Rachel Swirsky's Blog, page 33
February 10, 2012
Entirely nonsensical judging
That's what you just did, project runway all-stars.
It's like instead of writing down numbers to score the looks, all the judges wrote down squiggles, and then the judging came out as a divide by cucumber error.
It wasn't even wrong so much (although it was wrong) as "did you accidentally leave your eyes at home and then the cat chased your eyes under the couch and they got covered in dust and then you swallowed a parakeet that twittered random phrases whenever you opened your mouth at panel?"
It's like instead of writing down numbers to score the looks, all the judges wrote down squiggles, and then the judging came out as a divide by cucumber error.
It wasn't even wrong so much (although it was wrong) as "did you accidentally leave your eyes at home and then the cat chased your eyes under the couch and they got covered in dust and then you swallowed a parakeet that twittered random phrases whenever you opened your mouth at panel?"
Bad pain week
Just wanted to register on the 'net that it's a bad pain week.
Things that need to be mailed, or need concentration to answer, or so on, should get out this weekend.
Things that need to be mailed, or need concentration to answer, or so on, should get out this weekend.
February 2, 2012
Marginalized Gender Identity Category? Possibly Transphobic.
Trigger warning for me possibly being a clueless, transphobic douche. I'm trying to work something out and generally throwing out some ideas for people who are cooler than me to react to. But they may be stupid, stupid ideas, and if you just don't to deal with a cis person being stupid, you should probably skip this.
So, I have this thing in my head where when I'm thinking about "who here is a man," I include cis men and trans men. If I'm thinking about "who here is a woman" and I'm thinking about something that doesn't have to do with issues around gender and sex as experienced by sociological minorities, then I include cis women and trans women.
But if I'm thinking about "who here is a woman" and I'm thinking about something that *does* have to do with issues around gender and sex as experienced by sociological minorities–such as "how do we measure the gender bias in this engineering department by looking at the test scores of men and women?"–then I include cis women, trans women, and trans *men.*
I'm talking about auto-inclusion here. The measurements the back of my brain makes before I stop it and go, "Knock that off, trans men are men," and correct myself.
But there are definitely circumstances in which I think of cis men as one group and cis women, trans women, and trans men as another. For instance, when I meet someone new (and I know their cis/trans and gender status), I have the same basal level of comfort talking to people about issues of sex and gender if they are cis women, trans women, or trans men. And that's not something I have an inclination to correct the way I correct my brain when it's wrong about statistics. (Maybe I should, though. That's part of what I'm trying to work out.)
I suspect my problem is that my brain actually has two schemas which it uses the word "woman" to label. One is the traditional schema: people who are gendered female. The other includes most people who have experience being gendered (or wanting to be gendered if they are pre-transition) as female by society. This would include female-bodied genderqueer or agendered people, or male-bodied genderqueer or agendered people if they are or have been read as female on a regular enough basis for it to affect them as far as sociological measures are concerned.
Probably there should be fine-tuning of what I just said to make it include all the people I mean to include and exclude all the people I don't, but I think that's the best marshaling of vocabulary I can handle right now.
So there's the one schema I have in my brain that's labeled "woman" which is, I think, the consensus definition of woman. And then there's another schema in my head labeled "woman" (and the fact that it's labeled woman may be inherently transphobic) that is a nameless category that includes the bunch of people mentioned above.
If there is a name for this category, I don't now it. Queer doesn't cover it; that includes cis men. Genderqueer doesn't cover it; that excludes cis women.
Now I don't mean to say that cis women, trans women, and trans men (and the other aforementeioned groups) have all experienced being socially gendered female in the same way. I understand, for instance, that many trans men will have experienced being gendered female differently than cis women since they are not actually gendered female. And obviously all three groups are capable of having horrible, douchey ideas about sex and gender.
Sometimes, though, I think the groups often do go together. Like, as I mentioned above, when I'm calculating the risk of talking to someone I don't know very well about sex and gender issues. Or when science fiction writers are measuring "how many women writers are there in this table of contents?" I often think that it's a less revealing measure than "how many people inhabiting marginalized gender spaces are in this table of contents?"
Or, here's another example where my brain ends up with something other than the consensus position, and I'm not sure if I'm seeing something real or being a douche–when people are discussing safe spaces for women, and they talk about how much it sucks that trans women can't get in, I'm totally onboard. That is suck pants with suck shoes. I also am totally onboard when they talk about how much that position is revealed as even more scarily transphobic when trans men are allowed but trans women aren't. But the further argument that allowing trans men into women-only spaces *at all* is inherently delegitimizing their gender identity–well, on the one hand, I do understand it, because trans men are men. But on the other hand, when I'm invoking women-only safe space, I think I want to be invoking the other schema, the nameless schema, the schema that says the reason this space needs to be exclusionary is because of the shared experience of sexism by people who have been sociologically gendered female, and most trans men have as much right to lay claim to that as cis women or trans women.
One reason I want to settle this for myself is that I'm pretty sure my mind swaps fluidly back and forth between the consensus term "woman" and my private, broader term "woman." Because I use the same word for both, I fail to always make the distinction between when I've moved from one category to the other. A lot of times I can catch and correct myself before I speak. But sometimes, I don't. And in the interest of making sure I say less stupid, cissexist shit without thinking, it would be good for me to clarify what's going on in my brain, articulate it, understand it, and then fix it, whether that means mentally eradicating my second mental category or relabeling it.
So I guess some of the things I'm chewing on and that I'm interested in other people's perspective on, include:
*Is the concept behind my second, nameless schema inherently transphobic?
*If yes, then ignore the rest of the questions, obviously, but assuming no, is there an existing name for it that I haven't run into? Is there an intuitive name for it that's not in use?
*Again assuming no, does it seem sociologically useful (as I intuitively think it is) to measure some things by how they affect people with experience inhabiting the marginalized binary gender, rather than just measuring how they affect people who fit the traditional "woman" schema?
I'm going to go ahead and limit the comments on this post to only people who believe in equality between trans and cis folks on both a legal and moral level.
So, I have this thing in my head where when I'm thinking about "who here is a man," I include cis men and trans men. If I'm thinking about "who here is a woman" and I'm thinking about something that doesn't have to do with issues around gender and sex as experienced by sociological minorities, then I include cis women and trans women.
But if I'm thinking about "who here is a woman" and I'm thinking about something that *does* have to do with issues around gender and sex as experienced by sociological minorities–such as "how do we measure the gender bias in this engineering department by looking at the test scores of men and women?"–then I include cis women, trans women, and trans *men.*
I'm talking about auto-inclusion here. The measurements the back of my brain makes before I stop it and go, "Knock that off, trans men are men," and correct myself.
But there are definitely circumstances in which I think of cis men as one group and cis women, trans women, and trans men as another. For instance, when I meet someone new (and I know their cis/trans and gender status), I have the same basal level of comfort talking to people about issues of sex and gender if they are cis women, trans women, or trans men. And that's not something I have an inclination to correct the way I correct my brain when it's wrong about statistics. (Maybe I should, though. That's part of what I'm trying to work out.)
I suspect my problem is that my brain actually has two schemas which it uses the word "woman" to label. One is the traditional schema: people who are gendered female. The other includes most people who have experience being gendered (or wanting to be gendered if they are pre-transition) as female by society. This would include female-bodied genderqueer or agendered people, or male-bodied genderqueer or agendered people if they are or have been read as female on a regular enough basis for it to affect them as far as sociological measures are concerned.
Probably there should be fine-tuning of what I just said to make it include all the people I mean to include and exclude all the people I don't, but I think that's the best marshaling of vocabulary I can handle right now.
So there's the one schema I have in my brain that's labeled "woman" which is, I think, the consensus definition of woman. And then there's another schema in my head labeled "woman" (and the fact that it's labeled woman may be inherently transphobic) that is a nameless category that includes the bunch of people mentioned above.
If there is a name for this category, I don't now it. Queer doesn't cover it; that includes cis men. Genderqueer doesn't cover it; that excludes cis women.
Now I don't mean to say that cis women, trans women, and trans men (and the other aforementeioned groups) have all experienced being socially gendered female in the same way. I understand, for instance, that many trans men will have experienced being gendered female differently than cis women since they are not actually gendered female. And obviously all three groups are capable of having horrible, douchey ideas about sex and gender.
Sometimes, though, I think the groups often do go together. Like, as I mentioned above, when I'm calculating the risk of talking to someone I don't know very well about sex and gender issues. Or when science fiction writers are measuring "how many women writers are there in this table of contents?" I often think that it's a less revealing measure than "how many people inhabiting marginalized gender spaces are in this table of contents?"
