Three Seconds

Two new stories and an interview out in September!

So why did I call this post "Three Seconds"? Because each of these items marks my second appearance in that particular venue.

Stories

• My story "Waste Knot, Want Knot" was just published in Nature Physics, and you can read it here: http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/v10/n9/full/nphys3102.html

This is my second appearance in Nature. My first, "Coffee in End Times," was a collaboration with Alex Shvartsman, which you can read here: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v506/n7488/full/506402a.html. Alex is currently putting together his first collection of short fiction, Explaining Cthulhu to Grandma and Other Stories, which will be out around Feb 2015, and our story will be included in that collection. To that end, we've written some comments about the story. Fair warning, they're best read after the story. Here are our story notes: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/776571295/explaining-cthulhu-to-grandma-and-other-stories/posts/965243

• My story "Eine Kleine Nachtfilm" was just published in Galaxy's Edge. It's a tribute story to one of the great short story writers, in and out of science fiction, but I won't say who. That would make things less fun, wouldn't it? :-) You can read it here, and I'm sure you'll be able to figure it out: http://www.galaxysedge.com/n3.htm 

This is also my second appearance in Galaxy's Edge. Last year the magazine published my story "All Along the Golden Front." Thank you, Mike Resnick, on both counts!


Interview

I got to interview Ann Leckie, whose first novel, Ancillary Justice, has won every major science fiction award (and then some!), for the fine folks at Clarkesworld while I was in London. That interview, "Consciousness as Story: A Conversation with Ann Leckie",  was published a few days ago, and may be found here: http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/leckie_interview/

I've had one previous interview published in Clarkesworld, which was with Chuck Wendig. (You can read it here: http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/wendig_interview/).


Extra, Extra

Also recently, I asked Jonathan R. Eller, author of Becoming Ray Bradbury, and the new Ray Bradbury Unbound, to drop by the Locus Mag blog, and he was kind enough to do so: http://www.locusmag.com/Roundtable/2014/08/jonathan-r-eller-guest-post-ray-bradbury-unbound/

Short Fiction Reading Spree - Recap Part II, Stories 26-50

As promised, here is the second part of my short fiction reading spree recap:


Day 6

These stories are all from 2014, by writers I didn't know, and appearing in magazines I hadn't touched in days 1-5.

# 26) "The Food in the Basement" Laura Davy (Apex #62 Jul 2014)
Not normally a fan of vampire stories, but this one won me over. The telling is sparse, almost to the point of detachment, which brings out the horror of the situation that much more effectively. The setup reminded me a bit of John Fowles' The Collector.

# 27) "What Needs to Burn" Sylvia Anna Hiven (Beneath Ceaseless Skies #152 Jul 2014)
An effective story efficiently told. Things move fast, and keep on moving. Wild West sort of setting with some fantasy elements thrown in. A reader comments that it brought Firefly to mind, and I can't disagree. That's sort of the "flavor" I got too.

# 28) "The World Resolute" E. Catherine Tobler (Strange Horizons 14 July 2014 )
Short and poetic. Somewhat of a mood piece. Liked it.

# 29) "Always Forever Now" Drew Rhys White (Ideomancer June 2014)
Meditative and thought-provoking story. The author mentions the influence or evocation of Karen Joy Fowler in the story comments and I can see that. I appreciate that adult relationships were handled in a subtle, sophisticated way, and that the speculative element was nicely blended with the story's human interest.

# 30) "A Gift in Time" Maggie Clark (Clarkesworld #92 May 2014)
The story was well-written and offered plenty of historical verisimilitude. There was good attention to detail, and a classic tragic-ironic ending. I didn't feel particularly close to the main character, though, and so the story's fine qualities didn't combine to move me or make me care about his unrequited love as much as I would have liked.

The last two stories included two different brands of time-travel, but other than that no real "theme" emerged from this batch.


Day 7

Again, these stories are all from 2014, by writers I didn't know. I solicited recommendations regarding stories in Daily Science Fiction and Anatoly Belilovsky pointed out the J. S Bangs story to me. I'm glad he did--I quite liked it.

# 31) "Gauntlet" Shedrick Pittman-Hassett (On Spec #96 Spring 2014)
Barb Galler-Smith was kind enough to send me this story, which was nice, since it let me dip into On Spec for this project (I don't otherwise have access to the magazine). This is what I tend to think of as effectively constructed, rollicking science fiction. Strong, visually rich set-pieces, likeable characters, and a brisk pace. Nicely done.

# 32) "The Heresy of Friar Travolo" J.S. Bangs (Daily Science Fiction Jul 11 2014)
I like math, and this story did a great job in its treatment of Euclidean vs. non-Euclidean geometry. I think this is a fine example of a narrative that works primarily to expose the reader to a new idea, and presents it in a respectable fashion (i.e., sf as learning device), because the human element is still compelling. Have a weakness for Middle Ages settings too, which worked in the story's favor.

# 33) "Seven Things Cadet Blanchard Learned From the Trade Summit Incident" Annalee Flower Horne (F&SF July/Aug 2014 CC Finlay issue)
Clever and well-constructed. I never really warmed to this story's tone, though, I have to say, and since it relies so heavily on tone, that hampered my enjoyment of it.

