It's often claimed that the proper medium for written science fiction and fantasy is the novella.  I happen to agree--but novellas, being a long form intermediate between short story and novel, are notoriously hard to sell.  We all write them (every SF writer I know has a file folder full of novellas) and they often represent our best work; but there's no consistent market for them, so they're rarely read.

When Claude Lalumière opened Tesseracts Twelve for submissions, he decided to focus on novellas, and so this edition of the long-running Canadian SF anthology has fewer authors in it than most.  But the trade-off is worth it, because these stories represent some of the best of the best:  long-form fiction from some of Canada's most popular and critically acclaimed SF and fantasy writers.

Included in these pages are stories by E.L. Chen, Randy McCharles, Derryl Murphy, David Nickle, Gord Sellar, Grace Seybold, and Michael Skeet & Jill Snider Lum.  You may not have heard of all these authors, but several of these names represent long-running stars of the Canadian SF scene, and all are excellent.  I won't pick favourites here; it seems inappropriate in a long-form medium where every story is radically different from all the others.  But this could be the best Tesseracts anthology yet.  If you're not familiar with the series, this is the place to start.

And by the way, the anthology, just out, is already garnering rave reviews.  This is what SFRevu had to say:

When you see a long running anthology series, it cannot just be riding the shirt tails of previous successes; the book market is just not that robust. For that reason alone, Tesseracts Twelve shows it is something worth exploring. With a focus on Canadian writers, it showcases the great talent to be found in that country and also gives these authors a rare opportunity for writing a longer piece. A wide range of styles and themes is presented here, making this is a smorgasbord of literary delights.