‘The Barnum Museum’ by Steven Millhauser

I love the impossibility of the place and the way its mysteries are narrated by a whole town. I don’t think you can read the story without wanting to visit the museum but its appeal goes deeper than that, I think. It’s a story about reading—it’s about going in, getting lost, exploring looking searching, letting yourself in for experiences, finding your way maybe, or perhaps never really knowing what the hell is going on but accepting the chance to wander through a hall of curios anyway, and with any luck accepting that maybe that’s the point. The story appears in Millhauser’s collection also called The Barnum Museum and it’s tempting to read it as a metaphor for the book as a whole, as a guide (or anti-guide) for any selection of wonders.

First published in Grand Street , Summer, 1987 and available to read via JSTOR here; collected in The Barnum Museum, Poseidon Press, 1990

‘The Advisability of Not Being Brought up in a Handbag: A Trivial Tragedy for Wonderful People (Fragment found between the St. James’s and Haymarket Theatres)’ by Ada Leverson

Who’s allowed to parody Oscar Wilde? Wilde wrote (in a letter to writer Walter Hamilton) that good parody needs “a light touch, and a fanciful treatment and, oddly enough, a love of the poet whom it caricatures” and he famously stated: “one’s disciples can parody one—nobody else.” Leverson had Wilde’s blessing and (imho) she remains the best. I’ve picked the Ernest parody for this list because it has some of my favourite lines but there’s not much in it—I also want to recommend ‘An Afternoon Party’ (available to read here) in which characters from a number of his works gather and chat.

(This is also my way of sneaking Wilde onto this list).

First published in Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 108, 2 March 1895. Available to read here

‘Humour, Genre & the One True Quest for a Missing Pillar’ by Shiv Ramdas

A tricksy fantasy labyrinth up to some very smart mischief. Part guidebook part purposeful obfuscation part playful agitation part scholarly article part absurdist adventure through a world of and about words, it’s a must-read for anyone interested in story structures, meta-textual pyrotechnics, interactive literary criticism, speculative architecture, genre thinking, jokes, doors, footnotes.

First published in Uncanny Magazine, 2021 and available to read online here

‘Librarians in the Branch Library of Babel’ by Shaenon K. Garrity

Borges’ concept of an infinite library remains inspirational to many and this story applies a rigorous-yet-playful SF-logic to ask “how might it work?” that gets great results. Garrity’s story is entertaining and smart and ultimately very moving, and the good news is, now this angle has been explored, there remains an infinite set of possibilities for anyone else to have a go.

(This is also my way of sneaking Borges onto this list).

First published in Strange Horizons Magazine, 2011, and available to read online here

‘The Queer Feet’ by G.K. Chesterton

I wanted to include a detective story in my line-up and in the end went for Father Brown because he’s always a delight. I almost picked the one where he solves a case while half-asleep and seasick on a boat (since we all have to operate on less than 100% from time to time), or the one where he solves a decades-old mystery while sitting in a beer garden (as that’s where I personally get my best ideas), but in the end I’ve gone for ‘The Queer Feet’, where the case turns on overhearing different kinds of footsteps. You could give this story to drama students to prove that walking silently across a room is the ultimate show of character.

First published in The Story-Teller, The Saturday Evening Post, Oct 1 1910, and collected in The Innocence of Father Brown, 1911; now available in The Complete Father Brown Stories (Penguin Classics 2012, ed. Michael D. Hurley, and elsewhere

‘Samhaim’ by Uschi Gatward

There something pure autumn about this one, I just love the atmosphere—the menacing creeping witchiness, the merest hint of a hint of a hint that something is off among all the pumpkins and toffee apples and golden sun and bonfire smoke.

Gatward very sadly died in 2021 and this is a collection to be thankful for.

First published in English Magic by Galley Beggar Press, 2021. You can read it online here

Introduction

As the editor of Best of British Science Fiction, I’m luckier than most in that I get to pick what is essentially a personal anthology each year. After all, reviewers often write, what is best? This is just one person’s best after all (and then they often go on to agree with me).

Anyway, I am a voracious reader of short stories. My routine with my own anthology series is to keep an eye out throughout the year for any stories I think might be a good fit. Are they well written? Am I still thinking about those stories a day later? A week? Longer? Then, in September, we open up for general submissions until January. After the closing date I check to see if there is anything missing from my subs pile. Are there other anthologies or new collections featuring British authors that I have not been sent? It is becoming a running joke with one or two authors that I seem to always end up chasing them. Some editors, too, double-check with me to make sure their favourite stories of the year have been sent in. I’m very grateful for that!