# 34) "Five Tales of the Aqueduct" Spencer Ellsworth (F&SF July/Aug 2014 CC Finlay issue)
Loved it. I literally reread it again right after reading it the first time. Coincidentally, I recently watched Chinatown for the first time, so the subject of water irrigation and aqueducts in southern California was already lingering in my consciousness. But what makes this work is the fascinating way Ellsworth spins out the narrative in completely unexpected directions, expertly manipulating scale and metaphor to convey strange ideas and unlikely juxtapositions in each of the five micro-tales. Reading this story was thrilling. Also, I think I may have a thing for catfish science fiction stories (an anthology I'd love to see): a few scenes in I was reminded of Tim Pratt's study in grief and redemption, "Bottom Feeding" (Asimov's, August 2005), which was one of my favorites that year (though other reviewers didn't think quite as highly of it).

# 35) "Jump, and I'll Catch You" Michelle Ann King (Daily Science Fiction Jul 25 2014)
An interesting idea, but its treatment didn't quite win me over. I think this was largely because early on in the story we encounter the following sentence: "There meant the place where our new friends lived" (bold is mine). The use of "our" made me think this would be a first-person narration, but I didn't see any "I"s, etc. in what followed, so I found myself struggling to understand the point of view, and that was distracting.

I'm looking forward to going back and reading more stories from the special issue of F & SF edited by Charles Coleman Finlay. I realize there's going to be a mix of styles and subjects; from the two stories I sampled, one set me on fire, and the other left me a little cold. But if there are any others that deliver an experience even close to that of Ellsworth's, I'll consider myself a satisfied customer.

Day 8

I decided to do a little different on this day and read the first five stories in Reach for Infinity. This anthology, edited by Jonathan Strahan, was published in 2014, and since its stories are all original to the anthology, they all qualify as 2014 stories. Strahan has a fantastic track record as an editor, I enjoy hard sf, and it was my birthday, so I thought, "Why the heck not?"

I freely admit I came to this anthology with very high expectations. In a few instances less-than-stellar sentences (yes, I'm picking on this stuff at the sentence level) turned me off more than they normally would have. I expect elite performances from elite writers, and anything less is frustrating.

# 36) "Break My Fall" Greg Egan (Reach for Infinity ed. Jonathan Strahan)
The Egan, I have to admit, was a disappointment. Good idea and interesting situation. But I've read 25+ Egan stories and would place this somewhere in the bottom quarter, simply because the premise/physics wasn't nearly as abstract/out-there as other times, and to me that provides less justification for some of the character flatness. Curious to think what Greg Egan expert Karen Burnham makes of it.

# 37) "The Dust Queen" Aliette de Bodard (ditto)
Solid work, well-crafted--but it seemed to lack the more realistic scientific handling of the other stories, and what I kind of gleaned (maybe incorrectly) was supposed to be anthology's approach.

# 38) "The Fifth Dragon" Ian McDonald (ditto)
I thought McDonald's story was excellent. Very strong voice that pulled me in right away and kept me reading; reminded me of early John Varley, as did the story's focus on sex. I think this story perfectly blended the human and scientific/extrapolative elements. In a brief exchange on Facebook, both writer Sandra Odell and writer/editor Gardner Dozois singled this one out from the first five, and I can see why. I'll be going back to reread it at some point to better observe who McDonald achieves his effects.

# 39) "Kheldyu" Karl Schroeder (ditto)
After the McDonald this may have been my favorite, because I thought the science was really interesting, and the thriller/spy dynamics provided a nice change of pace from the other stories. Diverting and thought-provoking, without being as deep or moving as the McDonald.

# 40) "Report Concerning The Presence of Seahorses On Mars" Pat Cadigan (ditto)
Not a lot to say on this one. It was good, but it took me a bit to get into, and the tone (or perhaps it was the ratio of description to exposition) seemed to shift a bit abruptly towards the end.


Day 9

After reading 35 stories by writers I didn't know during days 1-7, and 5, on day 8, by writers I did know, I decided on a different kind of indulgence for day 8. There are some writers one likes that are so prolific it's almost a full-time reading job keeping up with their output. Robert Reed is one of my favorite short story writers, and he may qualify. To catch up with what he's been up to (or some of it, anyway), I set out to read five of his 2014 stories--a little Robert Reed festival!

# 41) "We Don't Mean to Be" (F&SF Jan/Feb 2014)
Far-future space opera meets theology/mythology. Nicely handled, and I liked the alternating viewpoints, but found the ending a little arbitrary. Then again, maybe that was part of the point.

# 42) "The Principles" (Asimov's Apr/May 2014)
Alternative history novella in which the alternate history may be the most interesting aspect of the story. Don't get me wrong, I felt the characters were well-depicted, but I didn't become particularly invested in the protagonists' situation.

# 43) "Time Travelers Wear Disguises" (Daily Science Fiction April 11 2014)
A standout for me. In a way, it reminded me of Isaac Asimov's "The Last Question", one of my all-time favorite stories. Common elements include central AIs (Multivac and Majesty--hmmm, two "M"s) that operate, largely unobserved, on vast timescales. And which are revealed to have the ability to remold reality--for themselves and for everyone else.

# 44) "Blood Wedding" (Asimov's Jul 2014)
Violent (meaning, blood-soaked) weddings instantly conjure Kill Bill for me, which, I realize, has nothing to do with this story (though it turns out there's a superficial connection, at least, in that both stories start with the wedding and then flash back to the events leading up to it, before continuing with post-wedding events). I enjoyed the tech aspects (such as body modifications and cyborg parts, uplifted or engineered animals) and the somewhat melodramatic character backgrounds.

