Up and Coming: Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

by S.L. Huang (Editor, Contributor), Kurt Hunt (Editor, Contributor), George Nikolopoulos (Contributor)

This anthology includes 120 authors—who contributed 230 works totaling approximately 1.1 MILLION words of fiction. These pieces all originally appeared in 2014, 2015, or 2016 from writers who are new professionals to the SFF field, and they represent a breathtaking range of work from the next generation of speculative storytelling.

All of these authors are eligible for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2016. We hope you’ll use this anthology as a guide in nominating for that award as well as a way of exploring many vibrant new voices in the genre.

This anthology was offered as a free download until March 31, 2016 only.

Table of Contents

Preface

Charlotte Ashley
La Héron (F&SF) (Short story)
Sigrid Under the Mountain (The Sockdolager) (Short story)

John Ayliff
Belt Three (HarperVoyager) (Novel excerpt)

Lucas Bale
To Sing of Chaos and Eternal Night (Dark Matter Publishing) (Novelette)

Nicolette Barischoff
Pirate Songs (The Future Fire) (Novelette)
Follow Me Down (Unlikely Story) (Novelette)
In the Woods Behind My House (Podcastle) (Short story)

Sofie Bird
A' is for Alacrity, Astronauts and Grief (Zombies Need Brains LLC) (Short story)

Derrick Boden
Clay Soldiers (Daily Science Fiction) (Short story)
The Last Mardi Gras (Flash Fiction Online) (Short story)

Stefan Bolz
The Traveler (Samuel Peralta) (Short story)

David Bruns
The Water Finder's Shadow (Hip Phoenix) (Novelette)
I, Caroline (David Bruns) (Short story)

Martin Cahill
It Was Never The Fire (Nightmare Magazine) (Short story)
Vanilla (Fireside Fiction) (Short story)

Aaron Canton
Dining Out (Phobos Magazine) (Short story)
A Most Unusual Patriot (Michael DeAngelo) (Short story)

D.K. Cassidy
Room 42 (Windrift Bay Limited) (Short story)

Zach Chapman
Between Screens (Galaxy Press) (Short story)

Curtis C. Chen
Zugzwang (Daily Science Fiction) (Short story)
Making Waves (SNAFU: An Anthology of Military Horror) (Short story)
Laddie Come Home (2016 Young Explorer's Adventure Guide) (Short story)

ZZ Claybourne
Agents of Change (Windrift Books) (Short story)

Liz Colter
The Ties That Bind, The Chains That Break (Galaxy's Edge Magazine) (Short story)
Echoes (Urban Fantasy Magazine) (Short story)
The Clouds in Her Eyes (Writers and Illustrators of the Future vol 30) (Short story)

Nik Constantine
Last Transaction (F&SF) (Short story)

Daniel J Davis
The God Whisperer (Galaxy Press) (Short story)

S.B. Divya
Strange Attractors (Daily Science Fiction) (Short story)
The Egg (Nature) (Short story)
Ships in the Night (Daily Science Fiction) (Short story)

Margaret Dunlap
Jane (Shimmer) (Short story)
Broken Glass (Wisdom Crieth Without) (Short story)
Bookburners, Episode 5: The Market Arcanum (Serial Box Publishing) (Novelette)

S. K. Dunstall
LINESMAN (Ace Books) (Novel excerpt)

Jonathan Edelstein
First Do No Harm (Strange Horizons) (Novelette)

Harlow C. Fallon
A Long Horizon (The Immortality Chronicles (The Future Chronicles Anthology Series)) (Short story)

Rafaela F. Ferraz
The Lady of the House of Mirrors (Lethe Press) (Novelette)

Sam Fleming
She Gave her Heart, He Took Her Marrow (Apex Magazine) (Short story)

Annalee Flower Horne
Seven Things Cadet Blanchard Learned From The Trade Summit Incident (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction) (Short story)

Ron S. Friedman
Game Not Over (Galaxy's Edge) (Short story)
LUCA (Analemma Books) (Short story)

David Jón Fuller
The Harsh Light of Morning (EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing) (Short story)
Caged (Crossroad Press) (Short story)
In Open Air (Futurefire.net Publishing) (Short story)

Sarah Gailey
Bargain (Mothership Zeta) (Short story)
Haunted (Fireside Fiction) (Short story)

Patricia Gilliam
The Backup (Windrift Books) (Short story)

Jaymee Goh
Liminal Grid (Strange Horizons) (Short story)

Elad Haber
Number One Hit (Interfictions Online) (Short story)

Auston Habershaw
Adaptation and Predation (Escape Pod) (Short story)
A Revolutionary's Guide to Practical Conjuration (Galaxy Press) (Novelette)

