Spring 2014 Anime First Impressions

written by Laurie Tom

April means the start of the spring anime season, and this time around there looks to be an unusually large crop of shows I want to try out. I generally don’t end up watching everything I try out all the way through, but to give an idea of what’s out there, here’s a snapshot of which first episodes I watched, why I chose them, and what I thought of them.

By quirk of luck, everything I want to check out this season is streaming exclusively at Crunchyroll for American viewers, with the exception of M3: the dark metal, which is at Daisuki..


Black Bullet

blackbullet

Why I Watched It: I really liked the promo art. The premise is that ten years ago humanity came under attack of the Gastrea Virus, which mutates humans into giant insect monsters. Though humans were eventually able to find a sense of stability again, outbreaks can still happen and are held in check by teams of Promoters and Initiators. Initiators are Cursed Children who were born from infected mothers and Promoters are their handlers.

What I Thought: Rentaro, the Promoter main character doesn’t break any new ground, but he’s just belligerent enough, just competent enough, and just likeable enough to keep me engaged. Unfortunately due to the timeline of the show his Initiator sidekick Enju has to be an elementary school girl, but she’s not written like one and her constant attempts to be Rentaro’s intimate girlfriend might eventually turn me off the show. It’s only “funny” because she’s ten. If she was older it would be sexual harassment. (Rentaro is clearly not interested.) I’m not sure what the greater plot is from the first episode, which features the duo taking out a final stage infected before it can cause an outbreak, but I like Rentaro and his friend Kisara (who I think has a nice chemistry with him) enough that I’ll give Black Bullet another go.

Verdict: Black Bullet actually ended up better than I thought it would be (if I ignore Enju), and I think in another season this would have been a contender for my viewing time, but this spring there are just too many shows.

 

Brynhildr in the Darkness

brynhildrinthedarkness

Why I Watched It: I liked the premise, that a boy meets a girl that looks like his childhood friend who died years ago. That this was a science fiction show and the girl escaped a research lab was known to me before I watched it, but it could have been a slice-of-life series and I still would have given it a shot.

What I Thought: The opening credits make this look like a more pulse-pounding and sinister show than I expected. I’m a little put off by what looks to be a predominantly female cast with a single male lead. In anime intended for a primarily male audience, this frequently means there will be a certain amount of fanservice and all the girls will end up falling in love with the main character. And in the first episode there are definitely some fanservice shots, though they are not nearly as egregious as other shows. Fortunately Ryota is a sympathetic protagonist and the story between him and his childhood friend Kuroneko is engaging enough that I want to see what happens between him and her look-alike Kuroha Neko, who appears to be a scientifically created witch and part of a network of people who can predict when others will die.

Verdict: I will be watching it. There are enough tantalizing bits regarding Kuroha’s past and her special abilities that I want to see more (and she has to be Ryota’s childhood friend somehow even though she’s missing the moles on her body that his friend had).

 

Chaika – The Coffin Princess

coffinprincess

Why I Watched It: I wasn’t going to. I didn’t like the character designs and I didn’t like what I had heard of the main character, being a young teenage girl who only speaks in words and sentence fragments (presumably because it makes her adorably quirky). But I kept hearing about the carnivorous unicorn in the first episode so I figured it must be something awesome.

What I Thought: The unicorn wasn’t too shabby (actually a bit creepy right up until they fought it), but the setup where main character Chaika happens to meet super-powered siblings Toru and Akari and that they are willing to take a job from such a nutcase of a wizard as Chaika, is just a little too pat. I have trouble buying the fact the siblings are so broke as to be scrounging for food when they both possess a transformation ability that makes them superhumanly strong and immune to fear. Fortunately there are hints of a more complicated plot involving something that went down five years ago in a civil war, and mysterious faction that may or may not be on Chaika’s side.

Verdict: I might go back to this one if I have time or one of the series I intend to watch bombs out.

 

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders

jojosWhy I Watched It: When I was very new to anime, the original JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure OAV series was one of the few that really stuck in my mind due to the crazy combination of the extremely manly art style, the level of violence, and the Stands, which I can’t really describe as anything other than mystic inner selves named after tarot cards. They’re a lot like the Personas in the Persona series, but predate them by several years.

