Issue 217 of Interzone will be published July 3rd and features my story "The Ships Like Clouds, Risen By Their Rain."
Vincent Chong did the art for my story. After seeing an advanced copy of his art I can only fall to the ground and say, "My story's not worthy. My story's not worthy."
All modesty aside, I think this is one of the best stories I've ever written and I look forward to seeing how readers like it.
While I stay neutral in the voting for the top story in the Million Writers Award--aside from removing hamfisted attempts at ballot stuffing, which is always done by a few fools--I want to let everyone know about "We Never Talk About My Brother" by Peter S. Beagle from Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show. Normally, readers have to pay $2.50 an issue to read IGMS, but editors Orson Scott Card and Edmund Schubert have given free access to the story during the MWA voting period. So check it out. And I highly recommend putting $2.50 down for the current issue of IGMS, because you can't beat that price for some of the best SF/F on the web.
I have now picked my Million Writers Award top ten stories of 2007. The stories are:
The public vote for the top story will run through July 17. This year's award is sponsored by the Edit Red Writing Community. As a result of this sponsorship, the award features a $300 prize for the overall winner.
I'll have more to say about these stories and the process in the coming day, but for now I'll let the stories speak for themselves.
This will be the final Million Writers Award update before I release the top ten stories of the year and the public voting starts. I've now picked the top ten stories. What I'm doing now is trying to arrange for access to one of the selected stories, along with programming the public vote. Look for the stories to be posted either Monday or Tuesday. I know I've been slow with this year's award, and for that I apologize. But as much as I enjoy doing this award, it doesn't pay the bills (in fact, it generates a number of bills, so please consider donating to help support the effort). As such, it has to come after work and family obligations.
SF Signal has a wonderful new post up titled "Who Are Tomorrow's Big Genre Stars?" Read through the collection of comments to find the responses from various editors, commentators, and established writers like Gardner Dozois, Matthew Cheney, and Niall Harrison. For those too lazy to read through all those words, here's the summary of up and coming writers, as compiled by SF Signal from the number of mentions in the discussion:
The Top 21 Genre Authors To Keep an Eye On
It's worth noting that one of my favorite new writers, Tobias Buckell, was not named anywhere in this. His response to that: "Ouch."
Book reviewer Jonathan Strahan, who also edits a number of anthologies including two yearly "best of" science fiction and fantasy collections, writes that he is tired of receiving PDFs of novels and stories and being expected to absorb the said printing costs. As he states, "PDFs are, no matter what anyone says, designed to be printed." Strahan then estimates that printing off a PDF of one 500 page novel "means about $6.00 worth of paper and about $20.00 worth of printingcosts. Call it $25.00. That’s close to what the final book will cost to buy, once it’s been published. I can justify that cost from time to time, but not day after day." As a result, Strahan is considering restricting his reading for his year’s best anthologies to printed copies only.
It's a shame Strahan has to consider such a ban, but it's an understandable reaction to an equally understandable trend. I review books for several places and while I'm nowhere near as big a name as Strahan, I also receive PDFs of upcoming novels. I understand that this delivery method is both faster and cheaper for publishers, authors, and promoters--which is obviously why they prefer it to mailing advance copies of books. But people need to be careful not to make sending PDFs instead of printed copies the norm; likewise, always query first to see if the person wants to receive a PDF of a massive novel. Otherwise, more reviewers will institute bans like the one Strahan is considering.
The Fix has published my review of the premier issue of the new semi-prozine Tales of Moreauvia. In short, ToM is an excellent debut on the semi-prozine level--i.e., a semi-professional magazine, existing between the worlds of the professional SF/F magazines and the fan-created publications--and contains some top-notch stories by Gary K. Wolf, Rita Oakes, Daniel Pearlman, and others.
As a side note, I will be reviewing short fiction journals on a regular basis for The Fix. My next assignment is to do a series of monthly reviews of the fiction published by Strange Horizons. Look for my review of SH's June fiction on The Fix in early July.
Now back to the previously interrupted judging of the Million Writers Award.
My new story of the week is the web comic Bayou by Jeremy Love. This Southern fantasy/horror tale is the story of Lee Wagstaff, the daughter of a poor black sharecropper growing up in 1930's Mississippi. When a monster from the bayou eats/kidnaps a white girl, Lee's father is arrested and facing a certain lynching. To save her father, Lee goes into the bayou to find the girl.
Love's writing is sparse and his artwork beyond beautiful. This is Southern Gothic at its best, and a perfect example of why the tropes and awful history of the South continually bring forth some of the best literature around.
As of this date, Bayou isn't finished, with new panels being continually added to the story. So bookmark the site and check back every now and then to see what has befallen Lee Wagstaff in your absence. You will be glad you did.
I'm sure a number of people are wondering if the Million Writers Award has gone MIA, but don't worry--I'm still reading through the 164 notable stories. I have now read 122 stories and have some 40 odd stories left to go. I expect to finish and have the top ten up by the end of next week.
One reason this has taken longer than expected is there are more notable stories to read than in previous years. Also, there are a ton of great stories in this year's list, meaning I'm going back and rereading quite a few of them. So thanks for the patience and check back next week.
A few months ago a friend told me that the main problem with most science fiction stories is that they violate the basic laws of the universe. To show my agreement, the next time I see him I'll be wearing the stylish T-shirt at right.
The caption reads "Speed limit: 186,000 miles per second. It's not just a good idea, it's the law."
