Anime Catch-Up Review: Guilty Crown

written by Laurie Tom

Guilty Crown debuted as part of the fall 2011 anime season, but at the time it was up against Persona 4 for my viewing time, and being a Persona fan, that pretty much meant everything else, unfairly or not, was getting shut out.

But over the coming years, I’d occasionally see something that reminded me of it. I liked what I had seen of the character designs, there was that odd yet memorable title, and I liked the song “My Dearest” which plays over the first set of opening credits (which, by the way, gives a pretty accurate snapshot of who and what appears in the show).

Otherwise I didn’t know much about it except that somewhere I had read that the middle arc of the story reminded the viewer of the first Devil Survivor game, which I had enjoyed.

So when I found myself completely caught up on my simulcasts and still in the mood to watch more anime, I fired up Guilty Crown.

Guilty Crown is not an anime series that plays all its cards up front. For a near future science fiction series heavily centered around action, it brings up a lot of questions, and, I’m happy to say, answers nearly all of them.

The premise is that ten years ago, there was an outbreak in Japan of what became known as the Apocalypse Virus. It was so bad that foreign forces had to come in and take control of the country in order to keep the virus contained, and they’ve remained there ever since.

Shu Ouma, is the sort of nice-guy high school student protagonist that appears in many anime series, and in the first episode he is unfortunately the weakest element of the show. He accidentally gets tangled up in a resistance group called Funeral Parlor that is trying to overthrow the GHQ, the health organization that now rules Japan. Due to circumstances, he unintentionally absorbs an experimental fluid called the Void Genome that gives him “the power of kings” and allows him to pull objects out of other people that represent their hearts. These manifestations are called Voids.

Fortunately the first Void he pulls turns out to be a gigantic sword, which comes in handy in the action piece that closes out the first episode. Having him take out opposing mecha on foot is an amazing bit of shorthand to show just how powerful his new ability is, and if the story of Guilty Crown occasionally disappoints, the battles do not.

Shu initially tries to continue living a normal life after having gained the Void Genome, but circumstances conspire again and again to show him there’s really no going back; whether it’s the Funeral Parlor member who transfers to his school or a classmate who could sell him out after witnessing Shu fighting alongside the resistance.

In the early episodes Shu is largely pulled along by the will of other people and the shows works in its appreciably large cast, moving between the people in Funeral Parlor, the students at school, and the members of GHQ. After the bulk of the major players have been revealed, Shu starts to mature. The stakes rise and he begins to take ownership of his situation.

The first season in particular has light-hearted moments, such as Shu trying to figure out the identity of the student who was spying on him by pulling out the student’s Void. All he has to go on is the Void’s appearance, so he ends up running around campus randomly pulling things out of other kids (while profusely apologizing) to the entertainment of the viewer.

But the second season takes a much darker turn and nearly all of the levity is gone. At this point, it’s clear that there’s no such thing as normal.

The rest of the large cast varies in depth, though all are fairly distinctive. Aside from a couple of the senior GHQ members early on, I never had trouble telling anyone apart, though there isn’t the time in a 22-episode series for everyone to be drawn out as fully realized people. Still, with a large cast, there’s likely to be someone to root for even when the main characters aren’t pulling their best.

A few of my favorites:

Ayase is unusual in that she is a disabled character, a paraplegic in a wheelchair, but what is really remarkable is that she’s not the brainy hacker character. No, Ayase is Funeral Parlor’s kickass Endlave (mecha) pilot. Who cares if she’s in a wheelchair? She doesn’t need to walk to pilot a giant robot! I love that everyone in Funeral Parlor simply treats her as part of the team and no one comments on her disability until Shu joins the group and opens his mouth (and then she gives him a good tongue-lashing).

I have a tendency to like characters who do the wrong things for the right reasons, and Shu’s classmate Yahiro is that kind of character. His Void is a freakish pair of shears with the ability to sever life, but when we learn why his Void takes that form, the reason isn’t sadistic at all. Being a pragmatist, Yahiro is also the guy willing to make hard choices and present uncomfortable suggestions, and he does it without ever going off the deep end and becoming a monster like many of his counterparts in other anime series.