Or, here's another example where my brain ends up with something other than the consensus position, and I'm not sure if I'm seeing something real or being a douche–when people are discussing safe spaces for women, and they talk about how much it sucks that trans women can't get in, I'm totally onboard. That is suck pants with suck shoes. I also am totally onboard when they talk about how much that position is revealed as even more scarily transphobic when trans men are allowed but trans women aren't. But the further argument that allowing trans men into women-only spaces *at all* is inherently delegitimizing their gender identity–well, on the one hand, I do understand it, because trans men are men. But on the other hand, when I'm invoking women-only safe space, I think I want to be invoking the other schema, the nameless schema, the schema that says the reason this space needs to be exclusionary is because of the shared experience of sexism by people who have been sociologically gendered female, and most trans men have as much right to lay claim to that as cis women or trans women.
One reason I want to settle this for myself is that I'm pretty sure my mind swaps fluidly back and forth between the consensus term "woman" and my private, broader term "woman." Because I use the same word for both, I fail to always make the distinction between when I've moved from one category to the other. A lot of times I can catch and correct myself before I speak. But sometimes, I don't. And in the interest of making sure I say less stupid, cissexist shit without thinking, it would be good for me to clarify what's going on in my brain, articulate it, understand it, and then fix it, whether that means mentally eradicating my second mental category or relabeling it.
So I guess some of the things I'm chewing on and that I'm interested in other people's perspective on, include:
*Is the concept behind my second, nameless schema inherently transphobic?
*If yes, then ignore the rest of the questions, obviously, but assuming no, is there an existing name for it that I haven't run into? Is there an intuitive name for it that's not in use?
*Again assuming no, does it seem sociologically useful (as I intuitively think it is) to measure some things by how they affect people with experience inhabiting the marginalized binary gender, rather than just measuring how they affect people who fit the traditional "woman" schema?
I'm going to go ahead and limit the comments on this post to only people who believe in equality between trans and cis folks on both a legal and moral level.
Rachel Swirsky's novella recommendations from 2011
I always end up reading far fewer novellas than I do things of any other category. This year, I read 13. In addition to the sources I used for the other short fiction, I went to the SFWA forums and pulled down anything with an interesting title. I would have pulled down all of the novellas in the forums, but my husband is on the point of threatening divorce if I don't wrap this up. :-P
MY HARD PICKS:
"With Unclean Hands" by Adam Troy-Castro (Analog) - A far-future story in which aliens offer an unbelievably good trade--amazing technology that humans want in exchange for a single human. The main character, who is expected to merely rubber-stamp the transaction, must instead figure out why the aliens are making such a bizarre trade and whether it's in human interest to agree. I really liked this; I thought it was smart and well-plotted. The main character is a jaded woman who, as a little girl, was on a colony that was exposed to a virus that made everyone genocidal; she was the sole survivor, and lives with knowing she murdered friends and family. As the innocent child who committed genocide, Andrea Cort is an analog for Orson Scott's Ender, but I find her contrition, bitterness, and self-flagellating quite a bit more compelling and realistic than Ender's.
"Ice Owl" by Carolyn Ives Gilman (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction) - A little girl who's spent her life traveling from colony to colony has lived more than a hundred linear years, even though she's only been aware for (approximately) 12 of them. The political situation on the world where she's living now has just gotten tricky; a revolution is in the offing. When her school is bombed, the little girl seeks tutelage from an art dealer who knows secrets about the past that the girl slept through. This is my favorite piece by Gilman that I've read so far. I've sometimes felt held at a bit of a remove from Gilman's stories, which isn't to say I didn't still enjoy them, but this one allowed me to go deeper emotionally. The main character was very interesting, and the world around her was incredibly rich with soap opera details. The descriptions of the art and art history were wonderful. Like both of the other novellas I've selected as "hard picks," this one also deals with genocide; I'm not sure whether that says something about my taste (probably) or something about what was in the inspirational ether this year (also, I think, probable). While the Liu is my pick, this was really, really good; it's about as good as space opera gets.
"The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary" by Ken Liu (PANVERSE 3) - This hands-down my top pick for novella, and I really did enjoy the other two quite a bit. In a format reminiscent of Ted Chiang's "Do You Like What You See?" (which appears to have been deliberate; Liu credits the Chiang story as part of his inspiration), the story is told (largely) as if it's the script of a documentary discussing the pros and cons of the historical development of a new technology: in this case, the ability to send an eye-witness back to observe historical events. The take on time travel is unlike anything I've ever seen before, both technologically, but especially sociologically. The time travel itself focuses on the Japanese equivalent of a death camp in China and the writing about it was so skillfully vivid that I had to take breaks to remind myself how to breathe. I was viscerally involved in this story, sick in my gut, furious in my bones. The intellectual considerations (which include the physics of the thing, but are more about international politics and--especially interesting for me--an actual consideration of history as a subject people practice) dominate the story, but Liu is able to use the framework to create several detailed, emotionally interesting characters. I feel like this length gives Liu the space to work more stably with both the intellectual and emotional threads of his story than he always manages with the shorter fiction (for instance, while I thought the balance in "Simulacrum" was quite good, the balance in his "Tying Knots" is--imo--significantly too heavily toward the intellectual, leaving the characters vitiated). I would be interested to see what he could do with even more space to develop both ideas and characters.
MY SOFT PICKS:
"Martian Chronicles" by Cory Doctorow (LIFE ON MARS) - A second wave of immigrants is on its way to Mars, a significant time after the first wave of colonists established themselves. The story takes place on the journey, from the perspective of a teenager who's being brought along by his family. The kids all play a VR game that models life on Mars and the story is about contrasting that game with what happens on the actual Mars--with twists. The politics in this story are unsubtle in a way that I felt like I should have annoyed me (I don't object to blatant politics in stories as a rule, but there was something... simplistic? predictable? about the presentation here that might have been because the story was intended as YA), but really they didn't; mostly I was just going along with the characters and having fun. The world was fun to inhabit and the descriptions VR game kept my gamer-brain entertained.
"Rampion" by Alexandra Duncan (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction) - A retelling of Rapunzel, during a period in history when the Moors and the Christians were fighting for dominance over European land. The details in this were really great, and I liked the gentle way it interacted with the Rapunzel fairy tale, letting the parallels happen without forcing them to be too significant or too close to the original story, so that it felt like part of the novella's natural flow.
OF NOTE:
"The Man Who Bridged the Mist" by Kij Johsnon (Asimov's, first half online here) - So, I adore Kij Johnson's work like crazy, and then I was reading this novella and I was like "oh my god I'm so bored" and there was that really weird, spooky thing that happens when there's an author you love and you're like "nope, this time, no." It's clear, however, that this novella is actually good; Strahan loves it, for instance. And there were things about it I really liked: the story takes place on the banks of a river filled with sinister mist in which ancient, creepy fish-like creatures swim. I *loved* the passages about the mist and the fish. I also found the way it examined themes about advancing technology and its gains and losses really interesting. I didn't object to the characters, and other different circumstances I might have connected with them, but there was just something that really got between me and the story. For the first 40% especially, I think I kept waiting for a dramatic plot. For me, it was kind of like "OK, all this is happening, but why am I reading about it?" There wasn't any plot tension (for me) and while I'm often okay with that, in this case the details of the characters' lives didn't pull me through either. Again, I'm sure this is a quite striking novella when it's being read by someone who isn't me, and even if you are me, there were things about it to like. I always find it weird when I fall so far away from a consensus opinion I'm sure is basically accurate (like Mieville, I just don't get into his work, and I know it's my fault). I just didn't "impress" on this story; I never found the point where I became immersed as a reader.
"Long Time Waiting" by Carrie Vaughn (KITTY'S GREATEST HITS) - I was reading this story and then I went "hey, some of the stuff in this is familiar" and then I went "Oh! It's from the perspective of a character from one of Carrie Vaughn's Kitty the Werewolf novels, telling a set of events we don't get a clear view on during the text." I enjoyed it from the perspective of someone who enjoys the novels. I particularly like the character of the grumpy ghost from the early 1900s.
MY HARD PICKS:
"With Unclean Hands" by Adam Troy-Castro (Analog) - A far-future story in which aliens offer an unbelievably good trade--amazing technology that humans want in exchange for a single human. The main character, who is expected to merely rubber-stamp the transaction, must instead figure out why the aliens are making such a bizarre trade and whether it's in human interest to agree. I really liked this; I thought it was smart and well-plotted. The main character is a jaded woman who, as a little girl, was on a colony that was exposed to a virus that made everyone genocidal; she was the sole survivor, and lives with knowing she murdered friends and family. As the innocent child who committed genocide, Andrea Cort is an analog for Orson Scott's Ender, but I find her contrition, bitterness, and self-flagellating quite a bit more compelling and realistic than Ender's.
"Ice Owl" by Carolyn Ives Gilman (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction) - A little girl who's spent her life traveling from colony to colony has lived more than a hundred linear years, even though she's only been aware for (approximately) 12 of them. The political situation on the world where she's living now has just gotten tricky; a revolution is in the offing. When her school is bombed, the little girl seeks tutelage from an art dealer who knows secrets about the past that the girl slept through. This is my favorite piece by Gilman that I've read so far. I've sometimes felt held at a bit of a remove from Gilman's stories, which isn't to say I didn't still enjoy them, but this one allowed me to go deeper emotionally. The main character was very interesting, and the world around her was incredibly rich with soap opera details. The descriptions of the art and art history were wonderful. Like both of the other novellas I've selected as "hard picks," this one also deals with genocide; I'm not sure whether that says something about my taste (probably) or something about what was in the inspirational ether this year (also, I think, probable). While the Liu is my pick, this was really, really good; it's about as good as space opera gets.
