Science Fiction

Elizabeth Hand's jewel-like prose is familiar to those who have read her fantasy novels, such as "Mortal Love" and "Winterlong." It shines even more brilliantly in her new collection, "Saffron and Brimstone" (MPress,246pp.,$14.95).

The book includes three of Hand's novellas from a limited-edition British title ("Bibliomancy"), reprints four stories from magazines and anthologies, and showcases the first appearance of "The Saffron Gatherers." This last, an account of an archaeologist-turned-fantasy-author's visit to an old lover living in California's Bay Area, is simply the best post-9/11 tale since William Gibson's "Pattern Recognition." Marvelously controlled yet rich in poignant detail and sensory resonances, "The Saffron Gatherers" alone is worth the price of the book.

But there's more. Subtitled "Strange Stories," "Saffron and Brimstone" lives up to its self-proclaimed weirdness in "Cleopatra Brimstone," which presents the intersection of sexual bondage and entomology with the distant objectivity of a security camera; in "The Least Trumps," which shows wishes coming so forcefully true they dissolve the world as the narrator knows it; in the drugged visions of poetic exiles ("Wonderwall"); and the work of a jilted painter whose power to transform extends beyond her canvases ("Calypso in Berlin").

The publisher of "Saffron and Brimstone," M Press, is the literary offshoot of well-known Portland, Ore., comics publisher Dark Horse. The West Coast is home to a number of independent publishers focused on fantastic fiction. While globally the trend has been to merge large publishing companies into ever-larger ones, smaller, more specialized presses have also sprung into being. There are independents such as Per Aspera, Aqueduct, and Fairwood here in the Seattle area, and Tachyon in San Francisco.

Night Shade Books, which just migrated from Portland to San Francisco, is one of the most ambitious independents in terms of quantity. Two recent publications, "Zima Blue and Other Stories" by Alastair Reynolds (295pp.,$26.95) and "Majestrum" by Matthew Hughes (209pp.,$24.95), show their concern for quality as well.

One of the key figures in the "New Space Opera" movement, Reynolds typically combines intimate portraits of believable characters with adventures on a truly cosmic scale. The result is a dizzying perspective that gives a fitting sense of humanity's place in the Grand Scheme of Things.

"Beyond the Aquila Rift," the most moving and frightening of this collection's stories, describes the effect of a slight glitch in a faster-than-light transport system. "Signal to Noise" is the most tender-hearted; it's set in a near-future in which we've gained limited access to alternate worlds — limited being the crucial word here from the recently bereaved hero's point of view.

Both "Saffron and Brimstone" and "Zima Blue" are short-story collections. Short stories are peculiarly suited to speculative fiction because they allow authors to make extrapolations without obliging them to invest the time and energy necessary to write a novel.

But there's another format also strongly associated with the genre: the series. Like their mystery counterparts, SF series center on intriguing, well-loved characters and/or milieus. "Majestrum" is Hughes' first novel about Henghis Hapthorne, a private investigator working in a far-off future where the rational order of the universe is gradually giving way to a supernatural one. A bit Arthur Conan Doyle, a bit Jack Vance, this account of Henghis' escapades has the lasting appeal of one of P.G. Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster books.

Hughes first introduced Henghis in six short stories collected in Night Shade's 2005 publication "The Gist Hunter & Other Stories." During these earlier exploits, the detective's laptop was transformed into a smart-mouthed, fruit-eating mammal and his psyche split into multiple, self-aware personalities.

Helped as well as hampered by these developments, Henghis confronts eccentric aristocrats and amnesiac wizards in his effort to thwart a plot against the empire's ruler, the "Archon." As "Majestrum" ends, Henghis' essential urbanity remains unperturbed, and the stage is set for further volumes in his delightful saga.

Nisi Shawl is co-author of "Writing the Other: A Practical Approach," with Cynthia Ward. She reviews science fiction for The Seattle Times.