Bending the Landscape by Nicola Griffith

Nicola Griffith and Stephen Pagel have, once again, compiled an exciting array of never-before-published stories both from talented newcomers and award-winning genre veterans. On the heels of the phenomenal success and acclaim of Volume I (Science Fiction), Bending the Landscape: Horror brings together a tantalizing slew of truly 'horrific' tales guaranteed to provoke, entertain and inspire fear. So I can’t guarantee these links, sorry.Volume II of the award-winning collection of gay and lesbian short fiction exploring the horror genre. Awards (Volumes)īending the Landscape goes in and out of print. But don’t expect the usual fantasy backdrops-these stories will give you a frisson, a thrill, as they fizz off the page. In the groundbreaking anthology, queer writers write fantasy for the first time, and genre writers explore queer characters.

Bending the Landscape stretches the standard fantasy genre. But you will recognize them… It’s about being gay, being straight, falling in love, sorrowful partings, death, and fantastic circumstances. They are extraordinary characters living outside the bounds of reality. The science fiction volume, like all the Bending the Landscape anthologies, addresses universal themes of otherness, love, and loss. The editors asked contributors to “imagine a different landscape… some milieu that had not happened” and then address the theme of Alien or Other, with the Other being a lesbian or gay man… Big name authors like Charles Sheffield, Nancy Kress, Stephen Baxter, and Elizabeth Vonarburg contribute stories as well. This second volume of Nicola Griffith and Stephen Pagel’s Bending the Landscape anthology series focuses on science fiction stories (the first book covered fantasy, and the third will cover horror). So what can a supermacho, army-airborne-ranger-special-forces real man like you do, other than chew off your trapped arm and zip up your pants one-handed on your way to the hospital? Such is the poser posed by the first story in the third in an award-winning series of gay and lesbian horror story anthologies. Your whole arm is pinned beneath him, and you don’t dare risk waking and confronting him, the situation, or yourself. Hard to believe for a straight-as-a-stick guy like you. Here the notes next to each volume are taken from reviews.Īfter a fight with your girlfriend, followed by way too much booze at a stranger’s house party, you wake up naked in the bed of an unknown man, equally naked. Meanwhile, Wikipedia has a pretty good article about the series, including a link to an in-depth review of the SF volume for Science Fiction Studies by Wendy Pearson. At some point I’ll post a nice long essay about Bending the Landscape and how it came to be, and what happened next.

Original short fiction with queer protagonists, edited by Nicola Griffith and Stephen Pagel, published by Overlook.

Bending the Landscape by Nicola Griffith