Alan Baxter's Blog, page 84

The SF & F Short Story Collection Meme

I was watching on Twitter while Charles A Tan (of Bibliophile Stalker fame) chatted with all sorts of people about short story collections. Not anthologies, with multiple authors, but single author collections.

I'm a fan of short stories, I love writing and reading them, but I read most of my short fiction in magazines and anthologies – I have very few single author collections. I am keen to get more and Charles has created a meme to help us along the way. With people like Ellen Datlow, Jonathan Strahan, Kaaron Warren and others helping with their suggestions this is one serious quality list of science fiction and fantasy single author collections of short stories.

As Charles says:

I love the short story format and the problem with a lot of the book memes circulating is that they exclusively focus on novels. I've done some crowd sourcing (and some personal recommendations of course–this list isn't meant to be objective) and I've come up with a list of 166 short story collections.

So you can use this list as a fantastic resource of great collections, or you can play along with the meme. In that case, the usual rules apply: bold those that you've read and italicise those that you own but haven't read.

I know that my bolding and italicising would be woefully sparse, for the reasons mentioned above, so I won't bother, but here's the list:

1. The Monkey's Wedding and Other Stories by Joan Aiken

2. Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa

3. The Kite of Stars and Other Stories by Dean Francis Alfar

4. I, Robot by Isaac Asimov

5. Black Projects, White Knights by Kage Baker

6. The Best of J. G. Ballard by J.G. Ballard

7. Perpetuity Blues and Other Stories by Neal Barrett, Jr.

8. The Imago Sequence and Other Stories by Laird Barron

9. Occultation by Laird Barron

10. Mirror Kingdoms: The Best of Peter S. Beagle

11. The Collected Stories of Greg Bear by Greg Bear

12. The Chains That You Refuse by Elizabeth Bear

13. The Girl With The Flammable Skirt by Aimee Bender

14. Lord Stink & Other Stories by Judith Berman

15. Trysts: A Triskaidecollection of Queer and Weird Stories by Steve Berman

16. A Book of Endings by Deborah Biancotti

17. Blooded on Arachne by Michael Bishop

18. One Winter in Eden by Michael Bishop

19. The Poison Eaters & Other Stories by Holly Black

20. Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings by Jorge Luis Borges