What I Thought: I mostly watched this out of curiousity, since the original OAV series did not cover the first half of the Stardust Crusaders story arc so I started in the middle. It’s funny watching it because the story takes place in 1989, which was current day when the manga ran, but makes this a historical piece now. It’s exactly what I expected, even with stylized sound effects just like you would see in a manga panel, except animated. JoJo’s is completely unapologetic about its age and makes no effort to update itself. The manga has been running for over twenty-five years and knows what it is to the tune of 110 volumes and counting.

Verdict: It’s JoJo’s, which means a lot of muscly guys screaming at each other while fighting and I already know where the story’s going. It’s worth a look for someone who wants an introduction to one of Japan’s longest continually running manga series and the story arc is self-contained, but doesn’t offer much more than updated animation for someone who saw the earlier version.

 

M3: the dark metal

m3Why I Watched It: I like shows with a bit of mystery around them. Near future Tokyo is slowly being swallowed by a blackness called the Lightless Realm that consumes anyone who tries to explore it, and there is a strange song that comes from its guardians where if someone hears it they will die in nine days.

What I Thought: This show feels like it should always be taking place at night, because that’s when its most effective scenes are. The scenes in full daylight lose the feeling of menace that should be coming from the Lightless Realm and the mysterious Admonitions and Corpses that emerge from it. The show has a gender-balanced ensemble cast consisting of a special class of students who are being trained to eventually explore the zone and emerge alive thanks to new technology. However most of the first episode focuses around Akashi, who so far looks be talented, but relatively unsympathetic. By the end of the first episode we get a little bit of insight into what the Admonitions are, which is appropriately disturbing, and most of the cast hears a Corpse’s song.

Verdict: I will be watching it. No one in the cast has particularly won me over, but the atmosphere certainly did. I’d like to see what happens when they finally start exploration and what it is that they’ll find inside.

 

One Week Friends

oneweekfriendsWhy I Watched It: I liked the premise. It sounded very sweet. Kaori Fujimiya is a high school girl who loses memories of people who she wants to spend time with, who are important to her (barring family members), with the start of every Monday. This makes it impossible for her to make friends, but one boy, Yuuki Hase, picks up on her loneliness and resolves to become her friend every week.

What I Thought: OMG the feels. Kaori and Yuuki are absolutely adorable together. The first episode covers the course of a week as they gradually and believably begin to become friends, and the animation easily picks up every bit of their awkward conversations as she tries to dance around her peculiar condition and Yuuki tries not to feel rejected. It’s an easy tug on the heartstrings, but the end of that first episode when Yuuki resolves to tell her “I want to be your friend” at the start of every week was so sweet. I’m not sure how the show will progress if Kaori is constantly resetting, but it’s definitely earned a place on my list.

Verdict: Must watch! End of story.

 

The World is Still Beautiful

worldisstillbeautifulWhy I Watched It: Shoujo (girls) comics are infrequently adapted into anime, and even though the character designs don’t quite do anything for me, I wanted to give this one a shot. The premise is that the Sun King conquered most of the world, but agreed to leave the Duchy of Rain alone in exchange for one of the duke’s daughters in marriage. Princess Nike loses a game of rock-paper-scissors against her sisters and is prompted shipped off to marry a king she has never met, but the king turns out to be a boy younger than she is and she’s no shrinking violet.

What I Thought: It turned out to be a sillier show than I thought it would be, even breaking the fourth wall at one point. Nike gets into what I would consider horrible situations if it had been anyone else, but they get played for laughs and she never takes anything too badly. It helps that she can command the weather and she’s not afraid to use it. I like that she has a lot of confidence and isn’t overly girly, which is atypical of shoujo heroines. The boy king is only introduced at the very end of the episode, so it’s not possible to see what their relationship is going to be like, but he looks just young enough for it to feel a little squicky. According to Wikipedia he’s supposed to be 15 but he looks like he’s 12.

Verdict: I’m going to keep watching this one to see if it gets better. It’s hard to judge a romantic comedy when half the couple has barely been on screen by the end of the first episode.

