Lou Anders, ed., Masked (Simon & Schuster/Gallery Jul 2010)

For this original anthology, Anders reached out to both prose writers and veterans of the comics field to create new superhero stories, bringing together 15 writers including Stephen Baxter, Mike Carey, Paul Cornell, Daryl Gregory, Marjorie M. Liu, Chris Roberson, and Bill Willingham.

Poul Anderson, The Collected Short Works of Poul Anderson, Volume 3: The Saturn Game (NESFA Press Sep 2010)

The ongoing series of the SF Grand Master's short fiction continues with this collection of 18 stories, seven limericks, and a pair of songs, including Nebula and Hugo award-winners "The Saturn Game", "No Truce with Kings", and "Hunter's Moon".

Mike Ashley, ed., Steampunk Prime (Nonstop Press Jul 2010)

This "vintage steampunk primer" collects 14 stories of Victorian and Edwardian-era early SF from 1880-1914, with tales of mechanical men, flying cars, vast tunnels, and cataclysms by Fred C. Smale, George Davey, George C. Wallace, and others.

Kage Baker, The Bird of the River (Tor Jul 2010)

The first novel to appear since the author's untimely death in January is set in the world of her earlier works The House of the Stag and The Anvil of the World, and concerns a young woman traveling through a fantasy landscape aboard the eponymous riverboat. "Feels like the story form of a particularly detailed Maxfield Parrish painting, all luminous pastels that are somehow uplifting without being treacle-filled." [Adrienne Martini]

Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles: The Complete Edition (Subterranean Press Aug 2010)

This lavish, limited-edition collection — published just in time for the legendary author's 90th birthday — collects 49 stories, 27 from the original 1950 publication of The Martian Chronicles, along with 22 related stories, seven of those original. It also includes an essay, two screenplays, two introductions by Bradbury, color illustrations by Edward Miller, and introductions and afterwords by John Scalzi, Joe Hill, Marc Scott Zicree, and Richard Matheson.

Charles de Lint, The Very Best of Charles de Lint (Tachyon Publications Jul 2010)

The master of contemporary fantasy and mythic fiction asked his fans to select their favorite stories, and included a few more that he felt exemplified his style, for this retrospective volume gathering 29 stories from the past 25 years. Includes World Fantasy Award finalists "The Conjure Man" and "The Moon Is Drowning While I Sleep".

Arthur B. Evans, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr., Joan Gordon, Veronica Hollinger, Rob Latham, & Carol McGuirk, eds., The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction (Wesleyan University Press Aug 2010)

This critical anthology of 52 stories is a worthy attempt to construct a modern canon for short SF literature, with works from the past 150 years by authors ranging from Nathaniel Hawthorne and Jules Verne to Charles Stross and Ted Chiang. Each story is preceded by concise author biographies, plus historical and critical commentary by the editors of Science Fiction Studies and their associates.

Cecelia Holland, Kings of the North (Forge Jul 2010)

This historical fantasy novel, sixth and final in the series about 10th-century Vikings that began with 2002's The Soul Thief, is "replete with ghosts, sorceresses, possessions, astral projection, shapeshifting, psychic powers, [and] magical talents... a powerful conclusion to a series which, in retrospect, is clearly a major work in the amalgamation of history and fantasy." [Gary K. Wolfe]

Julia Holmes, Meeks (Small Beer Press Jul 2010)

This debut novel, a satirical dystopia, follows the misfortunes of two men — one just returned from war, another leading a delusional existence in a park — through a bleak world of incomprehensible laws, strange customs, and an unbreakable social hierarchy.

Elizabeth Anne Hull, ed., Gateways (Tor Jul 2010)

Hull organized this tribute collection to her husband Frederik Pohl's long and distinguished career, with 18 stories and poems (most original) inspired by Pohl's work, with authors including Neil Gaiman, Joe Haldeman, Sheri S. Tepper, Vernor Vinge, and Gene Wolfe. There are also appreciations for Pohl and an autobiographical introduction by Hull about her life with Pohl.

Alaya Dawn Johnson, The Burning City (Agate/Bolden Jul 2010)

In this second volume of the Spirit Binders series, Lana continues to come into her magical powers while pursued by an avatar of Death. "The writing is eloquent and unflinchingly vivid... while the culture and its forms of magic are sufficiently offbeat (not European-medieval) to lift the book well above all those generic fantasies of youngsters coming into their Powers." [Faren Miller]

Mary Robinette Kowal, Shades of Milk and Honey (Tor Aug 2010)

This debut novel by a winner of the Campbell Award for Best New Writer is a Jane Austen-flavored historical fantasy about a young woman's search for love in a version of Regency England where the magical manipulation of "glamour" is a womanly art much like embroidery. The novel "will keep you reading long after you should have blown out your candle and gone to bed." [Adrienne Martini]

Tim Pratt, ed., Sympathy for the Devil (Night Shade Books Aug 2010)

A huge reprint anthology of 35 stories (and an excerpt from Dante's Inferno) about the Devil in his various forms, from classics to more contemporary offerings, with work by Holly Black, Robert Bloch, John Collier, Michael Chabon, China Miéville, Charles Stross, and Scott Westerfeld, among others.

Charles Stross, The Fuller Memorandum (Ace Jul 2010)

Computational demonologist and reluctant spy Bob Howard returns in this third installment of the Laundry Files, blending Lovecraftian horror with bureaucratic black comedy. "These are entertainments for uneasy times and, beneath the laughs, perhaps more serious than any of us wants to admit." [Russell Letson]

Jack Vance, edited by Terry Dowling & Jonathan Strahan, Hard-Luck Diggings: The Early Jack Vance (Subterranean Press Jul 2010)

This volume gathers 14 stories from the first dozen years of the Grand Master's career. Editors Terry Dowling & Jonathan Strahan provide an introduction, discussing how these early pieces prefigured the better-known work to come. "These stories show the author learning his trade while working what the editors, in an admirable context-setting introduction, call the 'coal-face' of the writing profession, exploring the techniques and possibilities of genre fiction." [Russell Letson]

Jeff VanderMeer, The Third Bear (Tachyon Publications Jul 2010)

The World Fantasy Award winning fantasist collects some of his "surreal and absurdist" short fiction from the past half a dozen years, including the acclaimed title story, plus one original piece and a new vignette hidden in the author's afterword.