The last character I’ll mention is Daryl Yan, who is a part of the GHQ. He’s initially presented as a misanthropic villain who gets off on killing, but partway through the series the audience gets to see another side of him that makes him a more sympathetic character. Personally I wish Daryl had more chance to develop, because I liked where his arc was going, but I can understand why for plot reasons the writers ended up cutting that off. It just makes for a weird about-face near the end.

Unfortunately, with a large cast, that also means there are some characters that just never click. Inori, though the main heroine, is one of many emotionless girls popular in anime and her character arc is not anything that hasn’t been done before. I found I cared about her fate more because of Shu than because I cared about her.

Though Shu is clearly the main character with a tremendous special ability, Guilty Crown is pretty good at giving everyone a piece of the action. It never comes to a point where everyone sits back and lets Shu do his thing. The job is too big for a single person.

Overall, this series was a fun ride that only accelerated as it progressed. Though there were still a few “Huh?” moments that prevent the story from being completely coherent, they weren’t enough to ruin the ending. I’d recommend it.

Pluses: Nicely fleshed out world, excellent action set pieces, large cast makes it easy to find someone to like, large number of memorable vocal tracks

Minuses: Occasional bits of fanservice, plot sometimes take a backseat, some of the characters are archetypes we’ve seen before and don’t rise above their predecessors

Guilty Crown is currently streaming at Hulu and Funimation and is available both subtitled and dubbed. The subtitled version was watched for this review.

Laurie Tom is a fantasy and science fiction writer based in southern California. Since she was a kid she has considered books, video games, and anime in roughly equal portions to be her primary source of entertainment. Laurie is a previous grand prize winner of Writers of the Future and since then her work has been published in Galaxy’s Edge, Penumbra, and Solaris Rising: The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction.

Review: Nebula Novelette Nominees

written by David Steffen

And the next category up in Nebula nominees, voted by professional SF and fantasy authors, stories from 7500-17,500 words. As I work my way up in the category lengths I generally enjoy less of the stories because the longer categories could often do with significant trimming.

So I was surprised and pleased after only really digging one of the stories in the Short Story category, that this category did much better.

1. Ã¢â‚¬ËœÃ¢â‚¬ËœPearl Rehabilitative Colony for Ungrateful Daughters,” Henry Lien (Asimov’s 12/13)
Suki Jiang, inhabitant of the world of Pearl, has been sent to a boarding school for being willful and disrespectful to her parents. This is the essay she writes about her experiences at Pearl Rehabilitative Colony for Ungrateful Daughters. The main measure of worth in this society is ability to perform martial arts while ice-skating on the surface that is made of pearl.

I found the protagonist of this story extremely entertaining, proud to the point of arrogance and focused on her goals even when she doesn’t take much time for forethought before the things she says and does. The story had my vote from an early moment when Suki faces off in martial arts skating against a team of nuns who want to cut her hair as punishment.

2. Ã¢â‚¬ËœÃ¢â‚¬ËœThey Shall Salt the Earth with Seeds of Glass,” Alaya Dawn Johnson (Asimov’s 1/13)
No one knows why the glassmen have come, forcing us to follow their rules and their moralities, punishing with sudden violence any resistance against them. Those who survive have little time to concentrate on anything else but trying to eke out a living from the land under the eye of the glassmen. No one has even seen a glassman in the flesh, because they hide behind their remote controlled devices. One of their rules is that no abortions are outlawed, and the protagonist’s sister wants to find a doctor who will give her an illegal aboriton, but they have to travel some distance to find one while avoiding glassmen who will force her to stay at a hospital to carry the baby to term.

The glassmen in this story were scary and strange enough that their presence in the story carried my like for it. I felt for the main characters and very much wanted them to survive their journey, and was kept guessing what the glassmen really were and what they really wanted throughout.