# 45) "wHole" (Clarkesworld Jun 2014)
Far-out road trip, and I'll just leave it at that!

This group of stories consistently show that Robert Reed continues to push at the boundaries of short form science fiction. During the last few years he has demonstrated, for example, that it is possible to write a really effective piece with, say, twenty point-of-view characters and plenty of discontinuities in space and time.

Reading this batch of stories I got the sense that his work has evolved into something more abstract. A kind of performance art, almost, as though Reed has subsumed the standard sf tropes, kidnapped and assimilated them so completely that what he spits out looks like sf but is in fact something quite different--and intrinsically postmodern.

I use that word not to bandy about a much-abused (and maligned, it seems) critical term, but because of several specific narrative strategies and thematic preoccupations I see cropping up in these stories (and other recent ones) by Reed.

To summarize, I'd describe his storytelling as aggressively self-destabilizing. It's hard to read more than three paragraphs without running into an instance of the storytelling voice second-guessing information that it has just been imparted, or offering a playful twist that sheds ironic light on what seemed a straightforward revelation, or explicitly contradicting it in favor of some other "truth" that, in turn, faces imminent dethronement. Nothing is as it appears, and it isn't as it appears for very long either; soon it's something else entirely, and that also isn't as it appears.

What about broader themes? Here's a few recurring ones:

• History is built on coincidence, misunderstanding, contrivance, and misinterpretation. This has been around in Reed's work for a while (see, for example, "Killing the Morrow" or "Past Imperfect", which that deal with the ephemeral nature of the past) and continues to be intensely explored. 
• Every scale you use to try to understand something is simultaneously vast and infinitesimal compared to some other equally valid scale being used elsewhere/elsewhen by some other entity. Most of these stories use the words "trillions", "billions", "quadrillions" and so on multiple times. And they're not being used to suggest exaggeration, either--they're meant literally.
• All knowledge and understanding is makeshift and temporary. Not-knowing speeds up in the future.
• Endless possibilities, and the inevitability that all of them are true or co-exist in some manner. This means that all decisions are subject to reinterpretation, that everything can be second-guessed, and so on. It manifests through multiple-worlds theory and dovetails with the previous two themes.
• Self-deception. Has Reed, I wonder, read Robert Trivers' The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life or maybe Herbert Fingarette's Self-Deception? Because though present in earlier Reed stories, self-deception seems to have become a more central concern now. Consider, for example, "Time Travelers Wear Disguises".

Ethan Robinson, in his close reading of Reed's "Mystic Falls", provides an excellent, in-depth discussion of some overlapping issues and observations. His analysis is considerably more detailed and thoughtful than my scattered comments here, so I recommend you check it out.


Day 10

I asked for authors to recommend stories by themselves or anyone else, and the first five responses I received generated the below list of stories, all by good people.

# 46) ''Mind Locker'' Juliette Wade (Analog July/August 2014)
Take vintage William Gibson and Pat Cadigan, add in a little Strange Days for seasoning, and you might get something like "Mind Locker". Wade certainly does a thorough and consistent job with her invented slang and plausible tech, leading to an immersive reading experience. Her characters are also nicely individualized in neat, small ways. And the story moves at breakneck pace, with short (often one-line or even one-word) paragraphs. As with other propositions of this type, one must work a little to enter the "story space", but I thought the effort was worth while. I don't know that all of the terminology was equally successful for me (for example, I got a kick out of "group synch", but felt like "VR fighters" was too quaint/retro). And I enjoyed the impoverished slice of future society Wade created. I'll admit, part of me wishes she'd gone further, in terms of violence and sex, not because they're intrinsically interesting elements, but because I feel they would have been dramatically relevant.

# 47) ''Two Things About Thrand Zandy's TechnoThèque'' Greg Bossert (Journal of Unlikely Cryptography February 2014)
A fun, quirky, post-cyberpunkish story, with plenty of inventiveness and attitude. Delivers on its title. I liked the female protagonist, and I found the ending worked well. The action and mystery elements were also adeptly handled.

# 48) ''That Other Sea'' William Ledbetter (Escape Pod January 2014)
Nice worldbuilding in this story, in which the setting largely determines the character's alien-ness and also shapes their beliefs, as it should. The story kept me intrigued all the way through, despite the occasional slight tendency to repeat information (for example, "If that happened, his warren associates would eventually pull him back up" and then a few paragraphs later, "He knew his associates would pull him up"). I also thought the descriptions were quite good and liked how an early reference to legend wasn't a throw-away line, but actually served a purpose.

# 49) ''A Paradise of Wasteland'' Adrian Simmons (Heroic Fantasy Quarterly February 2014)
I don't read a lot of sword and sorcery, or anything close, really, so I approached this story with some trepidation. I'm happy to report that I needn't have worried. Simmons' story does have a lot of familiar sub-genre elements, sure--but the writing is colorful, and the attention to detail (for example with animals and foods) carried me through. I liked the desert backdrop. One of my favorite Majipoor stories by Robert Silverberg is "The Desert of Stolen Dreams"; though very different in subject matter and approach, I found the desert setting here to be similarly evocative.

