Search Worlds Without End

Named one of the 2013 Over the Rainbow Project book list, sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Round Table of the American Library Association!

Welcome to a new annual anthology created in honor of the late Joanna Russ, American writer, academic, and feminist whose work shone brightly in the male-dominated field of speculative fiction of the latter part of the twentieth century.

Heiresses of Russ offers readers in one volume the best lesbian-themed tales of the fantastical and otherworldly published during the prior year. Editors JoSelle Vanderhooft and Steve Berman read countless books, periodicals, and webzines to collect a range of tales--from new voices as well as award-winning authors--that celebrate the spirit of Russ's fiction: stories of sorceresses and spectral women, lost daughters and sisters of myth. The transformative power of the written word becomes magic and tests the boundaries of gender, identity, and a woman's dreams.

Stories by Georgina Bruce, Jewelle Gomez, Michelle Labbé, Steve Berman, Rachel Swirsky, Ellen Kushner, Zen Cho, Csilla Kleinheincz, Catherine Lundoff, Nora Olsen, N. K. Jemisin

Table of Contetns:

• Introduction - (2011) - essay by JoSelle Vanderhooft
• Ghost of a Horse Under a Chandelier - (2010) - shortstory by Georgina Bruce
• Storyville 1910 - (2011) - shortfiction by Jewelle Gomez
• Her Heart Would Surely Break in Two - (2010) - shortfiction by Michelle Labbé
• Black Eyed Susan - (2010) - shortstory by Tanith Lee
• Thimbleriggery and Fledglings - (2010) - shortfiction by Steve Berman
• The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers Beneath the Queen's Window - (2010) - novella by Rachel Swirsky
• The Children of Cadmus - (2010) - shortfiction by Ellen Kushner
• The Guest - (2010) - shortfiction by Zen Cho
• Rabbits - (2010) - shortfiction by Csilla Kleinheincz
• The Egyptian Cat - (2010) - novelette by Catherine Lundoff
• World War III Doesn't Last Long - (2010) - shortfiction by Nora Olsen
• The Effluent Engine - (2011) - shortfiction by N. K. Jemisin

In this, the second release in the annual Heiresses of Russ series, Lambda Literary Award winning editor Connie Wilkins joins Steve Berman in choosing the best of the prior year's published speculative fiction with lesbian themes. An unexplained astronomical phenomenon brings a woman and her grandfather closer while she questions the meaning of faith. African villagers are sent automatons rather than human relief workers. Mermaids devour men drawn by their song but what will happen to a steampunk submersible piloted by a woman? Two teenage girls discover that memories are held in the fine aromas of perfumes. A family of sisters in Mexico discover a fallen angel. These are tales of the strange, the wondrous, the eerie but all are richly told stories of women facing the unknown and how they are changed by the experience.

"One of the most compelling aspects of speculative fiction is its ability to fulfill otherwise unattainable desires--whether one wants to create a magical society or travel through time, visit an alien civilization or remake history. It also satisfies more mundane reader desires, the ones it would not seem so hard to fulfill. To call a few of these out, I'll willingly step on this mine: the explosion of 'should.' It should not be easier to find a zombie apocalypse than it is to find a lesbian protagonist in the aisles of your local bookstore. Falling for werewolves and shape shifters should not be more accepted than a transgendered love affair; marginalized people really will still exist in the future; more folks should know that, and more so create like they know it. Someone then must step into the gap, or to be more accurate the gaping holes in the collective visions of our possibilities as human beings. In these pages, someone has. Seventeen someones to be exact."
--from the Introduction by Tenea D. Johnson

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Tenea D. Johnson
• One True Love - (2012) - novelette by Malinda Lo
• Saint Louis 1990 - (2012) - novelette by Jewelle Gomez
• Elm - (2012) - novelette by Jamie Killen
• Winter Scheming - (2012) - shortstory by Brit Mandelo
• Reality Girl - (2012) - novelette by Richard Bowes
• Oracle Gretel - (2012) - shortstory by Julia Rios
• Otherwise - (2012) - novelette by Nisi Shawl
• Harrowing Emily - (2012) - shortstory by Megan Arkenberg
• The Witch Sea - (2012) - novelette by Sarah Diemer
• Barnstormers - (2012) - shortstory by Wendy N. Wagner
• Nightfall in the Scent Garden - (2012) - shortstory by Claire Humphrey
• Beneath Impossible Circumstances - (2012) - shortstory by Andrea Kneeland
• Feed Me the Bones of Our Saints - (2012) - shortstory by Alex Dally MacFarlane
• Narrative Only - (2012) - shortstory by Kate Harrad
• Nine Days and Seven Tears - (2012) - shortstory by JL Merrow
• Chang'e Dashes from the Moon - (2012) - shortstory by Benjanun Sriduangkaew
• Astrophilia - (2012) - novelette by Carrie Vaughn