3. Ã¢â‚¬ËœÃ¢â‚¬ËœThe Waiting Stars,” Aliette de Bodard (The Other Half of the Sky)
This is told as two seemingly separate stories, taking place in a world that will be familiar to her fans, as she has told stories from this world before. One story is about Lan Nhen and her sister Cuc as they go to rescue a damaged mindship that contains the mind of a relative. They come from the Dai Viet culture where ships are controlled by human minds, birthed as mechanical objects from human wombs. The other story follows Catherine, who has been “rescued” from Dai Viet culture by the empire which has tried to give her a new life in the imperial way.

Aliette’s stories have a great deal to say about how cultures interact with each other, not in the war that is often the subject of SF stories, but more in regards to cultural assimilation, imperialism, and the motivations of individuals who are just trying to survive in the boundaries where wildly disparate cultures intersect. She has a real gift for exploring this topic. This is a very good story. It did take me most of the story to guess how the two tales are related to each other, but it was done well. The fact that I placed it as #3 on the list is no insult to its quality, it’s just that this category held some tough competition.

4. Ã¢â‚¬ËœÃ¢â‚¬ËœIn Joy, Knowing the Abyss Behind,’‘ Sarah Pinsker (Strange Horizons 7/1 , 7/8/13)
Millie’s husband George is in the hospital, and he might not be long for this world. In a comatose state, he moves his hand in a drawing motion. Given a pen he sketches the rough blueprint of a structure she’d never seen him draw in all his years as an architect, even the more fanciful conceptual projects he’d drawn in his career for the military. What could it be?

As with the #3 on the list, this one’s not #4 because I disliked it–it was just a tough crowd. I felt like Millie and George were real people. They sounded like great people to know and I was especially interested in the sprawling backyard treehouse of motley design that he put together for his children. I was interested to see where it all turned out and I was fully invested in the story. It was a good story, it just didn’t quite work for me as well as the other ones.

5. Ã¢â‚¬ËœÃ¢â‚¬ËœThe Litigation Master and the Monkey King,” Ken Liu (Lightspeed 8/13)
Tian Haoli, the litigation master, is approached by a man carrying a text which has been forbidden by the emperor, pursued by the emperor’s assassins. The man asks Tian Haoli to hide the book for him, and he must then decide what to do.

This wasn’t really speculative fiction. The Monkey King himself was the only pseudo-speculative element, but it seemed pretty clear that this was just a figment of the litigation master’s imagination. The story is based in real tragedy, but I thought it was a little too heavy on message. It was hard to just go along with the story when it seemed the author was just using it as a medium to tell about a historical event that people might not be aware of. I prefer story to be primary, message secondary. As a documentary, I’d want to read more, but as fiction it left something to be desired.

6. Ã¢â‚¬ËœÃ¢â‚¬ËœParanormal Romance,” Christopher Barzak (Lightspeed 6/13)
“This is a story about a witch. Not the kind you’re thinking of either.” Sheila is a modern witch who specialized in love. Helping a lonely person find new love, helping a person in a fading marriage hold it together, anything along those lines, but she’s never had much luck in love herself.

I didn’t find very much in the story to keep my interest. The opening lines seem to match a pattern I’ve noticed in some recent stories in the last few years which start with some variation of “I’m going to tell you a fairy tale. But not the kind of fairy tale you’re expecting.” I’ve never found this to be a very intriguing beginning, because the format never ends up being much less predictable than the fairy tale it claims to be totally unlike.

In this case, I could’ve used some tension, some goal for the character. She seems content enough doing her everyday work. She’s good at what she does. Her mom continually is trying to set her up on romantic outings, but she doesn’t really seem that concerned about her lack of a relationship. And if she doesn’t seem that concerned, why should I be? But in the end it seems that what the story was about was her finding a relationship, something which she wasn’t looking for at all. Generally a story with a relationship as a major factor shows me that the person really wants a relationship, or perhaps there is other focal tension and the relationship grows from that. This one was neither, and I didn’t think it worked. So, generally, I found the story quite dull and lacking in tension, and I was never interested in the love interest, and it didn’t really matter to me whether a relationship started or not because the character didn’t seem that concerned.

Interview: Suzie Townsend

interviewed by Carl Slaughter

Meet literary agent Suzie Townsend of New Leaf agency. She’s keen on speculative fiction and she’s eager about aspiring writers.