# 50) ''Code Blue Love'' Bill Johnson (Analog July/August 2014)
An enjoyable example of a hard sf story that fuses AI with medical drama, with an ending I found a bit sudden. The author clearly has done his homework, given the level of detail he provides--hopefully his personal experience with the subject matter is limited. While I found the story thread about aneurysms compelling, patches of the writing felt a little prosaic ("Hell, we're going to die anyway," a character says, and then a few lines later a different characters says, "Hell, it's a lot better chance..."; or the repeated use of adverbs such as "slowly"). I'm glad Bill pointed me to his work. In looking up his previous credits I see he won a Hugo award  in 1998 for "We Will Drink a Fish Together" and will definitely look that one up.

So concludes the short fiction spree, in which I read 50 stories in 10 days. I'll likely post some additional thoughts over the next few days, including my top 5 or possibly top 10 from these 50.

Short Fiction Reading Spree - Recap Part I, Stories 1-25

Today is day 5 of the 10-day short fiction spree, in which I read five stories a day. I thought I'd do a recap of the 25 stories I've read so far. I've broken it down by day, with a few notes on what criteria (if any) I used to pick the stories, and some brief, capsule reviews/responses to each story.


Day 1

To select my five stories on day 1 I perused the latest short story reviews by Lois Tilton, Rich Horton and Gardner Dozois. I wanted something recent. I also wanted:

• at most one story per venue,
• a story from a magazine I'd never read before
• all five stories to be by writers unknown to me.

Here are the five short stories I selected based on the above criteria:

# 1) "The Talking Cure" K. J. Zimring (Asimov's April/May 2014)
Zimring's sf idea was interesting, and the emotional implications were nicely foregrounded: but I thought what really made the story work was actually the narrator's tone. It was enjoyably acerbic without being cynical or morose.

# 2) "White Curtain" Pavel Amnuel (F&SF May/June 2014)
Really liked the concept behind "White Curtain", and a couple of specific moments. Unfortunately the story, as a whole, didn't quite knock me off my feet. There was a weird, almost breathless quality to the prose (is that somehow related to the Russian cadences in the original, I wonder?) and I didn't get sufficiently invested in the character to be truly moved. But I enjoyed it nonetheless, and the ending, though maybe a bit predictable, was well done.

# 3) "Sadness" Timons Esaias (Analog July/August 2014)
This one will stay with me. Extremely good worldbuilding and atmosphere--thorough and carefully done. Good character development and an unpredictable situation. Memorable ending. Just about everything worked for me, and the first few paragraphs gave me that tingly "otherness" feel I so enjoy in science fiction.

# 4) "Tunbi" Chikodili Emelumadu (Luna Station Quarterly June 2014)
Talk about "otherness"--whoa! "Tunbi"'s got it in spades. Interesting effects with language too, and a really out-there character you won't forget anytime soon. Grossness and dark comedy to spare. As for the plot, I found it a little underwhelming, but I'll be looking for more of Emelumadu's work in the future. And I'll be coming back to this magazine as well.

# 5) "M1A" Kim Winternheimer (Lightspeed Women Destroy SF June 2014)
I'm conflicted about this one. I thought the writing was effective and tone-appropriate for the narrator's age. The central image/conceit is horrific and memorable (though not so original). But I'm not sure it sustained the narrative for me, even though it was a flash. I would love, I think, to have seen this is a poem. Still, glad to have read it.

Interesting coincidence: all of these stories were in the first person.


Day 2

As with the selections from Day 1, I wanted to read stories by writers whose work I'd never experienced before. And they're all from 2014. Other than that, the selections were pretty random.

# 6) "Artifice" Naomi Kritzer (Analog Sep 2014)
I found "Artifice" pleasant and diverting. Nicely unadorned prose. The concept felt a little familiar--at one point, the story made me think of "In Theory", that episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation were Data becomes involved in a romantic relationship. The conclusion pushes the pathos in a different direction (of necessity, since Joe, the humaniform robot in this story, isn't our POV character, unlike Data was in that episode). A few nice observations regarding domestic life and relationships.

# 7) "Collar" Leo Vladimirsky (F & SF March/April 14)
"Collar", I'll admit right away, blew me away. Holy crap, why I haven't read Vladimirsky before? I loved the story's quiet, unassuming opening, built on solid narrative description, depicting an apparently quotidian setting but suggesting some interesting weirdassery in a subtle way. The dialogue throughout is rendered with precise naturalism; and all of the prose is threaded through with the kind of rough, sinewy muscularity that I'm a sucker for. Tonally it reminded me of some of Robert Reed's short stories. Or maybe an SF version of early Cormac McCarthy. Other things I enjoyed: the worldbuilding was achieved almost completely without infodumps and melded intelligent realpolitik with scientific extrapolation. The character development was concise, but deep--elegantly handled. And the--SPOILER--irresolution (though you might be able to excavate an implied resolution) of the ending works beautifully.

# 8) "The Low Hum of Her" Sarah Pinsker (Asimov's Aug 2014)
Enjoyed "The Low Hum of Her" quite a bit. The image of the birdcage was amazing, and I liked how it became functional as the story progressed--in fact, essential to the plot, not just a neat visual stroke. I'll admit the story left me wanting a little more, and I feel ambivalent about that.

# 9) "Everyone Will Want One" Kelly Sandoval (Asimov's Sep 2014)
"Everyone Will Want One" does a lot of things well, including effectively depicting young peoples' social dynamics and really investigating what it would take to maximize popularity (and what that effect such a "victory" might have for the victor). I liked the setting too. There were a few moments when the narrative flow felt just a bit repetitive to me (similar sentence constructions and length of paragraphs), and I didn't *love* the ending, though I found it effective and understated.