Conspicuously missing

Knights of Sidonia – The most serious science fiction offering of the season, featuring massive colony ships, genetically engineered humans to better survive in a harsh environment, and giant robots (okay, maybe that part isn’t so serious) is a Netflix exclusive and will not be appearing in the US until Summer 2014. In an era of simulcasting that seems a terrible business decision. By the time it makes its way over here fans will be talking about the next season of shows.

 

 

laurietomLaurie 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 inGalaxy’s Edge, Penumbra, and Solaris Rising: The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction.

Review: Hugo Short Story Nominees

written by David Steffen

And here it is my favorite category of my favorite SF award, the Hugo Award for Short Story. Another smaller batch this year because the Hugo rules require the nominees to have a minimum of 5% of the total nomination ballot. On the one hand, it’s great that there are so many great short stories being published every year that the nominating vote is spread that thin. On the other hand, I want more stories and it’s disappointing to have less stories to read just because there are more great stories out there this year than ever based on an arbitrary percentage threshold.

Neil Clarke, editor of Clarkesworld, has posted an editorial suggesting that the rule be changed to encourage more short stories to end up on the ballot in the face of increasing Hugo voters. Personally, I would love to see that rule changed. My preference would be to allow the top 5 and count any ties for 5th place as nominees. A too-large ballot can be detrimental if you’re using a simple voting scheme where each voter picks only one story–two stories by one author will self-compete and if people’s first and second choices are very close in their mind there would be no way for them to support both. But the Hugo Awards use an instant runoff scheme where you can rank all the stories in the order that you like them, so if your favorite gets eliminated your vote will still support your second favorite, and so on.

The rules can change if people get involved and raise their voice about what they want. A few years ago, Neil Clarke was a major voice in saving the SemiProZine category by helping people understand the value in the award, and this can be the same.

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s go on to the stories!

 

1. “The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere”, John Chu (Tor.com, 02-2013)
A few years ago, the world inexplicably changed so that any lie you utter would be met with a downpour of cold water that falls from nowhere combined with a feeling of angst, both proportional to the audacity of your lie. These effects can only be counteracted by saying something unequivocal. You can avoid saying the truth and you can mislead as long as you don’t utter something that can’t be untrue. The protagonist Matt is gay and has managed to avoid coming out to his traditional-minded Chinese parents for years. Now Matt and his boyfriend Gus have decided they want to get married, and Matt needs to break the news to his parents, over his sister’s objections.

At first I thought the speculative element of the water was more than a bit corny. But the story doesn’t make a joke of this concept and runs with it. As with the best speculative fiction, it’s not about the speculative element. It’s about how that element allows us to look at the real world through the lens of the speculative. This story did an excellent job of that. It’s a great story, well told, and I highly recommend it. Easy choice in this category.

 

2. “The Ink Readers of Doi Saket”, Thomas Olde Heuvelt (Tor.com, 04-2013)
“People send their dreams and wishes floating down the Mae Ping River with the hope that those dreams will be captured, read and come true. It is a surprise what some wish for and why. One can never know what’s inside someone’s heart,what they really truly want, and those dreams sometimes reveal our true selves.”

This is the introduction before the story starts, and the story is exactly what is described by those few sentences. The story starts by explaining the wishes of a bunch of people that are cast into the river, and then as the story plays out it’s shown how those wishes are granted, not always in a straightforward fashion. Young Tangmoo dies in the opening paragraphs, drowned in that same river, and the story rolls back to reveal his wish and the wishes of others.

This was an interesting thought experiment about how one must be careful what one wishes for, but to me it never really extended beyond a thought experiment. Some of the turns of phrase were interesting and strange and definitely lent something to the story. But in the end I just was never really connected with it, and the concept itself was also not something new to me. Not bad by any means, but easily forgettable.

 

3. “If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love”, Rachel Swirsky (Apex Magazine, Mar-2013)
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 did. Eventually the story gets to the actual story behind the hypotheticals, but by that time I was just impatient for it to be over.

 

4. “Selkie Stories Are for Losers”, Sofia Samatar (Strange Horizons, Jan-2013)
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.

