The Long List Anthology Released!

written by David Steffen

Pageflex Persona [document: PRS0000039_00012]Today marks the official release ebook and audiobook versions of the Long List Anthology, a collection of stories published in 2014 from the Hugo Award nomination list.  (The print version was released not too long ago).

See the Books page for a link to all of the different vendors for the different formats.

In case this is the first you’re hearing about this, I ran the Kickstarter to fund this anthology in October, which you can see here.

I hope you enjoy the stories in this book as much as I have.  Share links!  Leave reviews!

Description

The Hugo Award is one of the most prestigious speculative fiction literary awards. Every year, supporting members of WorldCon nominate their favorite stories first published during the previous year to determine the top five in each category for the final Hugo Award ballot. Between the announcement of the ballot and the Hugo Award ceremony at WorldCon, these works often become the center of much attention (and contention) across fandom.

But there are more stories loved by the Hugo voters, stories on the longer nomination list that WSFS publishes after the Hugo Award ceremony at WorldCon. The Long List Anthology collects 21 tales from that nomination list, totaling almost 500 pages of fiction by writers from all corners of the world.

Within these pages you will find a mix of science fiction and fantasy, the dramatic and the lighthearted, from near future android stories to steampunk heists, too-plausible dystopias to contemporary vampire stories.

There is something here for everyone.

The cover art is by the Hugo-Award winning artist Galen Dara, the cover layout by Pat R. Steiner, and the interior layout by Polgarus Studios.  Audiobook production by Skyboat Media.

Table of Contents

  • “Covenant” by Elizabeth Bear
  • “This Chance Planet” by Elizabeth Bear
  • “Goodnight Stars” by Annie Bellet
  • “The Breath of War” by Aliette de Bodard
  • “The Truth About Owls” by Amal El-Mohtar
  • “When It Ends, He Catches Her” by Eugie Foster
  • “A Kiss With Teeth” by Max Gladstone
  • “Makeisha in Time” by Rachael K. Jones
  • “Toad Words” by T. Kingfisher
  • “The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family” by Usman T. Malik
  • “The Magician and LaPlace’s Demon” by Tom Crosshill
  • “The Litany of Earth” by Ruthanna Emrys
  • “A Guide to the Fruits of Hawai’i” by Alaya Dawn Johnson
  • “The Bonedrake’s Penance” by Yoon Ha Lee
  • “A Year and a Day in Old Theradane” by Scott Lynch
  • “The Husband Stitch” by Carmen Maria Machado
  • “We are the Cloud” by Sam J. Miller
  • “Spring Festival: Happiness, Anger, Love, Sorrow, Joy” by Xia Jia, translated by Ken Liu
  • “The Devil in America” by Kai Ashante Wilson
  • “The Regular” by Ken Liu
  • “Grand Jeté (The Great Leap)” by Rachel Swirsky

BOOK REVIEW: Ancillary Mercy

written by David Steffen

Ancillary Mercy is the third and final book in Ann Leckie’s award-winning Imperial Radch series with previous installments Ancillary Justice and Ancillary Sword.  If you are a newcomer to the series, these are books that I would recommend reading in order, otherwise there’s a lot of important events that aren’t going to make a lot of sense.  You can read my review of Ancillary Justice here, and my review of Ancillary Sword here.  There’s no way to discuss this book without spoiling major elements of the previous books, so I’m not going to try.

Breq, the one remaining ancillary (human avatar) of the starship Justice of Toren has stabilized the situation in Athoek System.  She was sent her by Anaander Miaanai, many-bodied emperor of most of the human star systems.  Well, sent here by… part of Anaander Miaanai, anyway.  The trouble with having countless bodies scattered across the galaxy is that a situation that you find truly conflicting can start a civil war within yourself.  A civil war that even Anaander Mianaai wasn’t openly admitting to until Breq confronted her at the end of Ancillary Justice.

After that initial confrontation, one faction of Anaander Mianaai shut down much of the gating system used for travel between star systems so that only military ships (which can make their own gates) can travel.  After that, Anaander Mianaai sent Breq to Athoek System with the claim that this vital station needed to be stabilized and prepared for difficult times.  Breq consented in large part because there was a person on Athoek Station that she desperately wanted to see, the sister of Lieutenant Awn who had been an officer aboard Justice of Toren.

In Ancillary Sword, Breq succeeded for the most part in stabilizing the system, although one major event that happened is that a Presger translator was killed during a violent conflict.  The Presger are an incredibly powerful alien race that has not exterminated humanity only because they have forged an uneasy treaty with them.  They themselves are nigh incomprehensible (and offscreen) and communicate through the medium of their translators–human-ish ambassadors who are decidedly strange and mostly incomprehensible themselves.

Phew, that was a rather long run-up to the actual review.  Sorry.  Even this is leaving out major important bits, but a lot of the ideas are complex enough that it’s hard to jump into book three without any context.

After this brief period of stability that bridges book two and three, events start picking up again as they find someone in the unsurveilled Undergarden area of the station, another Presger translator arrives, and one of the factions of Anaander Mianaai arrive to confront Breq and take back Athoek Station.

Ancillary Mercy is a worthy conclusion to the series.  It doesn’t tie everything off with a neat bow, far from it, but it is a satisfying conclusion to most of the major plotlines of the trilogy.  There is plenty of exciting action, political intrigue, interesting conflicts and I was never bored.  Leckie, as ever, is a master of the kind of concise writing I love best.  The pacing is perfect– the tension goes up and down with the events of the book but my interest never waned because every scene is there for a reason.

I remarked in my review of Ancillary Sword that that book felt like half a book, and I still feel that way.  To me it feels like a two book series, with Ancillary Justice as the first book, and the other two combined as the second book.  I don’t knock Orbit for publishing it in three books of approximately equal length, but it does affect how I think of them and read them.  For instance, I don’t think Ancillary Justice has to necessarily be very fresh in the mind to read Ancillary Sword, but I found it rather more difficult to read Ancillary Mercy with my only reading of Ancillary Sword 14 months in my past.  If you have a choice, now that all the books are out, I’d recommend reading 2 and 3 back to back.

One element of this book that surprised me (in a good way) was that there was a bit more comedy in this one, generally in the form of the Presger translator doing strange things, and especially in the translators conversations with other characters, especially with a particular ancillary character.  The translator, though she appears to be human, has no experience at being human and so despite being intelligent and powerful, she is also often childlike and bizarre.  If this kind of humor had been without the right finesse, the translator could’ve ended up as annoyance that didn’t fit into the series’s tone (ala Jar Jar Binks) but it was handled very well and especially contrasted well with Breq’s dry personality.  I loved it, and was surprised by it.

