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"...the stories you'll find collected here will broaden your view of what is possible or imaginable, provoking unusual - and sometimes uncomfortable - thoughts. That is as it should be."
- David Brin, Preface

The first book in an ongoing series, Speculative Japan presents a selection of outstanding works of Japanese science fiction and fantasy in English translation... and a glimpse into new worlds of the imagination. It was first released at Nippon 2007, the 65th World Science Fiction Convention in Yokohama, Japan, and then made available worldwide.

Japanese fiction has assumed a position of significance in many genres of world literature as it continues to chart its own creative course. Whereas science fiction in the English-speaking world developed gradually over a period of evolutionary change in style and content, SF in Japan took off from a very different starting line. Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, Japanese SF writers worked to combine their own thousand-year-old literary tradition with a flood of Western SF and other fiction. Contemporary Japanese SF thus began in a jumble of ideas and periods, and ultimately propelled Japanese authors into a quantum leap of development, rather than a steady process of evolution.

The result has been phenomenal. As new authors developed in this exotic environment, they invented new ways to view SF, and used the genre to form new images of themselves and their culture. The time is long overdue to present the work of Japanese science fiction and fantasy writers to the world in English. We hope this shared world of speculative fiction produces a creative feedback relationship, which can only encourage new and more stimulating visions of tomorrow.

Table of Contents:
• Judy-san - Judith Merril, 1923-1997 • essay by Grania Davis
• Preface • essay by David Brin
• Introduction: Phase Shifting • essay by Gene Van Troyer
• "Collective Reason": A Proposal • essay by Shibano Takumi
• The Savage Mouth • short story by Komatsu Sakyo
• A Time for Revolution • short story by Kazumasa Hirai
• Hikari • short story by Kono Tensei
• I'll Get Rid of Your Discontent • short story by Mayumura Taku
• The Road to the Sea • short story by Ishikawa Takashi
• Where Do the Birds Fly Now? • short story by Yamano Koichi
• Another Prince of Wales • short story by Toyota Aritsune
• The Flower's Life Is Short • short story by Fukushima Masami
• Girl • short story by Ohara Mariko
• Standing Woman • (1974) • short story by Tsutsui Yasutaka
• Cardboard Box • short story by Hanmura Ryo
• The Legend of the Paper Spaceship • short story by Yano Tetsu
• Reiko's Universe Box • short story by Kajio Shinji
• Mogera Wogura • short story by Hiromi Kawakami
• Adrenalin • short story by Yoshimasu Gozo
• Afterword: From Vertical to Horizontal • essay by Asakura Hisashi
• Editor's Afterword: "Translator As Hero" • essay by Grania Davis