It is, it seems, the season for anthologies. In the past few weeks, I have come across a stack of gorgeous-looking anthologies, from the impressive tome Twenty-First Century Science Fiction to not one but two gorgeous-looking Jurassic London collections (The Book of the Dead and The Lowest Heaven) to the (free!) 2013 Tor.com anthology to the Mothership afrofuturism anthology I wrote about earlier to the We See a Different Frontier collection Jared Shurin highlighted in our Under the Radar column to… well, I could keep going for a while.

And then I received a copy of The Book of Apex: Volume 4 of Apex Magazine, a collection of 33 stories from Hugo Award-winning editor Lynne M. Thomas’s first 15 issues at the helm of Apex Magazine. Behold that lovely cover art by Julie Dillon. Gaze at the impressive Table of Contents (included in full below the cut). Catherynne M. Valente! Elizabeth Bear! Rachel Swirsky! Adam-Troy Castro! Did I mention the Kindle edition is only $4.99 right now?

So, suffice it to say, I’m overwhelmed by the sheer number of recently released, great-looking anthologies. It’ll take me a while to get through all of them, but I at least wanted to highlight some of them already, in case you’re looking for some quality short SF and fantasy.

Here’s the full Table of Contents for The Book of Apex: Volume 4 of Apex Magazine:

“The Bread We Eat in Dreams” by Catherynne M. Valente
“The Leavings of the Wolf” by Elizabeth Bear
“The 24 Hour Brother” by Christopher Barzak
“Faithful City” by Michael Pevzner
“So Glad We Had This Time Together” by Cat Rambo
“Sweetheart Showdown” by Sarah Dalton
“Bear in Contradicting Landscape” by David J. Schwartz
“My Body Her Canvas” by A.C. Wise
“A Member of the Wedding of Heaven and Hell” by Richard Bowes
“Copper, Iron, Blood and Love” by Mari Ness
“The Second Card of the Major Arcana” by Thoraiya Dyer
“Love is a Parasite Meme” by Lavie Tidhar
“Decomposition” by Rachel Swirsky
“Tomorrow’s Dictator” by Rahul Kanakia
“Winter Scheming” by Brit Mandelo
“In the Dark” by Ian Nichols
“The Silk Merchant” by Ken Liu
“Ironheart” by Alec Austin
“Coyote Gets His Own Back” by Sarah Monette
“Waiting for Beauty” by Marie Brennan
“Murdered Sleep” by Kat Howard
“Armless Maidens of the American West” by Genevieve Valentine
“Sexagesimal” by Katharine E.K. Duckett
“During the Pause” by Adam-Troy Castro
“Weaving Dreams” by Mary Robinette Kowal
“Always the Same. Till it is Not” by Cecil Castellucci
“Sprig” by Alex Bledsoe
“Splinter” by Shira Lipkin
“Erzulie Dantor” by Tim Susman
“Labyrinth” by Mari Ness
“Blood from Stone” by Alethea Kontis
“Trixie and the Pandas of Dread” by Eugie Foster
“The Performance Artist” by Lettie Prell

The Book of Apex: Volume 4 of Apex Magazine is available November 6th from Apex Book Company.