CARL SLAUGHTER: HOW DID YOU GET INTO AGENTING AND WHY DOES IT APPEAL TO YOU?

SUZIE TOWNSEND: I was a high school English teacher for six years and in the end I decided that while I enjoyed teaching, I just didn’t love it. I thought about getting into textbook publishing because I really enjoyed curriculum. It just so happened that when I started looking to switch jobs there wasn’t much out there. Instead, what I found was an unpaid internship at a literary agency. I decided to try it, mostly because I wanted to see what it was about and I had some savings and some time to step away from teaching and figure out what I wanted to do. Within a week at the agency, where my job was to read manuscripts, I realized this was what I wanted to do. I hadn’t realized that reading could also be a job. It was perfect for me.

I love being an agent. Reading and working with my clients on every step of their publishing journey is amazing. Now that I know this job is out there, I can’t picture myself doing anything else.

ARE YOU EAGER TO WORK WITH ASPIRING WRITERS?

Absolutely.

HOW DO YOU FIND NEW CLIENTS? CONVENTIONS? GOOGLE ADS? WRITER ASSOCIATION MAILING LISTS? WRITER MAGAZINE ADS? REFERRALS?

None of the above, actually. The majority of my clients I find through the good old fashioned slush pile. They query me and if the manuscript sounds good, I request it and read it and we go from there. I go to conferences and conventions, but it’s usually about networking or supporting current clients more than finding new writers there. With the rise of social media I can’t imagine ever needing to put out ads or get on a mailing list. I do have one client who was referred to me, but it was a pretty unusual case.

HOW DO YOU GO ABOUT DETERMINING WHETHER A POTENTIAL CLIENT IS A GOOD FIT FOR YOUR AGENCY AND A GOOD FIT FOR YOU?

It’s all about the writing and the story at first. After I request a manuscript, I start reading it. It has to really grab me and suck me in. When I finish reading the manuscript, if I can’t stop thinking about it, that’s a very good sign. From there, I share the story with my team and we discuss it. Then I’ll talk to the author on the phone and see if we have a similar vision for the book and for their career. If my team is on board and the author and I seem like we’d work well together, I’ll offer representation.

WHAT’S YOUR CRITERIA FOR DECIDING WHETHER A MANUSCRIPT IS MARKETABLE?

I don’t necessarily have specific criteria. I have pretty commercial tastes. If a book sucks me in and refuses to let me go until the end, it’s marketable.

WHAT ARE THE MOST COMMON MISTAKES WRITERS MAKE WITH MANUSCRIPTS?

Pacing is one of the toughest things to nail in a manuscript. A writer who is familiar with their character and their world is so invested in them that sometimes it’s hard to see where too much detail or backstory might slow down the pace or not enough might leave the reader confused and uninvested. I read somewhere that Stephen King has his wife read his manuscripts when he finishes them and while she reads he makes a note every time she pauses to make lunch or do something else. This is a brilliant way to look at the pacing. Those moments where she stops, she must not be completely invested. I don’t know about you but I’ve read books late into the night when I should have gone to bed and I’ve postponed lunch and even missed a movie because I was too busy reading to the end of a book. That’s the sign of great storytelling — and great pacing.

ADVICE TO ASPIRING WRITERS:

1. Read a lot. Write a lot. The more you do both, the better at it you’ll be.

2. Write for yourself. Do it because you love it and because it’s your passion and the stories you want to tell need to be told. Don’t go into publishing thinking you’ll get wealth and fame because it really isn’tthat kind of business. And it is a business and there’s a lot that will be out of your control. The best way to stay sane is to remember why you’re doing it in the first place and to love your story.

3. Keep writing. When you finish a manuscript and you revise and start querying agents, start writing something else. It will make the waiting easier and the truth is that first book might not get you an agent, but your second or fifth or tenth book could be the one.

TALK ABOUT SOME OF THE SCI FI CLIENTS AND BOOKS YOU’VE REPRESENTED.