"The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary" by Ken Liu (PANVERSE 3) - This hands-down my top pick for novella, and I really did enjoy the other two quite a bit. In a format reminiscent of Ted Chiang's "Do You Like What You See?" (which appears to have been deliberate; Liu credits the Chiang story as part of his inspiration), the story is told (largely) as if it's the script of a documentary discussing the pros and cons of the historical development of a new technology: in this case, the ability to send an eye-witness back to observe historical events. The take on time travel is unlike anything I've ever seen before, both technologically, but especially sociologically. The time travel itself focuses on the Japanese equivalent of a death camp in China and the writing about it was so skillfully vivid that I had to take breaks to remind myself how to breathe. I was viscerally involved in this story, sick in my gut, furious in my bones. The intellectual considerations (which include the physics of the thing, but are more about international politics and--especially interesting for me--an actual consideration of history as a subject people practice) dominate the story, but Liu is able to use the framework to create several detailed, emotionally interesting characters. I feel like this length gives Liu the space to work more stably with both the intellectual and emotional threads of his story than he always manages with the shorter fiction (for instance, while I thought the balance in "Simulacrum" was quite good, the balance in his "Tying Knots" is--imo--significantly too heavily toward the intellectual, leaving the characters vitiated). I would be interested to see what he could do with even more space to develop both ideas and characters.
MY SOFT PICKS:
"Martian Chronicles" by Cory Doctorow (LIFE ON MARS) - A second wave of immigrants is on its way to Mars, a significant time after the first wave of colonists established themselves. The story takes place on the journey, from the perspective of a teenager who's being brought along by his family. The kids all play a VR game that models life on Mars and the story is about contrasting that game with what happens on the actual Mars--with twists. The politics in this story are unsubtle in a way that I felt like I should have annoyed me (I don't object to blatant politics in stories as a rule, but there was something... simplistic? predictable? about the presentation here that might have been because the story was intended as YA), but really they didn't; mostly I was just going along with the characters and having fun. The world was fun to inhabit and the descriptions VR game kept my gamer-brain entertained.
"Rampion" by Alexandra Duncan (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction) - A retelling of Rapunzel, during a period in history when the Moors and the Christians were fighting for dominance over European land. The details in this were really great, and I liked the gentle way it interacted with the Rapunzel fairy tale, letting the parallels happen without forcing them to be too significant or too close to the original story, so that it felt like part of the novella's natural flow.
OF NOTE:
"The Man Who Bridged the Mist" by Kij Johsnon (Asimov's, first half online here) - So, I adore Kij Johnson's work like crazy, and then I was reading this novella and I was like "oh my god I'm so bored" and there was that really weird, spooky thing that happens when there's an author you love and you're like "nope, this time, no." It's clear, however, that this novella is actually good; Strahan loves it, for instance. And there were things about it I really liked: the story takes place on the banks of a river filled with sinister mist in which ancient, creepy fish-like creatures swim. I *loved* the passages about the mist and the fish. I also found the way it examined themes about advancing technology and its gains and losses really interesting. I didn't object to the characters, and other different circumstances I might have connected with them, but there was just something that really got between me and the story. For the first 40% especially, I think I kept waiting for a dramatic plot. For me, it was kind of like "OK, all this is happening, but why am I reading about it?" There wasn't any plot tension (for me) and while I'm often okay with that, in this case the details of the characters' lives didn't pull me through either. Again, I'm sure this is a quite striking novella when it's being read by someone who isn't me, and even if you are me, there were things about it to like. I always find it weird when I fall so far away from a consensus opinion I'm sure is basically accurate (like Mieville, I just don't get into his work, and I know it's my fault). I just didn't "impress" on this story; I never found the point where I became immersed as a reader.
"Long Time Waiting" by Carrie Vaughn (KITTY'S GREATEST HITS) - I was reading this story and then I went "hey, some of the stuff in this is familiar" and then I went "Oh! It's from the perspective of a character from one of Carrie Vaughn's Kitty the Werewolf novels, telling a set of events we don't get a clear view on during the text." I enjoyed it from the perspective of someone who enjoys the novels. I particularly like the character of the grumpy ghost from the early 1900s.
February 1, 2012
Rachel Swirsky's Novelette Recommendations from 2011
Repeating the notes from my previous post: this year, I read about 260 short stories and novelettes. I compiled my list using a combination of reading magazines and anthologies, querying authors about their yearly work, asking for recommendations from critics and editors, and referencing the year's best anthologies. As always, I enjoyed more novelettes. than I'm listing here.
Some of the pieces listed as novelettes may actually be short stories. I double-checked the ones I'm voting on, but for the rest of my reading, where it wasn't immediately obvious what category the work belonged to, I guessed.
MY HARD PICKS:
I haven't entirely decided on my ballot yet, but I'm absolutely sure these two will be on it.
"The Way Station" by Nathan Ballingsrud (Naked City) - A man, haunted by the city of New Orleans, navigates the world in which he is part streets and levies and the wreckage from floods. Haunting imagery and setting details build an eerie, well-fleshed character and tone. This is the kind of story that shows the power of surrealism in illuminating emotional truths. It exposes the heart of grief.
"What We Found" by Geoff Ryman (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction) - The protagonist of this story has discovered that stress levels affect subsequent generations through the male line, meaning that the tragedies of the past are literally passed down into the bodies of the present and future. Now considering his own marriage and the prospect of passing on the stresses his line has endured, the narrator relates his experience of growing up. It's intense, often sad, but also brilliant in the way that it delineates character and setting detail. This story does what I've noticed I seem to want from fiction--it brings both literary tools and genre tools to bear in a way that sharpens both.
SOFT PICKS
3 of these 6 will be on my ballot, but I'm not yet sure which three. I wish I could nominate all of them.
"Six Months, Three Days" by Charlie Jane Anders (Tor.com) - Two precognitives meet and fall in love. Their relationship is fraught by the fact that one of the precognitives is a determinist (seeing the future as a single stream) and the other believes in free will (and sees possibilities branching from most moments). The philosophical contrast and science fictional premise provide an intriguing philosophical flavor to the human romance; the two work exquisitely in synchrony.
"Gap Year" by Christopher Barzak (Teeth) - Like Kelly Link at her best, this story of a girl who discovers herself to be an emotional vampire not only deploys surreal, disconcerting imagery in service of emotional truth--but also does so in a satisfying, story-shaped structure.
"The Summer People" by Kelly Link (Steampunk!) - Kelly Link has a genius for characters and beautiful, strange imagery. Both are here. The character is strange and immediately compelling, her situation likewise. Strange events unfold in a way that's both disorienting and completely intuitive; she has an amazing talent for calling for the suspense of disbelief, for welcoming the reader into strageness. Unfortunately, I sometimes feel that Link's stories are structurally weak, although this makes the ones that aren't ("The Constable of Abal," "Magic for Beginners," etc.) even more striking. This one manages a compelling plot through to the abbreviated end. It's still striking and wonderful, but I'm left with an unresolved hollowness that disconnects me emotionally from the rest of the story. (Endings are of course controversial, and I'm a big fan of endings that leave you at the perfect moment, even if that moment is an unresolved chord--Tim Pratt's "Cup and Table" oh my God--but this one missed for me.)
"Slice of Life" by Lucius Shepherd (Teeth) - Another story that reminded me of Kelly Link. (I don't know what to say. I love her writing. Maybe Kelly Link is one of the paradigms in my brain against which All Others Will Be Judged.) The vampire in this story is unusual and compelling, but the most striking thing about this story is the non-magical protagonist, whose self-resolve--and sometimes bitterness--rise off the page to make her a fully fleshed, compelling figure.
"The Migratory Patterns of Dancers" by Katie Sparrow (Giganotosaurus) - In a future without birds, men ride through the country, wearing wings and dancing, doing the dangerous work of sustaining memory. Near-future science fiction with an unusual premise and absolutely gorgeous imagery and voice.
"Work, with Occasional Molemen" by Jeremiah Tolbert (Giganotosaurus) - Although there's a joke at the center of the piece that I'm not fond of; ignoring that, this is a visceral, emotionally intense piece with scarily good characterization and setting. It's dark, almost hopeless, but not in a sci-fi dystopia-way, but in an emotionally unflinching way like Dorothy Allison. It's a very unusual combination of voice and genre; it's distinctly itself in a striking way. I'm not sure I've ever read anything else like it.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED:
"The Silver Wind" by Nina Allan (Interzone) - So, I read this novelette in the context of a linked short story collection, in which it was story #2 or #3, so I have trouble separating it entirely from the rest of the collection in my mind. Allan is a strikingly talented writer with a facility for taking complex ideas (time travel, alienation, exploration) and using extremely detailed characterization to reveal their emotional truths. The characters and premises in the collection are interesting and the read is often surprising and gratifying, but as a whole, I thought it was overwritten. Pruning back some of the contemplations and repetitions would have given the emotional moments and character revelations more of a chance to stand out. The novelette itself is the most highly structured piece of the collection and it's odd and compelling while also providing intellectual fodder.
