anthology

Ramping up to the Resistance

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Publication day is in one fortnight, and now all the pre-order links are live! Resistance is being published as a charity anthology: profits from the sale (and pre-sales) of the book will be donated to the ACLU and to Pro Publica.

And to whet your appetite just a little more, here’s the full table of contents for the book:

Introduction by Ian Randal Strock
Slow Burn in Alphabettown by Shariann Lewitt
Horseman, Horseman, Horseman & Horseman, Attorneys at Law by Michael A. Ventrella
The Logs by David Brin
A Snake in the Grass by E.C. Ambrose
The One Who Doesn’t Belong by Scott Edelman [BRAND NEW STORY]
The Sultan’s Bath by Jean Marie Ward
In Her Image by Michael A. Burstein
Know Thyself Deathless by Keith R.A. DeCandido
Suppose They Gave a Peace by Susan Shwartz
The Visitors by Randee Dawn
In Silver A by Cecilia Tan
Black Market Magic by Hildy Silverman
Overdue by Gail Z. Martin
The Stun Gun Cure by Ron Kaiser [BRAND NEW STORY]
What Happened to Them by Samantha Katz [BRAND NEW STORY]
Exit Stage Right by Daniel M. Kimmel
The Prowl by Gregory Frost
Wideload by Allen Steele & Ian Randal Strock [BRAND NEW STORY]
About This Book

I hope you’ll join me and all these wonderful authors—who have donated the use of their stories to the cause!—in declaring the Resistance, and incidentally reading some fantastic science fiction and fantasy stories.

Stand Up and Read!

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Oligarchs are grabbing power, rights are being trampled, and even with millions marching in No Kings rallies, we’re feeling helpless, hopeless, and unheard.

It is time to Resist!

It is more important than ever to stand up to be noticed, stand up for the downtrodden, stand up for what’s right.

With the publication of our newest anthology, Resistance, Fantastic Books is joining the fight. Profits from the sale of this anthology will be donated to two organizations that are doing their part: the American Civil Liberties Union and Pro Publica.

The eighteen science fiction and fantasy stories in this book tell tales of standing up for what’s right, fighting against oppression and repression, showing that even one person can make a difference. All the authors represented in this volume have donated their stories to help support the cause, and four of them—Scott Edelman, Ron Kaiser, Samantha Katz, and Allen Steele (in collaboration with Ian Randal Strock)—have provided brand-new, never-before-published stories. The other authors are: E.C. Ambrose, David Brin, Michael A. Burstein, Randee Dawn, Keith R.A. DeCandido, Gregory Frost, Daniel M. Kimmel, Shariann Lewitt, Gail Z. Martin, Susan Shwartz, Hildy Silverman, Cecilia Tan, Michael A. Ventrella, and Jean Marie Ward.

Resistance
edited by Ian Randal Strock
300 pages, May 26, 2026
case laminate hardcover: $29.99, ISBN 978-1-5154-6997-1
trade paperback: $19.99, ISBN 978-1-5154-6996-4

Resistance—and all Fantastic Books books—are distributed via Ingram.

Catching up with JF authors

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Untitled-150Life interfered with work a week or two back. As a result, I didn’t get a chance to tell y’all about a couple of new videos now available. Con-Tinual: The Con That Never Ends hosted two panel discussions with authors appearing in Jewish Futures. But two of our authors weren’t able to make it to those panel, so editor Michael A. Burstein interviewed them individually. All four videos are now available online, with links available in the book’s description on the linked page (scroll down to the first paragraph under “Publicity and Reviews”). If you’re a new author looking for inspiration, let me especially point you at Michael’s interview with Samantha Katz. And if you’re a long-time reader, writer, or fan, Michael’s interview with Jack Dann will definitely bring back some wonderful memories from way back when. And of course there are the panels, with Riv Begun, Nomi Burstein, Robert Greenberger, Susan Shwartz, Steven Silver (and Michael and me), and with Leah Cypess, Randee Dawn, Valerie Frankel, Jordan King-Lacroix, Barbara Krasnoff, SM Rosenberg, and Harry Turtledove. Check them all out!

GRP/FB’s Day of Seconds

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Gray Rabbit Publications and Fantastic Books is starting the year off with a bang. And since today is the second of January, it’s a day of seconds: a second edition, a second novel, and a second anthology.

Untitled-9Today is the publication day for the second book in Carren Strock’s much-loved Coney Island Mysteries series. Start out with two frightened children, their missing mother, a kidnapped nurse, a murderous lawyer, and a stupid henchman. Put them all together, stir in a dose of streetsmart teenager, big-hearted candy store owner, dedicated detectives, and rehabilitated child taker, and you get Who’s Watching the Children? Join Carren Strock’s beloved Detectives Rothman and Cardello, along with clever Moses, to a Coney Island where car thefts, break-ins, and a dead body are the least of their concerns.

Untitled-6Today is also the publication day of the second edition of Sarah Totton’s collection Animythical Tales. Since we’re (finally) making the book available as an ebook, we decided to update the cover and make the interior far more readable for the print book. This “deftly written” (according to the Waterloo Region Record) collection of fantastical tales “speaks to one on an emotional level… Totton’s writing has depth and is multilayered, inviting the reader to explore the deeper meaning of the issues that she covers.” (according to BookPleasures.com). Tangent Online said simply “the writing… is exquisite, infusing the mundane with magic.… Even when set in what is ostensibly the ‘real’ world, Totton’s writing is gifted with this intangible but lovely quality of transformative fantasia that reminds one of a child’s imagination and perspective (both dark and light), lensed through an adult’s language.… This is a collection worth owning.”