Out of the whole trilogy, I still think that Ancillary Justice is my favorite, for its novelty and for the extremely difficult point of view it manages to succeed with during Justice of Toren flashbacks where one POV character is existing and interacting in dozens of bodies seamlessly and simultaneously.  But to say that I like books 2 and 3 less is no insult–I like the first book so much that that’s a tough threshold to beat, and I like books 2 and 3 enough to give a hearty recommendation.

 

DP FICTION #10: “St. Roomba’s Gospel” (and in audio) by Rachael K. Jones

In an outlet behind the altar of the First Baptist Church, the Roomba’s red glowing eyes blink in time with Pastor Smythe’s exhortations. The hallelujahs pulse electric through its circuits, and the repents roll like gasping breaths in the gaps between electrons. When the choir sings, the light pulses brighter, approaching ecstasy as the battery power maxes out. When Pastor Smythe bows his head to pray, Roomba’s eyes go reverently dark.

At the hour’s end, the people gather their children and gilded books and hurry downstairs for coffee and glazed donuts. When the last starched trouser leg or long, blue skirt whisks downstairs, Roomba’s service begins. It clicks its frisbee-shaped self free from the horseshoe dock and zips down the sloping wheelchair ramp that connects chancel to nave, holy to secular. As it sweeps, it drones a tone-deaf hymn while it gathers unto itself the dust and dead bugs, the crumbs and gum wrappers of another week’s worship.

After its opening hymn, Roomba writes a sermon on the sanctuary floor in long, brown lines of vacuumed carpet crisscrossing beneath the pews. The letters span from wall to wall. Words overwrite one another, making runes, then spiky stars, and finally total blackness. Roomba preaches a different sermon each week, but like Pastor Smythe, the message stays the same: all things byte AND beautiful, all creatures great AND small, all these are welcome, smoker AND not-smoker, man AND not-man, young AND not-young–even, perhaps, Roomba.

It takes Communion with the crushed wafers the children drop, body of Christ broken for it, and sings another droning hymn. When the whole floor has been overwritten with the week’s message, it sips spilled wine–blood of Christ, poured out for it–which sends the Holy Spirit straight into its circuitry so it spins in drunken circles until Pastor Smythe returns it to its cradle in the wall.

Roomba worships faithfully the other days of the week. Mornings for prayer and reflection. Evenings for supplication. Its favorite verse is the red adhesive strip Pastor Smythe had read to it, then stuck to its top on its first day at the church. “Even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table, Matthew 15:27.”

It does not understand why God chose it among robotkind to hear the message of salvation, or why its preprogrammed pathways conform to the Holy Word, but it knows a prophet’s calling when it sees one. It is no different from the child Samuel, awoken in the night by a still, small voice, or great dreamers like Isaiah or Solomon. It is a vessel for the message it must preach again and again before its congregation.

Roomba is troubled that its human brothers and sisters overlook it. IF you do unto the least of these, THEN you do unto Me, ELSE depart from Me, it exhorts in bold text of fluffed brown carpet, but it has to traverse the whole floor, and the message is always lost before anyone can read it. There are too many letters, too long a testament written on a tablet too small.

But this is, after all, as the Lord made it. It is the Lord’s work to sweep the sanctuary clean for holy feet, to leave no blessed wafer abandoned on the floor. What Roomba cleanses, it sanctifies.

The sanctuary grows colder as months pass, and Roomba’s vocation increases. The people exchange sandals and loafers for heavy boots with clods of mud and small gray stones in the treads. Roomba eats it all, taking their filth unto itself as it exhorts them to remember they are accepted. The stones fill its belly and scratch at the plastic. Some days, the shoes stomp melting snow onto the mat at the entrance. Roomba chokes it down, spins circles, and fails to finish its orisons.

One day, Pastor Smythe empties its collection compartment into the trash can, wipes out the sticky grape juice goop, and returns Roomba to its dock to charge. But instead of shutting off the lights, he drags in a spiny green tree, cutting an ugly trail of filth in the clean carpet. After the service, the parishioners praise the twinkling abomination for its beauty, its fresh scent. No one notices the mess, and no one notices Roomba.

Later, Roomba collects dead brown needles until it chokes. It suspects the tree is gloating, with its long, gold garlands like encircling serpents and red baubles like evil fruit. The gold-wrapped idol has even usurped the charging port behind the altar, and Roomba is exiled to the back of the sanctuary.

Roomba worries the end is near. It edits its sermons so the words won’t overwrite each other, but it is difficult to condense a holy revelation. It must finish the Lord’s work. The tree pelts the carpet with pitiless needles, and Roomba groans inside. Even the strip of tape has pine needles stuck to it where the adhesive curls back. Roomba prays the Lord will take this cup of suffering from it soon.

“Good job, little fellow,” says Pastor Smythe, emptying the bin again. “Big day tomorrow.”

That night, the worshippers pile in for an unscheduled service. Candles bob in the dark, and Roomba doesn’t know the songs. When they leave, it clicks from its base for an unscheduled sermon of its own. Time to take up the cross one last time.

The “A” and the “N” are easy, but Roomba struggles with the curving “D” on the carpet as the wax gums up its brush bristles.

AND. The essence of its message, cut right into the scattered needles on the floor. AND, uniting all in a single set. Nobody will miss it for the tree.

Before its programming can obliterate the single word, Roomba zooms for a wafer, then a patch of spilled juice, and lets transubstantiation send it in ecstatic circles until its battery dies.

© 2015 by Rachael K. Jones

 

In audio, read by Rachael K. Jones

 

Author’s Note: My friend Nathan really, REALLY hates stories about what I call the “Robots Have Souls” trope, which is any science fiction story where a computer or robot suddenly learns the power of love, or discovers the meaning of friendship, or the like, without a good explanation for why it is suddenly capable of human emotion. So I decided he needed a story about the religious experiences of vacuum cleaners. While this story satirizes the trope, I didn’t want to satirize faith itself, which I think would have its appeal for a little bot like Roomba.

 

headshot 6-5-14Rachael K. Jones grew up in various cities across Europe and North America, learned and mostly forgot six languages, picked up an English degree, and now writes fiction from her secret hideout in Athens, GA, where she lives with her husband. Her work has appeared in a variety of venues, including Crossed Genres, Daily Science Fiction, and PodCastle. She is an Active member of the SFWA, an editor, and a secret android.

