In this edition of Short Fiction Watch, we wanted to draw your attention to the upcoming OLD VENUS anthology, edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois. Zeno clients Lavie Tidhar and Ian McDonald both have stories included in the collection. Here’s the synopsis…

Sixteen all-new stories by science fiction’s top talents, collected by bestselling author George R. R. Martin and multiple-award-winning editor Gardner Dozois

From pulp adventures such as Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Carson of Venus to classic short stories such as Ray Bradbury’s “The Long Rain” to visionary novels such as C. S. Lewis’s Perelandra, the planet Venus has loomed almost as large in the imaginations of science fiction writers as Earth’s next-nearest neighbor, Mars. But while the Red Planet conjured up in Golden Age science fiction stories was a place of vast deserts and ruined cities, bright blue Venus was its polar opposite: a steamy, swampy jungle world with strange creatures lurking amidst the dripping vegetation. Alas, just as the last century’s space probes exploded our dreams of Mars, so, too, did they shatter our romantic visions of Venus, revealing, instead of a lush paradise, a hellish world inimical to all life.

But don’t despair! This new anthology of sixteen original stories by some of science fiction’s best writers—edited by #1 New York Times bestselling author George R. R. Martin and award-winning editor Gardner Dozois—turns back the clock to that more innocent time, before the hard-won knowledge of science vanquished the infinite possibilities of the imagination.

OLD VENUS is due to be published by Bantam Press on March 3rd, 2015.

Ian McDonald is the author of many award-winning novels, including THE DERVISH HOUSE, BRASYL (published by Gollancz in the UK), and the Everness trilogy (published in the UK by Jo Fletcher Books and the US by Pyr Books). He is also the author of the highly-anticipated, upcoming LUNA: NEW MOON, due to be published by Gollancz and Tor Books. Check back soon for more details on this novel. Some of McDonald’s earlier novels are available as eBooks through the JABberwocky eBook Program.

Lavie Tidhar is the author of the World Fantasy Award-winning OSAMA, published by Solaris Books; THE VIOLENT CENTURY and A MAN LIES DREAMING published by Hodder; and also the Bookman Histories (Angry Robot). Some of Tidhar’s novellas, as well as OSAMA, are also available through the JABberwocky eBook Program.