Anyone looking for this and other retro SF shirts should go to the Retropolis Transit Authority. And a hat tip to SF Signal for first pointing me to this great site.
This weekend I gave feedback to a friend on his novel submission packet. While I don't believe submissions must follow a rigid set of manuscript rules or always risk instant rejection, authors should generally stick to the basic formatting guidelines so editors can focus on what really matters--your story--instead of that crazy font you printed your story in.
For my money, the best online resource for proper manuscript guidelines comes from William Shunn. He presents the formatting guidelines in an extremely visual way as actual short story, poetry, or novel submissions. New writers would to well to study up on these examples.
Sherwood Smith wants to know if there is interest in holding an online SF/F convention in mid January of next year. Based on the responses to her post, the answer appears to be a big yes. I think this is a great idea and echo others who wonder why this hasn't been attempted before.
Over on the Asimov's forum, people also like Smith's idea, although Bill Moonroe wonders if one actually has "to see the costumed attendees in person to really appreciate the convention atmosphere." On the plus side, he notes he could afford the airfare to an online convention. With the price of fuel at all time highs, I'm sure a lot of people would agree with that last statement.
Issue 216 of Interzone--the much publicized mundane science fiction issue--arrived in my mailbox on Saturday. I'm reading through the stories now and plan to publish a review of both the issue and the entire mundane manifesto.
First, though, a few words of excitement: The inside cover of the magazine plugs my upcoming story "The Ships Like Clouds, Risen By Their Rain," which should be in the next issue. The tiny piece of the artwork for my story, from Vincent Chong, looks amazing. I can't wait to see the entire art spread.
I'm still working on picking the Million Writers Award top ten stories. Reading through all this short fiction has literally worn me out.
A few more stories which have caught my attention include "Intellectual Property" by Angela Woodward, "Casa de Serenidad" by Zachary Amendt, and "Elsbeth Rose" by Lavie Tidhar. Doesn't mean I'll pick these stories for the top ten, but from my last two days of reading these are my favorite stories.
How's this for a superbowl of an author reading: Paolo Bacigalupi, Tobias Buckell, Charles Coleman Finlay, Sandra McDonald, Paul Melko and Sarah Prineas will do a joint reading in Columbus, Ohio, on June 7th at 7 p.m. at the Barnes & Noble Bookseller, 1739 Olentangy River Rd. That's located about a stone's throw from the Ohio State campus.
Sadly, Buckell's new book Sly Mongoose won't be out prior to the reading, but his highly praised novel Ragamuffin is still available. For more information on Buckell and his writings see my review of Ragamuffin and my featured interview with him. I also highly recommend Bacigalupi's Pump Six and Other Stories (see my overall review here and my praise for the title story here). As readers may remember, I'm really pushing for the title story of Bacigalupi's collection to be nominated for the Hugo and Nebula awards. And obviously Finlay, McDonald, Melko, and Prineas are all top-notch authors.
A few years ago I ran a major literary reading series in the Twin Cities, meaning I attended the dang things several times each week. As you might guess, that really burned me out on the whole idea of author readings.This is the first reading since then that I'm actually excited about attending.
Rusty at BestScienceFictionStories.com has reviewed my short story "Book Scouts of the Galactic Rim," which was published late last year in Menda City Review. Rusty's site is a great resource for everyone with an interest in science fiction and I'm honored he liked my story.
Last year I reviewed issue 212 of Interzone and singled out for mention the disturbing "A Handful of Pearls" by Beth Bernobich. Apex Digest has now reprinted the story online, so anyone wanting to read it can do so. But as I said previously:
I don't recommend "A Handful of Pearls" to most readers. But anyone wanting to understand how people do truly evil acts while imagining themselves to be the mistreated heroes of their own self-narratives, then this story is a must read. I'm certain that long after the fun stories I've read this year fade from memory, "A Handful of Pearls" will remain.
Six months after writing that statement it remains true, just as Bernobich's story remains lodged in my mind.
I'm completely taken with the blog Modern Mechanix, which provides flashbacks to what people decades ago thought the future would look like. Some of my personal favorites of late are how to create your own inflatable dome (from Popular Science, July 1973) and amazing marvels of tomorrow (from Mechanix Illustrated, Aug. 1955). Amazing how many of these predictions were both totally off the mark and actually close to the truth of what happened.
Prashant Raju over at Jumbabox asks "Has Science Fiction lost its originality?" Prashant's reasoning is that several of the characters from the upcoming Hellboy II: The Golden Army movie are extremely similar to previously seen characters in Stargate, Star Wars and Pan's Labyrinth. Since Guillermo del Toro directed both Hellboy II and Pan's Labyrinth, I don't think that's a fair comparison--after all, authors and directors tend to reuse certain of their favorite character designs--but the other images Prashant provides does make one wonder. My theory is that there are only so many ways to use make-up and latex to turn humans into aliens or monsters.
The first "space lawyer" has graduated, which probably means humanity is now doomed to an earth-bound fate. MichaelDodge, the newly minted lawyer to the stars--not the high paying type of stars out in Hollywood, mind you--says that he was initially curious as to why "space needed regulation." But luckily for him, and to the future detriment of all who dream of humanity throwing off the shackles of earth, he got over such non-lawyerly worries and showed his right stuff by embracing the final legal frontier.
All I can add is don't look to me to write about space lawyers anytime soon, unless it's in connection to some alien monster needing a space lawyer's stomach to explode out of.