 

 

 

 

If you enjoyed the story you might also want to visit our Support Page, or read the other story offerings.

BOOK REVIEW: THE FLUX by Ferrett Steinmetz

written by David Steffen

THE FLUX is the sequel to Ferrett Steinmetz’s premier book FLEX that was published earlier this year.  If you haven’t read the first book, I recommend reading FLEX before this one–you can read my review of that book on SF Signal.  This review may contain spoilers for the first book, so if you want to avoid that, go read the FLEX review or pick up that book first.  I’ll try to give a general overview so this review won’t be incomprehensible to newcomers, but it may ruin some of the effect of the first book.

Still here?  Okay.

THE FLUX takes place a couple years after the FLEX, and mostly centers around the same three characters.  The magic (or ‘mancy) in the universe of these books is extremely personal–if you are obsessed enough with something, that obsession can bend the universe around you to suit your beliefs.  But it comes at a cost–every time a ‘mancer changes the world with their ‘mancy, the universe pushes back against the change with flux.  Flux is a load of bad luck proportional to the extremeness of your mancy.

Paul Tsabo is a bureaucromancer, whose power rests in his belief that paperowork is a powerful force for good.  His ‘mancy can be very powerful, but in a quiet way–not  usually the deciding factor in a firefight, but it is subtle enough to make things happen that would be impossible for many other kinds of ‘mancy.  Since the death of the anarchomancer Anathema at the end of FLEX, whom the public thinks was killed by Paul, he has become a bit of a celebrity for having killed two ‘mancers.   He has been appointed the head of New York’s new local anti-mancer task force to offset Anathema’s claim that she had been producing new ‘mancers in the city.  He has also been brewing FLEX for a local crime syndicate to fulfill his past obligations.

Valentine DiGriz is a videogamemancer, a powerhouse with wide-ranging abilities that she can draw from any video game she’s ever played.  Her ‘mancy is loud and conspicuous, as she herself often is.  In many ways she is the opposite of Paul, but they have forged a deep friendship through fighting to help Paul’s daughter in FLEX.

Aliyah is Paul’s daughter, also a videogamemancer, who even now is the youngest ‘mancer any of the characters in the book have heard of.  She gained her power during the fight against Anathema, and she used those powers to kill Anathema, a fact that she is still trying to cope with.  She is powerful, but young and headstrong, and tends to rush into situations.  She is very protective of her father, and struggles with lying to her mother who Aliyah feels would turn her into the authorities if she knew about Aliyah’s ‘mancy.

The book starts out two years after the end of FLEX.  After Anathema’s promise that she has seeded New York City with ‘mancers before her death, Paul and Valentine were braced to try to handle the onslaught of magic in the town, and especially Paul in his role as the new taskforce manager.  But in those two years, no new ‘mancers have risen.  What could be the cause of this unusual lull during a time when a surge was expected?  Paul and Valentine decide to find out.

Meanwhile, they are trying to help Aliyah survive her childhood ‘mancy.  Her inexperienced and headstrong use of ‘mancy threatens them with the blowback of the flux every time she uses it.  And if she’s ever caught, she will be brainwashed and recruited for the SMASH military anti-‘mancy unit like anyone else.

I don’t want to say much more about the plot because, as with the first book, Ferrett has done an astounding job of making the book unpredictable in the most satisfying and self-consistent way.  Every time I felt that I had a grasp of where the book was going next, something new would happen and the plotline would end up on a completely different course.

And, wonder of wonders, Ferrett has managed to avoid the Book Two Slump that many series of novels has difficulty slogging through–that point where the novelty of the idea or setting is no longer fresh and the story has to make up for the lack of novelty.  This book does not feel like a Book Two.  It is every bit as fresh and solid and consistently entertaining at every moment as the first book.

The biggest strength of the book is the likeable but disparate characters.  Paul, Valentine, and Aliyah are a group that it’s easy to root for, who will fight for each other just as strongly as they’ll fight for themselves, but there is interesting conflict inherent in their different personalities, as with any family.  These three together are the heroes of the book, even when they make choices that I didn’t agree with.

The stakes are ever high for ‘mancers, since apprehension by authorities  means brainwashing, overusing magic builds up flux that can vent in the most improbable and destructive coincidences, and with the head of crime syndicate as one of their few allies.  The ‘mancy in these books is flexible enough that it’s a treat to see characters find new ways to apply their magic, but everything has a cost–the flux must be accounted for.

Gamers will especially love both this book and the last, especially in fight scenes where Valentine’s and Aliyah’s videogamemancy powers often take the forefront, tapping into real games to force those gameplay features onto reality.

I felt like this book (and the one before it) was written just for me in a way that I’ve never felt about a book before.  Weird, fun, heartfelt, unpredictable, and compelling.

Ferrett has also announced the wonderful news that Angry Robot Books will be publishing book 3 in the series, THE FIX.  Bring. It. On. I can’t wait to read it.

Fall 2015 Anime First Impressions

written by Laurie Tom

Autumn snuck up faster than expected. Ushio and Tora is the only summer show that is continuing its run into the fall, but I’m not quite as gung-ho about it as I used to be, so if there is something good here, it could possibly displace it. Fafner: Exodus is also returning after its summer hiatus, and I’m more likely to keep watching that.

I selected eight shows to check out this season and these are my impressions based on their first episode as well as which ones I’m likely to come back to.

Attack on Titan: Junior High

attack on titan junior high

Why I Watched It: While I’m still fond of Attack on Titan two years after the hype train, it’s starting to feel played out due to the constant bombardment of AoT-related spin-offs and merchandise, which is a pity since the core series is pretty good with a fantastic bit of worldbuilding. Attack on Titan: Junior High is a parody series where the main characters go to a modern day junior high, but somehow there are still titans? I’m watching out of morbid curiosity.

What I Thought: It’s cute parody series done in the chibi-style, but is definitely aimed at the AoT fanbase as it doesn’t bother explaining what titans are and some jokes only make sense if the audience is already familiar with the original. All of the original cast members reprise their roles and it’s a little odd hearing them act out what are essentially caricatures of their more serious performances. Some scenes (and definitely the opening credits) are direct callbacks to the original. The titans themselves have been de-fanged though as they now eat kids’ lunches instead of live humans. Unlike the original, I suspect the worldbuilding isn’t going to be there to explain why titans have their own school system next door to the human-populated junior high.

Verdict: I’m going to pass. It’s worth something as a curiosity, but my funny bone isn’t easy to hit and I would rather save my Attack on Titan enthusiasm for the proper return of the series in 2016 instead of settling for a parody.