# 10) "Everything that Has Already Been Said" Samantha Murray (Lightspeed Women Destroy SF June 2014)
"Everything that Has Already Been Said" is a flash that packs a lot in--a lovely idea, two interesting characters, and plenty of pathos. I really admire a flash story where everything is so essential and lean. And the narrative's temporal lens, which pans out at the end, added a great sense of SFnal scope, really illuminating the central conceit. Powerful.

My one observation regarding this batch of stories, considered as a group, is this: Mechanical/artificial beings everywhere! Fully FOUR out of the five stories featured an artificial creation in some way designed to help fulfill the emotional needs of the human characters or to enable their accomplishments. Not sure what this means--is the Zeitgeist prepping itself for sentient robots/AIs, finally?--but I'm curious to see how many more stories I encounter that riff on this theme.


Day 3

To select the stories for day 3 I decided to ransack Tor.com's great archives, as I've fallen way behind on their short fiction. Tor.com has some excellent short fiction acquiring editors. As in days 1 and 2, I picked writers whose work I've never read before. And all work was published in 2014.

# 11) "Among the Thorns" Veronica Schanoes (Tor.com 5/7/2014)
"Among the Thorns" is technically a novelette, and to be honest, I found it a little slow at the start--seemed rich on incident and setting but short on actual story. I do think the writer created the sense of place and time very well. I find it's more difficult for me to enjoy the revenge motifs than others, and it was fairly clear that this story was headed in that direction early on. I haven't read (or can't remember) the original fable on which it's based, and maybe that hampered my experience a bit. There were strong character moments and a nice conclusion. Overall not really my cup of tea but I quite enjoyed the historical feel.

# 12) "The Color of Paradox" A. M. Dellamonica (Tor.com 6/25/2014)
Unlike revenge stories, which are a hard sell for me, I'm pretty susceptible to time-travel (as long as it's handled thoughtfully). "The Color of Paradox" is indeed a thoughtful treatment. The writing sucked me in right from the start: tight, compelling, direct, often very fresh. Like readers commented, the Connie Willis reference was hard to miss. The historical aspect was intriguing too. And I loved the characters. Felt like this was the beginning of something longer; ending didn't quite satisfy.

# 13) "The Walking-Stick Forest" Anna Tambour (Tor.com 5/21/2014)
What a marvelously strange and beautiful piece "The Walking-Stick Forest" is! Anna Tambour's gifts for rich, sustained description are impressive. The story is full of the kind of dark, grim, unsettling, oneiric imagery that stays with you long after reading. I loved the long, rolling sentences, the specificity and abundance of detail, and the final stunning image. Notice how precisely Tambour modulates her paragraph lengths and sentence structures as she nears the story's end. Such craft. Can you tell this was a favorite?

# 14) "Bridge of Snow" Marie Rutkoski (Tor.com 1/28/2014)
“Bridge of Snow” contains that story-within-a-story device that can so easily go wrong (becoming an over-indugence, an excess of postmodern playfulness), but it handles it adeptly and uses it to great effect. Not a lot to say besides that. I enjoyed it--and it has a really strong ending. I may be tempted to return to this world.

# 15) "The Madonna of the Abattoir" Anne M. Pillsworth (Tor.com 5/6/2014)
The second story from this batch whose writing I found outstanding. "The Madonna of the Abattoir" is a foreboding, miskatonic delight--and that's coming from someone who has hardly read any Cthulhu fiction at all, original or otherwise. But the formalized language, the vivid, sensory-laden descriptions, and the complex characters won me over in no time at all. I think it helped I had no idea this was Lovecraft-inspired going in, too, so I approached it without specific expectations. I'm certainly glad it worked out that way.

The writing of these Tor.com stories was perhaps a cut above, on the whole, from what I've seen in some of the other magazines. The focus here is definitely more on the dark and fantastic. Out of the five stories above, only one was really sf. Which I'm sure comes as no surprise to devoted readers of the site (or maybe it's just an accidental impression caused by my five-story sample). And again, as with previous days, quite a lot of first-person narration going on in this group too.


Day 4

And now for something completely different...

For this day's stories I decided to hit up some "lit" mags. After all, I think it's important to read widely, and why should short fiction be an exception? :-) My only requirements for these stories were that they were published in 2014 and that they were penned by writers unknown to me.

# 16) "The Sky in the Glass-Topped Table" Elizabeth Evans (Ploughshares Spring 2014, Vol. 40 Issue 1)
Really liked Evans' story. I found the story to be a touching and effective portrait of the enormous psychological gap between the young woman Kelvyn, from whose point of view we see things, and the much older with whom she has chosen to associate, with a believable setting and great attention to detail throughout. Can the distance between them ever be crossed? The story ends in heartbreak of a kind (but also implied liberation), so I'll let you guess the answer.

# 17) "Dreamlives of Debris" Lance Olsen (Conjunctions Spring 2014, Issue 62)
Olsen's narrative is an experimental assembly of thought fragments, chorus voices and other devices. I loved it. I remember that in high school I had to study (i.e. torture) Jorge Luis Borges' story "La casa de Asterión" and a few paragraphs into this one I thought of that other story. It was particularly fun, then, to encounter a "jorge luis borges song" about halfway through. Apparently Olsen has written numerous books on narrative theory/experimentation, and his mastery shows. Definite recommendation if you're into this sort of thing. I'll quote the story's opening to give you a flavor: "I have my doll and the screamings behind my eyelids. The screamings look like fluttery lights. The fluttery lights believe they live inside me, but I live inside them too.
My doll’s name is Catastrophe."

