The Starlit Wood, the first book from Dominik Parisien and‎ Navah Wolfe, was one of the most acclaimed anthologies of 2016. It was nominated for the World Fantasy Award and the British Fantasy Award, and won the Shirley Jackson Award. And Amal El-Mohtar’s “Seasons of Glass and Iron” swept the short fiction awards, winning the Nebula, Hugo, and Locus Awards.

Their second anthology, scheduled to arrive in two weeks from Saga Press, is Robots vs. Fairies, and it includes another steller list of contributors, including Seanan McGuire, Jonathan Maberry, Kat Howard, Mary Robinette Kowal, Jeffrey Ford, Madeline Ashby, Lavie Tidhar, John Scalzi, Catherynne M. Valente, and many others. Publishers Weekly says:

Distinguished authors take sides in battles between robots and fairies by crafting serious (and seriously weird) reflections on whether magical or mechanical might would prove the stronger… Ken Liu creatively takes on big cities, rats, and unforeseen consequences in “Quality Time.”… Sarah Gailey’s “Bread and Milk and Salt” is a horrific rumination on the true natures of robots, fairies, and humans. Editors Parisien and Wolfe (The Starlit Wood) have cannily chosen a variety of stories that offer individual, distinctive insights into both living machines and magical creatures, along with glimpses of how humans might react to their face-off.

Reviews have already started to appear. Howling Libraries says Tim Pratt’s “Murmured Under the Moon” is a tale of “a human librarian who takes care of a fairy library, and is forced to go on a rescue mission when the fairy princess is taken hostage by a wicked man… fun, and unique, and magical, and fantastical, and sweet.” And Jim C. Hine’s Peter Pan-inspired “Second to the Left, and Straight On” is “twisted and haunting and beautiful and absolutely heartbreaking… It’s about a private investigator who is seeking out little girls that have been abducted by Tinker Bell.”

Read more at the Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog, including the catalog copy and more details on the intricate cover, here.

Here’s the complete Table of Contents.

“Build Me a Wonderland” by Seanan McGuire
“Quality Time” by Ken Liu
“Murmured Under the Moon” by Tim Pratt
“The Blue Fairy’s Manifesto” by Annalee Newitz
“Bread and Milk and Salt” by Sarah Gailey
“Ironheart” by Jonathan Maberry
“Just Another Love Song” by Kat Howard
“Sound and Fury” by Mary Robinette Kowal
“The Bookcase Expedition” by Jeffrey Ford
“Work Shadow/Shadow Work” by Madeline Ashby
“Second to the Left, and Straight On” by Jim C. Hines
“The Buried Giant” by Lavie Tidhar
“Three Robots Experience Objects Left Behind From the Era of Humans for the First Time” by John Scalzi
“Ostentation of Peacocks” by Lila Bowen
“All the Time We’ve Left to Spend” by Alyssa Wong
“Adriftica” by Maria Dahvana Headley
“To a Cloven Pine” by Max Gladstone
“A Fall Counts Anywhere” by Catherynne M. Valente

Robots vs. Fairies will be published by Saga Press on January 9, 2018. It is 373 pages, priced at $27.99 in hardcover, $16.99 in trade paperback, and $7.99 in digital formats. The cover is by Vault 49 and Amy Sol.

See all our coverage of the best in upcoming fantasy here.