21. From the Files of the Time Rangers by Richard Bowes

22. Streetcar Dreams by Richard Bowes

23. The Stories of Ray Bradbury by Ray Bradbury

24. Graveyard People: The Collected Cedar Hill Stories by Gary Braunbeck

25. Home before Dark: The Collected Cedar Hill Stories by Gary Braunbeck

26. Particle Theory by Edward Bryant

27. Tides from the New Worlds by Tobias S. Buckell

28. Bloodchild and Other Stories By Octavia E. Butler

29. Dirty Work: Stories by Pat Cadigan

30. The Night We Buried Road Dog by Jack Cady

31. The Panic Hand by Jonathan Carroll

32. Burning Your Boats: The Collected Short Stories by Angela Carter

33. Fireworks: Nine Stories in Various Disguises by Angela Carter

34. The Bloody Chamber: And Other Stories by Angela Carter

35. The Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang

36. The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke by Arthur C. Clarke

37. The Ladies of Grace Adieu and Other Stories by Susanna Clarke

38. Novelties & Souvenirs, Collected Short Fiction by John Crowley

39. The Avram Davidson Treasury by Avram Davidson

40. The Enquiries of Dr. Eszterhazy by Avram Davidson

41. Driftglass: Ten Tales of Speculative Fiction by Samuel R. Delany

42. We Can Remember It for You Wholesale by Philip K. Dick

43. Strange Days: Fabulous Journeys with Gardner Dozois by Gardner Dozois

44. Beluthahatchie by Andy Duncan

45. What Will Come After by Scott Edelman

46. Axiomatic by Greg Egan

47. I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison

48. The Beast that Shouted Love at the Heart of the World by Harlan Ellison

49. Deathbird Stories by Harlan Ellison

50. The Collected Stories of Carol Emshwiller by Carol Emshwiller

51. Dangerous Space by Kelley Eskridge

52. Fugue State by Brian Evenson

53. Harsh Oases by Paul Di Filippo

54. The Fantasy Writer's Assistant and Other Stories by Jeffrey Ford

55. The Empire of Ice Cream by Jeffrey Ford

56. The Drowned Life by Jeffrey Ford

57. Returning My Sister's Face and Other Far Eastern Tales of Whimsy and Malice by Eugie Foster

58. Artificial Things by Karen Joy Fowler

59. What I Didn't See and Other Stories by Karen Joy Fowler

60. Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman

61. Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman

62. Burning Chrome by William Gibson

63. In the Forest of Forgetting by Theodora Goss

64. Take No Prisoners by John Grant

65. The Best of Joe Haldeman by Joe Haldeman

66. Last Summer at Mars Hill by Elizabeth Hand

67. Saffron & Brimstone: Strange Stories by Elizabeth Hand

68. Things That Never Happen by M. John Harrison

69. The Past Through Tomorrow by Robert Heinlein

70. 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill

71. Skin Folk by Nalo Hopkinson

72. The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian by Robert E. Howard

73. The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson

74. Unexpected Magics: Collected Stories by Diana Wynne Jones

75. Minor Arcana by Diana Wynne Jones

76. Grazing the Long Acre by Gwyneth Jones

77. The Wreck of the Godspeed and Other Stories by James Patrick Kelly

78. The Baum Plan for Financial Independence and Other Stories by John Kessel

79. Night Shift by Stephen King

80. Different Seasons by Stephen King

81. Hearts in Atlantis by Stephen King

82. Portable Childhoods by Ellen Klages

83. Scenting the Dark and Other Stories by Mary Robinette Kowal

84. Nano Comes to Clifford Falls and Other Stories by Nancy Kress

85. Nine Hundred Grandmothers by R.A. Lafferty

86. Objects of Worship by Claude Lalumiere

87. Black Juice by Margo Lanagan

88. Red Spikes by Margo Lanagan

89. Yellowcake by Margo Lanagan

90. Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters by John Langan

91. The Best of Joe R. Lansdale by Joe R. Lansdale

92. The Wind's Twelve Quarters by Ursula K. Le Guin

93. The Compass Rose by Ursula K. Le Guin

94. The Birthday of the World and Other Stories by Ursula K. Le Guin

95. Red as Blood, or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer by Tanith Lee

96. The First Book of Lankhmar by Fritz Leiber

97. The Second Book of Lankhmar by Fritz Leiber

98. The Nightmare Factory by Thomas Ligotti

99. Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link

100. Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link

101. Engines of Desire: Tales of Love & Other Horrors by Livia Llewellyn

102. H. P. Lovecraft: Tales by H.P. Lovecraft

103. Breathmoss and other Exhalations by Ian R. MacLeod

104. You Might Sleep by Nick Mamatas

105. Dreamsongs: A RRetrospective by George R. R. Martin

106. The Invisible Country by Paul McAuley

107. Harrowing the Dragon by Patricia McKillip

108. The Bone Key by Sarah Monette

109. The Best of Michael Moorcock by Michael Moorcock

110. Black God's Kiss by C.L. Moore

111. The Cat's Pajamas and Other Stories by James Morrow