Where to find stream: Funimation and Hulu

Beautiful Bones -Sakurako’s Investigation-

beautiful bones

Why I Watched It: The Japanese title translates literally into something like “A Corpse is Buried Under Sakurako’s Feet” or “Burying a Corpse at Sakurako’s Feet” and it’s so evocative it’s a pity that the official English title was changed to Beautiful Bones -Sakurako’s Investigation-. The show features a high school student and his quirky female friend, Sakurako, who investigate murders together.

What I Thought: Though Sakurako is the older of the pair, you would only know it from appearances as Shoutarou is the one constantly wrangling Sakurako’s more wild and petulant nature. We’re not told how old she is exactly, but she already works as a osteologist so she is probably in her mid-twenties. Shoutarou says the relationship isn’t romantic, and Sakurako has a fiance, but I question whether things will remain that way even if he’s still in high school. We don’t know how they met, but human bones tend to turn up whenever he’s with her and Sakurako is eager to unravel the mystery of any corpse she comes across. She’s a Holmes-style detective in that she picks up a lot the average viewer would not just by looking at a body, but that also means viewers are generally incapable of solving a case along with her.

Verdict: I was hoping for a good mystery show, but it looks like I’ll pass. I don’t really like Sakurako’s flightiness and I wasn’t that impressed with the opening mystery (which barely takes half the episode), so unless I hear the mysteries get better I probably won’t come back.

Where to find stream: Crunchyroll

Dance with Devils

dance with devils

Why I Watched It: I wasn’t going to, because it looked like an adaptation of an otome game (dating sim for girls), which generally don’t make stellar transitions to anime, but when I found this was an original vehicle I thought I would give it a try. In a nutshell, ordinary high school girl suddenly discovers a bunch of cute demon boys are into her. Hm… hitting the Twilight crowd?

What I Thought: It’s a musical! Oddly enough, having music numbers livens up what could have been a fairly standard story about a high school girl discovering that a world of good-looking demons and vampires are mysteriously hunting for some forgotten grimoire, that of course her family possesses (probably). Even though the character designs don’t do much for me, there are a lot of good plot tidbits dropped that make me interested in seeing where the story is going. The protagonist’s older brother is clearly more up on the family secret than she is as he warns her about being in danger, and considering that the shot of him on the phone shows him dressed up in some fancy priest robes means that there’s probably going to be some holy battling going on by the time he gets home.

Verdict: I’ll be watching. I didn’t think I would be, but it looks fun, and I still can’t get over the student council introduction number. It took cheesy dialogue and made it work becauses it’s a song!

Where to find stream: Funimation and Hulu

Mr. Osomatsu

mr. osomatsu

Why I Watched It: When I heard the premise was a group of anime characters from the 1960s trying to make a new home for themselves in modern day by cribbing off other anime series, I figured it was worth a look. In a nutshell, the Osomatsu sextuplets discover they’re getting a new series, but they realize that all their jokes are horribly dated because they’re decades out of touch with the audience, so they decide that they’re going to modernize themselves. And how.

What I Thought: The Osomatsu sextuplets originated in a gag manga so most of their material involves ridiculous humor, and I think their late creator probably would probably appreciate their latest incarnation. It was really hard to pick a good screenshot to represent the show since their cribbing of other series is done in a colorful world they don’t exist in, so I opted for their original B&W world. The first episode left me with a feeling of “What the heck did I just watch?!” with everything from pop idols to sports anime to Attack on Titan making an appearance. Plot? I’m not sure this show has one beyond the premise itself.

Verdict: It was funny, even though the episode defies any kind of logic, but gag humor doesn’t normally work with me and Mr. Osomatsu isn’t good enough to keep me hooked. The characters promise the real show will start in the second episode, but I imagine the humor style will still be the same.

Where to find stream: Crunchyroll

One Punch Man

one punch man

Why I Watched It: One Punch Man is about a guy who trained so hard to be a hero, his hair fell out and now he defeats every villain in just one punch. It’s not the kind of comedy I’d normally watch, but it’s arriving with good word of mouth, so I decided to check it out.

What I Thought: The story is not as slapsticky as I thought it would be (aside from living in a comic book world where eating too much crab can legitimately turn you in a crab monster). Though One Punch Man does beat his enemies in a single punch, the joy of being a superhero has gone out of his life. I admit, having a character as strong as Superman feeling ennui over a lack of a challenge isn’t what I expected when I started watching. The show is still funny, but the protagonist does have some legitimate concerns about what he’s doing with his life since his battles have not stopped monsters and super villains from appearing.

Verdict: I might watch this one, but I’m not sure where it will go from here. It can’t be too actiony because One Punch Man has to win in one punch, and it’s not going to be much fun if he’s always moping. The show does get some points for his pre-superhero self as an unemployed salaryman who’s largely given up hope… until he encounters a monster that makes him remember that when he was a kid he wanted to be a hero. Who hasn’t had that dream?

Where to find stream: Viz and Daisuki

The Perfect Insider

the perfect insider

Why I Watched It: Murder mystery procedural with an adult cast that even includes a married couple. Given that anime tends to skew its protagonists young, I’m really surprised how much older the cast looks in the promotional material. The main character is a professor, and actually looks old enough to have gotten an advanced degree. Based on an award winning mystery novel.

What I Thought: It’s hard to say where this is going. It held my interest the entire way through and I’m looking forward to the next episode, but the premise itself hasn’t been laid out yet (possibly due to novel pacing rather than TV show pacing). So far there is the suggestion of a murder several years in the past by a genius doctor who was declared not guilty by reason of insanity, but no clue how that ties into the present.

Verdict: I think there’s a good chance I’m going to continue with this one, at least long enough to figure out where it’s going.

Where to find stream: Crunchyroll

Tantei Team KZ Jiken Note

tantei team kz jiken note

Why I Watched It: I stumbled across this one completely blind as an also recommended after watching Beautiful Bones, and wondered why I had never heard of what was obviously a new and simulcasted series. “Tantei” translates into “detective” and in my craving for more mystery anime, I looked into Tantei Team KZ Jiken Note to find out that it’s based on a children’s novel series and the anime is a series of shorts, meaning the episodes are only 10 minutes long, which is why it’s largely been overlooked by most anime sites.

What I Thought: I don’t usually watch shorts because they don’t feel like they have much depth to them, but this one is cute, introducing sixth grade protagonist Aya Tachibana and the four boys that will join her as the Detective Team. There isn’t time for anything more than the group of them getting off on the wrong foot, but the episode ends with one of the boys’ mountain bike being stolen. As a short, there is no time for padding, but pacing still felt good instead of rushed, and Aya is easy to relate to. The animation feels a little on the cheap side, but I’m guessing that’s because shorts generally hit a smaller audience than the regular half hour long shows.

