Brookline Resident Named Editor Of New Anthology ‘Jewish Futures'

BROOKLINE, MA — Fantastic Books, a Brooklyn-based small press of speculative fiction, has announced a new crowd-funded project of Jewish science fiction stories called "Jewish Futures,” which will be edited by Michael A. Burstein, Chair of the Brookline Library Trustees.

In its first three days of crowdfunding, the project met its goal, demonstrating the high interest in the idea.

"There hasn't been an anthology of all-new science fiction stories with a Jewish theme for a long time," Ian Randal Strock, publisher of Fantastic Books, said in a statement. "We wanted to explore the possible futures our writers could imagine. What will Jews be up to fifty years from now? A hundred? A thousand? Will the Jewish people still be mostly living where they are now? Will Judaism still be recognizable in the many forms in which it exists today? Will there be Jewish aliens? Jewish robots? Our writers will imagine it all.”

Strock is no stranger to crowd-funded anthologies, having successfully ran Kickstarter campaigns which resulted in the publication of the themed anthologies Release the Virgins and Three Time Travelers Walk Into… (both edited by Michael A. Ventrella), and Across the Universe (an alternate Beatles anthology edited by Ventrella and Randee Dawn).

A multiple Hugo and Nebula finalist and winner of the Campbell/Astounding Award for Best New Writer, Burstein is the author of previous Jewish-themed science-fiction stories, including Kaddish for the Last Survivor and The Great Miracle.

Burstein enlisted a group of high-level writers for the book, including award winners and finalists such as former Brookline resident Leah Cypess, Esther Friesner, and Steven H Silver.

"I've always been interested in the intersection of Jewish fiction and science fiction," Burstein said. "I remember the Wandering Stars anthology Jack Dann put together in the 1970s and 1980s. Those books were great but mostly contained reprinted stories. I wanted to see what today's authors could create if given a chance to envision a Jewish future.”

Fantastic Books is running the Kickstarter to coincide with the fall Jewish holidays. The book is planned for a July 2023 release.

For more information about the project, click here.