"The House of Aunts" by Zen Cho (Giganotosaurus) - The story of a girl who is a variety of vampire from a non-western mythology and her first experiences with love. The relationships between the main character and her titular aunts manage to be tender, compelling, and creepy all at once. The main character, likewise, is easy to invest in, and yet has an edge of the gruesome. The story as a whole maintains this balance well, mixing the familiar and the revolting, in a way that I think most vampire stories fail to. Perhaps it's because the main characters aren't vampires in the traditional sense that allows their methods of killing and eating to feel freshly frightening in a way that blood-sucking doesn't. This story was very good, but I felt like it flinched away from the ending rather than facing the emotional complexity it had set up.
"Anticopernicus" by Adam Roberts (Amazon e-book at .99) - I didn't get very emotionally involved with this story, although I liked the cynical main character. However, the ideas and the action were pretty cool. It's somewhere between near- and far-future SF, and takes place at the time of first contact with aliens.
"The Skinny Girl" by Lucius Shepherd (Naked City) - Although i didn't think this piece held together very well structurally (particularly at the end; endings are so slippery), the strangeness and eeriness of it were very compelling. A photographer, obsessed with death, meets death's avatar. Their spine-shivering of their interaction--particularly when it's erotic--is skillfully crafted.
"Flying" by Delia Sherman (Teeth) - An aerialist who has been forbidden to practice her trade since she began dying of leukemia runs off to join a strange, timeless circus. There's an eeriness to circuses, of course, which gives all writing about them a boost when it comes to evoking the odd, but I especially liked the descriptions of this circus and its acts. I was compelled by the main character's hardened resolve. Sherman's voice is, as ever, exceptionally sharp.
RECOMMENDED:
"Slow as a Bullet" by Andy Duncan (Eclipse 4) - Nothing too deep, but a really entertaining tall tale in a characteristically entertaining Andy Duncan voice.
"Afterbirth" by Kameron Hurley (Amazon e-book at .99) - A tie-in with Hurley's GOD'S WAR.
OF NOTE:
"A Small Price to pay for Birdsong" by K.J. Parker (Subterranean Magazine) - Amadeus v. Salieri, fantasy style.
"Sauerkraut Station" by Ferret Steinmetz (Giganotosaurus) - While the voice of the protagonist--a young girl--rings false in places, this is fun, traditional space opera.
Some of the pieces listed as novelettes may actually be short stories. I double-checked the ones I'm voting on, but for the rest of my reading, where it wasn't immediately obvious what category the work belonged to, I guessed.
MY HARD PICKS:
I haven't entirely decided on my ballot yet, but I'm absolutely sure these two will be on it.
"The Way Station" by Nathan Ballingsrud (Naked City) - A man, haunted by the city of New Orleans, navigates the world in which he is part streets and levies and the wreckage from floods. Haunting imagery and setting details build an eerie, well-fleshed character and tone. This is the kind of story that shows the power of surrealism in illuminating emotional truths. It exposes the heart of grief.
"What We Found" by Geoff Ryman (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction) - The protagonist of this story has discovered that stress levels affect subsequent generations through the male line, meaning that the tragedies of the past are literally passed down into the bodies of the present and future. Now considering his own marriage and the prospect of passing on the stresses his line has endured, the narrator relates his experience of growing up. It's intense, often sad, but also brilliant in the way that it delineates character and setting detail. This story does what I've noticed I seem to want from fiction--it brings both literary tools and genre tools to bear in a way that sharpens both.
SOFT PICKS
3 of these 6 will be on my ballot, but I'm not yet sure which three. I wish I could nominate all of them.
"Six Months, Three Days" by Charlie Jane Anders (Tor.com) - Two precognitives meet and fall in love. Their relationship is fraught by the fact that one of the precognitives is a determinist (seeing the future as a single stream) and the other believes in free will (and sees possibilities branching from most moments). The philosophical contrast and science fictional premise provide an intriguing philosophical flavor to the human romance; the two work exquisitely in synchrony.
"Gap Year" by Christopher Barzak (Teeth) - Like Kelly Link at her best, this story of a girl who discovers herself to be an emotional vampire not only deploys surreal, disconcerting imagery in service of emotional truth--but also does so in a satisfying, story-shaped structure.
"The Summer People" by Kelly Link (Steampunk!) - Kelly Link has a genius for characters and beautiful, strange imagery. Both are here. The character is strange and immediately compelling, her situation likewise. Strange events unfold in a way that's both disorienting and completely intuitive; she has an amazing talent for calling for the suspense of disbelief, for welcoming the reader into strageness. Unfortunately, I sometimes feel that Link's stories are structurally weak, although this makes the ones that aren't ("The Constable of Abal," "Magic for Beginners," etc.) even more striking. This one manages a compelling plot through to the abbreviated end. It's still striking and wonderful, but I'm left with an unresolved hollowness that disconnects me emotionally from the rest of the story. (Endings are of course controversial, and I'm a big fan of endings that leave you at the perfect moment, even if that moment is an unresolved chord--Tim Pratt's "Cup and Table" oh my God--but this one missed for me.)
"Slice of Life" by Lucius Shepherd (Teeth) - Another story that reminded me of Kelly Link. (I don't know what to say. I love her writing. Maybe Kelly Link is one of the paradigms in my brain against which All Others Will Be Judged.) The vampire in this story is unusual and compelling, but the most striking thing about this story is the non-magical protagonist, whose self-resolve--and sometimes bitterness--rise off the page to make her a fully fleshed, compelling figure.
"The Migratory Patterns of Dancers" by Katie Sparrow (Giganotosaurus) - In a future without birds, men ride through the country, wearing wings and dancing, doing the dangerous work of sustaining memory. Near-future science fiction with an unusual premise and absolutely gorgeous imagery and voice.
"Work, with Occasional Molemen" by Jeremiah Tolbert (Giganotosaurus) - Although there's a joke at the center of the piece that I'm not fond of; ignoring that, this is a visceral, emotionally intense piece with scarily good characterization and setting. It's dark, almost hopeless, but not in a sci-fi dystopia-way, but in an emotionally unflinching way like Dorothy Allison. It's a very unusual combination of voice and genre; it's distinctly itself in a striking way. I'm not sure I've ever read anything else like it.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED:
"The Silver Wind" by Nina Allan (Interzone) - So, I read this novelette in the context of a linked short story collection, in which it was story #2 or #3, so I have trouble separating it entirely from the rest of the collection in my mind. Allan is a strikingly talented writer with a facility for taking complex ideas (time travel, alienation, exploration) and using extremely detailed characterization to reveal their emotional truths. The characters and premises in the collection are interesting and the read is often surprising and gratifying, but as a whole, I thought it was overwritten. Pruning back some of the contemplations and repetitions would have given the emotional moments and character revelations more of a chance to stand out. The novelette itself is the most highly structured piece of the collection and it's odd and compelling while also providing intellectual fodder.
"The House of Aunts" by Zen Cho (Giganotosaurus) - The story of a girl who is a variety of vampire from a non-western mythology and her first experiences with love. The relationships between the main character and her titular aunts manage to be tender, compelling, and creepy all at once. The main character, likewise, is easy to invest in, and yet has an edge of the gruesome. The story as a whole maintains this balance well, mixing the familiar and the revolting, in a way that I think most vampire stories fail to. Perhaps it's because the main characters aren't vampires in the traditional sense that allows their methods of killing and eating to feel freshly frightening in a way that blood-sucking doesn't. This story was very good, but I felt like it flinched away from the ending rather than facing the emotional complexity it had set up.
"Anticopernicus" by Adam Roberts (Amazon e-book at .99) - I didn't get very emotionally involved with this story, although I liked the cynical main character. However, the ideas and the action were pretty cool. It's somewhere between near- and far-future SF, and takes place at the time of first contact with aliens.
"The Skinny Girl" by Lucius Shepherd (Naked City) - Although i didn't think this piece held together very well structurally (particularly at the end; endings are so slippery), the strangeness and eeriness of it were very compelling. A photographer, obsessed with death, meets death's avatar. Their spine-shivering of their interaction--particularly when it's erotic--is skillfully crafted.
"Flying" by Delia Sherman (Teeth) - An aerialist who has been forbidden to practice her trade since she began dying of leukemia runs off to join a strange, timeless circus. There's an eeriness to circuses, of course, which gives all writing about them a boost when it comes to evoking the odd, but I especially liked the descriptions of this circus and its acts. I was compelled by the main character's hardened resolve. Sherman's voice is, as ever, exceptionally sharp.
