Aaron's Book of the Year :: Glorifying Terrorism edited by Farah Mendlesohn

The Book of the Year is Glorifying Terrorism, an anthology edited by Farah Mendlesohn (with outrageous cover art by Haylee Fields and Mike Harwood).

The Book of the Year contains the first ever professional work of fiction by yours truly: "Winning Friends" by Van Aaron Hughes begins at page 205.

Glorifying Terrorism is an anthology of science fiction stories, published very recently in England as a political protest. Last year, the British Parliament included in the Terrorism Act of 2006 a provision making it a criminal offense, punishable by up to seven years' imprisonment, to publish any statements glorifying terrorism. This new offense was broadly defined to encompass any publication "indirectly encouraging the commission or preparation of acts of terrorism," including "every statement which glorifies the commission or preparation (whether in the past, in the future or generally) of such acts." The Act expressly states that it is irrelevant whether anyone is in fact encouraged by the statements to commit or prepare a terrorist act. The term "terrorism" is not defined in the Act (one is apparently expected to refer to the extremely broad definition of "terrorism" in the Terrorism Act of 2000), nor is any exception included for fiction or satire.

One need not be a left-wing radical to regard this as an affront to free speech. To protest this new law, respected science fiction editor Farah Mendlesohn (winner of a Hugo Award in 2005 for co-editing The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction) announced that she would edit an anthology deliberately intended to violate the law. While most of the contributors are British, Mendlesohn accepted a few submissions from writers (and at least one person posing as a writer) on this side of the Pond.

Compounding the thrill for me of actually getting something published is the fact that for at least the past decade, a great deal of the best new science fiction and fantasy has been coming from the UK. Appearing in Glorifying Terrorism are some of the very top names in the modern SF/F field, such as Hal Duncan, Gwyneth Jones, Ken MacLeod, Adam Roberts (one of my all-time favorite authors), Charles Stross, Jo Walton, and Ian Watson. The back cover of the book also features blurbs from three more great British Boom writers, China Miéville, Karen Traviss, and Ian McDonald. The McDonald quote is the greatest cover blurb ever:

"This is a bad book. The people who have written it are bad folk. The editor is a bad person. If you buy it, you are bad too. There is only good and bad in the world."