A book such as this spins not only words but also whole worlds: eighteen of them, representing the best lesbian-themed stories of the fantastic or futuristic published the prior year: An artisan who tests the skills and wares of her friends in the hope of finding the ideal housing for an idealized love. A shape-shifting sidekick ensures that the heroine, who might not even be aware of her, saves the day. The device on a young girl's wrist that counts down the years until she will meet her soul mate poses the ultimate challenge of delayed gratification. A daydreamer wonders how she will face the coming Stone Moon and its gathering when her culture demands fertility yet her heart belongs to her best friend, who is not only female but of a higher caste. The women to be met in these pages will find themselves tested not because of their sexual identity but rather the identity they have composed, constructed, and spun.

Table of Contents:

• "The Gold Mask's Menagerie" by Chante McCoy
• "Counting Down the Seconds" by Lexy Wealleans
• "The Other Bridge" by Alex Jeffers
• "Love Over Glass, Skin Under Glass" by Penny Stirling
• "Hungry" by Robert E. Stutts
• "Liquid Loyalty" by Redfern Jon Barrett
• "Her Infinite Variety" by Sacchi Green
• "The Coffinmaker's Love" by Alberto Yanez
• "Terminal City" by Zoe Blade
• "The Bride in Furs" by Layla Lawlor
• "Your Figure Will Assume Beautiful Outlines" by Claire Humphrey
• "Blood, Stone, Water" by A.J. Fitzwater
• "Vector" by Benjanun Sriduangkaew
• "Of Selkies, Disco Balls, and Anna Plane" by Cat Rambo
• "Selected Program Notes from the Retro-spective Exhibition of Theresa Rosenberg Latimer" by Kenneth Schneyer
• "Difference of Opinion" by Meda Kahn
• "Boat in Shadows, Crossing" by Tori Truslow
• "The Raven and Her Victory" by Tansy Rayner Roberts

Stories about lesbians, women who choose women as primary partners, lovers, playmates, and co-conspirators, tend to go where few men have gone before. Most of the real-life issues that lesbians must deal with, as women and as members of non-mainstream communities, appear in these stories in metaphorical form or as plausible scenarios in a future or alternate world. Lesbianism itself was routinely described by the conservatives of the past as "impossible." The formula of "woman + woman" is thus logically connected with other phenomenon formerly considered impossible: magic, witchcraft, folk cures, scientific discoveries, alternate methods of producing offspring, space travel, communication with beings who are not human or not living in human bodies, historical accounts that have been suppressed or denied. The Heiresses of Russ series seeks to offer readers the best lesbian-themed speculative fictions stories published the prior year.

The latest volume in the acclaimed Heiresses of Russ series features stories that are anything but invisible: the women in these tales are not hiding and are not easily overlooked but rather are choosing the harder path, the more dangerous route, whether that leads to love or loss or adventure. Included in these pages are stories that have won a World Fantasy Award, a Tiptree Award, and a British Fantasy Award... but every one of these stories chosen by guest editor A.M. Dellamonica (herself an award-winning writer of queer speculative fiction) is emblematic of the new vitality to be found in lesbian-themed tales of wonder, the eerie, and the miraculous.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (2016) - essay by A. M. Dellamonica
• Grandmother-nai-Leylit's Cloth of Winds - (2015) - novelette by Rose Lemberg
• The Occidental Bride - (2015) - short story by Benjanun Sriduangkaew
• The Devil Comes to the Midnight Café - (2015) - novelette by A. C. Wise
• And We Were Left Darkling - (2015) - short story by Sarah Pinsker
• A House of Her Own - (2015) - short story by Bo Balder
• Love in the Time of Markov Processes - (2015) - short story by Megan Arkenberg
• Where Monsters Dance - (2015) - short story by A. Merc Rustad
• Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers - (2015) - short story by Alyssa Wong
• Fabulous Beasts - (2015) - novelette by Priya Sharma
• The Wollart Nymphs - (2015) - short story by Melissa Scott
• The New Mother - (2015) - novella by Eugene Fischer
• Eldritch Brown Houses - (2015) - short story by Claire Humphrey
• The Tip of the Tongue - (2015) - short story by Felicia Davin
• Where Can a Broken Glass Mend? - (2015) - short story by Sonya Taaffe
• A Residence for Friendless Ladies - (2015) - novelette by Alice Sola Kim
• The Deepwater Bride - (2015) - novelette by Tamsyn Muir
• Doubt the Sun - (2015) - short story by Faith Mudge