Each year, the invitation-only Sycamore Hill Writers' Conference brings together some of science fiction's greatest authors in a workshop focused on short SF/fantasy. In 1994, all stories submitted to the workshop were collected for Intersections. These 13 stories and one novel chapter, some rewritten by the authors to incorporate workshop critiques, are accompanied by authors' afterwords and by comments that were made about each story.
Unsurprisingly, Intersections is a superior anthology and an excellent resource for new and intermediate SF/F writers. The fiction is so strong that anyone uninterested in the art of crafting prose may skip the commentary without being shortchanged. (Just don't skip Appendix I, the incisive and hilarious "Turkey City Lexicon: A Primer for SF Workshops.")
The 1994 participants were Richard Butner, Carol Emshwiller, Karen Joy Fowler, Robert Frazier, Gregory Frost, Alexander Jablokov, James Patrick Kelly, John Kessel, Nancy Kress, Jonathan Lethem, Maureen F. McHugh, Michaela Roessner, Bruce Sterling, and Mark L. Van Name. With a lineup that strong, choosing the best stories has more to do with reader taste than writer ability; the works described here were selected to suggest the anthology's range and diversity. Bruce Sterling's Hugo Award-winning "Bicycle Repairman" displays his trademark brilliant high-tech extrapolation in the clash between an obsessed treadhead and a federal agent. "The Marianas Islands" is prose goddess Karen Joy Fowler's subtle, stunning portrait of a WWII widow and '60s activist grandmother whose father-in-law may have invented the submarine. Alexander Jablokov's "The Fury at Colonus" rewrites Greek myth as a modern, hard-boiled, satirical, and very strange sort of police procedural. In "The Miracle of Ivar Avenue," John Kessel pays tribute to a classic Hollywood director in a painfully sharp time-travel tale. In short, this is one of the best original literary-SF/F anthologies of the '90s. --Cynthia Ward
From Booklist
Emulating the Milford groups established by Damon Knight in the 1950s, the Sycamore Hill writers conferences provide an invaluable platform for mutual criticism among established sf writers. This extraordinary collection presents the stories that came out of the 1994 conference, whose participants represent sf's cutting edge, from cyberpunk specialists Bruce Sterling and James Patrick Kelly to the leading ladies of literary sf, Nancy Kress and Karen Joy Fowler. Each story is followed by criticisms from other conference participants and creative insights from the author. The collection opener, Sterling's "Bicycle Repairman," recounts the fate of a twenty-first-century bike jock when he dabbles with spy-grade technology. Robert Frazier contributes a meditation on the dangers of nanotechnology that features a serial killer who uses tailored nanobugs to "cure" unwary victims. The stories range widely in theme and in manner, from detective fiction to allegory, yet all the authors show a common dedication to honing their craft. Carl Hays
Review
"A terrific anthology with wonderful stories by great writers." --Science Fiction Age
"This is one of the most impressive short story collections I have ever read." --Vector
"This extraordinary collection presents the stories that came out of the 1994 conference, whose participants represent SF's cutting edge." --Booklist
Book Description
In 1994, some of the brightest stars of science fiction gathered for the Sycamore Hill workshop, putting their stories in the forge of their colleagues' collective critical wisdom. The result is Intersections, an original anthology on the cutting edge of the field.
From the Publisher
"A terrific anthology with wonderful stories by great writers." --Science Fiction Age "This is one of the most impressive short story collections I have ever read." --Vector "This extraordinary collection presents the stories that came out of the 1994 conference, whose participants represent SF's cutting edge." --Booklist
Intersections: The Sycamore Hill Anthology FROM THE PUBLISHER
An all-original anthology of stories written by some of the best writers in science fiction. "Extraordinary".--Booklist.
SYNOPSIS
Welcome to the Sycamore Hill Writers' Conference, where each year some of the most acclaimed and influential writers in the field gather, both to write and to critique and be critiqued by their literary peers. Intersections is an outstanding anthology that reveals some of the greatest works achieved at the famous conference. Short stories from Bruce Sterling, Maureen F. McHugh, Jonathan Lethem, John Kessel, James Patrick Kelly, and Nancy Kress are included.
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