Tesseracts Eleven

Tesseracts Eleven, Cory Doctorow and Holly Phillips (ed.), Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing, 2007

Here is another compendium of new fantasy and science fiction stories from north of the border (in Canada).

A mother, her teenage son, and two younger daughters seem to be the only survivors of a plague that has ravaged North America (Dad was not so lucky). Now the mother and son are faced with the difficult task
of replenishing the population. A pair of high school students experiment with what looks like Michael
Jackson's glove. It can create portals in time, but the catch is that the portals only go to famous dates
in rock and roll history, like the days that Kurt Cobain and John Lennon died.

A family goes on a trip out west to a national park to see some real, live vampires in the wild. After
a year-long internet relationship with a man in northwest Canada, a woman travels there for a visit, and
possible marriage. He just happened to omit the part about every night, all night, he turns into an actual bear, with fur, claws, and sharp teeth. Another story is about the next step in athletic doping, using gene therapy to, for instance, turn a middle distance runner into a sprinter. A new reality show, called Beat The Geeks, tricks, or otherwise makes fun of, scientists. The book ends with a story that is half screenplay about a trio of kids that want to make their own near-future science fiction film.

The striking thing about these stories, aside from the fact that they are all really good, is that many of them are very contemporary stories. They could easily take place last month, or a couple of years from now. This book is very much worth the search.