In the final instalment of Short Fiction Watch of 2020, we want to draw your attention to two recent sci-fi anthologies featuring work by Zeno clients. Specifically: Ian McDonald and Lavie Tidhar.

First up, both authors have stories included in THE 2020 LOOK AT MARS FICTION (pictured above), edited by Allan Kaster. In Ian’s story, THE OLD COSMONAUT AND THE CONSTRUCTION WARKER DREAM OF MARS, which first appeared in 2002’s MARS PROBES collection…

… the lives of a young Indian construction worker and an old Estonian cosmonaut collide during the terraforming of Mars by quantum machines.

Lavie’s TERMINAL, which was first published on Tor.com in 2016, is about…

An improbable group of astronauts are slingshot to Mars in cheap one-person, one-way jalopies…

Finally, Ian has another story in THE 2020 LOOK AT SPACE OPERA BOOK, also edited by Allan Kaster. The collection ‘highlights 20 stellar space operas published over the past 20 years by top-notch authors of the science fiction genre’. Ian’s contribution is BOTANICA VENERIS: THIRTEEN PAPERCUTS BY IDA COUNTESS RATHAGAN, which was first published in Clarkesworld in 2017…

An aristocrat’s trip to Venus, in search of her disgraced brother, is memorialized by papercuts of flora native to the planet…

Ian McDonald’s latest series is Luna, published by Gollancz in the UK and Tor Books in North America — NEW MOON, WOLF MOON, and MOON RISING are all out now. The prequel novella, THE MENACE FROM FARSIDE, is published by Tor.com.

Lavie Tidhar’s latest novel is BY FORCE ALONE, published by Head of Zeus in the UK and Tor Books in North America.