112. Dreams of the Compass Rose by Vera Nazarian

113. Unforgivable Stories by Kim Newman

114. The Secret Files of the Diogenes Club by Kim Newman

115. The Original Dr. Shade and Other Stories by Kim Newman

116. Monstrous Affections by David Nickle

117. The Best of Larry Niven by Larry Niven

118. I Am No One You Know: Stories by Joyce Carol Oates

119. The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor

120. Zoo by Otsuichi

121. Lesser Demons by Norman Partridge

122. Mr. Fox and Other Feral Tales by Norman Partridge

123. Night Moves and Other Stories by Tim Powers

124. Little Gods by Tim Pratt

125. Map of Dreams by M. Rickert

126. Holiday by M. Rickert

127. The Best of Kim Stanley Robinson by Kim Stanley Robinson

128. The Ant King and Other Stories by Benjamin Rosenbaum

129. Unacceptable Behaviour by Penelope Rowe

130. The Adventures of Alyx by Joanna Russ

131. Long Walks, Last Flights, and Other Journeys by Ken Scholes

132. Filter House by Nisi Shawl

133. Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical by Rob Shearman

134. The Jaguar Hunter by Lucius Shepard

135. Trujillo and Other Stories by Lucius Shepard

136. Phases of the Moon: Stories from Six Decades by Robert Silverberg

137. Are You There and Other Stories by Jack Skillingstead

138. The Girl With No Hands and Other Tales by Angela Slatter

139. Crystal Express by Bruce Sterling

140. Ascendancies: The Best of Bruce Sterling

141. Houses Without Doors by Peter Straub

142. Magic Terror: 7 Tales by Peter Straub

143. Absolute Uncertainty by Lucy Sussex

144. The Best of Michael Swanwick by Michael Swanwick

145. Gravity's Angels: 13 Stories by Michael Swanwick

146. Monterra's Deliciosa & Other Tales & by Anna Tambour

147. The Ice Downstream by Melanie Tem

148. The Far Side of the Lake by Steve Rasnic Tem

149. Her Smoke Rose Up Forever by James Tiptree, Jr.

150. Ten Thousand Light-Years from Home by James Tiptree, Jr.

151. In the Mean Time by Paul Tremblay

152. My Pathology by Lisa Tuttle

153. Ventriloquism by Catherynne M. Valente

154. The Jack Vance Reader by Jack Vance

155. City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff VanderMeer

156. The Third Bear by Jeff VanderMeer

157. Strange Things in Close-up; the Nearly Complete Howard Waldrop

158. Dead Sea Fruit by Kaaron Warren

159. Everland and Other Stories by Paul Witcover

160. The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories by Gene Wolfe

161. The Very Best of Gene Wolfe by Gene Wolfe

162. Impossible Things by Connie Willis

163. Fire Watch by Connie Willis

164. The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth and Other Stories by Roger Zelazny

165. Impossible Stories by Zoran Zivkovic

166. The Writer, The Book, The Reader by Zoran Zivkovic

That really is a tremedous list of authors and I'm going to be seeking out some of those. I was surprised that there are actually a fair number on there that I have read, but still not enough to warrant bolding anything! I would also add one – Charles included The Girl With No Hands & Other Tales by Angela Slatter. I would include Slatter's Sourdough and Other Stories too, which is one of the best books of any format that I read last year.

So, how many have you read?

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100 Stories For Queensland – please buy it tomorrow

When something drops out of the news cycle it's easy to forget about it. But just because the purveyors of sensationalised pictures have got bored with an event, it doesn't mean people aren't still suffering. The devastating floods in Queensland might seem like a long time ago to most of us, but they're still very real to lots of people. People that have lost everything and are suffering. eMergent Publishing put the call out to collect 100 stories, donated from writers around the world, and publish them in an anthology to raise money to directly help those people. Jodi Cleghorn, editor and owner of eMergent, has done an incredible job with her team getting this book together and I'm really proud to be one of the 100 authors included. Now it's time to buy the book.

In order to raise awareness about the book's existence, therefore sell more copies and therefore get more money to the people in need, the paperback edition is being promoted with a Chart Rush. What is a chart rush? Readers are invited to purchase a book on Amazon, in a nominated 24-hour period, with the intent to capitalise on the volume of sales to move the book up the Amazon best seller list. The higher up the chart it is (we're aiming for a spot in the top 100) the more visible it becomes to other readers who may go on to purchase it. It's all about exposure and the more people who come across 100 Stories for Queensland, the more books we sell and the more money we raise. If you can't buy on the day, you can add it to your wishlist. Every little bit counts.