Avalon by Mindee Arnett was just released in January. It’s a space opera that I pitched as Firefly meets The Sopranos. Jeth’s parents were a few years back and his uncle lost their ship, Avalon, to a local crime lord. Now Jeth is watching out for his younger sister and working off that debt, stealing and running a crew. He’s trying to keep his head down and stay out of trouble. This next job is one that any sane guy would turn down. It’s too risky, too dangerous, but the payout is huge — enough that he could potentially get out of this life he didn’t choose. That is, if he can get out alive.

HOW DOES THE CURRENT AND NEAR FUTURE SCI FI LANDSCAPE LOOK?

There’s always room for a great story. The truth is that the market is really crowded. When I got into publishing, I was surprised at how many people write books — and how many published books are out there that I hadn’t heard about. With the rise in ebooks, there’s more options for writers now but there are also more books, which means the market is more crowded and it’s harder to stand out. But a great story with characters that feel real and tight pacing will make room for itself.

I read a lot of manuscripts. Most of them are decent. But decent or even good isn’t enough. It’s the great stories people remember.

I’d love to see a space opera with complex worldbuilding and a little bit of romance mixed in with the adventure. (I was a huge BSG fan) And I’d love to see an SF thriller that isn’t clones or aliens.

Suzie Townsend
New Leaf Literary and Media
110 West 40th Street, Suite 410
New York, NY 10018

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COMING SOON (hopefully) AT DIABOLICAL PLOTS:
more profiles of relatively new agents (which means they are building their client list) who specialize in speculative fiction and welcome aspiring writers.

Carl Slaughter is a man of the world. For the last decade, he has traveled the globe as an ESL teacher in 17 countries on 3 continents, collecting souvenir paintings from China, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, and Egypt, as well as dresses from Egypt, and masks from Kenya, along the way. He spends a ridiculous amount of time and an alarming amount of money in bookstores. He has a large ESL book review website, an exhaustive FAQ about teaching English in China, and a collection of 75 English language newspapers from 15 countries.

Review: Nebula Short Story Nominees

written by David Steffen

You can find a full list of the 2013 Nebula nominees here. This is a review of the short stories nominated this year for the Nebulas, which are chosen by the members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

1. Ã¢â‚¬ËœÃ¢â‚¬ËœAlive, Alive Oh,” Sylvia Spruck Wrigley (Lightspeed 6/13)
The story of an interplanetary colonist from Earth who traveled with her husband with the expectation that they would be able to return in ten years, but a pathogen keeps them from returning. Their daughter, born on the colony, has never seen Earth and has grown up with her mother’s stories of the old world. This story has roots in the experience of immigrants here on Earth, but is all the more heartfelt for the differences rendered by SFnal treatment.

Top notch. Not much else to say, just go read it. This is easily my pick for the category.

2. Ã¢â‚¬ËœÃ¢â‚¬ËœThe Sounds of Old Earth,” Matthew Kressel (Lightspeed 1/13)
Old Earth isn’t worth preserving anymore, most people say. It should be broken down into its component materials for the further development of New Earth. But not everyone wants to evacuate the planet. For people who have spent their whole lives there, raised their families there, that’s a difficult and painful transition to make.

Not a bad story. I felt for the character, but it was a bit maudlin for my tastes. There is conflict, certainly, but nothing that the character can do anything about so the story just kind of happens around him. Not bad, but just not my cup of tea, I guess.

3. Ã¢â‚¬ËœÃ¢â‚¬ËœSelected Program Notes from the Retrospective Exhibition of Theresa Rosenberg Latimer,” Kenneth Schneyer (Clockwork Phoenix 4)
This is told as though it were one of those audio tours you can sometimes get at museums to walk you through the exhibits in some meaningful order. It steps through an artist’s works from the beginning of her career to her death, examining how her technique changed with events in her life, in particular in the representation of loved ones who had died.

