Ad astra, just not very fast
It's a long way to the stars, particularly when your one concession to hard sci-fi is the rejection on principle of faster than light travel.
But I have it on good authority that the uber-tardy issue 7 of James Gunn's Ad Astra, containing a little something from me, will be a thing of the 2010s, not the 2020s, come hell or high water. Hmm... we've heard that before, but I have faith.
Apparently the issue has been with gathering material of a sufficient quality.
I'll confess, I found this odd. I like to think that my writing is of some quality - finalist and double silver honorables in Writers of the Future, two appearances in the Best of British Sci-Fi, 30 stories published - and I still fall short of Asimov's and Clarkesworld every time. I'm good, but there are a whole army of scribblers who are obviously great.
The Grinder records 267168 submissions (since it opened, I assume? which was when? in the last decade, I assume). That'll encompass a lot of multiple submissions, but that over-recording will be balanced by writers who don't use the Grinder at all. There must be a five-figure number of stories in circulation, let's say 10,000 which fall under sci-fi and speculative.
Even an infinite number of monkeys would churn out something decent with those odds. Surely.
But there is another way of looking at this. I've blogged before than I am not a voracious reader of science fiction. Some of the stuff that rises to the top - Ann Leckie, Hugh Howey - or classic Dick, Gibson, Vonnegut. But it's rare that I'll truly be startled by the contributor's copy of whatever I'm in. I rationalise it by not wanting to start to parrot the voices or story arcs of others writers in the genre. But, perhaps, subconsciously I can tell that there's genuinely a great deal of unreadable shit out there...
But I have it on good authority that the uber-tardy issue 7 of James Gunn's Ad Astra, containing a little something from me, will be a thing of the 2010s, not the 2020s, come hell or high water. Hmm... we've heard that before, but I have faith.
Apparently the issue has been with gathering material of a sufficient quality.
I'll confess, I found this odd. I like to think that my writing is of some quality - finalist and double silver honorables in Writers of the Future, two appearances in the Best of British Sci-Fi, 30 stories published - and I still fall short of Asimov's and Clarkesworld every time. I'm good, but there are a whole army of scribblers who are obviously great.
The Grinder records 267168 submissions (since it opened, I assume? which was when? in the last decade, I assume). That'll encompass a lot of multiple submissions, but that over-recording will be balanced by writers who don't use the Grinder at all. There must be a five-figure number of stories in circulation, let's say 10,000 which fall under sci-fi and speculative.
Even an infinite number of monkeys would churn out something decent with those odds. Surely.
But there is another way of looking at this. I've blogged before than I am not a voracious reader of science fiction. Some of the stuff that rises to the top - Ann Leckie, Hugh Howey - or classic Dick, Gibson, Vonnegut. But it's rare that I'll truly be startled by the contributor's copy of whatever I'm in. I rationalise it by not wanting to start to parrot the voices or story arcs of others writers in the genre. But, perhaps, subconsciously I can tell that there's genuinely a great deal of unreadable shit out there...
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