Fast Forward Fast Approaching

My next anthology, Fast Forward 1: Future Fiction from the Cutting Edge, is due to ship from the printer tomorrow, and I am all giggly. For one thing, I think this is the best anthology I've produced to date (it's the fifth, though the two magazines used similar brain cells), and for another - it might also be the best looking (many thanks to John Picacio and Jackie Cooke). Only a few trusted freinds and colleagues had read it as of a few weeks ago, and they all concurred. But now the reviews are starting to come in and I'm happy to say it's so far, so good.

In addition to the PW review ("Outstanding!"), we have Neth Space:

"Lou Anders has a very ambitious goal – to start a new anthology series in the tradition of past landmarks like Damon Knight’s Orbit and Frederik Pohl’s Star SF. I have not read those series, but it’s safe to say that Anders is on the right track with Fast Forward 1...Short stories are always difficult for me to review, and collections even more so. Certain stories always exceed those around them, and others can be total failures. Anders has done well to avoid the failures, though some are as forgettable as the page number. Of course others still keep me awake at night. Fast Forward 1 is better than most – 7.5/10."

And FantasyBooksSpot.com:

"....a great anthology, filled with numerous and diverse stories and is bound to please any fan of science fiction."

And Alternative-Worlds.com:

"All the entries are strong with the best being those concentrating on everyday people dealing with commonplace technology like Paul Di Filippo’s 'Wikiworld' and Justina Robson’ 'The Girl Hero’s Mirror Says He’s Not the One' (in Mappa Mundi world) and those bringing the past into the future such as Tony Ballantyne’s 'Aristotle OS' and Ken McLeod’s 'Jesus Christ, Reanimator.' This is a fun collection that forecasts where technology will take humans including those left behind struggling with yesterday’s artifacts."

More as I know it!

Update: And here it is, the website the Eternal Night has posted an interview with Yours Truly, where we talk about the usual things and maybe a few unusual, along with the introduction I wrote for the anthology, "Welcome to the Future," where readers of this blog won't be surprised to find me proselytising the cause of SF yet again.