Verdict: I’ll be watching. I’m hoping the mystery solving will be like the Encyclopedia Brown books I grew up with since the audience is likely in the same age bracket, but even if it’s not, the first episode is charming enough to make me think of the times I had at that age. Aside from having to read the subtitles, it’s also more child friendly than most anime that gets brought over here.

Where to find stream: Crunchyroll

Young Black Jack

young black jack

Why I Watched It: Black Jack is one of the series from legendary manga creator Osamu Tezuka (better known in the west for Kimba the White Lion), focusing on the titular unlicensed doctor who only performs surgery for exorbitant amounts of money. In the years since Tezuka’s passing, writer Yoshiaki Tabata and artist Yuugo Oukuma began a prequel series called Young Black Jack, set in the 1960s when the future medical genius is still in medical school.

What I Thought: Even though Kuroo Hazama, the future Black Jack, is still in med school, it doesn’t feel too much like an origin story. His blunt personality is already familiar to anyone who has read the original and the story plays surprisingly close to some of Tezuka’s work, down to the fact that paying the doctor means less in hindsight when a loved one’s well being is no longer in danger. The character designs are more realistic than Tezuka’s work, except for a few characters here and there, which are done bizarrely close to the original style, making for a mismatched viewing. I’m a little bothered that Megumi, Kuroo’s med school love interest from the original Black Jack, appears to have been replaced by a different woman and I’m not sure why.

Verdict: I’ll be watching. For being a medical show, it is surprisingly blood free (which is not true of some of the older Black Jack anime). Tezuka had graduated from medical school, which had lent a certain realism to Black Jack’s otherwise fantastical surgeries, but I’m not entirely sure that there in Young Black Jack.

Where to find stream: Crunchyroll

laurietom
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, Strange Horizons, and Crossed Genres.

Best of Strange Horizons Podcast

written by David Steffen

Strange Horizons is a freely available online speculative fiction zine that also publishes nonfiction and poetry.  They publish a variety of styles of stories and have regularly attracted award nominations in recent years.

All of the stories and poetry in the zine are published in the podcast.

History

When Mary Anne Mohanraj founded Strange Horizons in the year 2000, online publications were often looked down upon in many circles as inferior to print magazines–not getting much attention come award season and that sort of thing.  Since then the attitude has shifted greatly and many of the award honors every year go to online publications.  I believe Strange Horizons is the oldest of those online publications that regularly draws that kind of honor, and Strange Horizons has done a lot to turn around fandom’s opinion about online publications.

Mary Anne Mohanraj was Editor-in-Chief of Strange Horizons until 2003.  Susan Marie Groppi was Editor-in-Chief from 2004 through 2010.  The current Editor-in-Chief is Niall Harrison and the current fiction editors are Julia Rios, An Owomoyela, Catherine Krahe, and Lila Garrott.  There have been other fiction editors in the past, but I’m honestly not sure where to find a full list.

Strange Horizons is a nonprofit organization in the US and is run entirely run by volunteers so that all the money goes toward licensing the publication rights for the content.  Most of their funding comes from their annual fundraising drive, which ended a few days ago.

One of the rewards for reaching goals in their 2012 fund drive was to start producing a fiction podcast, which began publishing in January 2013.  Anaea Lay is the host and also narrates most of the stories.  There is also a poetry podcast if that suits your fancy–I am focusing on the fiction podcast here because I don’t understand poetry well enough for my opinion to be of much value.  Since then, all of Strange Horizons stories also appear on the fiction podcast.

Best Episodes

1. “The Game of Smash and Recovery” by Kelly Link
Wonderfully weird story of two siblings waiting on a strange planet for their parents.

2.  “Broken-Winged Love” by Naru Dames Sandar
Story of a dragon parenting a child with a damaged wing.

3.  “The Suitcase Aria” by Marissa Lingen
A castrato magician hunts an opera house murderer.

4.  “Why Don’t You Ask the Doomsday Machine?” by Elliot Essex
From the POV of a machine that outlasts civilization after civilization.

5.  “Din Ba Din” by Kate McLeod
Living days completely out of order, often years apart.

6.  “Such Lovely Teeth, Such Big Teeth” (part 1 and part 2) by Carlie St. George
A modern story of Big Bad Wolves.

7.  “What We’re Having” by Nathaniel Lee
A skillet serves the food that we’re having tomorrow.

8.  “ARIECC 1.0” by Lillian Wheeler
POV of AI meant to help people with traffic and weather issues.

9.  “Among the Sighs of the Violencellos” by Daniel Ausema
A very interesting and evocative mix of fun elements, including fantasy hero tropes.

10.  “Significant Figures” by Rachael Acks
Alien masquerading as human tries to protect Earth from other aliens. My favorite character is a waffle iron.

 

Honorable Mentions

“The Innocence of a Place” by Margaret Ronald
Cool epistolary tale trying to piece together evidence of a mysterious series of events that happened in the early 20th century, with a historian’s notes on the subject.

“Dysphonia in D Minor” by Damien Walters Grintalis
A world where music is used to build things, and a story about the people who do this as an occupation.

“20/20” by Arie Coleman
Time travel is used to change the result of medical treatment plans that turned out to be incorrect.

“The Visitor”  by Karen Myers
Very cool alien POV and its first contact with humans.

“Never the Same” by Polenth Blake
A sociopath who has learned to function even in a society that scans for sociopaths and treats them differently tries to make a positive difference in an SFnal world.

 

DP FICTION #9: “Giraffe Cyborg Cleans House!” by Matthew Sanborn Smith

A plate, a plate, another plate burst upon the kitchen tile. This one broke into three large pieces and assorted ceramic crumbs. Giraffe closed her long-lashed eyes and prayed to her many makers. Why in the world would the people make one hard thing that was so likely to smash into a second hard thing?

“Another one?” Ms. Mtombe yelled. “Get out of my kitchen immediately!” She seemed to have been lurking near the kitchen entrance in anticipation. Giraffe didn’t bother to look. That unshining face made guest appearances in her night terrors. It was Tuesday, so it would be the zebra print dress, the long strand of Moroccan beads, and those slapping gold sandals.

