A collection of sixty-seven contemporary American science fiction stories includes contributions by Poul Anderson, Margaret Atwood, Octavia Butler, Samuel R. Delany, and Philip K. Dick
When a group of archeologists uncover the remains of an interstellar spaceship, they plan a trip to the past for additional information on their find. But their starship goes haywire and the explorers are trapped in a void between the past and present. Not even guide Travis Fox can predict if they'll make it home--or wander through space and time forever.
An archaeology student is transported back to an ancient Ethiopian kingdom where, reborn as a warrior priestess, she must save their civilization from an evil as old as time Archaeology student and expert in African history Tallahassee Mitford has been asked to authenticate some ancient artifacts. But there’s a strange energy emanating from the relics, which, according to legend, can hold the soul of an entire nation. As she examines an ankh, talisman of the Egyptian gods and the key to all life, Tallahassee hears a deafening clap of thunder, followed by total darkness. She awakens to find herself lying under a scorching desert sun, surrounded by ruins and pyramids. She has been kidnapped by the powerful spirits released from the ankh and hurled back in time to a Nubian kingdom in Meroe, a little-known nation that exists in the shadow of Egypt. Reborn as Ashake, a magnificent warrior princess, Tallahassee must help Candace Naldamak, ancient Queen of Meroe, defeat the evil Khasti, who has found a way to pierce the walls between timelines. Ensnared in a power struggle for the throne, guided only by her knowledge of African history and her own free will, Tallahassee will endure a life-threatening trial by fire before she learns the true reason she has been summoned here.
The animals thrive after men flee the polluted planet and leave behind an epidemic virus born of experimentation. After several generations, space ships bring back men of the exiled race, both animals and men face decisions as to their loyalties.
In the early chapters, the author sorts out some of the confusion about the term fantasy, distinguishing the fantastic as a technique from fantasy as a popular formula and a literary genre. Looking back to the early reception of Tolkien's trend-setting epic fantasy, he points out how critical theory at the time was simply unable to account for either the strengths or the weaknesses of The Lord of the Rings. By contrast, critical methods developed for coping with postmodernist metafictions are shown to apply equally well to the genre of fantasy. Having worked primarily with older fantasies in his study of The Fantasy Tradition in American Literature, Attebery focuses here on important recent examples such as Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun, Suzette Haden Elgin's Ozark Trilogy, and John Crowley's Little, Big.