I found the technique for this one served to only increase the distance between me and the character so that she’s a historical figure of little importance to me rather than really immersing me in the story. It was very faithful to its medium–I would enjoy listening to this in headphones as I walked around an art exhibit looking at each of the works as it’s described. But on its own, without the actual art having been created and shown to me in parallel, it reads pretty much like I’d expect a museum tour to read without being able to be there or look at anything–kind of interesting but very prolonged and all of the most interesting stuff is not onstage. I found some of the discussion questions after each painting rather annoying because so many seem to be based around the writer of the audio tour not really paying attention to the quote the author herself gave about why some figures are drawn differently than others. If Mr. Schneyer hired an artist to make the paintings that go along with this story and presented them together, I’d happily buy the ebook for that.

4. Ã¢â‚¬ËœÃ¢â‚¬ËœIf You Were a Dinosaur, My Love,” Rachel Swirsky (Apex 3/13)
This story starts out with the whimsical hypothetical in the title, as spoken by a woman to a friend she loves dearly, and continues on to give real life reasons why she is pondering this whimsy.

The characters read as real once the story got to the story, but I found all the hypotheticals more irritating than entertaining or illuminating. If A, then B. If B, then C. If C, then D. A story this short shouldn’t feel too long, but to me it does. Eventually the story gets to the actual story behind the hypotheticals, but by that time I was just impatient for it to be over.

5. Ã¢â‚¬ËœÃ¢â‚¬ËœSelkie Stories Are for Losers,” Sofia Samatar (Strange Horizons 1/7/13)
A girl’s mother leaves her family behind. The girl thinks the circumstances imply that her mother is a selkie (a mythical shapeshifting creature that could turn into a seal by pulling on her sealskin, but would be trapped in human form if that skin was stolen).

Most of the body of the story is the girl criticizing the tropes of selkie stories, which I wasn’t very interested in, partly because I haven’t seen enough selkie stories to really say whether her tropes are actually accurate or not. While some of the circumstances of her mother leaving match a selkie story, I didn’t see any really strong evidence that that was the case, so it just seemed to be a story about a neurotic fixation caused by family trauma. The family trauma, perhaps I should’ve felt moved by, but it happened before the story started, and rather than confront the real situation she spends all of her time obsessing about selkie stories.

Not my thing, I guess.

The Best of Escape Pod 2013

written by David Steffen

Escape Pod, and the other Escape Artists casts had a bit of a crisis to overcome this year–they realized that although they had a great listenership, only 1% of the listeners donated, and it wasn’t enough to keep the publications afloat. The good news is that when they revealed this there was a strong reaction to add subscriptions–if you read this and you like the cast, consider adding a subscription.

They published 54 stories in 2013, and they are better than ever. Norm Sherman’s still in the editor’s chair.

Let me tell you, trying to decide which of the top two should be #1 was grueling.

The List

1. Dead Merchandise by Ferrett Steinmetz
In a future where advertising has gone feral, driving people to suicide or ruinous self-neglect, and civilization has fallen apart, one woman tries to get to their broadcast dome and take it down for the good of the world. This story is scary as hell in its plausibility. The only thing missing is some mind-reading technology. I don’t know how Ferrett did it, but he’s done it again, so often writing just amazingly emotional stories with original neat ideas at their core. I won’t post anything spoilery in this article, but I did go on at length about why I loved the story in spoilery fashion on their forum.

2. They Go Bump by David Barr Kirtley
I could easily call this a tie for #1. We are fighting a war against aliens who can make themselves invisible. We have just developed the technology to cloak our own soldiers, and are sending a squad of cloaked soldiers across a wasteland from base to base where invisible aliens are believed to reside, to test out the tech. What I really love about this story is how many different interpretations can be taken from it, because the lack of visual confirmation of anything throws so many things into doubt. Again I went on at length in spoilery fashion on their forum.

3. The Shunned Trailer by Esther Freisner
Fair warning, I don’t think there’s a speck of science fiction in this story. It would’ve been a perfect fit for Drabblecast, a quite fun parody of Lovecraft that never takes itself seriously. It operates by the tried and true Lovecraft plot of a man being stranded and coming across a cult of Cthulhu. But it’s just over the top weird and fun, and read perfectly by Norm Sherman.