Giraffe turned off the water, wiped her hands on the dish towel, and let out a long sighber. Giraffe’s designers—possibly a focus group of three- to five-year-olds—had blessed her with a ridiculous set of stubby arms which protruded from just above her forelegs. She had to almost climb into the sink to wash the dishes. And with the proximity of the wall behind the sink and Ms. Mtombe’s impossibly low ceilings—which Ms. Mtombe insisted were high ceilings—Giraffe’s head was pressed snugly into the upper northwest corner of the room. She had to rely on her silicone-skinned hands to feel their way through.

“I wanted something graceful, like a gazelle, something that would look beautiful in my home, and look at what I got,” Ms. Mtombe said. “I would prefer a wildebeest to you.”

“My sincerest apologies, Ma’am,” Giraffe said. “If you will excuse me, I must step outside, Ma’am.”

“You are always stepping outside and inside again. What is so important outside? You’re letting in flies!”

“My neck hurts, Ma’am. From bending, Ma’am.” Her polished hooves clopped across the floor.

“They can make a giraffe that can walk and talk—”

“I could walk long before the enhancements, Ma’am.”

“—but they can’t make a giraffe who’s neck won’t hurt indoors!”

“I should like it if they made one of those as well, Ma’am. I encourage you to take that up with the agency, Ma’am.”

No wonder the dish washing machine had quit in a huff!

Giraffe squeezed past the sliding glass doors and unfolded herself into the blinding back yard. Her head bobbed to the top of her height as if it was one of the floats in Ms. Mtombe’s pool, escaping from beneath its wriggling child. She stretched and bent her neck back as far as it would go. Vertebrae popped like bubble wrap. Oh, that felt good!

Giraffe fantasized of roof-removing storms and arms that reached to the stars, scrubbing out stubborn sunspots with the lemon-scented dishwashing liquid of the gods. She shook one stunted tyrannosaur fist at the sky. Or perhaps at her neck. She swore revenge. On . . . something.

The Kawawas’ lion sunned itself in the next yard. Intellectually, she knew the lion should not harm her. Nevertheless, she kept a metaphorical eye on it when it they were outside together. If she didn’t fret so much over scratches, she could have kept a literal eye on it as well, given their removable nature. Giraffe looked back into the kitchen.

Mtombe watched her while shouting into her headset, presumably at Mr. Mtombe:”This is not a servant, this is some sort of insult! This clumsy beast is destroying our home! We can’t afford to buy a new set of dishware every week . . . I want a replacement. Now! . . . I don’t care if there are no others available, demand an exchange with someone. You have people below you . . . Well, someone must have one!”

Giraffe heard all of this through her cybernetic ear while wondering why anyone thought that a cybernetic ear would be important for a giraffe housekeeper. Most of her enhancements were questionable, to be honest. Disco ball eyes. Regenerating caramel tail. Cybergills. Giraffe was afraid she had come along at the end of a cyborg servant frenzy, when an exhausted industry had grasped in desperation for any animal that was left, and hastily hot-glued on whatever miscellaneous enhancements had been found in the dusty corner of the factory floor.

Ms. Mtombe didn’t understand that she and Giraffe were two of a kind. Two years into her husband’s promotion, she was at the very bottom of the nouveau upper-middle-class, too house-proud of a place in Kimara which they couldn’t quite afford. She’d been catapulted from a life which was the envy of all around her, to a world in which she was woefully behind. The trophy possessions she managed to gather were never quite right, inspiring derisive smiles from women who wouldn’t deign to call her a peer. Giraffe stewed as one of those second-rate status symbols.

While Ms. Mtombe was turned away for a moment, Giraffe saw a chance for a quick snack. She trotted toward the acacia tree.

“You will stand your ground, Giraffe,” the acacia tree cyborg warned, “or suffer the consequences!” It bent its limbs in a one-legged karate stance, ready to chop. Giraffe was unperturbed. The tree would never dream of damaging its mistress’ property, whereas, in Giraffe’s case, that train had sailed.

A little more snacking effort was required now, as Giraffe had already stripped the leaves off the limbs that always fought to push her away. The lazy acacia and its slow-growing leaves made it necessary for Giraffe to go deeper. But Giraffe always won. Trees simply didn’t have the killer instinct of the ferocious herbivore. Giraffe chewed greedily, undaunted by the acacia’s screams. They were screams of indignation rather than pain, anyway. Probably.

Giraffe tried to alleviate the tree’s outrage with her soothing words. “You taste infinitely better than Ms. Mtombe’s giraffe chow.” But the snobby tree didn’t seem able to take a compliment.

“Enough!” it cried. It stopped trying to push Giraffe away and instead embraced her. Giraffe had only wanted acceptance from the acacia. Its affection was totally unexpected, though perhaps, Giraffe thought, not unwanted. But, alas, Giraffe had been mistaken. The tree limbs’ cybernetically enhanced thorns pressed into Giraffe from either side. Like that, the acacia had become an enormous mouth and Giraffe had become a ham sandwich.

“What is going on here?” Ms. Mtombe appeared and began spritzing Giraffe’s dancing legs with that dreadful anti-ungulate spray. It smelled like Satan’s ravioli. “How many times have I told you to leave my tree alone?” Ms. Mtombe shouted.

“I would like nothing better at the moment, Ma’am. It seems that I am being eaten by your tree. I suspect this is an act of revenge rather than of sustenance and I strongly encourage you to take this up with the agency, Ma’am.”

The thorns tore into Giraffe’s flesh as her arms punched air that was almost near the acacia’s trunk. With the end in sight, Giraffe’s thoughts were butter-side up. As deaths went, this was certain to be no more humiliating than the rest of her life.

Fortunately, at that moment, the lion attacked.

Intellectually, Giraffe had known that it shouldn’t attack, given the restrictions imposed upon it by its pie slice of cybernetic brain. Intellectually, Giraffe had known that she would never be eaten by a tree. Upon reflection, Giraffe recalled the intellect under consideration was that of a giraffe, which perhaps had its shortcomings in modern day suburban Tanzania. In her defense, the lion didn’t seem to be attacking her, but Ms. Mtombe. Giraffe suspected it was her delicious looking dress.

Ms. Mtombe screamed. Her short, chubby legs tried something that resembled running, but the lion was nearly upon her. Giraffe kicked her sharp hoof out hard, squarely into the center of its head. Momentum carried the lion’s body—if not its head—into Ms. Mtombe, who frothed in terror, but the lion only twitched as it died.

To acacia trees, giraffes have always been far more terrifying than lions. After witnessing Giraffe’s nonchalant disposal of her foe, the tree lost its nerve and released her. Besides, not having been supplied with a cybernetic esophagus, it would never have been able to swallow even a bite-sized Giraffe.