Philip Brian Hall
Spatchcock (AE The Canadian Science Fiction Review) (Novella)
The Waiting Room (Flame Tree Publishing) (Short story)
The Man on the Church Street Omnibus (The Sockdolager) (Short story)

John Gregory Hancock
The Antares Cigar Shoppe (Windrift Books) (Short story)

Nin Harris
Sang Rimau and the Medicine Woman (Lackington's Magazine (editor: Ranylt Richildis)) (Short story)
Your Right Arm (Clarkesworld Magazine (Publisher: Neil Clarke)) (Short story)

C.A. Hawksmoor
Y Brenin (Beneath Ceaseless Skies) (Novelette)
Murder on the Laplacian Express (Interzone) (Short story)

Sean Patrick Hazlett
Boomer Hunter (Grimdark Magazine) (Short story)
Entropic Order (Outposts of Beyond) (Short story)
Chandler's Hollow (Perihelion Science Fiction) (Short story)

Holly Heisey
The Monastery of the Parallels (Orso...

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Anthologies, Fiction

3040 pages, ebook

Published March 3, 2016

Reviews

[Bridget Mckinney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Currently reading through and reviewing this ten authors at a time over at SF Bluestocking.

Part 1: Charlotte Ashley, John Ayliff, Lucas Bale, Nicolette Barischoff, Sofie Bird, Derrick Boden, Stefan Bolz, David Bruns, Martin Cahill, Aaron Canton

Part 2: D.K. Cassidy, Zach Chapman, Curtis C. Chen, Z.Z. Claybourne, Liz Colter, Nik Constantine, Daniel J. Davis, S.B. Divya, Margaret Dunlap, S.K. Dunstall

Part 3: Jonathan Edelstein, Harlow C. Fallon, Rafaela F. Ferraz, Sam Fleming, Annalee Flower Horne, Ron S. Friedman, David Jón Fuller, Sarah Gailey, Patricia Gilliam, Jaymee Goh

Part 4: Elad Haber, Auston Habershaw, Philip Brian Hall, John Gregory Hancock, Nin Harris, C.A. Hawksmoor, Sean Patrick Hazlett, Holly Heisey, Michael Patrick Hicks, S.L. Huang

Part 5: Kurt Hunt, L.S. Johnson, Cameron Johnston, Rachael K. Jones, Jason Kimble, Paul B. Kohler, Jeanne Kramer-Smyth, Jamie Gilman Kress, Jason LaPier, Fonda Lee

Part 6: S. Lynn, Jack Hollis Marr, Arkady Martine, Kim May, Alison McBain, Rati Mehrota, Lia Swope Mitchell, Allison Mulder, Ian Muneshwar, Brian Niemeier

Part 7: Wendy Nikel, George Nikolopoulos, Megan O'Keefe, Malka Older, Emma Osborne, Chris Ovenden, Steve Pantazis, Carrie Patel, Sunil Patel, Laura Pearlman

Part 8: Samuel Peralta, Andrea Phillips, Mark Robert Philps, Monica Enderle Pierce, Ivan Popov, Bill Powell, Stephen S. Power, Rhiannon Rasmussen, Chris Reher, Ethan Reid

Part 9: Kelly Robson, Andy Rogers, Lauren M. Roy, Steve Ruskin, K.B. Rylander, Hope Erica Schultz, Effie Seiberg, Tahmeed Shafiq, Iona Sharma, Anthea Sharp

Part 10: Elsa Sjunneson-Henry, Daniel Arthur Smith, Lesley Smith, William Squirrell, Dan Stout, Naru Dames Sundar, Will Swardstrom, Jeremy Szal, Lauren C. Teffeau, Natalia Theodoridou

Part 11: Joseph Tomaras, Vincent Trigili, P.K. Tyler, Tamara Vardomskaya, Leo Vladimirsky, Nancy SM Waldman, Thomas M. Waldroon, Jo Lindsay Walton, Kim Wells, Alison Wilgus

Part 12: Nicolas Wilson, Alyssa Wong, Eleanor R. Wood, Frank Wu, Jeff Xilon, JY Yang, Isabel Yap, Jo Zebedee, Jon F. Zeigler, Anna Zumbro

Links to all parts will be added as they are posted.

[Kalin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The anthology has been taken offline (with nearly 16,000 downloads ... making it the most popular book in which I have a hand :). If you still want to read it, drop me a note.

Cynical. Cold. Confused. Cringeworthy.

... This is not the future of my favorite genre.

I'm getting nauseous of postapocalyptica and paranoia and psychopathologies. This is not the future I'm going to live, to make, to take part in.

