To poet Idra Novey falls the task of producing the first English translation of Viscount Lascano Tegui's 1925 cult classic novel from Argentina, and her modern yet timeless version of  On Elegance While Sleeping  fulfills the assignment splendidly,  bringing the bracingly mordant and sardonic voice of this nigh-forgotten contemporary of Picasso and Apollinaire to a new audience.

It is a bold and confident theorist indeed who can characterize his chosen field of research in the frank and humble manner in which Martin Bojowald speaks of "loop quantum gravity," the core subject of Once Before Time, his rigorously enthralling and speculatively mindblowing survey of this ultra-new physics "framework."

Paul Simon's observation that "Every generation throws a hero up the pop charts" seems somehow applicable to the whole concept of canonical SF anthologies, of which the latest is The Wesleyan Anthology of Science Fiction, assembled jointly by six savants who represent the editorial board of the prestigious journal Science Fiction Studies.  Every decade or two the field senses a need to redefine its history, both to itself and to outsiders, the latter of whom might wish to employ the resultant volume as a map of strange territories useful in a classroom environment.  But generalist readers also benefit from a fresh look at the classic tales, along with unearthed, obscure yet representative gems.