Fiction River is an original anthology series. Initially, based on the anthology series of old—Universe, Orbit, Pulphouse—Fiction River rapidly evolved into its own entity. Fiction River publishes stories in many genres from all kinds of writers, with New York Times bestselling authors published alongside some of the best new voices in fiction. Fiction River also goes where no anthology series has gone before, with regular audio editions, produced in-house, and ebook and trade paperback volumes that never go out of print. And Fiction River is available in English worldwide.

Fantasy Bundle by Fiction River

This bundle includes: Unnatural Worlds, Hex in the City, and Fantasy Adrift.

Unnatural Worlds

From a funeral procession in Asia to an ancestral estate deep in the heart of a vaguely Victorian forest to a carriage accident in the vast universe of The Runelords, Unnatural Worlds takes readers on a journey to the far side of the imagination. Funny, heartbreaking, frightening, but most importantly, memorable, the original stories in this anthology go places few writers dare reach. Unnatural Worlds marks the perfect start to this brand-new anthology series.

Edited by: Kristine Kathryn Rusch & Dean Wesley Smith. Original stories by: Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Dean Wesley Smith, Devon Monk, Ray Vukcevich, Esther M. Friesner, Annie Reed, Leah Cutter, Richard Bowes, Jane Yolen, David Farland, Kellen Knolan, and Irette Y. Patterson.

Hex in the City

Urban fantasy offers a diverse playground for some extremely powerful stories. Professional writer and editor Kerrie L. Hughes pulled some fantastic tales out of fourteen top writers for this fifth installment of Fiction River. Set in urban lands from modern Portland, to a future Detroit, to a wild Washington, D.C., and ending the tour in London, these top writers take the idea of "Hex" and stretch and twist it into stories with a magickal grip on the imagination.

Edited by: Kerrie L. Hughes. Original stories by: Jay Lake, Lisa Silverthorne, Nancy Holder, Lee Allred, Stephanie Writt, Seanan McGuire, Anthea Sharp, Dayle A. Dermatis, Dean Wesley Smith, Annie Reed, Jeanne C. Stein, Leah Cutter, Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

Fantasy Adrift

From fairy tales fractured into unrecognizability to Russian mobsters hanging out with zombies, from New World slavery to modern Alaskan cruise ships, the stories in Fantasy Adrift sail across the genre. Two writers make their fiction debuts next to bestsellers Steve Perry and Dean Wesley Smith to take readers on a journey of the imagination—as only Fiction River can do.

Edited by: Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Original stories by: Irette Y. Patterson, Leslie Claire Walker, Eric Stocklassa, Rebecca S.W. Bates, Kara Legend, Steve Perry, Dean Wesley Smith, Steven Mohan, Jr., Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Dayle A. Dermatis and JC Andrijeski.

CURATOR'S NOTE

The Fiction River anthology series covers every single genre the overall editors can think of, but sometimes readers want to binge on one genre only. So Fiction River has combined its genres into single volumes. The Fantasy Bundle combines the first volume of Fiction River with its bestselling volume and the volume that contains some of the best stories the series has ever published. These aren't the only fantasy volumes. If you like these, you can find more fantasy from Fiction River on the website, fictionriver.com – Kristine Kathryn Rusch

 

REVIEWS

  • "[Fiction River] is one of the best and most exciting publications in the field today. Check out an issue and see why I say that."

    – Keith West, Adventures Fantastic

  • "Fiction River is off to an auspicious start. It's a worthy heir to the original anthology series of the 60s and 70s. ... It's certainly the top anthology of the year to date."

    – Amazing Stories on Fiction River: Unnatural Worlds

  • "I was hoping for a few good stories and I think this one more than delivered."

    – Lives in Stone on Fiction River: Hex in the City
 

BOOK PREVIEW

Excerpt

Foreword

The Return to Publishing

Dean Wesley Smith

Twenty-six years ago, Kristine Kathryn Rusch and I started Pulphouse Publishing over my kitchen table in a small apartment in Eugene, Oregon. We had no idea what we were getting into. We decided we would be happy if we sold a few copies of the first issue of Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine. We sold out.

After that, we embarked on a massive learning curve. We figured out how to publish an anthology series and start a publishing company all at the same time. We did it on the wages of a part-time bartender and part-time secretary, supplemented by our writing. We never really caught up.

When we finally shut Pulphouse down nine years later, we had a lot of debt and the knowledge that our little company had changed the science fiction and fantasy field. We had gone from that kitchen table to the ninth largest sf publisher in the nation.

We paid back the debt with our writing income, and vowed never to start a publishing company again. Actually, Kris vowed that. I continued to talk annually about starting a magazine, or editing an anthology, or starting another company.

Kris didn't agree until publishing changed. With the rise of e-books and print-on-demand, publishing became easy. Make that easier. It's still hard. We're established writers now, not beginners, and we have careers to maintain. We realized we couldn't let the publishing overwhelm the writing.

So we started Fiction River. We crowd-funded this project on Kickstarter in August of 2012. We figured if we couldn't meet our Kickstarter goal, then there wasn't enough interest in Fiction River to proceed.

We met our goal within the first week. We more than doubled our fundraising goal. The response exceeded our expectations. We're doing this project because of 314 people who chose to take a risk with us, and even more who couldn't afford to pledge but spread the word. Thank you, everyone!

We're hands-on editing some of the volumes, but others we're giving to our most trusted editorial friends. We act as the series editors, reading everything that comes in, but the other voices add a perspective that we would never get on our own.

This makes Fiction River diverse. The only thing we can promise is high-quality fiction. The genres will change. The focus of the anthologies will change. But the stories will always be the best we can find.

Because Unnatural Worlds is the debut volume, Kris and I had to edit it. We couldn't wait for a later volume. We edited it together, which led to some interesting moments, as Kris will explain in her editorial.

We hope you enjoy the debut volume of Fiction River. We had a lot of fun putting it together. And we plan to give you a lot of great reading in the future.

—Dean Wesley Smith
Lincoln City, Oregon
March 10, 2013