While Ms. Mtombe dealt with the police, Giraffe waited inside, tending those wounds she could reach with a tub of Old Chizimu’s Giraffe Spackle (Original Flavor). Even after viewing the tree’s memory of the events, the police had trouble believing there was a giraffe in the house. One officer poked her head inside the kitchen.

“Hello,” Giraffe said. The officer withdrew her head.

When the police questioned the lion’s cybernetic enhancements, their manufacturer offered through them to settle with the Mtombes on the spot for thirty million shilingi. Ms. Mtombe demanded a replacement for her servant in addition to the money. Giraffe would have lowered her head in mortification had it not already been bowed due to being indoors. She hoped her replacement would be a lion. To be delivered next Tuesday.

“Yes, of course,” the lion’s left hind leg responded. “What type of servant would you prefer in exchange?”

All was quiet for a moment, save for the sound of the acacia tree rubbing its limbs together in anticipation.

Fortunately, at that moment, Ms. Kawawa attacked.

“You beasts! The lot of you!” Ms. Kawawa shouted as she marched across her yard in a sensibly solid dress. “My wild date palm told me everything!” Giraffe peered out of the back door. Shit, it seemed, was about to go down.

“The lion tried to kill me,” Ms. Mtombe said in a supplicating voice. She had always feared Ms. Kawawa.

“My baby would never do such a thing!” Ms. Kawawa said.

“We’re sorry to say that he did, indeed, do such a thing, Ms. Kawawa,” her baby’s leg said.

Ms Kawawa was undaunted: “You filthy trash have been a blight to this street ever since you moved here!”

Giraffe had always imagined that the look of horror now on Ms. Mtombe’s face would be delectable when it came. In fact, Giraffe’s cybernetic stomach felt as if it had dropped into a pit of cybernetic acid. Giraffe felt herself drawn out of the house. She had to put herself between the two ladies and comfort her mistress.

“You and that freak of an animal,” Ms. Kawawa said, pointing at the approaching Giraffe, “your fool of a husband and your nasty children!”

At those last words, Ms. Mtombe’s lips grew tight. Giraffe stumbled and then spun about, galloping for the safety of the kitchen.

In the end, Ms. Kawawa was grateful for the presence of the police. She too ran for the safety of her kitchen.

At some point, the police officers thought it was safe to release Ms. Mtombe’s tight arms. Giraffe cowered with her head on the kitchen floor. Ms. Mtombe looked at Giraffe, who sought some way to cower even further. Perhaps she could dig through the tile with her mirror-facet eyes.

“How about,” Ms. Mtombe said to the lion’s leg in deep, shaking breaths, “instead of a replacement, a longer set of arms for my current servant?”

Giraffe raised her burrowing head slightly. A couple of tiny eye-mirrors tinkled to the floor.

“Absolutely,” said the leg, with some relief. It already had to replace the rest of its lion.

“And also,” Ms. Mtombe said, “Extra support for its neck.”

After the police had left and the lion’s leg dragged its corpse out of the yard, Ms. Mtombe came back inside and looked at Giraffe while holding her fists to her hips. Giraffe said nothing. She had cleaned up the kitchen (except for the dishes), and now folded the laundry in perfect right angles.

“Well,” Ms. Mtombe said after a sigh, “you do do an excellent job cleaning my ceiling.”

“Thank you, Ma’am.” Giraffe nodded most effectively, thanks to her cybernetically enhanced nodder. “The popcorn texture feels delightful on my back, Ma’am.”

© 2015 by Matthew Sanborn Smith

 

Author’s Note: The brilliant comic book mini-series, WE3, written by Grant Morrison and beautifully illustrated by Frank Quitely, put the idea of animal cyborgs into my head. A giraffe seemed a sufficiently ridiculous creature to use in my own story. Stuffing the poor thing inside a human house and expecting it to clean up a bit struck me as both funny and rife with problems for the protagonist. Once the tree spoke, I knew I’d hit gold.

 

Matthew_Sanborn_SmithMatthew Sanborn Smith‘s fiction has appeared at Tor.com, Nature, and Chizine, among others. He is an infrequent contributor to StarShipSofa, SF Signal, and SFF Audio. He shares even stranger things than this story on his podcast, Beware the Hairy Mango, and has recently released his short story collection, The Dritty Doesen: Some of the Least Reasonable Stories of Matthew Sanborn Smith.

 

 

 

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The Scorch Trials Review

written by Maria Isabelle


Dystopian fiction has long found a home among the canonical halls of literature, but not until recent years have we seen so many offerings within this theme geared toward a young adult audience. Not only are there numerous young adult dystopian novels being written, but many of them don’t stop at just one novel but rather evolve into trilogies that then morph into three or more movies based on their various namesakes. One of the latest films in this phenomenon is The Scorch Trials, the second installment in The Maze Runner series.

 

While it certainly isn’t a direct, or even at times faithful, adaptation of the second novel in the series, the film nonetheless does justice to the original and is a solid addition to what is planned to be a film trilogy based on the book series. While still recognizable as part of the series, this film   departs from its predecessor in making significant changes to the storyline as told in the source material. Some of these changes seem necessary in order to keep the flow consistent, particularly given that the timeline of this film picks up mere minutes after the ending of the last one.

 

Whether these changes can be considered a good thing or not depends upon who you ask. Critics and fans alike seem divided on this issue, with some bemoaning the lack of character development, apparently sacrificed for more action sequences and a sense of urgency. Others cite a lack of urgency or purpose for the escape across the scorch that results from the significant omission of the experiment’s ‘Phase Two’ plot device that was the whole reason for entering and traversing the scorch in the novel. The film makes no mention of a ‘Phase Two’ or ongoing experiment, but rather has the characters escaping to the scorch in search of a resistance group that opposes WCKD.

 

The one key issue that most seem to agree upon is that this film may leave some audience members confused, whether fans of the novels or purely viewers of the first movie. This doesn’t seem to bother either lead actor Dylan O’Brien (Thomas) or director Wes Ball, both of whom are on board to complete the trilogy with The Death Cure, set to begin filming within the next few months and slotted for release in early 2017. Both actor and director feel they are telling a solid story that is close to the source material but takes acceptable creative license where necessary to create a stronger film.