# 18) "When We Realize We Are Broke" Manuel Gonzales (Tin House Summer 2014, Issue 60)
Gonzales moved me deeply with this story of intense quiet desperation, manifested in the form of a rapidly escalating money woes and the main character's self-imposed alienation from his wife, kids and the world around him. There are times throughout this story when you want to kick some sense into him. But then you realize that's the point--this is how bad decisions are made, and how relationships suffer.

# 19) "To The Lake" Luke Mogelson (The Paris Review Spring 2014, Issue 208)
Luke Mogelson's "To The Lake" was a little less effective for me. The writing was excellent on a line-by-line level (though he did use this one same affectation "twice" in the same story, which may be fair given its first-person narration, but seemed like a tiny blemish to me). Outside of the craft, though, I just didn't care much for the protagonist or what happened next. I have a feeling things won't end well at Lake Champlain.

# 20) "Noble Things" Roxane Gay (A Public Space Summer 2014, Issue 21)
Science fiction? What? In a "mainstream lit" magazine? Well, sure. A story is a story. "Noble Things" is set in a future in which there's been a secession by the South and a New Civil War, so I think from the point of view of extrapolative setting, that certainly qualifies. Nice character dynamics, but I felt it was a little overlong for the main effect it was going after, and perhaps a tad over-expository too.

My venture into these non-SF magazines was very rewarding. I should read them more often. But I felt ready to dive back into fantastika with day 5's stories!


Day 5

I'm tired, so I cheated a little (not really [actually, yes, just a little, by following the letter of the law but sort of chuckling at its spirit (okay fine have it your way--but you shall forever more think of yourself as a CHEATER after this [how do you know I already don't? now get back to your thought])]) and read shorts from Nature.

The five shorts/flash stories were, again, all from 2014, and by writers whose work I'd never read before:

# 21) "A long way from home" Sylvia Spruck Wrigley (Nature 511, 502 (24 July 2014))
Delightful. Nice emotional spectrum in this one, from the seemingly innocuous to the existential. Also, loved the German details.

# 22) "Are you receiving?" Rebecca Birch (Nature 511, 376 (17 July 2014))
Ooh, interesting. The narrative device--transmissions being sent out under increasingly desperate circumstances--hooked me right away. Liked the storytelling transition right at the end. Memorable imagery, and a dreamy conclusion that manages to tie it all up nicely (no, it was *not* a dream--well, not the normal type, anyway).

# 23) "Benjy's birthday" John Grant (Nature 511, 258 (10 July 2014))
Sly and elegant. A fun read. You think you know where it's going, and maybe you do--but there's a little bite in the ending I didn't see coming. And I think the whole story can be interpreted in at least two different ways.

# 24) "Cargo cult" S. R. Algernon (Nature 511, 118 (03 July 2014))
Something about the tone/flow of this one made it a little harder to get into. I liked the ideas, and thought it was clever. Not sure the ending gave me the same tingle the other stories in this group did.


# 25) "Emancipation" João Ramalho-Santos (Nature 510, 436 (19 June 2014))
I appreciated that the focus of the conceit was biology here, instead of physics, cosmology or space exploration. I did find some of the early paragraphs a little info-dumpy, but nothing terrible. The last line, I'll admit, made me chuckle.

These short works were entertaining and thought-provoking. Plus they've allowed me to discover some new writers whose works I know I'll be looking into.

Short Fiction Reading Spree

Leading up to Worldcon each year I like to ramp up my short fiction reading. This is convenient because:

• Normally it gives me an opportunity to go through all the short form Hugo nominees each year.

• It means I feel a little more "caught up" on short fiction, entering the second half of the year, than I otherwise would, which in turn provides extra motivation to keep going August-Dec. Now, this may make it sound like reading short fiction is difficult or unappealing--quite the opposite is true. But reading novels and non-fiction books is easy and appealing as well, and they take considerably more time, so unless I deliberately set aside blocks of time for short fiction, I find that even though I continue to read it all year round I fall woefully behind.

• It's nice to be able to meet people at a large gathering like Worldcon and be familiar with their short form work, whether they have published dozens or stories before, or just the one I read last month. Wouldn't be the first time this has provided an "in" to conversation or a way of quickly establishing a shared reference.

• This is captured in the third bullet point, but I'll repeat it here, because it deserves its own space: I love short fiction.

• As it happens, this year one of the panels I'm going to be on is about short fiction. So reading more of it leading up to the con, and that specific panel, certainly can't hurt. It might even make me pseudo-credible.

Those are reasons, then. But what about method of execution? Well, this year I thought I'd try a slightly different approach:

• Starting tomorrow, Sunday July 20th, I'll endeavor to read five stories a day for the next ten days. This means that, if successful, I'll read fifty stories during this little spree.

• All the short fiction I read during this time will have been published in 2014. (This means, alas, that I'll have to try and catch up with current Hugo nominees on the side, or last minute before voting closes, or be caught up incompletely when it does).

I look forward to discovering new authors and seeing what some of my favorites have been up to!

