I’m pleased to help announce the start of a Kickstarter campaign for a new SF anthology inspired by Orwell from Unsung Stories titled 2084: An Anthology of Eleven Science Fiction Stories (Print ISBN: 978-1-907389-50-4; Ebook ISBN: 978-1-907389-53-5)
To my recollection I previously reviewed two of their publications, The Arrival of Missives by Aliya Whiteley (which I really loved) and Déjà Vu by Ian Hocking (which I didn’t enjoy as much, though others did). I have a new novella by them on deck to review, and I’m really looking forward to this collection, which will feature a new story by Whiteley, as well as stories from many other notable SF authors.
From the publisher’s press release:
“Unsung Stories have gathered eleven leading science fiction writers who have looked ahead to 2084, as Orwell did in 1948, for a new anthology – writers such as David Hutchinson, Christopher Priest, Lavie Tidhar, James Smythe, Jeff Noon and Anne Charnock, who are already famous for their visions of the near future.
As the events of 2017 reveal an ever more complex relationship between people and their governments, classic dystopian literature is proving its relevance once again. But as readers turn to classics, like Nineteen Eighty-Four, writers are also looking to our future, and what may lie there.
Speaking about the anthology, George Sandison, Managing Editor at Unsung Stories, said, “We knew when we first started work on the anthology that the idea was timely, but the start of 2017 has really hammered home how important writing like this is.
“Dystopian fiction gives us a space in which to explore today’s fears, and the nightmares of society. For many people the events of the last eighteen months have brought those dark futures much closer, so it’s inevitable that we turn to literature to help us understand why.
“The ideas at work in 2084 range from the familiar to the fantastic, but all are bound by a current and relevant sense of what we could lose, what’s at stake. As with Orwell’s work, decades from now, we will be looking back to our stories, to better understand today.”
2084 will be published by Unsung Stories in July 2017.”
The full contributor list is:
- Desirina Boskovich
- Anne Charnock (author of Sleeping Embers of an Ordinary Mind and A Calculated Life)
- Ian Hocking (author of Deja Vu)
- Dave Hutchinson (author of The Fractured Europe Sequence)
- Cassandra Khaw (author of Hammers on Bone and Rupert Wong: Cannibal Chef)
- Oliver Langmead (author of Dark Star and Metronome)
- Jeff Noon (author of Vurt, Automated Alice, Pollen, and more)
- Christopher Priest (author of The Prestige, The Dream Archipelago, The Gradual, and many more)
- James Smythe (author of The Australia Trilogy, The Echo, The Explorer, and more)
- Lavie Tidhar (author of A Man Lies Dreaming, Osama and Central Station)
- Aliya Whiteley (author of The Beauty and The Arrival Of Missives)
Head over to the Kickstarter page now to help support this anthology and take advantage of backer rewards! Also be sure to share the news with your social networks.