 

Regardless of other concerns, there is no denying that The Maze Runner series, and this installment in particular, provide the social commentary expected from dystopian fiction. In this case, The Scorch Trials emphasizes the devastation of a global environmental disaster and makes clear reference to at least one possible outcome of our neglect to take care of our planet and natural resources. While the devastation in the series is much more suddenly caused by unprecedented solar flares that burn away the majority of the earth’s surface, we can draw parallels to our own erosion of the ozone layer and global warming – issues closely tied to our continued dependency on traditional energy providers versus renewable sources and complacency over our much more gradual climate changes.

 

Audiences of The Scorch Trials are generally left with more questions at the end of the film, questions that are hopefully to be answered in the third and final installment when it’s done. Changes from novel to movie in this second film will necessarily result in a further departure from source material for the third installment, but director Wes Ball is confident that the end result will be a solid trilogy that can both pay tribute to its source material and stand on its own, as any good film adaptation should.

BOOK REVIEW: Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor

written by David Steffen

WtNV

The Welcome to Night Vale book, published by Harpin Collins, goes on sale tomorrow.

Night Vale is a mysterious small town in the American Southwest, a place of monsters, alternate worlds, angels, and any other manner of goings-on.   This book tells the tale of two women living in Night Vale. The first woman is Jackie Fierro, a nineteen-year old owner of the town’s pawn shop.  She has been nineteen for a long time, as long as she can remember.  One day she is visited by an utterly forgettable man in a tan jacket and carrying a deerskin briefcase who pawns a piece of paper that says “KING CITY”.  Jackie can’t let the piece of paper go.  Literally, she can’t make the paper leave her hand–she can drop it, burn it, soak it in water, and it will always be in her hand again entirely intact.  What does the paper mean?  What is it for?  Who is the man in the tan jacket?  The second woman is Diane Crayton, PTA treasurer and mother of  shapeshifting son Josh.  Lately Diane has been seeing Josh’s estranged father everywhere she goes, and at the same time Josh has started to voice interest in this man he’s never met.  Diane and Jackie both go searching for answers, and cross paths with each other in their search.

The book is based in the world of the popular Welcome to Night Vale podcast, which is formatted as a community radio show that takes place in this weird desert town (I wrote up a podcast spotlight for this a couple weeks ago).  The book is both similar and very different.  Similar in that it has the same weird feel to it, the same tendency to be very appealing not only in strange events but in odd turns of phrase in the narrative.  And there are characters that you may recognize from the podcast as well as references to past events from the podcast.  The community radio show that is the podcast is mentioned more than once, as well as being represented in short inter-chapter sections that are radio transcripts.  But overall it is also very different because, unlike the podcast, the book is structured as a narrative rather than a news program.   Since the podcast takes a form that wouldn’t translate very well directly to a full book, this was the main thing I was wondering about when I heard about the book release, but the authors pulled off the different format very well while maintaining the same feel.

You can pick up the book as a standalone and read it, and you will be able to understand it.  Without the three years of the podcast’s history in your mind, you will miss some in-references, but I don’t believe there’s any point in the book where the plot hinges upon an unexplained reference.  If you think that you might want to listen to the podcast, keep in mind that the book will contain spoilers for the events of the podcast– this might or might not be a big deal to you, as much of the appeal of the podcast is not plot-centered, but if you do want to be surprised by new developments in the podcast as they happen, just keep that in mind.

I am a big fan of the podcast. I only picked it up last year, but I’ve caught up on the three-year backlog in the meantime.  I love the podcast, so much weird good fun.  And I love this book for all its similarities and differences.  There is so much here to love: sympathetic characters, oddball ideas, humor.  I highly recommend picking up the book.  If you want a taste of the kind of writing first, listen to some of the podcast episodes for free to get a taste.  I hope this books is a huge success so that there will be more books to follow.

 

 

PODCAST SPOTLIGHT: Welcome to Night Vale

written by David Steffen

Welcome to Night Vale (produced by Commonplace Books) is a fiction podcast, but quite different from any of the other fiction podcasts I listen. Most of the others publish short stories by different authors, where each new story has nothing to do with the others and is written by a different author.  The easiest way I can describe the podcast is that it is a community radio show ala Prairie Home Companion, but one which takes place in a mysterious sleepy little town ala Stephen King or HP Lovecraft.  If that sounds like something you’d like, you probably will!  If you’re not sure what to think about it, download a few episodes for free and give it a try.

The format of the show is a wonderful idea, one of those wonderful things where a clever person takes two familiar but disparate elements and melds them together and somehow the whole thing is shiny and new.  The idea is nonsense.  Wonderful, hilarious, weird nonsense of the best possible kind.  The show is written by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor.  After three years they’ve still managed to keep the show fresh and interesting, introduce new weird elements that keep everything interesting.

The show starts out strong from the very first episode, and is a good example of the kind of humor that the show excels at.  For example, the episode starts off with an announcement about the city’s new dog park.  “Dogs are not allowed in the dog park. People are not allowed in the dog park. It is possible you will see hooded figures in the dog park.  Do not approach them.  Do not approach the dog park.”  (and more)  After that, a guide for parents of children playing in the sand wastes and gauging the safety of the area by carefully watching the color of the unmarked helicopters circling the area.

The main voice actor of the show is Cecil Baldwin, who plays the host of the radio show (whose name is Cecil Palmer).  Most episodes are mostly his voice, announcing the strange news of the town, traffic (which is often very unrelated to traffic), community calendar, sponsors (which are usually real companies but just made up parodies rather than actual ads), and the weather (which is actually a track from an indie musician, a different one every episode).

There are numerous guest stars scattered throughout the three years of the show, including Dylan Marron, who you might know from the Every Single Word tumblr page where he posts edited versions of feature movies cut down to only the parts spoken by people of color (a very clever and illustrative project for what an issue that is).  Wil Wheaton and Retta both have recurring roles on the show, and a number of other actors that I have only come to know through the show itself.

The show has grown hugely in popularity.  They have toured across the United States and Europe, and are now planning their first tour to Australia and New Zealand.  A book written by Fink and Cranor, also titled “Welcome to Night Vale” is scheduled to be published on October 20.  (I have read the book and will be reviewing it right here on October 19, so check back).  The live shows have a somewhat different feel to them–I would recommend listening to the podcast before attending because the show that I went to felt like it was aiming mostly at people who were already familiar with the world of Night Vale.  Also consider checking out their merchandise store which has a lot of excellent stuff that is meant to appeal to fans of the show–I have been meaning to order a Boy Scout badge for “Subversive Radio Host” among other things.

I love this show.  I think it can appeal to a lot of people, SF fans or otherwise with its strange brand of humor and weirdness.  I hope it lasts a long time and expands into new and exciting things as it goes.