WorldCon Schedule (Draft) - Loncon 3

Here's my draft schedule for the upcoming London WorldCon. I couldn't be happier with these assignments. Why, you ask?

• First (and understanding this could change), awesome folks.
• Second, I'm moderating two panels, and that's something I always enjoy.
• Third, awesome folks. No, really.
• Fourth, most of the panels are later in the day, which means free time for other panels/activities in the morning. 
• Fifth, one panel per day, which is really nice pacing.
• And sixth (these aren't in order of importance!), I like the panel themes and think they'll be fun.

Extrapolation on Screen
Thursday 18:00 - 19:00
SF on screen, even or perhaps especially at its most political, seems reluctant to extrapolate directly from our present time. Instead, politcal works such as The Hunger Games or Defiance are often set after a radical change; or avoid extrapolating at all by dealing in secrets and conspiracies, like Orphan Black and Person of Interest. Possible contemporary exceptions include Continuum and Almost Human, but why are they so uncommon? Are important questions being dodged, or can the absence of extrapolation be a strength (and if so, how)?
Alvaro Zinos-Amaro (M), Charlie Jane Anders, Juliana Goulart, Adam Rakunas, Michael Morelli

A Reader's Life During Peak Short Fiction
Friday 12:00 - 13:30
There are now more speculative short stories published than any one person can hope to read -- or even find. So how do fans of the short-form navigate this landscape? With so much ground to cover, how does an individual reader find stories they like -- are we more author-driven in our reading habits? Conversely, how and why do particular stories "break out" and become more widely known? To what extent is the greater volume of material enabling -- and recognising -- a greater diversity of authors and topics? And what is the place of short fiction in today's field -- testing ground for ideas, the heart of the discussion, or something else?
Jetse de Vries (M), Abigail Nussbaum, Jonathan Strahan, Alvaro Zinos-Amaro, Elizabeth Bear

The Canon is Dead. What Now?
Saturday 19:00 - 20:00
On the one hand, initiatives like the SF Gateway are helping to ensure the SF backlist remains accessible to today's readers, and an increasing number of "classic" SF writers are receiving the establishment seal of approval in series like the Library of America (Philip K. Dick) and the Everyman Library (Isaac Asimov). On the other hand, the SF readership is increasingly diverse, with fewer readers who have come to the field via those "classics", and many who find little of value in them in any case. In other words the traditional SF canon is no longer tenable -- but the history is still out there. So what alternative models and narratives should we be using to understand the field's past? Should we be working to expand the canon, or to describe multiple overlapping histories -- or something else?
Kate Nepveu (M), Thea James, Connie Willis, Alvaro Zinos-Amaro, Chris Beckett

The Art of Reviewing
Sunday 18:00 - 19:00
John Clute is one of the people who lifted reviewing in the field to an art form. What makes the difference between a workmanlike review that tells us what we need to know, and a review which becomes a text worth studying in its own right? Under what circumstances does a review transcend its immediate subject, and become part of the wider conversation about genre? Who are reviews for: readers, authors, industry, other reviewers?
Alvaro Zinos-Amaro (M), Paul Kincaid, Aidan Moher, Elizabeth Hand, Alisa Krasnostein 

The Destruction of Our Beloved Field

I heard somewhere that women are destroying science fiction. I thought to myself, "No, that can't be." But one look at a nearby shelf of recent purchases (limited to short fiction only), confirmed that, alas, it's true. Other shelves containing novels provided further proof.

With that in mind, I think I'll go make my list of Hugo nominees now.

#40 out of 40 — Reflections in a GoldenEye

And so we arrive at the final -- and slightly delayed (see below) -- post of this series.

Since the post is longer than usual, I'm going to break it up into sections.


Novel and Such

First, the obligatory stuff. The last two days were days 55 and 56 of the writing streak. I added 1,200 words to the novel each day. In my last post I was at 18,700, so we're now up to 21,100. Not an inherently significant number, but it does mark at least one milestone, which is crossing 20K words. (It may mark a second milestone. If the final draft doesn't come in too much longer than my targeted 81K, I'm now past the one quarter point.)



More books!

Achieved my fitness targets (miles and calisthenics) yesterday and today.


Double O Seven Extravaganza

And now for some explanation of the delay in this post. The answer is simple: yesterday I stayed up all night, and so the two days kind of bled together for me. Yesterday evening (7/31) at around 7 pm we started a James Bond movie marathon, which kept going until 8 am this morning (8/1). During said I watched four and a half movies: Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965), You Only Live Twice (1967), On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), and the first half of Diamonds Are Forever (1971).

Most of these I'd never seen before, and some of them I'd only seen pieces of, so long ago I barely remembered. I won't try to condense my individual reactions to all of these films, except to say there is a sort of delirious quality, a cumulative effect of mounting unreality, that derives from watching these films one right after the other. Not only because of the films' continuity and how that reinforces one's belief in a preposterous universe where Bond is possible, but because at least the first three listed above progressively escalate in scope and ambition.

I mean, Thunderball is large in scale (Fort Knox underwater planes, atomic bombs, for Heaven's sakes), but You Only Live Twice is SO HUGE it's kind of a joke -- but one the film seems to be in on, even more so than the previous four entries in the franchise. There's something a little surreal about that, specially when you haven't slept in 24 hours.