I'd like to thank S. L. Huang and Kurt Hunt for their tremendous effort in compiling this anthology. I'd also like to thank the authors I've mentioned below and the editors who have recognized their work and passed it forward. Most of all, I'd like to have them as part of my future.

Here come my individual impressions.

I may try more of:

- Kurt Hunt, because of the minimalist yet effective sense of connection in "Tigerskin"

- Laura Pearlman, for her delightfully quirky sense of humor, with just a tad of poetic justice

- Curtis C. Chen, for bringing together a likable child and a likable emergent intelligence in "Laddie Come Home"

- Brian Niemeier for infusing "Strange Matter", a gamelike, tried-and-tired time travel scenario, with hope and warmth--although the ending let my hope down

- Isabel Yap, for showing poignant gentleness amidst the cruelty of war and warriors in "The Oiran's Song" (although her other stories gutted me ... they gave no gentleness and no quarter :( )

- Effie Seiberg, for making me laugh, wryly in "Re: Little Miss Apocalypse Playset" and wholeheartedly in "Thundergod in Therapy", and for making me smile, wistfully, in "Rocket Surgery"

- Sarah Gailey, for matching the Devourer of Miscreants, Archduke of Nightmares and Usurper of Souls with a Very Good Dog in "Bargain," and for granting houses the powers of forgiveness and absolution--regardless of whether humans choose to wield them--in "Haunted"

- Tahmeed Shafiq, for kindling an old tale with a new spark

- Auston Habershaw, for writing one mean hoodlum (with a heart of jelly) in "Adaptation and Predation" (though I wish he knew what he wanted to do with Krim in "A Revolutionary's Guide to Practical Conjuration")

- Andrea Phillips's Revision, for speaking in a voice that I can't get enough of

- Thomas M. Waldroon, for weaving a strange yarn out of the coziest threads (or vice versa)

- William Squirrell, because of his Problem Solving Astronaut and his (hard SF) future where whatever solution you pursue, coitus inevitably follows

- Daniel Arthur Smith, for making me hold my breath in "Tower"

- Anthea Sharp, because of her heroines: heroic as only human beings can be; and because of the triumph of harmony in "Ice in D Minor"

- Iona Sharma, for making space marriages both relatable and memorable in "Archana and Chandni"

- Steven S. Power, because of his chivalrous SearchBot in "Wire Paladin"

- Samuel Peralta, for bringing the Hereafter to the here and now

- Michael Patrick Hicks, for taking the war between humans and animals to its proper battlefield in "Preservation" (the story strongly parallels the excerpt from David Brin's Earth that we included in our environmental anthology Зелени разкази (ама _наистина_))

- David Jón Fuller, because I loved listening to the cadenzas of his characters, especially Horst in "Caged"

- Sofie Bird, for reminding me there's no future in space without facing our down-to-earth fears in the present, in "'A' is for Alacrity, Astronauts and Grief"

I'll be watching for:

- Eleanor R. Wood, because of her faith in humanity and its ongoing humanity (and for showing Andy Weir how to write a multifaceted, sympathetic protagonist struggling on Mars ;)

- Margaret Dunlap, for gifting her heroines with raw energy and subtle sensibilities: a smash hit combo

- Sunil Patel, for making me sad (in "The Robot Who Couldn't Lie") and shake with laughter (in "The Merger"), in non-trivial ways

- Hope Erica Schultz, for riots like this one and reminders like that one

- Nicolette Barischoff, for writing children who can take on adults any time (and because I want to see how a finished story of her will look like ;)

- Jon F. Zeigler, for turning almost every trope in "Galen and the Golden-Coat Hare" on its head--and still making his characters likable

- Jo Zebedee and her Inish Carraig , for demonstrating how to introduce your readers to your world, for making that world interesting, and for making me care what will happen to her characters, teens and adults alike (and, oh yes, for giving me a glimpse of what it means to be Irish)

- Nicolas Wilson, for coming up (in "Multiply") with the most convincing AIs I've seen in a while: ones that have feelings--and a sense of humor

- Rhiannon Rasmussen-Silverstein, especially for creating lovable teen nerds in "Charge! Love Heart!": Ernest Kline, please read this before you dig into Ready Player Two :P

- Bill Powell, because of the most good-natured, good-humored fun I've had in a long while: hearken

~ ~ ~

The final verdict:

Initially, after reading (or giving up on) about one third of the stories in this anthology, I liked it much less than its 2014 predecessor. (That's when I wrote the fierce intro.)

However, this must have been a fluke of my not-quite-random algorithm for determining the reading order, because afterwards my satisfaction (and the general diversity of themes and tones) picked up. And here I am now, with three times more writers to keep an eye on than two years ago.

