are fine historical novels, written by tremendous writers; I particularly like Roddy Doyle, John Banville, Vikram Seth and Amitav Ghosh, and my favorite was Penelope Fitzgerald. But working, like all of us, in the rain shadow of the great modernists, they tend to do the same things the modernists did in smaller ways. A good new novel about the first world war, for instance, is still not going to tell us more than Parade's End by Ford Madox Ford. More importantly, these novels are not about now in the way science fiction is. Thus it seems to me that three or four of the last 10 Booker prizes should have gone to science fiction novels the juries hadn't read. Should I name names? Why not: Air by Geoff Ryman should have won in 2005, Life by Gwyneth Jones in 2004, and Signs of Life by M. John Harrison in 1997. Indeed this year the prize should probably go to a science fiction comedy called Yellow Blue Tibia, by Adam Roberts.

At which point I fell off my chair.

Fifty Key Figures in Science Fiction (Routledge Key Guides) (Paperback)
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If it weren't for that extra shipping charge ...

I have a picture of a Finnmug to share; but am having trouble getting the image posted. Before the end of the week, though, surely.

I finished a working draft of my next novel, to be called New Model Army: at the minute my editor has it, and I've also sent it to three of the most deftly expert novel-readers I know, who have, with fantastic kindness, all agreed to have a read too. In the light of their feedback I shall revise.

The Mammoth Book of Mindblowing SF (which I'm in, and which I praised here) has been the occasion of a heated SFSignal thread. Commentors noted that all the contributors are white men. This is, clearly, not good. Some commentators attempted a defence of this aspect of the collection, which in turn inflamed the tempers of other commentators, and it all became rather shouty. My view is bound to be a little compromised by virtue of the fact that I have a story in the volume; but in many respects it is close to what Al Reynolds (also a contributor) says. Like him, when Mike Ashley approached me to see if I wanted to contribute a story, I had no idea who else was being asked, or what the overall collection would look like.

You should read the whole thread, really; it's interesting, if often intemperate. So: I believe there should be more diversity in published SF, especially in terms of gender and non-white ethnicity. It's a shame this anthology doesn't do that; but the claims of several of the more choleric contributors don't seem to me tenable, specifically (a) accusations that Mike Ashley is sexist, or actively misogynist: I really don't believe he is; and (b) the belief that this anthology deserves to be held up for particular rebuke (instead of, let's say, the 2009 Hugo best novel shortlist) because it claims to be in some sense representative of SF. I don't think it does; not even in terms of the cover tagline's characteristic publishing-hyperbole (I don't know if the editor was responsible for this tagline anyway; probably not).

Actually, I think Jonathan M's first comment (also on that thread) may be closer to the truth: the problem isn't this anthology as such, it's a more generalised sexism and racism in SF publishing; and the point of getting so angry here, and of throwing so much vitriol around, is to turn this book into a deterrent case: to make future editors think twice. I can see some merit in that, although it seems to me hard that Ashley, a decent and conscientious man, must have this torrent of anger poured onto his head. It also seems to me a shame that Paul di Filippo gets so roasted in the thread, given that he is to the best of my knowledge neither a sexist nor a racist: his attempt at genial 'let's all calm down' commenting sparked some furious and indeed frumious responses. One interesting thing to come out of it, though, was a specific suggestion from Reynolds: a genuine ethical question that I am currently pondering ... should authors who are approached to contribute to anthologies make their agreement conditional on the finished product including an appropriate diversity of other authors? I wonder how that would work, practically: whether it falls within an author's responsibility; whether, indeed, it would tag the author in question as 'difficult' and reduce future commissions; and whether that would be a price worth paying for the larger good. What isn't discussed in that thread, and indeed can't be since, by their own admission, most of the people commenting neither have nor ever (on principle) will read the stories it includes, is literary quality. That seems to me high, although my judgment is of course, as noted, of course problematised by the fact that I'm also a contributor.