RECOMMENDED:
"Slow as a Bullet" by Andy Duncan (Eclipse 4) - Nothing too deep, but a really entertaining tall tale in a characteristically entertaining Andy Duncan voice.
"Afterbirth" by Kameron Hurley (Amazon e-book at .99) - A tie-in with Hurley's GOD'S WAR.
OF NOTE:
"A Small Price to pay for Birdsong" by K.J. Parker (Subterranean Magazine) - Amadeus v. Salieri, fantasy style.
"Sauerkraut Station" by Ferret Steinmetz (Giganotosaurus) - While the voice of the protagonist--a young girl--rings false in places, this is fun, traditional space opera.
I'm running for SFWA vice president
My statement of candidacy is in the forums, but I wanted to make a public announcement for people who don't often hop over there.
January 31, 2012
Rachel Swirsky's Short Story Recommendations from 2011
This year, I read about 260 short stories and novelettes. I compiled my list using a combination of reading magazines and anthologies, querying authors about their yearly work, asking for recommendations from critics and editors, and referencing the year's best anthologies. As always, I enjoyed more stories than I'm listing here.
Some of the pieces listed as short stories may actually be novelettes. I double-checked the ones I'm voting on, but for the rest of my reading, where it wasn't immediately obvious what category the work belonged to, I guessed.
MY BALLOT:
"Her Husband's Hands" by Adam-Troy Castro (Lightspeed) - A war widow receives bad news from the front--that her husband is dead--however, they've managed to save his hands and only his hands. This is pretty much the height of metaphor-as-story. In that, it's not dissimilar from last year's "Arvies" in which Troy-Castro created a physicalized metaphor about abortion, but in my opinion, this piece does a much better job of pulling it off. It's dark, intensely written, and intimately and compassionately characterized. I was seriously awed.
"Old Habits" by Nalo Hopkinson (Eclipse 4) - Ghosts relive their deaths in a mall. The concept of ghosts reliving their deaths isn't unusual, of course, but Hopkinson brings unusual storytelling to the ensemble cast. Her characters are generously and sensitively portrayed, their stories interesting, and the plot pitch-perfect in terms of pulling the reader forward without sacrificing characterization or tone.
"Hero-Mother" by Vylar Kaftan (Giganotosaurus) - Kaftan's story of the alien physiology of sex is reminiscent of Tiptree's "Love is the Plan, the Plan is Death," in the way it confronts the viscerally physical. Unlike Tiptree's story, however, "Hero-Mother" is also a story about love, sacrifice and limitation.
"Simulacrum" by Ken Liu (Lightspeed) - A father and daughter, unable to relate to each other in the real world, find their relationship (voluntarily and involuntarily) mitigated by computerized simulacra. This story is told in sharp, sweet flashes that are vivid in detail and characterization. The science fictional concept in the story provides an excellent means for Liu to explore lost connections and alienation between parent and child.
"The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees" by E. Lily Yu (Clarkesworld) - Sometimes people manage to pull off surrealism and whimsy in a way that feels like they've discarded narrative conventions and, damn it, are just going to wander wherever they feel like it. It doesn't usually work, but sometimes it does. Cartographer fucking wasps and anarchist fucking bees.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED:
"Three Damnations: A Fugue" by James Alan Gardner (Fantasy Magazine) - Three characters are stuck in a loop, dancing around each other, making each other miserable. Each of the characters and stories is interesting, and there's an admirable flesh on the story, giving it more depth than the (clever) idea alone. There are also some striking, unusual images.
"The Axiom of Choice" by David Goldman (New Haven Review) - This is the best reinterpretation of choose your own adventure stories I've seen so far. The story brings up philosophical and mathematical issues that provide intellectual interest, but also creates an emotionally compelling story.
"Story Kit" by Kij Johnson (Eclipse 4) - As Always, Kij Johnson has an amazing ability to tell stories, not only with an author's usual tools, but using the structure of the story itself to fascinate and move her audience. This meta-fictional story about love and loss is, in many ways, brilliant, and certainly noteable for its energy and ideas. However, I think the story doesn't quite come together--at one point, the narrator wonders whether what she's talking about is so personal that she can't even endure talking about it at one remove. It seems as if the whole story is a remove away from its subject matter, as if it's being held at arm's length. Each of the metaphorical threads in the story has its brilliance, but I didn't feel they all came together to make the story what it could have been.
"The Bricks of Gelecek" by Matt Kressel (Naked City) - One of the spirits of destruction falls in love with a human girl. Kressel creates absolutely stunning imagery in this story. It has the scope and breadth of an epic story in a way that really worked for me. Descriptions of ancient, fallen cities are gorgeous. Kressel has a talent, I think, in depicting the weight of history, even in short form. The ending faltered for me, but in some ways, the events and characters weren't my primary concern to begin with; this story is a delight in setting and cinematography.
"Valley of the Girls" by Kelly Link (Subterranean Online) - Kelly Link does her usual thing, weaving together several disparate but striking concepts. They come together here in a far-future story with unusual ideas and striking imagery. I didn't find this piece particularly emotionally involving, but it was beautiful and interesting to read.
"The Paper Menagerie" by Ken Liu (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction) - This story does a really interesting job of relaying the second-generation immigrant experience, creating discomfort and alienation through specific, suburban details. It reaches its pinnacle when the main character reads a letter left by his deceased mother. Unfortunately, the denouement doesn't sustain the emotional climax; the main character's emotions read as assumed, rather than fully realized on the page. This prevents the story from being outstanding rather than very good.
"Defenders" by Will McIntosh (Lightspeed) - McIntosh's story poses an ambiguous relationship between humans and aliens in a post-apocalyptic world. The way that the text deals with the ambiguities around power, alliances, violence, redemption, sacrifice, and yearning for connection remind me very much of the way Octavia Butler handled these themes, particularly in one of her later published stories, "Amnesty."
RECCOMMENDED:
"Smoke City" by Christopher Barzak (Asimov's) - Beautiful, surrealist imagery, in a story that doesn't fit easily in genre categories.
"In the Gardens of the Night" by Siobhan Carroll (Beneath Ceaseless Skies) - Immersive fantasy with an interesting character and tone and genuinely well-created tension.
"Selling Home" by Tina Connolly (Bull Spec) - An emotionally evocative story in a far-future dystopia.
"Staying Behind" by Ken Liu (Clarkesworld) - An upload story from the perspective of those who stay behind that includes some striking, unusual images, such as kids bicycling in their evening dresses through the post-apocalyptic world to prom.
"Houses" by Mark Pantoja (Lightspeed) - A clever, well-structured far-future story.
"Long Enough and Just So Long" by Cat Rambo (Lightspeed) - A wistful far-future.
"Tethered" by Mercurio D. Rivera (Interzone--eligible only for the Hugo) - In a far-future story with aliens, Rivera explores the boundaries of love and physiology.
"The World Is Cruel, My Daughter" by Cory Skerry (Fantasy Magazine) - A surprisngly emotionally evocative retelling of Rapunzel.
"The Future When All's Well" by Cat Valente (Teeth) - A clever way of talking about the experience of growing up in the '8os (with Just say no! and after school specials), using vampires as a metaphor, that pulls off character and emotion as well.
"The Sandal-Bride" by Genevieve Valentine (Fantasy Magazine) - A fantasy that feels much longer than it actually is, with evocative setting details and an interesting plot.
Of Note:
"Lessons from a Clockwork Queen" by Megan Arkenberg (Fantasy Magazine)
"Needles" by Elizabeth Bear (Blood and Other Cravings)
"Sunbleached" by Nathan Ballingsrud (Teeth)
"Join" by Liz Coleman (Lightspeed)
"The Double of My Double Is Not My Double" by Jeffrey Ford (Eclipse 4)
"Younger Women" by Karen Joy Fowler (Subterranean Magazine)
"Steam Girl" by Dylan Horrocks (Steampunk!)
"History" by Ellen Kushner (Teeth)
"And Neither Have I Wings to Fly" by Carrie Laben (Bewere the Night)
"This Strange Way of Dying" by Sylvia Moreno-Garcia (Giganotosaurus)
"How Maartje and Uppinder Terraformed Mars (Marsmen Trad.)" by Lisa Nohealani Morton (Lightspeed)
"The House That Made the Sixteen Loops of Time" by Tamsyn Muir (Fantasy Magazine)
"All That Touches the Air" by An Owomoyela (Lightspeed)
"The Fish of Lijiang" by Chen Qiufan (Lightspeed; may or may not be eligible as it's a translation)
"Whose Face This Is I Do Not Know" by Cat Rambo (Clarkesworld)
"Woman Leaves Room" by Robert Reed (Lightspeed)
"The Landholders No Longer Carry Swords" by Patricia Russo (Giganotosaurus)
"The Panda Coin" by Jo Walton (Eclipse 4)
"All You Can Do Is Breathe" by Kaaron Warren (Blood and Other Cravings)
Some of the pieces listed as short stories may actually be novelettes. I double-checked the ones I'm voting on, but for the rest of my reading, where it wasn't immediately obvious what category the work belonged to, I guessed.