I'm never gonna reach the finish line of my To Read list. :/

Once again, thank you to everyone who contributed to Up and Coming--and to my faith that we deserve to have a future.

Also, we're unlikely to submit any more stories to Clarkesworld Magazine. Judging by the samples here, our ethics and aesthetics seem completely incompatible with theirs.

In contrast, Sci Phi Journal and Fireside match my needs and tastes so closely that I subscribed to their respective Patreon campaigns.

[Lisa Feld · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not even sure how you rate something like this--unlike most collections, it's not based around a common subgenre like vampires or steampunk, an editor's personal taste, or even a quality bar like all the award winners of a particular year. It's simply all (or almost all) the authors who managed to break into the field in the last couple of years, and because of how online markets have shifted what eligibility means, there's a massive range of quality and style here. But several of these authors were impressive enough that I'm taking note of their names so I can see what else they write going forward. The ones that particularly stood out for me tended to be the ones that took a cliché and turned it inside out in some way.

Nicolette Barischoff's "Pirate Songs" threw a disability curveball into the usual trope of a princess captured by space pirates. "Follow Me Down" was also interesting, even if the ending felt a little too easy.

David Bruns's "I, Caroline" seemed to be doing a typical "robot becomes self-aware" story and then questioned whether anything could make such a robot reprogram themselves.

Nik Constantine's "Last Transaction" was a breathless cyberpunk thrillride told entirely in receipts and computer error messages.

Margaret Dunlap's "Jane" used an EMT and a strange contagion to turn a zombie story into something chilling and heartbreaking and actually innovative.

Auston Habershaw blew my mind with two brilliant and completely different stories. "Adaption and Predation" is a nail-biting heist/assassination story with various fascinating aliens and not a human in sight. "A Revolutionary's Guide to Practical Conjuration" would have been an okay story with just the snarky spellbook insulting the desperate apprentice, but the ending elevated it by several orders of magnitude.

Holly Heisley's "Care Package" was a pretty obvious metaphor, but that didn't make it any less touching.

SL Huang was another author with a gift for writing powerful stories that are nothing like each other: "Hunting Monsters" is a powerful take on Little Red Riding Hood while "By Degrees and Dilatory Time" plays with ideas of technology, disability, and identity.

LS Johnson's "Little Men With Knives," an update of the shoemaker's elves, was not only gorgeous prose, I didn't want to turn the lights out after reading it.

KB Rylander's "We Fly" actually found an interesting twist on the idea of uploaded consciousness. What does it mean when your digital self goes through a massive gender identity crisis, but your organic original isn't remotely trans?

Hope Erika Schultz had two lovely stories. "Mr. Reilly's Tattoo" takes an aspect of Bradbury's "Illustrated Man" and asks whether there is any escaping such a fate. "The Princess in the Basement" was less surprising, but I liked the feminist take on a standard fairy tale rescue scenario.

Anthea Sharp's "The Sun Never Sets" is a timely story of a female scientist fighting the coopting of her work during an alien invasion of Victorian England. Not amazing, but still a fun read.

William Squirrell's "I Am Problem-Solving Astronaut" was a gleeful sendup of tired SF tropes.

Leo Vladimisrsky's "Dandelion" asks what happens if we discover the key to immortality and only some people have the right gene for it? What happens to the people who can't be saved, who are no longer seen as worth saving?

Nancy SM Waldman's "ReMemories" gave me feels. Lots and lots of feels.

Alyssa Wong had two very different and wonderfully disturbing stories I liked: "Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers" and "The Fisher Queen." She has an amazing ability to convey both human and inhuman creepiness.

[Mel]

I've had this for two years or what and didn't once have a look inside... It was free when I got it and, well, should there ever be a time when I don't have enough SFF (short) stories to read, I guess I will remember that I shelved this somewhere ;-)

[Marie-Therese]

When I began reading this book I did something I virtually never do: I gave myself permission to skim and even skip works almost entirely if I felt they offered little or nothing to me in terms of art and/or pleasure. I had to do this a bit more often than I would have liked (there are some seriously unimaginative and clumsy writers out there that somehow manage to get published) but, overall, the weeks I spent reading this massive anthology were well worth it.

I'm not going to call out the bad writers or poor stories here. I believe most of the truly substandard writers in this collection will likely never publish again or their reach will be limited (confined to tiny, obscure, mostly online genre sites almost nobody reads anyway) I believe most of these folks are probably writing in the genre because they love it, they are primarily hobbyists, and that criticism in this case makes little difference and just causes unnecessary pain and embarrassment. But I do want to note the really good authors, writers who likely have a real career ahead of them if they keep writing, and also list the five stars that would have made up my nominations had I actually planned to vote for the Campbell Award this year. All are in alphabetical order.

