A short story collection of such consistently intriguing variety is welcome in any genre. Even more so in the case of science fiction, literatures disreputable cousin, providing as this book does, such indisputable evidence of excellence.

Originally published at Risingshadow.Invaders: 22 Tales from the Outer Limits of Literature features 22 tales written by authors who have mostly written literary fiction, but have also occasionally tried their hands on science fiction. This anthology allows readers an opportunity to explore interesting, inventive and original stories that wonderfully demonstrate what can be achieved when literary authors write science fiction and concentrate on speculating about life, relationships and technolog...

An anthology of 'speculative' fiction by authors who are known for writing mainstream fiction. I'm not familiar with the majority of the authors, but hey, figured I'd give it a try.*** “Portal” by J. Robert LennonThe discovery of a magic portal in the backyard is given an amusing dissonance by the fact that the family who owns it treats it like any other property amenity, such as perhaps, an inground pool. And, the narrator tells us, they've allowed it to fall into disuse, in fact, almost forgot...

The premise of this book is that writers who are primarily known as "literary" write stories which are clearly in the science fiction and fantasy genre. Now, there are several different meanings of "literary," in my mind, and they're often confused. First of all, there's "literary-the-manner-of-execution". This includes deep, complex, evolving, memorable characters; a conscious or unconscious mastery of the tools and techniques of prose, able to produce subtle and powerful effects on the reader;...

This arc was provided by Netgalley and Tachyon Publications in exchange for an honest reviewIf you ever needed a manual on how to write a good short story, this collection would well and truly suffice. Each story is bursting with imagination; exciting prose; thought-provoking vision. These stories are the cream of the crop, truly fine examples of what make speculative fiction so fascinating. Every piece has a crisp, literary quality to their writing, perfectly melded with the surreal ideas and t...

What does it mean to write science fiction? On some level, it means writing stories that get published in magazines featuring artistically-depicted spaceships and robots on their covers. It’s creating content involving science or at least scientific ideas playing out in new and interesting directions. It remains relevant because of the ways science continues to inform who we are, what we’re doing, and where we’re going.Who’s writing important science fiction today? Things get a bit fuzzier here,...

I feel like I'm the exact target audience for this anthology. I don't recall reading a collection gathering that many writers I know and love (I'd already read four or five of the stories selected in individual collections or magazines), or whose names keep coming up. Some of my favourite stories were:-Jonathan Lethem's "Five Fucks", a high concept story that contains, yes, five fucks, but that I couldn't really describe further without giving away too much. But I can say that it's just the kind...

$1.99 Kindle sale, Jan. 24, 2019, for this more-literary-than-usual SF short story collection. 3.5 stars. Final review, first posted on Fantasy Literature:Here there be, if not dragons, a rousing assemblage of apocalyptic plagues, some time travel, a couple of mad scientists, and several aliens from other planets. But this isn’t your normal set of science fiction stories. The real invaders, I suspect, are the actual writers of these stories, descending upon the fantasy and science fiction field

Video-review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHT5m...Featured in my Top 20 Books I Read in 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4X6OQ...JUNOT DIAZ PLEASE JUST PUBLISH THE FUCKING MONSTRO THING, EVEN IF IT'S THE NEW YORKER STORY FOLLOWED BY THE WORDS AND THEN WE ALL DIED IT WOULD STILL BE THE BEST NOVEL OF THE YEAR AND I WOULD BUY TEN COPIES OF IT OH PLEASE GOD.The rest of the anthology is also fucking astonishing. Seriously, how have I never heard of some of these people? They all write fuckin...

A collection of sci fi stories from a variety of writers, most of whom not known for their work in this genre, Invaders: 22 Tales from The Outer Limits of Literature is a delight. Some of my favorite writers are represented: Jonathan Lethem (the name of whose story I unfortunately can't write here) is as hilarious and evocative as always and George Saunders contribution was heartbreaking in an over-the-top kind of way. Jami Attenberg (who wrote The Middlesteins, a book I loved) has a touching en...

Some of these stories are five stars for sure, others didn’t excite me quite as much but they’re all well written and I discovered several new (to me) authors and that’s always a happy occurrence. Well worth reading.

The difference between "literary" and "genre"is something that comes up somewhat often on book blogs; the gap is both hard to quantify, yet also simple enough that it can be explained using pies. Long-time readers might already know that I have a habit of getting up on my soapbox about "what makes good genre" or defending genre works as "literary" fictions, as the (admittedly arbitrary) divide is something I'm both fascinated and frustrated by. So, needless to say I was very intrigued by the new...

Science fiction and fantasy have long been considered the ghetto of literature - if they were considered literature at all. SF&F have long been shut out of major non-genre awards, and indeed have not often been considered for such awards. Literary writers and magazines have long looked down their noses at genre fiction. That attitude slowly appears to be changing. To be sure, the attitude is still prevalent, but the dividing line between genre and literature is showing some cracks. Authors like

I enjoyed a lot of these stories a lot. Very glad I bought it!

With a title like Invaders, this theme anthology could easily have gone very wrong. Xenophobia may be trendier than it once was (and definitely more popular than it should ever be), but as it turns out that's not at all what this book is about. The invaders in editor Jacob Weisman's book aren't thinly-disguised Mexicans or Muslims, or any other exemplars of our national paranoia about The Other. No, the Invaders in Invaders are the authors—and what they're invading is SF itself.You see, SF (scie...

I think the conceit of this anthology is it's sf by literary authors, and Unfortunately,,, a lot of the stories fall in that crack between the mattress and wall of genres, where they have the White People With Ennui Cheating On Their Spouses strain of literary fiction I hate most, and where their sf elements are just set dressing for the ennui.This anthology is partially saved by a few stories-- 'The Squid Who Fell in Love With the Sun' (Ben Loory) is a mostly silly story with a bit of heart. 'L...

Some of the stories didn't grab my attention, and that can probably be attributed to timing and my state of mind more than anything else. I did, however, really enjoy the following stories: "Portal" - J. Robert Lennon, "The Inner City" - Karen Heuler, "Topics in Advanced Rocketry" - Chris Tarry, "A Precursor of the Cinema" - Steven Millhauser, "Monstros" - Junot Díaz, and "Near-Flesh" - Katherine Dunn. These explore the weirdness of human psyche and will linger in my mind for a long time.Thanks

now ive started reading this book a couple months ago since its a collection of short stories i thought i can take it at my own pace i have read the first 4 stories and they were awesome but as i was moving forward i kinda felt burned on the genre and couldnt find it in me to continue so i flipped to Diaz's story since it was the reason i picked this up and gave it a read and of course it was great but it wasn't as great as i thought it would be :D still pretty good !

Despite being a collection of stories from non-science fiction authors, this ended up being a fairly standard (and uneven) collection. There are a lot of styles represented here. One of the stories is a fake art history about a painting movement of extremely realistic painters that did not exist, and that's not something you'd find in a usual sci-fi collection. A couple stories standout, so if you're a fan of short story collections this one may still be worth reading.

4.5 stars from Bill, read the full review at FANTASY LITERATUREAs with most collections, whether they be of stories, poems, or essays, I found Invaders: 22 Tales from the Outer Limits of Literature, edited by Jacob Wesiman, to be a mixed bag overall, with some weak stories, some solidly good ones, some very good ones, and several absolutely great ones, more in fact than I typically find in an anthology, making this an easy collection to recommend.The authors collected here are non-genre writers