100 Stories for Queensland is listed at Amazon and Amazon UK.

You can join the Amazon Chart Rush Facebook event or official fan page for updates on our progress up the charts. Also tweets at @100stories4qld and 100 Stories for Queensland is listed at Goodreads.

This is a fantastic book, full of stories from some great authors, that will directly help the survivors of the floods, with all proceeds going to the Queensland Premier's Flood Appeal. Please buy the book tomorrow, Tuesday 17th May (but late if you're in Australia to stay tight to the 24 hour window), and do your bit to help. You'll get a sweet book out of it.

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The May Australian Speculative Fiction Blog Carnival now on NecroScope

The May edition of the Australian Speculative Fiction Blog Carnival has been posted to NecroScope. Take a peek, and find out what's been happening in your community this past month.

http://zombiefictionreview.blogspot.com/2011/05/news-australian-speculative-fiction.html

There's some good stuff, so make yourself a cuppa and have a browse.

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Iain M Banks on why science fiction is not for dabblers

Twitter (which gives me so many great links) led me to this article in The Guardian by Iain M Banks. In it he addresses the crossover of literary writers into SF. He uses a great example of a writer coming up with a fantastic new idea – basically, a murder mystery where the crazy twist is that the butler did it! And he equates this to non-genre writers dabbling in SF. And he's right.

If a person hasn't read a great deal of SF, then decides to write some, it's almost certain the person in question will be, to some degree, rehashing old ground. If the sum total of a person's SF experience is Star Wars and 2001: A Space Odyssey then anything they come up with is likely to have been dealt with before in one way or another.

Banks says:

…science fiction is a dialogue, a process. All writing is, in a sense; a writer will read something – perhaps something quite famous, even a classic – and think "But what if it had been done this way instead . . . ?" And, standing on the shoulders of that particular giant, write something initially similar but developmentally different, so that the field evolves and further twists and turns are added to how stories are told as well as to the expectations and the knowledge of pre-existing literary patterns readers bring to those stories. Science fiction has its own history, its own legacy of what's been done, what's been superseded, what's so much part of the furniture it's practically part of the fabric now, what's become no more than a joke . . . and so on. It's just plain foolish, as well as comically arrogant, to ignore all this, to fail to do the most basic research.

As he says, failure to do this research when trying your hand at SF leads:

…usually to decent and only slightly sniffy reviews (sometimes, to be fair, to quite excitable reviews) while, off-stage, barely heard, howls of laughter and derision issue from the science fiction community.

It's not elitism, it's simply respecting the genre you're writing in. There are some genres where repeating the old tropes in new places with new characters is enough, and the readers enjoy that. But even those old genres still evolve and new ideas permeate well-trodden ground. But with science fiction the development of ideas is so rapid and all-encompassing that not studying the genre is foolish.

If you want to be a good writer, you must read. I don't know any good writers that don't read like books are being rounded up and burned the next day. We can't read enough. I'll read a page at every opportunity. Apart from experiencing how others writers do it, you're an integral part of the evolution of fiction by being a reader. Do you know any artists that don't visit galleries? Do you know any musicians that don't listen to music?

Reading voraciously is a pre-requisite for being a good writer. And reading within your genre is essential to know what's happening in the field of writing you want to be involved with. It's essential also to read outside your genre – everything from novels to short stories to newspapers – to get as broad an experience of writing as you can and to learn from that. But it's never more important to know your genre than it is with science fiction.

Read all of Banks' article – it's essential reading.

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The end of an era – typewriters are no more

This makes me a bit sad. I've always had an affinity for typewriters, since I wrote my first ever stories on my mum's old Remington when I was about seven years old. I've used a typewriter as my website logo for a while now. They've always fascinated me as these things that can make your words permanent, that help you get a story out and share it around.

