The Apex Book of World SF 2

Introduction ^{by Lavie Tidhar}

When we first set out to put together and publish The Apex Book of World SF, none of us thought it would become quite what it became. Success is relative, of course—but we were in turns amazed and gratified as the anthology took off, receiving wide-spread exposure in the genre world, initiating conversation—even ending up on more than one university curriculum!

At the same time as the book came out, I launched the World SF Blog, initially intended to be a promotional tool for the anthology, but very quickly it took on a life of its own. The site now publishes a regular stream of articles, essays, interviews and even short fiction, all on a daily basis (you can find the site here: http://worldsf.wordpress.com/). Charles Tan joined to help me run it, and somehow, between blog and book, we seemed to have hit on a new wave of interest in, and enthusiasm for, the science fiction and fantasy coming from outside of the traditional Anglophone world of SF. Whether we helped create the wave, or merely rode the top of it, I can’t say—nor does it matter, as long as the wave is there and still going.

To my mind, though, what we are doing simply reflects a wider change in the SF world. In this volume, for instance, we have a story from Finnish author Hannu Rajaniemi, whose debut novel—written in English—has done tremendously well on publication. Here, too, is mega-star in the making Lauren Beukes from South Africa, who I got the chance to see win the Arthur C. Clarke Award this year in London…

In this volume, too, we are very lucky to have a story from Polish grandmaster Andrzej Sapkowski, whose novels are beginning to be translated into English and winning a wider readership everywhere. And here, too, I have tried to address the imbalance that was present in the first volume, and which I lamented in my last introduction—namely, to introduce more African and Latin American writers into the next volume

I am extremely grateful to Daniel W. Koon for his help with the two Cuban stories, and much else, to Wu Yan for his help with securing another Chinese story—this one by Chen Qiufan—for this volume, and for Charles Tan for services above and beyond the call of duty. And none of this would have been possible without the support and enthusiasm of our hard working publisher, Jason Sizemore, whose faith brought this project alive.

There are more original stories in this collection than in the last one, and more stories, period—a whopping twenty-six this time around!—featuring writers from Africa and Europe, Asia and Latin America, Australia and New Zealand and the Middle East. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.