MY BALLOT:
"Her Husband's Hands" by Adam-Troy Castro (Lightspeed) - A war widow receives bad news from the front--that her husband is dead--however, they've managed to save his hands and only his hands. This is pretty much the height of metaphor-as-story. In that, it's not dissimilar from last year's "Arvies" in which Troy-Castro created a physicalized metaphor about abortion, but in my opinion, this piece does a much better job of pulling it off. It's dark, intensely written, and intimately and compassionately characterized. I was seriously awed.
"Old Habits" by Nalo Hopkinson (Eclipse 4) - Ghosts relive their deaths in a mall. The concept of ghosts reliving their deaths isn't unusual, of course, but Hopkinson brings unusual storytelling to the ensemble cast. Her characters are generously and sensitively portrayed, their stories interesting, and the plot pitch-perfect in terms of pulling the reader forward without sacrificing characterization or tone.
"Hero-Mother" by Vylar Kaftan (Giganotosaurus) - Kaftan's story of the alien physiology of sex is reminiscent of Tiptree's "Love is the Plan, the Plan is Death," in the way it confronts the viscerally physical. Unlike Tiptree's story, however, "Hero-Mother" is also a story about love, sacrifice and limitation.
"Simulacrum" by Ken Liu (Lightspeed) - A father and daughter, unable to relate to each other in the real world, find their relationship (voluntarily and involuntarily) mitigated by computerized simulacra. This story is told in sharp, sweet flashes that are vivid in detail and characterization. The science fictional concept in the story provides an excellent means for Liu to explore lost connections and alienation between parent and child.
"The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees" by E. Lily Yu (Clarkesworld) - Sometimes people manage to pull off surrealism and whimsy in a way that feels like they've discarded narrative conventions and, damn it, are just going to wander wherever they feel like it. It doesn't usually work, but sometimes it does. Cartographer fucking wasps and anarchist fucking bees.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED:
"Three Damnations: A Fugue" by James Alan Gardner (Fantasy Magazine) - Three characters are stuck in a loop, dancing around each other, making each other miserable. Each of the characters and stories is interesting, and there's an admirable flesh on the story, giving it more depth than the (clever) idea alone. There are also some striking, unusual images.
"The Axiom of Choice" by David Goldman (New Haven Review) - This is the best reinterpretation of choose your own adventure stories I've seen so far. The story brings up philosophical and mathematical issues that provide intellectual interest, but also creates an emotionally compelling story.
"Story Kit" by Kij Johnson (Eclipse 4) - As Always, Kij Johnson has an amazing ability to tell stories, not only with an author's usual tools, but using the structure of the story itself to fascinate and move her audience. This meta-fictional story about love and loss is, in many ways, brilliant, and certainly noteable for its energy and ideas. However, I think the story doesn't quite come together--at one point, the narrator wonders whether what she's talking about is so personal that she can't even endure talking about it at one remove. It seems as if the whole story is a remove away from its subject matter, as if it's being held at arm's length. Each of the metaphorical threads in the story has its brilliance, but I didn't feel they all came together to make the story what it could have been.
"The Bricks of Gelecek" by Matt Kressel (Naked City) - One of the spirits of destruction falls in love with a human girl. Kressel creates absolutely stunning imagery in this story. It has the scope and breadth of an epic story in a way that really worked for me. Descriptions of ancient, fallen cities are gorgeous. Kressel has a talent, I think, in depicting the weight of history, even in short form. The ending faltered for me, but in some ways, the events and characters weren't my primary concern to begin with; this story is a delight in setting and cinematography.
"Valley of the Girls" by Kelly Link (Subterranean Online) - Kelly Link does her usual thing, weaving together several disparate but striking concepts. They come together here in a far-future story with unusual ideas and striking imagery. I didn't find this piece particularly emotionally involving, but it was beautiful and interesting to read.
"The Paper Menagerie" by Ken Liu (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction) - This story does a really interesting job of relaying the second-generation immigrant experience, creating discomfort and alienation through specific, suburban details. It reaches its pinnacle when the main character reads a letter left by his deceased mother. Unfortunately, the denouement doesn't sustain the emotional climax; the main character's emotions read as assumed, rather than fully realized on the page. This prevents the story from being outstanding rather than very good.
"Defenders" by Will McIntosh (Lightspeed) - McIntosh's story poses an ambiguous relationship between humans and aliens in a post-apocalyptic world. The way that the text deals with the ambiguities around power, alliances, violence, redemption, sacrifice, and yearning for connection remind me very much of the way Octavia Butler handled these themes, particularly in one of her later published stories, "Amnesty."
RECCOMMENDED:
"Smoke City" by Christopher Barzak (Asimov's) - Beautiful, surrealist imagery, in a story that doesn't fit easily in genre categories.
"In the Gardens of the Night" by Siobhan Carroll (Beneath Ceaseless Skies) - Immersive fantasy with an interesting character and tone and genuinely well-created tension.
"Selling Home" by Tina Connolly (Bull Spec) - An emotionally evocative story in a far-future dystopia.
"Staying Behind" by Ken Liu (Clarkesworld) - An upload story from the perspective of those who stay behind that includes some striking, unusual images, such as kids bicycling in their evening dresses through the post-apocalyptic world to prom.
"Houses" by Mark Pantoja (Lightspeed) - A clever, well-structured far-future story.
"Long Enough and Just So Long" by Cat Rambo (Lightspeed) - A wistful far-future.
"Tethered" by Mercurio D. Rivera (Interzone--eligible only for the Hugo) - In a far-future story with aliens, Rivera explores the boundaries of love and physiology.
"The World Is Cruel, My Daughter" by Cory Skerry (Fantasy Magazine) - A surprisngly emotionally evocative retelling of Rapunzel.
"The Future When All's Well" by Cat Valente (Teeth) - A clever way of talking about the experience of growing up in the '8os (with Just say no! and after school specials), using vampires as a metaphor, that pulls off character and emotion as well.
"The Sandal-Bride" by Genevieve Valentine (Fantasy Magazine) - A fantasy that feels much longer than it actually is, with evocative setting details and an interesting plot.
Of Note:
"Lessons from a Clockwork Queen" by Megan Arkenberg (Fantasy Magazine)
"Needles" by Elizabeth Bear (Blood and Other Cravings)
"Sunbleached" by Nathan Ballingsrud (Teeth)
"Join" by Liz Coleman (Lightspeed)
"The Double of My Double Is Not My Double" by Jeffrey Ford (Eclipse 4)
"Younger Women" by Karen Joy Fowler (Subterranean Magazine)
"Steam Girl" by Dylan Horrocks (Steampunk!)
"History" by Ellen Kushner (Teeth)
"And Neither Have I Wings to Fly" by Carrie Laben (Bewere the Night)
"This Strange Way of Dying" by Sylvia Moreno-Garcia (Giganotosaurus)
"How Maartje and Uppinder Terraformed Mars (Marsmen Trad.)" by Lisa Nohealani Morton (Lightspeed)
"The House That Made the Sixteen Loops of Time" by Tamsyn Muir (Fantasy Magazine)
"All That Touches the Air" by An Owomoyela (Lightspeed)
"The Fish of Lijiang" by Chen Qiufan (Lightspeed; may or may not be eligible as it's a translation)
"Whose Face This Is I Do Not Know" by Cat Rambo (Clarkesworld)
"Woman Leaves Room" by Robert Reed (Lightspeed)
"The Landholders No Longer Carry Swords" by Patricia Russo (Giganotosaurus)
"The Panda Coin" by Jo Walton (Eclipse 4)
"All You Can Do Is Breathe" by Kaaron Warren (Blood and Other Cravings)
January 19, 2012
2 Novelettes and a Short Story by Rachel Swirsky
I've been busy reading books for the Norton Award so I didn't put aside the time to do as all the other writerettes do and post a few pieces of mine that were published in the previous year.
Fields of Gold
A novelette, originally published in Johnathan Strahan's ECLIPSE 4
Out from Nightshade Press
The Taste of Promises
A novelette, originally published in Jonathan Strahan's LIFE ON MARS
Out from Viking
Diving after the Moon
Short story, originally published in Clarkesworld Magazine
Some of my other fiction that came out in 2011 includes:
"Death and the All-Night Donut Shop" in Unstuck Magazine
"A Practical Guide to Loving the Dead" in the New Haven Review
"Extremes" in Nature Magazine
Fields of Gold
A novelette, originally published in Johnathan Strahan's ECLIPSE 4
Out from Nightshade Press
When Dennis died, he found himself in another place. Dead people came at him with party hats and presents. Noise makers bleated. Confetti fell. It felt like the most natural thing in the world.
His family was there. Celebrities were there. People Dennis had never seen before in his life were there. Dennis danced under a disco ball with Cleopatra and great-grandma Flora and some dark-haired chick and cousin Joe and Alexander the Great. When he went to the buffet table for a tiny cocktail wiener in pink sauce, Dennis saw Napoleon trying to grope his Aunt Phyllis. She smacked him in the tri-corner hat with her clutch bag.