Of course, I would never trade a PC for a typewriter now. Seriously, copy and paste, edit, search and everything else makes a word processer superior to a typewriter in every way. That's progress. But it is sad to hear from this article in The Guardian that typewriter production is going to cease. Apparently, Godrej and Boyce, a Mumbai-based typewriter company, have just 500 left in stock. Once these have been "sold, or disposed of", they will switch to making refrigerators instead. People still need cold milk, even though we've moved on from ribbons and return carriages. The saddest thing about that is the comment "sold, or disposed of", as it seems even of those 500 left, lack of demand means some won't find homes.

Another interesting fact, according to The Guardian, is that Mark Twain became the first author to submit a typed manuscript with Life on the Mississippi in 1883. I wonder who will be (or even already has been) the last?

I searched out a few other interesting typewriter facts, cos I'm a nerd like that. Did you know that:

TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard. (If you know of a longer one, please let me know in the comments.)

The longest common English word that can be typed using only the left hand is STEWARDESSES.

The longest English word that can be typed with the right hand only is JOHNNY-JUMP-UP (a type of flower).

The qwerty layout was designed for manual typewriters initially by Christopher Sholes all the way back in 1872. He purposely selected a physical layout that was difficult to type, so that typing speeds would be reduced. This was needed to reduce the jamming of "hammers" used to create individual letters on manual typewriters.

Jack Kerouac, a fast typist at 100 words per minute, typed On the Road on a roll of paper so he wouldn't be interrupted by having to change the paper. Within two weeks of starting to write On the Road, Kerouac had one single-spaced paragraph, 120 feet long. (From wikipedia.)

William S. Burroughs wrote in some of his novels—and possibly believed—that "a machine he called the 'Soft Typewriter' was writing our lives, and our books, into existence," according to a book review in The New Yorker. (From wikipedia.)

In a homage to the great machine that revolutionised our ability to share our words, The Guardian has put together a photo montage of great writers at their typewriters. Here's Hunter S Thompson working at his ranch circa 1976 near Aspen Colorado:

(Photograph: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

See the full set of images at The Guardian website here.

Farewell, typewriter – you'll always be my little website icon.

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LiveJournal crosspost test

Please excuse this post – I've been having trouble with crossposting to LiveJournal. I mean, let's face it, LiveJournal is deader than MySpace really, but I know lots of people that still use it, like folks desperately cycling along the freeway as cars blitz past at twenty times their speed.

But anyway, I'm just trying this and if it doesn't work I'm done. Finished. Screw LiveJournal.

As compensation, here's a picture of Chewbacca riding a giant squirrel, killing Nazis.

EDIT: It didn't work. Fuck you, LiveJournal, that's the last straw. You're Google Wave to me now.

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There are two types of writer…

It's often said that there are two types people, for many different situations. There are glass half-full and glass half-empty people. There are extroverts and introverts. There are artists and academics. None of these are entirely accurate. (In truth, there are people who believe there are two types of people and people who don't.) Like everything else in life, the reality is more complicated – pretty much everyone sits somewhere on a long, grey scale and they move up and down that scale depending on the situation. But we like to categorise things.

Writers are often classed as one or other of two types: planners or pantsers. A planner is someone who works out everything in their story, knows all the details and then writes. A pantser is a writer who has ideas and a rough plot, then they start writing and create a story by the seat of their pants.

In a recent interview with Joe Abercrombie, George R R Martin, author of the epic fantasy A Song Of Ice And Fire, described this concept in the best terms I've ever heard. The video interview is here. What George said about there being two types of writers is this:

"There are two types of writers – the gardeners and the architects. The architect plans the entire house before he drives a nail; he draws up blueprints, he knows how deep the basement is going to be dug and how many rooms there are going to be, where the plumbing is going to be. And then there are the gardeners who dig a hole, plant a seed and water it with their blood, and then they see what comes up, and they kind of shape it. I'm much more of a gardener. I know where I'm going, I know the eventual end of the book, but I don't know necessarily every twist and turn of the road that's going to get me there." – George R R Martin

I love Martin's description, especially about the gardener watering his seeds with blood. And, if I'm honest, I'm also much more of a gardener than an architect. But I do draw up some plans as well. I have an overall idea for a book, I have basic characters in mind, a few key events. I write a rough timeline. But I know that once I start to write the story, it will start to tell itself. I know the characters will do things I don't expect. As a writer it's important to let the story and characters evolve organically, and, if they do things against the original plans you made, change the plans, not the story. At least, that's how I do it.