If you pay close attention to the plots (probably a mistake) there's at least a dozen WTF moments per film. Probably the funniest comment in our marathon was made by my gf a little after midnight. After I objected to some technical aspect of how radioactivity was being dealt with in one of the flicks, she looked at me and said, "As though James Bond isn't fully radioactive by now." Quite right! In general the logic-defying plot moments start coming hard and heavy whenever the villain has Bond in his grip but doesn't kill him on the spot. Or when the entire success of a joint MI6/CIA operation hinges, for example, on a woman falling for Bond and defecting. And so on. But for every one of those moments there are ten other moments of pure thrills, funny one-liners, clever gadgets, stunning set designs, incredible landscapes. And the splendid scores. It was fun.


Daily Blog Post Series

Now that it's a wrap, it seems fair to ask how rewarding it was to write these posts, and examine if there were any learnings for me in the process.

In short, the last comment of the previous section applies equally to writing these posts. The series provides a record of the most significant doings and happenings from the last forty days, and that's as much as I could ask from this little exercise.

But looking back on the series of 40 entries, it's easy to see that during the more recent ones there were times I resorted to just listing out the things I did in bullet format, without any color commentary or attempted insight. That's an inevitable side effect of writing the posts last thing at night, when tired. Then why not write them earlier in the day? Because it would take away time from doing other things. One way around this, I discovered, is to start an entry in the middle of the day, save it as a draft, and add things as they occur. But I certainly didn't do that consistently. So that's something to consider in the future if I ever go through another phase of diligent blogging.

And if I was going to do this series over, I'd probably try to stay truer to the original intent of chronicling non-events, quiet moments. My tendency is to gravitate to measures of productivity, things that can be quantified, rather than the quality of particular experiences, because I'm naturally goal-oriented and I want to determine whether I'm hitting my goals or not. So that's a good take-away for me.

That said, I'm now going to wind down and finish Diamonds Are Forever. And I'm sure I'll post again soon.

#39 out of 40 — From the 60s With Love

And yet more books! The downpour continues!

Day 54 of writing streak. 1,200 words on the novel.

Read another 50 pages of Love Minus Eighty.

Got in my miles and calisthenics.

Tonight we watched the second Bond picture, From Russia With Love (1963). Good stuff, in its own campy way. Thought it outdid Dr. No, particularly in terms of the story's pacing and action. But two pictures in, the sexism is already brutal.

#38 out of 40 — Interlude

More new books today!

Day 53 of writing streak. 1,200 words on the novel.



Fitness goals (including a nice hike in Dana Point) achieved.

Read Interlude 1 in Susskind and Hrabovsky's The Theoretical Minimum.

And we watched Dr. No (1962), the first ever James Bond movie. Good (and at times silly) fun.

#37 out of 40 — B-Day Part Deux

When your birthday happens to fall on a Saturday, bleeding it into Sunday and making it a birthday weekend is really the only way to go, isn't it? Well that's we did!

Again got my writing in first thing in the morning.

Day 52 of writing streak. 1,700 words done on the novel. Feeling good, having hit a bit of a milestone -- 20%, or one fifth done! (Assuming I come in anywhere near the projected wordcount, of course. Right now I'm running long against my outline estimates).



Later in the morning went for a hike, and a short walk in the evening. Miles done for the day.

Again, a lovely lunch (Chinese) and a nice dinner (Mexican) out and about.

Then spent about an hour reading several astronomy-related texts, trying to brush up on some basics. Also read the first chapter of Leonard Susskind and George Hrabovsky's nifty little book, The Theoretical Minimum: What You Need to Know to Start Doing Physics. Enjoyed it thus far, but it's just starting to get interesting.

#36 out of 40 — B-Day

What a great birthday!

Got my writing done first thing this morning. Day 51 of writing streak, 1,200 words on the novel.



Here are the books I got today:

Had two fantastic celebratory meals: lunch at Taco Rosa in Tustin and dinner at O Fine Japanese Cuisine in Laguna Beach. Probably the best sushi I've had in a year.

In between, we went for a hike at the beautiful Salt Creek Trail, and after the hike we went for a gorgeous sunset drive along PCH.

#35 out of 40 — On the Cusp of 34

In about five minutes I'll be turning 34 -- meaning, starting my 35th year of life on this pale blue dot. I feel incredibly fortunate to be in good health, to be loved by those around me, and to have the privilege of loving them back. And it feels like things just continue to get better and better with time! To my family and friends, hear hear!

Day 50 of writing streak. 1,200 words on the novel.



And another 500 words on the new essay.

Read the first 60 pages of Will McIntosh's intriguing new novel, Love Minus Eighty. Looking forward to seeing how the various character relationships play out.

Also read the first 50 pages of Suzanne Young's YA novel The Program.

And fitness goals achieved.

#34 out of 40 — Novel: Day Six

Another very short update.

Day 49 of writing streak. 1,200 words on the novel.



Also, 500 words on a new essay.

Ran in the afternoon; and calisthenics done.

#33 out of 40 — Novel: Day Five

Writing streak Day 48. 3,000 words on the novel, and just about brain dead right now.



That, and fitness (running and calisthenics), was pretty much it for today.

#32 out of 40 — Novel: Day Four

Tired, so a bare-bones post today.

Day 47 of writing streak. And that's another 2,000 words on the novel done. Pushing on with a first draft mindset!



Fitness goals achieved.

And 25 pages of reading on Repressed Spaces: The Poetics of Agoraphobia (with note taking).