TOC: “The Time Traveler’s Almanac” Edited by Ann VanderMeer and Jeff VanderMeer (Plus: US and UK Covers!)
Here’s the mouth-watering table of contents for Ann and Jeff VanderMeer’s upcoming massive time travel anthology The Time Traveler’s Almanac, coming out not soon enough…
But first, here’s the (updated) synopsis:
On the heels of the World Fantasy Award winning The Weird, the next genre-defining anthology from award-winning team Ann and Jeff VanderMeer explores the popular world of time travel fiction
The Time Traveler’s Almanac is the largest, most definitive collection of time travel stories ever assembled. Gathered into one volume by intrepid chrononauts and world-renowned anthologists Ann and Jeff VanderMeer, this almanac compiles more than a century’s worth of literary travels into the past and the future to reacquaint readers with beloved classics and introduce them to thrilling contemporary examples of the time travel genre.
Featuring over seventy journeys into time from Douglas Adams, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, William Gibson, Ursula K. Le Guin, George R. R. Martin, Michael Moorcock, H. G. Wells, Connie Willis, Charles Yu, and many more, The Time Traveler’s Almanac covers millions of years of Earth’s history, from the age of the dinosaurs through to strange and fascinating futures.
In fact, The Time Traveler’s Almanac will serve as a time machine of its very own: the ultimate treasury of time travel stories, spanning the distance from the beginning of time to its very end.
In addition to collecting some of the best time travel fiction from over the past 100 years, the VanderMeers have commissioned original non-fiction, including an introduction by Rian Johnson, the writer and director of the recent Bruce Willis time travel movie Looper as well as an essay on the science of time travel by Stan Love, an astronaut from NASA. Other contributors are Charles Yu, Genevieve Valentine and Jason Heller.
Here’s the HUGE (alphabetical) table of contents:
FICTION
- “Young Zaphod Plays It Safe” by Douglas Adams
- “Terminós” by Dean Francis Alfar
- “What If?” by Issac Asimov
- “Noble Mold” by Kage Baker
- “A Night on the Barbary Coast” by Kage Baker
- “Life Trap” by Barrington J Bayley
- “This Tragic Glass” by Elizabeth Bear
- “Enoch Soames” by Max Beerbohn
- “The Most Important Thing in the World” by Steve Bein
- “In The Tube” by E.F. Benson
- “The Mask of the Rex” by Richard Bowes
- “A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury
- “Bad Timing” by Molly Brown
- “The Gulf of the Years” by George-Olivier Châteaureynaud
- “The Threads of Time” by C.J. Cherryh
- “Thirty Seconds From Now” by John Chu
- “Palindromic” by Peter Crowther
- “Domine” by Rjurik Davidson
- “The Lost Continent” by Greg Egan
- “The Gernsback Continuum” by William Gibson
- “3 RMS, Good View” by Karen Haber
- “Message in a Bottle” by Nalo Hopkinson
- “The Great Clock” by Langdon Jones
- “Hwang’s Billion Brilliant Daughters” by Alice Sola Kim
- “On the Watchtower at Plataea” by Garry Kilworth
- “Time Gypsies” by Ellen Klages
- “Vintage Seasons” by Henry Kuttner & C.L. Moore
- “At Dorado” by Geoffrey Landis
- “Ripples in the Dirac Sea” by Geoffrey Landis
- “The Final Days” by David Langford
- “Fish Night” by Joe Lansdale
- “As Time Goes By” by Tanith Lee
- “Another Story” by Ursula K. LeGuin
- “Loob” by Bob Leman
- “Alexia and Graham Bell” by Rosaleen Love
- “Traveller’s Rest” by David Masson
- “Death Ship” by Richard Matheson
- “Under Siege” by George R.R. Martin
- “The Clock That Went Backwards” by Edward Page Mitchell
- “Pale Rose” by Michael Moorcock
- “The House that Made the Sixteen Loops of Time” by Tamsyn Muir
- “Is There Anybody There?” by Kim Newman
- “Come-From-Aways” by Tony Pi
- “The Time Telephone” by Adam Roberts
- “Red Letter Day” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
- “The Waitabits” by Eric Frank Russell
- “If Ever I Should Leave You” by Pamela Sargent
- “How the Future Got Better” by Eric Schaller
- “Needle in a Timestack” by Robert Silverberg
- “Delhi” by Vandana Singh
- “Himself in Anachron” by Cordwainer Smith
- “The Weed of Time” by Norman Spinrad
- “Palimpsest” by Charlie Stross
- “Yesterday Was Monday” by Theodore Sturgeon
- “Triceratops Summer” by Michael Swanwick
- “The Mouse Ran Down” by Adrian Tchaikovsky
- “Augusta Prima” by Karin Tidbeck
- “Twenty-One and Counting Up” by Harry Turtledove
- “Forty, Counting Down” by Harry Turtledove
- “Where or When” by Steve Utley
- “Swing Time” by Carrie Vaughn
- “(excerpt from) The Time Machine” by H.G. Wells
- “Fire Watch” by Connie Willis
- “Against the Lafayette Escadrille” by Gene Wolfe
- “The Lost Pilgrim” by Gene Wolfe
NON-FICTION
- Introduction by Rian Johnson
- Music for Time Travelers by Jason Heller
- The Science of Time Travel by Stan Love
- Trousseau, Fashion for Time Travelers by Genevieve Valentine
- Top Ten Tips for Time Travelers by Charles Yu
Book info as per Amazon US:
- Hardcover: 800 pages
- Publisher: Tor Books (March 18, 2014)
- ISBN-10: 0765374218
- ISBN-13: 978-0765374219
Book info as per Amazon UK:
- Hardcover: 800 pages
- Publisher: Head of Zeus (7 Nov 2013)
- ISBN-10: 1781853908
- ISBN-13: 978-1781853900
Great anthology. The Vandermeer anthologies would make a nice nook in what I hope will one day be my library.
I was expecting Ted Chiang to be in there. Maybe “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate.”
But we could play you missed that one all day…. I love how diverse it is in terms of era and genre.
Is it possible that The Non-Fiction 1. entry instead should be Rian Johnson who wrote and directed Looper?
Why yes! Pardon my reformatting. It was sent to me first name last. Thanks for the correction.
I’m so excited! Love anthologies; love time travel.
By the way, I headed over to the website of Head of Zeus, the British publisher, and downloaded their latest catalog.
It shows a completely different cover for the book, corresponding to neither image you’ve posted. Possibly a hardcover/paperback difference?
Peter, that was an older iteration of the cover. I hope you like the new one we love it!
Love both covers!
The US cover suggests an eye-watering 100 stories – was wondering how that could possibly be! The book is enormous enough as it is.
I’m going to spend some time poring over the TOC, savoring the prospect. I’ve read some, of course, and I’m happy to see my favorite story included, as well as several others I loved.
Lovely to see you here, Ann – thanks for the book, and thanks for responding.
(P.S. – “Ripples in the Dirac Sea”, by Geoffrey A. Landis, if anyone wants to know.)
The 100 stories thing was before the contents were chosen–Ann did most of the work on this one and she wound up taking a lot of longer stories, which makes sense since we had the room. Thus, the story count went down.