Napoleon and Shakespeare and Cleopatra looked just like Dennis had expected them to. Henry VIII and Socrates and Jesus, too. Cleopatra wore a long linen dress with a jeweled collar, a live asp coiled around her wrist like a bracelet. Socrates sipped from a glass of hemlock. Jesus bobbed his head up and down like a windshield ornament as he ladled out the punch. Read more.
The Taste of Promises
A novelette, originally published in Jonathan Strahan's LIFE ON MARS
Out from Viking
They approached the settlement at dusk. Tiro switched the skipper to silent mode, grateful he wouldn't have to spend another night strapped in, using just enough fuel to stay warm and breathing.
A message from Tiro's little brother, Eo, scrolled across his visor. Are we there yet?
Tiro rolled his eyes at Eo's impatience. Just about, he sub-vocalized, watching his suit's internal processor translate the words into text.
Is it someplace good? asked Eo.
I think so. Be quiet and let me check it out.
It was a big settlement. Three vast domes rose above the landscape like glass hills. Semi-permanent structures clustered around them, warehouses and vehicle storage buildings constructed from frozen dirt. Light illuminated the footpaths, creating a faintly glowing labyrinth between buildings. Read more.
Diving after the Moon
Short story, originally published in Clarkesworld Magazine
When Norbu was a child, his mother Jamyang told him an old Tibetan story about an industrious but foolish troop of monkeys that lived in a forest near a well. One dusty night, a monkey elder woke thirsty. He crept away from his sleeping mate and went to the well for a drink. Inside, he saw a reflection of the moon.
"The moon has fallen into our well!" he hollered.
His ruckus woke the other monkeys. They all agreed that it would be a terrible thing to live in a moonless world. They joined hands and formed a chain to climb into the well and rescue the moon.
As the monkeys dove in, the moon's reflection broke, leaving blank dark waters. The shamed monkeys climbed out again: shivering, wet, and empty-handed. The real moon chuckled above them, safe in the sky. Read more.
Some of my other fiction that came out in 2011 includes:
"Death and the All-Night Donut Shop" in Unstuck Magazine
"A Practical Guide to Loving the Dead" in the New Haven Review
"Extremes" in Nature Magazine
Reviewing SF&F for Young People Part I: Okorafor, Ac Rosen, Blake, Brosgol, Dolamore
Posting this a day later here than on my other blogs due to internet access issues.
This year, I'm binge reading science fiction and fantasy books that are accessible to young adult and middle grade audiences. I've picked about thirty to review (1). They're books that I felt I had something to say about, not necessarily the books I loved most. They're all good enough to be worth reading, though, or I wouldn't bother to review (2).
AKATA WITCH by Nnedi Okorafor (highly recommended)
Teenage protagonist, Sunny, discovers that she has the ability to learn magic. She makes friends with other teens who have the same abilities. They take lessons together, explore the magical world, and eventually form a coven to fight off a serial killer who is butchering children in order to fuel his own spells.
Sunny and her friends are memorable and interesting characters, each well-drawn through their traits and actions, but especially through their exceptionally written dialogue. Despite the ensemble cast, it's never difficult to remember, crisply, who everyone is and what they want. Even the secondary characters are extremely well-rendered.
Reading about a setting that's still unusual in American fantasy was nice, especially since Okorafor's Nigeria seems sharply observed and non-sentimentalized. (She clearly wasn't following the rules on how to write about Africa.) The strong imagery helps create a magic rich system that seems much more complex than what's on the page. The world-building feels seamless and deep in a way I feel Okorafor often manages, creating a real sense that the settings exist both before and after the characters wander through. Other characters seem to be having their own adventures; we just happen to be watching this one.
The novel suffers from a rushed ending. The plot is foreshadowed for a long time, then suddenly turns up, and all of a sudden everyone's rushing to finish things, and then the book is over in a way that feels unsatisfying. There's no time for the danger to build, no time for complexities and reversals. The bulk of the book is about the journey of learning magic, and it's rich and wonderful. The adventure feels tacked on. It's not that it couldn't have been an interesting adventure; the premises were interesting; but the structural issues caused it to pale in comparison with the beginning of the book.
ALL MEN OF GENIUS by Lev Ac Rosen
Violet Adams wants to attend college so that she can create mechanical and magical wonders, but the best colleges only accept men. Assuming her brother's identity so that she can apply, Violet sneaks into a men's-only school, knowing that if her deception is discovered, she'll be sent to prison.
As an educated reader would guess, a book featuring a cis-woman living as a man is going to be full of mistaken identities, farcical situations, and puzzled lovers. All Men of Genius includes all that stuff, and it's fine. It's often fun.
But the real joy here is the description of the mechanical and magical wonders being made at the university. They. Are. So. Cool. I enjoyed the plot and the characters, but I probably would have still read the book if it had been nothing but a list of awesome experiments the characters were doing.
Don't get me wrong—the book is good on other stuff, too. Fun historical details. Characters you can get behind, including the main character and her brother, but most especially an unexpectedly rich secondary character, Miriam.
There are some pacing problems—it's clear about midway that all the characters are going to get along famously once the secrets are revealed, but the adventure plotline hasn't really begun by that point, so there's a large chunk of text that doesn't have much drive behind it. When the adventure clicks into high gear, it doesn't have much time to develop, so it doesn't feel as realistic as it might; the villain's motivations come across as thin. And the last attempts to wring suspense from "will they or won't they?" read like the paper tiger's pacing the cage; not only is it clear to the reader what's going to happen, but it feels like it must be clear to the characters, too.
Anyway, all that's true, but the major point here is: AWESOME SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTS.
Also, a really funny sequence with a bunny.
ANNA DRESSED IN BLOOD by Kendare Blake (recommended)
Ghost-hunter Cas travels the country chasing ghost stories. When he finds the ghosts, he exorcises them with his magic knife. He's never had a problem until he encounters Anna (dressed in blood), a powerful and violent ghost whose strangeness draws Cas to investigate before he kills.
I don't know if this is the year of awesome ghosts or if ghosts are always awesome or what, but this book featured some awesome ghosts. The awesomest of all is Anna (dressed in blood) who steals the book and runs away with it. The imagery describing her is amazing, from her physical presence to the chilling murders she commits, her character is compelling, and the best part of the book is the resolution of her plotline. Cas himself is a somewhat generic protagonist, a not-so-interesting guy in an interesting situation, but some of the other characters also stand out, such as Cas's awkward, spell-casting friend. The tightly wound plot unspools suspensefully… until the very end when some things resolve too quickly and fail to meet the "inevitable" part of "inevitable and surprising."
One thing that I've discovered in this reading 'bout is that almost all adventure novels veer off at the end this way; it seems like it's hard to toss all those balls in the air, keep them flying, and then successfully catch them all without letting one slip.
ANYA'S GHOST by Vera Brosgol (recommended)
This graphic novel depicts the story of Anya, an unpopular and resentful high school student, who's out walking one day when she falls into a hole—and not just any hole, but one inhabited by a skeleton, which in turn is inhabited by the ghost of a sad girl with a puff of hair like a dandelion. The ghost sneaks a piece of her skeleton into Anya's bag so that when Anya is rescued, the ghost can follow.
The art here is fun, sometimes funny, and intuitive to follow, even for people who don't spend much time reading graphic novels. Anya's grumpy, awkward, angsty adolescence is easy to identify with; she's not always likeable, but she's hard-headed and determined and interesting. The central mystery kept me turning pages, but unfortunately, the book didn't quite manage to execute its leap into horror, leaving the ending a bit pallid and expected.
BETWEEN THE SEA AND SKY by Jacqueline Dolamore
Mermaids can turn into humans, but only if they're willing to endure the shooting pain of each step. After her sister is kidnapped, Esmerine braves the pain and enters the harbor city in search of her. She understands little of the human culture around her, but luckily she runs into a childhood friend: a young, bookish man with bat wings, native to the sky as she is to the sea.
The plot of this novel was a little weird for me in places. For instance, some of the conceits about sirens vs mermaids seemed unnecessarily complicated. The book also draws from what I assume is the mythology about selkies, saying that if a mermaid in human form gives up her magic belt (equivalent to a seal skin?) to a man, she's freed from the pain of walking, but loses her ability to transform back into a mermaid. The abhorrence of giving up the ability to return to one's natural form is central to the way the plot unfolds, but it doesn't entirely make sense—the man seems to be able to return the belt, which would seem to mean that the mermaids can zip back into the ocean, then return to the land whenever they want. Or rather, whenever they can get the men to cooperate. I can see how that would be a problem—many mermaids are kidnapped, and even if they're not, is it really a good idea to trust the fundamentals of one's freedom to someone else?—but it doesn't seem like it's an *impossible* arrangement, the way the book seems to treat it.