I tend to favour stories with a great sense of place, a compelling narrative voice, a coherent plot and great characterisation – believe me, having been published already is sometimes no indicator of this. I dislike stories where basic scientific principles or literal definitions have been misunderstood. I am suspicious of stories that open with numerous lines of dialogue, especially if that dialogue goes on to do the heavy-exposition-lifting. In other words, I can be very exacting in my editorial efforts. I’m picky. Luckily, my tastes are also quite eclectic.

I look for stories that resonate with me in the same way that some of my all-time favourite stories do. Is there a tug at the heart, a sweet spot? Will I be obsessing about the story, or telling anyone who’ll listen that they really need to read it?

As I said, I am quite lucky that I get to choose stories for my anthologies already, but if I could pick from the chaotic shelves of my memories and nostalgia, what short fictions would I like to pick? I’ve limited myself to twelve of them. I hope you get to read some of these. Enjoy!

‘Salvage Rites’ by Ian Watson

I first came across a book of short stories with the same title by Ian Watson, in the library of my hometown Sedgley in the West Midlands, when I was a teen. I loved all of the stories, but the title story was especially captivating. I have read it over and over and it is basically imprinted on my brain now. ‘Salvage Rites’ is a wonderful little horror story following that most mundane of activities, a trip to the tip. However this recycling centre is no cosy little setting for a Sunday errand. Instead, the attendants are strange men, who unnerve the inhabitants of the car as it moves through each section, removing more and more items from the car. Unheimlich discomfort leads to outright horror. Lovely!

How to describe the genius of Ian Watson? He becomes more wonderfully eccentric the more you read and the better you get to know him. He has written many fine stories, often witty, sometimes funny, very often outré. They are a delight indeed.

First published in Fantasy & Science Fiction #392, 1987

‘Just His Type’ by Storm Constantine

It was Storm who introduced me to Ian, funnily enough: one writer I had been a fan of since I was a teenager introducing me to another such author. I had first met Storm back in 2000 at a signing of her novel Crown of Silence in the Andromeda bookstore in Birmingham. Too shy to speak, I asked her to sign my book and promptly left. I didn’t see Storm again until 2003 when I attended her Grissecon convention in Stafford (my first convention!), after which we became friends, and I did some work for her publishing company Immanion Press.

This particular story was one I read for the first time in between the book signing and the convention. It’s an intriguing vampire story, where a lecturer meets an attractive woman, who seems to be in tune with his intellectual interest in the occult. However, all his friends try to warn him off as she seems so odd. The characters seemed very recognisable, and it tickled me when I realised why. I believe I met them at Grissecon!

I picked this story because it is one that I have good memories of discovering and re-reading. Really, there are many avenues into Storm’s work. She wrote many stories set in the world of the Wraeththu, a race of hermaphrodite beings who rise to prominence in a post-apocalyptic world. There are gothic fantasies, creeping horrors, angels (Grigori, Nephilim…). There are science fiction stories, cyberpunk stories, and fairy tales. Her prose sparkles like rare gemstones. She was a very special writer indeed, and is much missed.

First published in The Mammoth Book of Vampire Stories by Women, ed. Steve Jones, 2001. Collected in Splinters of Truth, NewCon Press, 2016

‘The Lady of the House of Love’ by Angela Carter

I also fell in love with Angela Carter’s short stories and novels as a teenager. My copy of the slim short story collection The Bloody Chamber, which features this story, is very worn. I have picked this very sad vampire story because I have reread it so many times hoping for a different outcome for the Countess, much as she turns over the same cards on the table again and again. It is a delicious, hopeless love!

Angela Carter was known for her feminist, magical realism and picaresque stories, but she also specialized in the fairy story, collecting folk tales and subverting them in subtle ways. You feel like you are discovering something virgin fresh that also has the must of age about it. This collection inspired the film The Company of Wolves, but the story of ‘The Lady of the House of Love’ was unfortunately missed from that. The closest retelling I have seen is the video for Daisy Chainsaw’s ‘Hope Your Dreams Come True’.

First published in The Iowa Review, 1975. Collected in The Bloody Chamber, Gollancz, 1979 and in Burning Your Boats: Collected Stories, Vintage, 1996

‘A Sound of Thunder’ by Ray Bradbury

A classic in the science-fiction genre. A man called Eckles joins a time-travelling hunt to the late Cretaceous period where he is advised by the guide he can shoot a T-Rex, but to take care lest he affects history. During the expedition, the characters discuss the recent elections, and it seems their country has narrowly escaped a political catastrophe. On coming back to the year 2055 the hunters realise something has changed, a fascist is now President. Then Eckles discovers a crushed butterfly beneath his boot, potentially the cause of this disaster. There is horror in the idea that something could be inextricably altered in the past by a blundering boot, but a deeper threat is the nearness of the worse result in the present.