4. Nutshell by Jeffrey Wikstrom
A ship is traveling through the space between stars controlled by an AI and filled with cryogenically frozen passengers who weren’t supposed to remember anything. They do, however, and they have control over their environment. The AI comes to visit them from time to time to try to work on details of the trip and colonization planning. Up to now this all sounds like a familiar SF story, but this story took a slant on it I hadn’t seen and added some great humor and events. Great stuff.

5. The Future is Set by C.L. Perria
Why would a supervillain who can see the future try to take over the world in a way that is doomed to fail? Read and find out.

Honorable Mentions

The Very Pulse of the Machine by Michael Swanwick

Freia in the Sunlight by Gregory Norman Bossert

Arena by Fredric Brown

Interview: James Patrick Kelly

interview by Carl Slaughter

Successful science fiction author and prolific workshop instructor James Patrick Kelly talks about his passion for mentoring new writers.

(BTW: JPK is an avid user of the Submissions Grinder, a new feature here at Diabolical Plots.)

CARL SLAUGHTER: WHAT GOT YOU INTO WORKSHOPPING AND WHY HAVE YOU STAYED WITH IT?

James Patrick Kelly: I think the thing that spooks most beginning writers is the lack of input. Or maybe we should call it “on the job training.” We lock ourselves in a closet and try to build worlds out of the thin air. How do successful people do it? More important, how do we do it? Alas, reading craft books about writing is like reading books about how to make love.

Workshopping is a way to measure your progress toward getting it right. You find out immediately what very smart readers have gleaned from what you wrote. The flaws you spot in other writers’ work are often the very same flaws that will distract from yours. Oh, and if you think that eventually you might not need workshops because you’ve learned everything they have to teach Ã¢â‚¬ � well, good luck to you. I still attend workshops and probably will until my fingers curl up and fall off.

I was going to adult education workshops in the Boston area when I first started sending stuff out. Then I went to Clarion. After Clarion I was so converted to the workshop method that I joined a workshop by mail. I would send a story out to the list and maybe six weeks later it would come back with comments. Later, I was thrilled to be asked to the final incarnation of Damon Knight’s Milford Workshop, then run by Ed Bryant. I went to the original Sycamore Hill workshop and many thereafter. I plan this year to go to Walter Jon William’s Rio Hondo workshop. Oh, and I’ve now taught at both Clarion and Clarion West , the Odyssey workshop, Viable Paradise, and the Stonecoast Creative Writing MFA program. And I attend a bi-monthly local workshop, the Cambridge Science Fiction Workshop.

Do I believe in the efficacy of workshops? Duh!

WHAT ARE THE MOST COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS WRITERS HAVE ABOUT HOW TO CRAFT A MARKETABLE STORY AND HOW DO YOU HELP THEM OVERCOME THOSE MISCONCEPTIONS?

The most common misconception is that of the editor as a fierce gatekeeper eager to turn away all newbies. The exact opposite is the case. Editors are in competition to discover new talent. Being the first to publish someone who goes on to have a long career is, and always has been, one of the badges of honor in the editorial community. I wrote a couple of columns that touched on this for Asimov’s: Part One and Part Two.

Where newbies go wrong, in general, is that they have failed to read their manuscript as an editor would. For example, they are not familiar with what the editor has already published and will send her something very much like the cover story of the March issue, or else they will merely file the serial numbers off the best seller that she published in 2012 and submit a generic rehash. All too often they will not read their manuscript with the care that an editor who is pondering a buy decision would. Are there typos? Are there obvious grammar mistakes? Does the first sentence/paragraph invite the reader into the story?

Having read slush, I will tell you that it is all too easy to make the decision to buy or reject having read just the first page of 80% of submissions.

WHAT ARE THE MOST COMMON MANUSCRIPT MISTAKES WRITERS MAKE AND HOW DO YOU HELP THEM RECOGNIZE AND AVOID THOSE MISTAKES?

God, where to start? There are so many ways to go wrong, which is why this is a tough profession. Let me just give two:

Over/underpopulation. This depends on the length of the story, obviously, but if there is really only one character in your story, even if she is remembering other characters, then you probably suffer from underpopulation. Conversely, say you are writing a war story, or a family saga and you are going to mention eleven characters by name in a 5000 word story, then you are overburdening the reader and ought to consider culling the herd. Have you ever heard of the three character rule? A story should have three characters: two in some sort of relationship and one who disrupts that relationship.

