Cover by Rocky Kelley

Even though though Gardner Dozois’s The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-First Annual Collection came out back in late August, I’m finally getting around to reporting about the strong showing of Rayguns Over Texas. (Should give you an idea of how crazy things have been at the Geek Compound) While none of the stories were actually reprinted within the volume, seven of the tales garnered an honorable mention.

• Defenders of Beeman County by Aaron Allston
• Timeout by Neal Barrett, Jr.
• Sovereign Wealth by Chris N. Brown
• Take a Left at the Cretaceous by Mark Finn
• Grey Goo and You by Derek Austin Johnson
• Novel Properties of Certain Complex Alkaloids by Lawrence Person
• The Chambered Eye by Jessica Reisman

With Finn, Person, Allston, and Brown receiving additional notice within Dozois’s Summation of the year.

Congrats to all.

Cover by Rocky Kelley

For the February Locus, Gardner Dozois reviewed Rayguns Over Texas.

In spite of the title, which implies freewheeling space opera, there’s only one raygun to be found in Rayguns Over Texas, an original anthology edited by Richard Klaw; most stories here don’t take us off Earth, and most don’t have anything to do with aliens (attacking or otherwise) or armadas of battling spaceships. That doesn’t mean that the anthology isn’t fun, though.

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Big Names of the loosely defined school of Texas SF – Bruce Sterling, Howard Waldrop, Steven Utley, Lisa Tuttle, Lewis Shiner – aren’t represented here with fiction (Sterling provides an introduction), but the writers who are here do a decent job of delivering that difficult-to-classify stuff typical of the Texas School of SF, somewhere between gonzo fantasy and horror in tone with occasional touches of cyberpunk, that was once called ‘‘outlaw fantasy,’’ or occasionally ‘‘cowpunk.’’

(Not including the “Big Names” was very a purposeful decision. One of the rules of the volume was that the writers needed to currently be living in Texas. Of all he mentioned, only Waldrop currently lives here.)

The most enjoyable story here is probably Mark Finn’s ‘‘Take a Left at the Cretaceous’’, in which Good Ole Boy long-distance truckers tangle with dinosaurs, but there’s other fun stuff as well.

Dozois’ other fun stuff included stories by Lawrence Person, Aaron Allston, Derek Austin Johnson, Chris N. Brown, and Jessica Reisman.

Cover by Rocky Kelley

Under the banner of FORGOTTEN BOOKS #243: RAYGUNS OVER TEXAS Edited by Richard Klaw, George Kelley wrote:

Scott Cupp generously sent me a copy of Rayguns Over Texas, a collection of Science Fiction short stories written by Texas writers. I love the cover by Rocky Kelley (no relation)! Bruce Sterling provides a wonderful Introduction. Scott Cupp’s essay on his SF reading is masterful. Neal Barrett, Jr., Joe R. Lansdale, and Michael Moorcock wrote my favorite stories in this collection, but there are plenty of other enjoyable stories here. Pick up a copy soon before they’re all gone!

Nice review but isn’t Rayguns a little new to be considered a “forgotten title?” Only been out for two months!

For more on Rayguns Over Texas, visit the FACT site.