ReAnimus, 2017
Ten stories spanning steampunk, space exploration, science fantasy and bio-engineering.
Featuring:
–Technarion: Interzone readers poll winner
–Exceptional Forces: Asimov’s SF poll finalist
–The Audience: the highly acclaimed story from the 1000th issue of Analog
–Outpost of Wonder, Sean’s 37,000 word history of Australian science fiction from 1832 to 2017.
“McMullen … is a cannier sf writer than Phillip K. Dick ever was … working in a genre that has developed a great deal more self-identity … There is a wide range of ideas on display here, each one worked out thoroughly. This is what science fiction is for, not tales of slavery in far-flung galactic empires, genocide on alien worlds, or mass murder in alternate realities”
Technarion: Interzone annual reader’s poll winner; republished in Gardner Dozois’s Year’s Best Science Fiction 31; “It grabbed me right away with its strong characterisation, inventive premise, and tense plotting.”
The Influence Machine: republished in Gardner Dozois’s Year’s Best Science Fiction 35, “Great story with engaging characters I hope to see again”
Exceptional Forces: Asimov’s Magazine annual readers poll finalist; The best story here is probably Sean McMullen’s “”Exceptional Forces”, a sly and clever story about a genius reasoning with a female assassin who’s come to his hotel room to kill him”
Lost Faces: “… a runaway female slave from India named Vishesti … curses Rome for what has been done to her children. Does she succeed?… This was one great story – SFRevu; This is an excellent story”
The Audience: republished in Neil Clarke’s Best Science Fiction of the Year; Gardner Dozois’s Year’s Best Science Fiction 33 Alan Kaster’s Year’s Top Tales of Science Fiction