Slow start, abrupt ending: If you can start with a line of dialogue, do. Nothing puts editors off faster than a writer who spends the first page clearing her throat with weather reports, lyrical nature writing or infodumps about backstory. Conversely, learn the difference between climax and denouement. Too many writers end the plot but fail to adequately end the story.

WHAT’S THE RIGHT WAY AND WRONG WAY TO MENTOR WRITERS?

You should really ask my students this. I tend to be blunt but supportive. I see writers who are at various stops on the road to success. Those near the start get more general (and gentle) comments. Those who are close but are clinging to some dysfunctional plot point or character interaction get more specific criticism.

I can be very persuasive when I get into my plot doctoring mode. It’s easy for me to say rewrite the ending, change the point of view or lose the grandma. But I try to remind my students that I am reading according to my own tastes and prejudices. There are many, many popular writers (and styles of writing) that I have no use for. And I don’t need anyone writing James Patrick Kelly stories , that’s my job. So I make the point that I’m not an editor, unless I am. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve urged my workshop colleagues and students to send stories to this editor or that, only to find out that they got rejected.

TIPS SPECIFICALLY FOR ASPIRING WRITERS?

Umm Ã¢â‚¬ � Get into a workshop? Read the stories/novels bought by the editors you want to sell to? Send stuff out? Don’t give up?

And it’s never too soon to start thinking about your Hugo acceptance speech.

His training is in journalism, and he has an essay on culture printed in the Korea Times and Beijing Review. He has two science fiction novels in the works and is deep into research for an environmental short story project.

Carl currently teaches in China where electricity is an inconsistent commodity.

The Best of Podcastle 2013

written by David Steffen

Podcastle, and the other Escape Artists casts had a bit of a crisis to overcome this year–they realized that although they had a great listenership, only 1% of the listeners donated, and it wasn’t enough to keep the publications afloat. The good news is that when they revealed this there was a strong reaction to add subscriptions–if you read this and you like the cast, consider adding a subscription.

Podcastle published 57 stories in 2013, here are my favorites.

The List

1. Scry by Anne Ivy
Seeing the future, like time travel, is one of those story elements in which it’s hard to find new permutations which some other hasn’t already thought of. This doesn’t mean that you can’t use it for stories, but most attempts at using these elements novelly will result in something much like another existing story. This story managed to feel novel despite all that, giving interesting limitations to the main characters ability to scry the future, ways to make it both a strength and a weakness. She has been captured by a creature incapable of lying who has vowed to kill her, but she makes the most of what seems to be a bleak situation. Very cool.

2. Wuffle by Chantal Beaulne
Beard humor! A wizard rids himself of his beard that has soaked up so much magic it has become sapient.

3. Mermaid’s Hook by Liz Argall
A great nonhuman POV, a mermaid rescues a man who’s been thrown off a ship and does her best to try to understand his perspective.

4. The Sunshine Baron by Peadar O Guilin
An unlikeable narrator done extremely well. Cool worldbuilding, and even though I hated the POV character, I wanted to see how it turned out, and I could understand his decisions even if I hate him for them.

5. Excision by Scott H. Andrews
I’ve heard time and time again that there is a conflict between magic and science. But there really isn’t–science is the study of the universe through measurable and repeatable tests. If magic exists, science would strive to understand it and catalog it. This story embraces that concept, trying to rigorously find new methods of healing magic.

6. The Discriminating Monster’s Guide to the Perils of Princess Snatching by Scott M. Roberts
I don’t much care for the title of this one, making it seem like it will be a whimsical lighthearted adventure story for children, but the story is very good, voiced by Dave Thompson, a perfect choice. The POV character is a monster who abducts people with great destinies to steal away their destinies as a source of energy, but this time he’s abducted the wrong princess.

Honorable Mentions

The Red Priest’s Vigil by Dirk Flinthart

Rumor of Wings by Alter S. Reiss

Beyond the Shrinking World by Nathaniel Katz