The very good (I will be happy to read anything new any of these talented writers release in the future):
Charlotte Ashley
David Bruns
Curtis C. Chen
Liz Colter
Daniel J. Davis
S.B. Divya
Margaret Dunlap
Harlow C. Fallon
Rafaela F. Ferraz
Auston Habershaw
Nin Harris
S. L. Huang
Kurt Hunt
Rachel K. Jones
Jason Kimble
Carrie Patel
Laura Pearlman
Rhiannon Rasmussen
Ethan Reid
Kelly Robson
Steve Ruskin
Effie Seiberg
Tahmeed Shafiq
William Squirrell
Naru Dames Sundar
Joseph Tomaras
Tamara Vardomskaya
Nancy SM Waldman
Thomas M. Waldroon
Jo Lindsay Walton
Alison Wilgus


Nominees* (Gifted writers who surely have brilliant careers ahead. Just the sight of their names on a submission envelope or email must make discerning editors hearts beat a little faster):
L.S. Johnson
Sunil Patel
Natalia Theodoridou
Alyssa Wong
JY Yang
Isabel Yap

*Yes, I know that technically one can only choose five nominees for the Campbell award but all of these writers are so damn good and so worthy of an award that I just couldn't drop one.

[David Hermann · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mixed bag. Took a long time to finish.

[Emy]

Comments in stages as this is a VERY long anthology (120 authors!). I think this will take me a long time to read all the way through, but it's a very good pick-up-and-put-down book to have. Works are arranged alphabetically by author, which is annoying to some, but perfectly logical and unproblematic to me as I can read one author and then do something else/go to sleep.

Review 1
I'm currently at the 12th story / 8th author.
Read so far:
Charlotte Ashley; John Ayliff; Lucas Bale; Nicolette Barischoff; Sofie Bird; Derrick Boden; & Stefan Bolz.

Not seeing the doom and gloom some reviews have complained of. Yes, some are not all sunshine and roses, but that's good because I'm seeing a variety of types of story. Not all are my cup of tea, but that's the precise point for such and anthology - it points me towards some authors and away from others as my personal taste decides. Have found a couple of authors so far that I want to go back and find more from / look for more in the same world.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh dear god this took forever and ever and ever to finish reading. There were some great short stories, ones that I keep thinking about, and some really really awful ones (which I also think about). Is it worth reading? If you really like short-stories and you already have a copy (because this was only available for a short time), probably. Don't put up with the mediocrity though, just go to the next story if you're not enjoying the story you're reading.

[Ron · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dryness, death, despair, dystopia, defeat, ‘droids, despair.

I soldiered through over half of this dog’s breakfast of short stories, hoping it would get better. It got worse. These folks may be eligible for recognition, but most don’t deserve it. They don’t deserve to be published. (My apologies to those whose surnames fall in the latter part of the alphabet; I gave up.) I can’t believe there was any selection process involved. This is not a scatter gun collection; it’s a hand grenade.

There are a few noteworthy exceptions, like Curtis C. Chen, but most of these a mediocre, nihilistic, apocalyptic, woe-is-me tales. Too many in too close proximity. Thousands of pages of dreck.

Don’t Waste Your Time

[Gloria Webber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lots of times with anthologies I like a few stories but skip most. Not this one. This was filled with so many good stories! I did skip a few, but there is a huge amount of content in here.

These seem like the kind of stories you'd get from people who grew up on CS Lewis or Tolkien, who played video games, pen and paper RPGs, and watched anime. I mean that in the best kind of way - there are D&D-isms, mashups of fantasy and scifi elements, steampunk, and references to classic scifi and fantasy. Not too much in the way of hard scifi, but there are a few military oriented, classic-feeling stories in there.

I very highly recommend this, and hope that at least some of these authors do get their Campbells. This is some of the most creative and original scifi I've read in a while.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

Extremely uneven. There were a few great stories and a few more truly awful ones. Most where just in the middle. It was barely worth getting through this for the good ones which is a shame since the best stories in it were very good.

[Rue S. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is by far and wide the best cancer story out there. I mean, if you like speculative fiction and your cancer stories to be truthful to the real experience of getting, fighting and moving on from the experience of having cancer.

[Cass Morrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great holiday book. such a wide range of short stories and a smattering of poetry. I had read many of the novels featured but it was nice to revisit them.

[Sam]

I'm pretty sure reading this was a significant contribution to why my total book count for 2016 is distinctly lower than previous years.