Interview: J.A. White

interviewed by Carl Slaughter

jawhite1-300x209J.A. White defied conventional wisdom by selling his first novel – soon to be a trilogy – without selling one piece of short fiction to magazines. How did he do it? Also, how does he maintain page-turning tension without the reader suffering fatigue, how does he balance character development and world building, and how does he find time to write with so much else on his plate?

The first book in White’s “Thickety” trilogy will be on the shelves in May.

 

CARL SLAUGHTER: You sold your first novel without selling any short fiction. How did you accomplish that feat?

J.A. WHITE: For many years I tried to get a short story published, but I was spectacularly unsuccessful. Pretty simple reason: I wasn’t good enough yet. Also, I don’t think the short form really suits me. While I love reading short stories,my favorites include Ray Bradbury, Theodore Sturgeon, and Harlan Ellison,I tend to write big, twisting plots that take some time to unfold. I really cut my storytelling teeth on screenplays and short films. When I sent my novel around, no one asked if I had ever published any short stories, but I’m certain such publications would have helped my cover letter. In my case, I wrote about the various short films I’d written that had won competitions. Writing this answer makes me realize that at some point I’d love to take a stab at a short story again. It’s a wonderful, often unappreciated art form.

 

CS: Take us through the process of finding an agent. Did you know somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody? Did you have an old college buddy who was an agent? Did you have to query a zillion agencies?

JAW: I had been querying agents unsuccessfully for quite a few months when an editor at Katherine Tegen Books, Sarah Shumway, expressed interest in The Thickety. At that point I informed a few agents who had requested a full manuscript but had not yet gotten back to me. Luckily, I decided to sign with Alexandra Machinist of ICM, who’s wonderful.

 

CS: The Publisher’s Weekly and Kirkus reviewers commented on how you maintained tension and surprise scene after scene. How do you create and maintain the tension/surprise and how to you keep up the tension/surprise for the entire book without the reader getting tension/surprise fatigue or technique fatigue?

JAW: The last thing you want to do is fatigue the reader, that’s for sure! I’ve read plenty of novels,especially YA books,where the slam-bang relentlessness of the plot eventually becomes tiring. It’s like a sugar rush, too much of a good thing. The way I try to avoid that is by spending a lot of time in the early chapters developing the characters and the world, so that by the time the surprises and action start the reader is completely invested. My main character, Kara, is very introspective, so I do tend to balance out scenes of suspense with her thoughts.

I think the main problem with books that suffer from “surprise fatigue”is that the reader is not sufficiently grounded in the characters’ lives, and without this connection any narrative tension,however well executed, eventually becomes monotonous and boring. It’s similar to watching many Hollywood blockbusters. Explosion, explosion, explosion,and none of it means anything because there’s no human element.

 

CS: Explain the 3 sentence description principle. Give us an example of how 2 sentences are too few and 4 sentences are too many. Is it a hard and fast principle? Aren’t some descriptions inherently better shorter/longer?

JAW: You’ve read my teaching blog! That lesson is for younger children just learning how to describe things. Of course, with professional writers there really isn’t any specific rule. The length of the description could vary based on its importance at that particular moment in the story, how the character views what is being described, whether or not you are foreshadowing something later in the novel, pacing,so many factors!

With children, however, I find it’s better to give them a very specific framework at the start. Master sentence, detail, detail. As they develop their skills, I encourage them to branch out and break this rule, but I feel that this gives them a good starting point, especially for those who are not naturally gifted writers.

 

CS: Why is show better than tell? Give us some examples of ways to show compared with ways to tell. Again, is show inherently better than tell? Shouldn’t the story determine the technique rather than vice versa?

JAW: Ah,you found another writing lesson on my blog! With children, they tend to tell the story from “outside,” as a summary. For example, “The boy and his brother are playing catch.” It makes sense that they tell stories in this way,it’s how they’ve been telling stories their entire lives! However, they need to make that leap toward choosing a perspective and writing from “inside” the story. To go back to that previous example, I’d rather they write something like, “Brian looked down in surprise and saw that the ball had landed in his mitt. ‘Nice job!’ his brother exclaimed.” Here we have more detail, a point-of-view,all those things that young writers should be developing. Forcing them to think about “showing” vs. “telling” helps them become aware of the major difference between summarizing a story and writing a story. It’s a big leap!

