Firebirds Soaring

Table of Contents

 

 

FIREBIRD

WHERE FANTASY TAKES FLIGHT
™
WHERE SCIENCE FICTION SOARS
™

FIREBIRD Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

 

Registered Offices: Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

 

First published in the United States of America by Firebird, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2009

 

eISBN : 978-1-101-02228-3

Introduction copyright © Sharyn November, 2009

Decorations copyright © Mike Dringenberg, 2009

 

“A Thousand Tails” copyright © Christopher Barzak, 2009; “Bonechewer’s Legacy” copyright © Clare Bell, 2009; “Flatland” copyright © Kara Dalkey, 2009; “Dolly the Dog-Soldier” copyright © Candas Jane Dorsey, 2009; “The Dignity He’s Due” copyright © Carol Emshwiller, 2009; “A Ticket to Ride” copyright © Nancy Farmer, 2009; “Something Worth Doing” copyright © Elizabeth Gatland, 2009; “The Ghosts of Strangers” copyright © Nina Kiriki Hoffman, 2009; “Singing on a Star” copyright © Ellen Klages, 2009; “Ferryman” copyright © Margo Lanagan, 2009; “Egg Magic” copyright © Louise Marley, 2009; “Fear and Loathing in Lalanna” copyright © Nick O’Donohoe, 2009; “All Under Heaven” copyright © Chris Roberson, 2009; “Court Ship” copyright © Sherwood Smith, 2009; “Kingmaker” copyright © Nancy Springer, 2009; “Little Red” copyright © Jane Yolen and Adam Stemple, 2009; “Three Twilight Tales” copyright © Jo Walton, 2009; “The Myth of Fenix” copyright © Laurel Winter, 2009; “Power and Magic” copyright © Marly Youmans, 2009

 

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CIP is available

 

 

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

INTRODUCTION

H
ere’s a question: How does one write an introduction for the third anthology in an ongoing series?

If this is the first Firebird anthology you’ve read—welcome! If this is the second or the third—welcome back! Repeat readers already know the following:

 

But there’s more to this book than four bullet points.

Each Firebird anthology sets the standard for the next, and, needless to say, each is a hard act to follow. This is the most substantial book yet. Its nineteen stories range in length from a few pages to almost one hundred; the settings range from 25,000,000 years ago to far in the future; and there are a number of stories that can’t be classified as science fiction or fantasy, exactly. You might wonder why they’re included. Simple. If someone has a wide range, I want to have the freedom to show it. It’s more fun to blur the boundaries, anyway. Thus, the subtitle refers to “speculative fiction,” which I consider more generous than “science fiction” or “fantasy.”

The second bit of boundary blurring is visual. I asked the artist Mike Dringenberg if he’d like to be a part of the book, and to my delight he said yes. This meant that he became something of a collaborator; since he wanted to do “decorations” for each story, he read things right after I had selected them. More than a few times I was surprised by the images he’d chosen. But everyone sees a story differently, of course—especially a visual artist. (For those taking notes, he painted with powdered graphite mixed with water.)

You can’t miss the third boundary blur—it’s right in the middle of the book. If you’ve been keeping track of the list, you’ll know that 2007 was Firebird’s fifth anniversary, and we celebrated by publishing three short novels, each by one of Firebird’s biggest names: Diana Wynne Jones, Tanith Lee, and Charles de Lint. Other people had written short novels, too; one of them was Nina Kiriki Hoffman, and I couldn’t resist making it the centerpiece of
Firebirds Soaring
.