Ray Bradbury was perhaps the first proper science fiction I read, thanks to my uncle who donated his old books to me and my brother.

First published in Collier’s Magazine, 1952. Collected in The Stories of Ray Bradbury, Knopf, 1980; Everyman Library, 2010

‘Lois the Witch’ by Elizabeth Gaskell

I first read this at university as part of my gothic module for English. It’s a story I’ve gone back to multiple times since. Lois, an English girl who is sent to live with her Puritan uncle in Salem after the death of her parents, is of course not a witch. The title foretells that Lois is going to be a fish out of water in that schismatic community, who follow beliefs and practices so alien to the Christianity she knew in England.

Lois is tolerated by her aunt and cousins to begin with, but gradually, as witch-fever spreads through the town, they learn they can use an accusation of witchcraft to get rid of anyone that threatens their ways or desires. Lois watches in horror as a young Native American girl called Hota is accused of witchcraft, not realising her fear of the girl and whatever powers she might have is misplaced. Jealous of the male attention Lois has been receiving, her cousins begin mimicking fits and attacks in a bid to pin the blame on Lois. Lois is like the frog, slowly being boiled alive, as her situation becomes more and more hostile. This is a powerful story about how the true horrors are found in human cruelty, rather than in anything supernatural. Although this was published in 1865, this story feels like it could have been written a hundred years later. Indeed, maybe it was… (cough, Crucible, ahem…)

First published in Cousin Phyllis and Other Tales, 1865

‘Freecell’ by Chaz Brenchley

This story featured in an anthology that was deliberately and defiantly put together by editor Farah Mendlesohn in response to the Terrorism Act 2006, which was terribly worded and at the time seemed an obvious threat to artistic expression. Seventeen years later, as people remain generally and justifiably concerned by acts of terror, the conversation around ‘free speech’ has somewhat shifted. Latterly there is a school of shallow libertarianism, with its roots in US politics, that seems mostly troubled by threats to free speech, so younger readers may be surprised by this anthology of mainly left-leaning voices calling for a creative protest against the so-called socialist government of the day.

In my opinion, the ‘culture wars’ right now are nothing but a distraction. Most people are in support of free speech, but its suppression can take many forms, including finding dead cats to dominate the narrative.

Back in 2006 though, this anthology was a rallying cry in science fiction circles for those who would battle against a dumbing down of our literature, alongside a dumbing down of society.

This story by Chaz Brenchley was one of my favourites in this fantastic anthology. Brenchley fuses prose and poetry to create a story that depicts the tragedy of the protagonist in words as chiaroscuro does in art. A girl called Shami is a celebrated martyr depicted in “her pomp, in her clothes, in her skin”, sounding almost like a superhero in her costume, while also foreshadowing her violent death. The story is set in a technological future, where citizens are divided into high grade and low grade, to the dissatisfaction of those who find themselves low. Shami is young, and her friends, to some extent are like regular teenagers watching their multimedia screens and thinking about how to be famous, how to get the numbers – and by numbers Brenchley means viewing figures and numbers of victims simultaneously, of course.

Chaz writes beautifully, and deserves to be more widely known as an author.

First published in Glorifying Terrorism, Rackstraw Press, 2006

‘Mr De Quincy and the Daughters of Madness’ by Liz Williams

Liz Williams is a wonderful writer who can turn her pen to anything, be it hard SF, fantasy, detective fiction, or esoteric non-fiction. This particular story was one that we published in Visionary Tongue two decades ago, and it really appealed to me because of the protagonist, Thomas De Quincey, who was an early 19^th century memoirist, whose work I had studied at university. Most people who read Thomas de Quincy’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater focus on the sections about the “pleasures” and “pains” of taking opium, but I liked how London is also seen as an enabling and corrupting city, almost personified – its malevolence indicated early on when it seems to swallow whole the young prostitute who first befriended Thomas on his arrival.

In this story, London is given a human-like physical presence that, like the city itself, is both beguiling and debilitating to De Quincey – that of a succubus. The demon latches onto the young man and forces him to lie with her. Knowing that the demon will wreak revenge on those he loves if he does not, the young man submits. The drug becomes the prop de Quincey clings to in order to get through each repeated encounter. This is an imaginative retelling of the memoir and I love it.

First published in Visionary Tongue