I think a lot of writers do things like I do. A number of my friends who I've discussed this with use a similar method to me. Martin's broadly right in his explanation, and it is a valid truism, but to extend Martin's metaphor, writers like myself are gardeners, with architectural leanings. I roughly plan out the garden, more or less know where all the beds and trees are going. Then I start to plant seeds, let them grow and tend them. That process is one of the things I love most about writing. Seeing where a story takes me, being surprised by the things my characters do and say, never gets old. It's why I keep writing. I know the stories are coming from somewhere inside me, I know the overall idea I'm trying to convey. But the process of gardening is pure joy.

I don't mean to dismiss the architect writers by saying this. I'm sure they get equal joy from their method. But I bet there's a bit of gardening in there too. We all do things differently, some more alike than others and we all have varying degrees of one thing or another in our methodolgy. I love Martin's description above and, when the subject comes up again as it inevitably will, I'll use that example myself. Writers to tend to err heavily towards one or other method. And by talking about architects and gardeners, I won't have to explain what a pantser is any more.

There are two types of people out there – those who will agree with this post and those who won't. But many will probably agree with some parts and not others. There are a million shades of grey out there, and that's what makes the world such an interesting place.

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RealmShift review and interview at a writer goes on a journey

a writer goes on a journey is a great review site and official news site of the Australian Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association, or ASFFWA. (Which we like to pronounce AsssFWA!) They recently reviewed RealmShift and interviewed me as part of Aussie Author Month.

There are some nice comments in the review, such as:

It's more than intriguing to entertain the ideas in his book.

As popular as it is for reviews to state that fans of X or readers of Y will like Z book, Baxter makes comparison impossible, but that's not a bad thing. He has gone out on a limb to produce new fiction, first self publishing and then getting a reprint deal from a small press, and he has succeeded with RealmShift.

You can read the full review here.

In the interview I talk about the process of getting RealmShift into print, and other aspects of my writing and publishing life. You can read the interview here.

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Some thought provoking words on worldbuilding in fiction

I read this post on S F Signal, which links to this post on Warren Ellis's website. Both are essential reading for writers. In the S F Signal post, China Mieville talks about worldbuilding and references the M John Harrison quote that Warren Ellis posted. I'm going to repost that quote here, because it stunned me and made me really stop and think. Go and read the S F Signal post, and then read the quote below. I might ruminate on this and post some more about worldbuilding later. It's got my brain cogs a-turnin'.

M John Harrison On Worldbuilding

Every moment of a science fiction story must represent the triumph of writing over worldbuilding.

Worldbuilding is dull. Worldbuilding literalises the urge to invent. Worldbuilding gives an unnecessary permission for acts of writing (indeed, for acts of reading). Worldbuilding numbs the reader's ability to fulfil their part of the bargain, because it believes that it has to do everything around here if anything is going to get done.

Above all, worldbuilding is not technically necessary. It is the great clomping foot of nerdism. It is the attempt to exhaustively survey a place that isn't there. A good writer would never try to do that, even with a place that is there. It isn't possible, & if it was the results wouldn't be readable: they would constitute not a book but the biggest library ever built, a hallowed place of dedication & lifelong study. This gives us a clue to the psychological type of the worldbuilder & the worldbuilder's victim, & makes us very afraid.

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Do puppies dream of dragons?

Usually when I'm writing, my best mate is snoozing beside me. I often wonder if I sometimes channel his dreams. Certainly not for the darker and nastier stuff I write, because Penry is about the gentlest and most pacifistic dog I've ever known, but perhaps the more whimsical things come from his sleeping mind. And the dragons. And anything to do with balls, bones and beaches.

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