For me, the pleasure in this book came in its quieter moments, when the characters had time to sit and talk. There's a long sequence in a bookstore which doesn't entirely fit into the quest plot line (or, at any rate, seems to take a lot of the page count when it's technically not moving the plot forward much), but it was one of my favorite parts of the novel, a kind of tactile pleasure, establishing the world the characters inhabit. Once Esmerine finds her sister, Dolamore does a delicate job of describing the awkward intimacy of their reunion as they find out they didn't know each other nearly as well as they thought they did. I wasn't up for the adventure on this one, but where the book is at its best, it evokes an interesting, quiet tone that feels almost like it comes from a historical novel.
--
(1) I'm doing my reviews in alphabetical order, but I haven't finished reading absolutely everything I'm planning to. I may tack some on at the end, out of order.
(2) Consequently, please interpret "recommended" as "especially recommended."
--
My philosophy on reviewing: I love books and I love talking about them. My goal is to support both readers and writers. It's my hope that reviewing books and creating conversation about them is ultimately beneficial to both.
With few exceptions (and none here), I prefer to talk about books I've enjoyed. Please assume that if I talk about a book here, I enjoyed reading it, even if I'm criticizing the hell out of it. I'm the kind of person who could nitpick through the apocalypse and still have complaints left for the howling void.
This year, I'm binge reading science fiction and fantasy books that are accessible to young adult and middle grade audiences. I've picked about thirty to review (1). They're books that I felt I had something to say about, not necessarily the books I loved most. They're all good enough to be worth reading, though, or I wouldn't bother to review (2).
AKATA WITCH by Nnedi Okorafor (highly recommended)
Teenage protagonist, Sunny, discovers that she has the ability to learn magic. She makes friends with other teens who have the same abilities. They take lessons together, explore the magical world, and eventually form a coven to fight off a serial killer who is butchering children in order to fuel his own spells.
Sunny and her friends are memorable and interesting characters, each well-drawn through their traits and actions, but especially through their exceptionally written dialogue. Despite the ensemble cast, it's never difficult to remember, crisply, who everyone is and what they want. Even the secondary characters are extremely well-rendered.
Reading about a setting that's still unusual in American fantasy was nice, especially since Okorafor's Nigeria seems sharply observed and non-sentimentalized. (She clearly wasn't following the rules on how to write about Africa.) The strong imagery helps create a magic rich system that seems much more complex than what's on the page. The world-building feels seamless and deep in a way I feel Okorafor often manages, creating a real sense that the settings exist both before and after the characters wander through. Other characters seem to be having their own adventures; we just happen to be watching this one.
The novel suffers from a rushed ending. The plot is foreshadowed for a long time, then suddenly turns up, and all of a sudden everyone's rushing to finish things, and then the book is over in a way that feels unsatisfying. There's no time for the danger to build, no time for complexities and reversals. The bulk of the book is about the journey of learning magic, and it's rich and wonderful. The adventure feels tacked on. It's not that it couldn't have been an interesting adventure; the premises were interesting; but the structural issues caused it to pale in comparison with the beginning of the book.
ALL MEN OF GENIUS by Lev Ac Rosen
Violet Adams wants to attend college so that she can create mechanical and magical wonders, but the best colleges only accept men. Assuming her brother's identity so that she can apply, Violet sneaks into a men's-only school, knowing that if her deception is discovered, she'll be sent to prison.
As an educated reader would guess, a book featuring a cis-woman living as a man is going to be full of mistaken identities, farcical situations, and puzzled lovers. All Men of Genius includes all that stuff, and it's fine. It's often fun.
But the real joy here is the description of the mechanical and magical wonders being made at the university. They. Are. So. Cool. I enjoyed the plot and the characters, but I probably would have still read the book if it had been nothing but a list of awesome experiments the characters were doing.
Don't get me wrong—the book is good on other stuff, too. Fun historical details. Characters you can get behind, including the main character and her brother, but most especially an unexpectedly rich secondary character, Miriam.
There are some pacing problems—it's clear about midway that all the characters are going to get along famously once the secrets are revealed, but the adventure plotline hasn't really begun by that point, so there's a large chunk of text that doesn't have much drive behind it. When the adventure clicks into high gear, it doesn't have much time to develop, so it doesn't feel as realistic as it might; the villain's motivations come across as thin. And the last attempts to wring suspense from "will they or won't they?" read like the paper tiger's pacing the cage; not only is it clear to the reader what's going to happen, but it feels like it must be clear to the characters, too.
Anyway, all that's true, but the major point here is: AWESOME SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTS.
Also, a really funny sequence with a bunny.
ANNA DRESSED IN BLOOD by Kendare Blake (recommended)
Ghost-hunter Cas travels the country chasing ghost stories. When he finds the ghosts, he exorcises them with his magic knife. He's never had a problem until he encounters Anna (dressed in blood), a powerful and violent ghost whose strangeness draws Cas to investigate before he kills.
I don't know if this is the year of awesome ghosts or if ghosts are always awesome or what, but this book featured some awesome ghosts. The awesomest of all is Anna (dressed in blood) who steals the book and runs away with it. The imagery describing her is amazing, from her physical presence to the chilling murders she commits, her character is compelling, and the best part of the book is the resolution of her plotline. Cas himself is a somewhat generic protagonist, a not-so-interesting guy in an interesting situation, but some of the other characters also stand out, such as Cas's awkward, spell-casting friend. The tightly wound plot unspools suspensefully… until the very end when some things resolve too quickly and fail to meet the "inevitable" part of "inevitable and surprising."
One thing that I've discovered in this reading 'bout is that almost all adventure novels veer off at the end this way; it seems like it's hard to toss all those balls in the air, keep them flying, and then successfully catch them all without letting one slip.
ANYA'S GHOST by Vera Brosgol (recommended)
This graphic novel depicts the story of Anya, an unpopular and resentful high school student, who's out walking one day when she falls into a hole—and not just any hole, but one inhabited by a skeleton, which in turn is inhabited by the ghost of a sad girl with a puff of hair like a dandelion. The ghost sneaks a piece of her skeleton into Anya's bag so that when Anya is rescued, the ghost can follow.
The art here is fun, sometimes funny, and intuitive to follow, even for people who don't spend much time reading graphic novels. Anya's grumpy, awkward, angsty adolescence is easy to identify with; she's not always likeable, but she's hard-headed and determined and interesting. The central mystery kept me turning pages, but unfortunately, the book didn't quite manage to execute its leap into horror, leaving the ending a bit pallid and expected.
BETWEEN THE SEA AND SKY by Jacqueline Dolamore
Mermaids can turn into humans, but only if they're willing to endure the shooting pain of each step. After her sister is kidnapped, Esmerine braves the pain and enters the harbor city in search of her. She understands little of the human culture around her, but luckily she runs into a childhood friend: a young, bookish man with bat wings, native to the sky as she is to the sea.
The plot of this novel was a little weird for me in places. For instance, some of the conceits about sirens vs mermaids seemed unnecessarily complicated. The book also draws from what I assume is the mythology about selkies, saying that if a mermaid in human form gives up her magic belt (equivalent to a seal skin?) to a man, she's freed from the pain of walking, but loses her ability to transform back into a mermaid. The abhorrence of giving up the ability to return to one's natural form is central to the way the plot unfolds, but it doesn't entirely make sense—the man seems to be able to return the belt, which would seem to mean that the mermaids can zip back into the ocean, then return to the land whenever they want. Or rather, whenever they can get the men to cooperate. I can see how that would be a problem—many mermaids are kidnapped, and even if they're not, is it really a good idea to trust the fundamentals of one's freedom to someone else?—but it doesn't seem like it's an *impossible* arrangement, the way the book seems to treat it.
For me, the pleasure in this book came in its quieter moments, when the characters had time to sit and talk. There's a long sequence in a bookstore which doesn't entirely fit into the quest plot line (or, at any rate, seems to take a lot of the page count when it's technically not moving the plot forward much), but it was one of my favorite parts of the novel, a kind of tactile pleasure, establishing the world the characters inhabit. Once Esmerine finds her sister, Dolamore does a delicate job of describing the awkward intimacy of their reunion as they find out they didn't know each other nearly as well as they thought they did. I wasn't up for the adventure on this one, but where the book is at its best, it evokes an interesting, quiet tone that feels almost like it comes from a historical novel.
--
(1) I'm doing my reviews in alphabetical order, but I haven't finished reading absolutely everything I'm planning to. I may tack some on at the end, out of order.
(2) Consequently, please interpret "recommended" as "especially recommended."
--
My philosophy on reviewing: I love books and I love talking about them. My goal is to support both readers and writers. It's my hope that reviewing books and creating conversation about them is ultimately beneficial to both.
With few exceptions (and none here), I prefer to talk about books I've enjoyed. Please assume that if I talk about a book here, I enjoyed reading it, even if I'm criticizing the hell out of it. I'm the kind of person who could nitpick through the apocalypse and still have complaints left for the howling void.
August 26, 2011
I have
lost the Hugo twice.
That feels kind of awesome.
(Seriously. This requires having been nominated twice. How awesome is that?)
That feels kind of awesome.
(Seriously. This requires having been nominated twice. How awesome is that?)