And today, Fantastic Books and editor Michael A. Burstein are pleased to announce the writers’ guidelines—and the opening of the limited submission window—for our forthcoming anthology, Jewish Futures 2. The book will be a stand-alone sequel to our best-selling and much praised Jewish Futures, which was published (after a stunningly successful Kickstarter campaign) in August. At the moment, we’re planning to publish the book right around the Jewish New Year.

Good review of Jewish Futures

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Untitled-150Sorry you haven’t heard from me recently; it’s been a busy month. There was the trip to South Carolina, four days at home, a week-long family cruise (from which I still haven’t gone through the pictures, though I intend to, in order to share some), the book-launch event in Massachusetts (I was there for three days), and now, finally, trying to get back up to speed.

In the midst of all that comes this wonderful review of Jewish Futures from the Elder of Ziyon blog:

“[M]any of these stories are good enough to be included in collections of the best SF of the year.… [Samantha] Katz is an enormously talented writer for a 16 year old high school student.… Leah Cypress’ ‘Frummer House’ is a laugh-out-loud funny story about smart homes that suddenly enforce a higher level of religiosity on their Jewish residents than they are comfortable with. It is so steeped in frumkeit that it has its own glossary so everyone else could understand it. For religious Jews who would get the references, the book is worth it for this story alone.… ‘Initial Engagement’ by Steven H. Silver uses a future world to help us understand our world [and] is the epitome of what SF should be.… The longest, and best, story in the collection is ‘Moon Melody’ by SM Rosenberg. It is outstanding in how it explores the moral issues of [the characters’ superpowers].… I would be surprised and disappointed if ‘Moon Melody’ is not included in the Best of the Year anthologies for 2023.… Altogether, it is a really good collection of stories, with a higher percentage of stories that I enjoy than most anthologies I have read. There have been other Jewish science fiction anthologies… but this is to my mind by far the best, the most professional, and the most Jewish of all of them.”

Busy day in publishing-land

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Untitled-150It’s been a busy — but productive — day here in publishing land.

I woke up early, hoping to get a lot done. But looking back on the not-yet-complete day, there’s been even more accomplishment than I expected.

One of those accomplishments which I can talk about include finalizing and revealing the cover of the forthcoming anthology Jewish Futures, edited by Michael A. Burstein, with cover art by Eli Portman.

And then, following up on emails from two friends, and a slew of people looking to download a non-existent ebook, I was able to finalize and make available the ebook versions of Barry N. Malzberg’s essay collection The Bend at the End of the Road.

Beyond those, there was a bunch of not-yet-talking-about-it-publicly work that got done, and I also managed a little time for my own writing. So yes, it’s being a pretty good day.

Asimov’s reviews Three Time Travelers Walk Into…

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ThreeTimeTravelers_FrontIn his review in Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine, Peter Heck recommends Three Time Travelers Walk Into… (edited by Michael A. Ventrella, published by Fantastic Books in May), calling it “highly entertaining” and “thoroughly readable.” He also includes specific mentions of Gail Martin’s “The Mystic Lamb,” Peter David’s “A Christmas Prelude,” Jonathan Maberry’s “The Adventure of the Confounded Writer,” and says “one writer—no spoilers here—gives a younger version of himself a chance to alter history after meeting two of his mentors and the version of himself who has lived through our history—a tour de force of time-travel twists and turns.”

Electronic Eye of Argon

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Untitled-41212Due to some outrageous formatting in the printed book, there’s no way to produce a standard ebook of Fantastic Books’ The Eye of Argon and the Further Adventure of Grignr the Barbarian. But due to the popularity of the book — and the new Fantastic Books web site — I decided to offer a pdf version of the book. It’s available, as of five minutes ago, for download only from the site, at this link: https://www.fantasticbooks.biz/product-page/the-eye-of-argon-and-the-further-adventures-of-grignr-the-barbarian

Conspiracies and Cryptids

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Untitled-89741Multiminded Press Release:

Cryptids? Conspiracies?

Let me ask you a question:

What if it’s all true?

Hitch a ride with some straight-6 witches, with a motorcycle club, on a rocket to the moon… Show up on the back of a sea creature, carried by a bigfoot, in the thrall of a fairy, or maybe on the wings of the children of the night. However you get here, hurry.

Gray Rabbit Publications is pleased to present the first book published under Mutiminded, our newest imprint.

Conspiracies and Cryptids, Volume 1: Everything Is True was edited by Charles Barouch, Jerry Wang, and Sylvia Goldin, and features stories by B.J. Thrower, Eric Avedissian, Marcy Arlin, Robert Dawson, Holly Schofield, James Ryan, Charles Barouch, Greg Cox, and Ef Deal.

Conspiracies and Cryptids, Volume 1: Everything Is True
edited by Charles Barouch, Jerry Wang, and Sylvia Goldin
$13.99, 128 pages (trade paperback), ISBN: 978-1-5154-4796-2

Conspiracies and Cryptids—and all Gray Rabbit books—are distributed via Ingram, and available through all major online retailers and specialty sf shops via direct order from the publisher.