As far as publishable work, however, you’re of course correct,there are times when showing is better than telling and vice versa. It’s the pacing of the story,whether you want to speed time up or slow it down at that particular moment,that determines the best choice.

 

CS: Is there a universal formula for world building? How did you balance your fantasy premise with your character development? How did you integrate you characters and premise into the plot?

JAW: World building is like Legos for writers, isn’t it? So much fun.I don’t think there’s a universal formula, though probably every writer builds more than he or she actually uses. I try to include just enough details to plunge the reader into a fantasy world without it becoming overwhelming. The temptation, I think, is to include too much information,though as the author you have to know everything about your world, even if it doesn’t find its way into the final draft.

Also, De’Noran, the island setting of The Thickety,is not new to the book’s protagonist, Kara, so I always have to keep that in mind. There are things in her day-to-day experience that would seem totally normal to her, so I need to resist the urge to spend a lot of time describing it (even if it’s something really cool). The reader’s view of the world must at all times be grounded in Kara’s perspective. This can sometimes make it tricky to reveal necessary information, but it helps me to integrate character development into my plot/world building.

 

CS: Do you recommend workshops?

JAW: Of course! I think it’s a fair rule of thumb that, like most things in life, you’ll only get back as much as you put into it. Take the time to thoughtfully and honestly critique the stories of others, and expect the same diligence in return. Also, someone in your workshop may be an inferior writer but give absolutely incredible critiques,and vice versa. Don’t assume that writing talent and the ability to give brilliant feedback are connected.

 

CS: How much time expired from the first stroke of the keyboard til it lands in bookstore?

JAW: The Thickety started as a short film made in 2008, so it has been rattling around in my brain for a long, long time. I didn’t actually start working on the novel until 2010, which means it was about four years from the first stroke to publication!

 

CS: With a family, a full time occupation, a part time job, and all the nonwriting tasks that go with being an author, especially promotion, how do you find time to write?

JAW: I set aside at least two hours a day,often more,as time to work on my latest novel. This is usually in the morning, when I’m freshest. That means no Internet, no social media, no other distractions. Anything else has to wait until later. I usually do my promotional stuff at night, though to be honest I’m not very good at it. It’s just not my personality,but it is a necessary part of being an author.

 

CS: Will there be a sequel to Thickety? A trilogy? A series?

JAW: Yes! A sequel to The Thickety will be released in March of 2015. That one is already completed, so it’s a bit odd promoting the first one,I have to make sure I don’t give anything away! The third book will be published in March of 2016.

 

Carl_eagleCarl 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.

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.

 

Review: The Very Best of Tad Williams

written by David Steffen

Tad Williams is the well-known and talented SF author who wrote such well known works as TailChaser’s Song, the Otherland series, and the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series. Most people know him best for his novels, but what many people don’t know is that he is also a master of the short story form. Many writers have a strong tendency toward one or the other, but Tad Williams tackles both with equal aplomb.

If you want to check out some of Tad’s short story work, there’s no better place than The Very Best of Tad Williams, out this week from Tachyon Publications. It is comprised of eleven short stories written by Williams, one of them in a screenplay format. To get a sample of what’s in the book, you can check out StarShipSofa’s audio adaptation of Child of an Ancient City, which is one of the stories that appears in this volume.

My favorite in the bunch were:

The Storm Door
A paranormal investigator has been looking into an unrecedented increase in ghostly posessions by the dead. At the beginning the story seemed very familiar, but stick with it, it didn’t go where I expected.

The Stranger’s Hand
A strange pair of vagrants wander into town, one of them a mute with the ability to give anyone their heart’s desire. soon people are coming to the town from many miles around to visit the mute stranger. But who are they? What do they want?

Black Sunshine
This is the lone screenplay in the bunch. I’m not used to reading screenplays so I admit the format took a little bit of getting used to. This is a story told in two times–a group of kids going through a traumatic experience and those same people grown up coming back to their hometown to confront their past. Solid story. I’d like to see the movie if it’s been filmed.

 

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Daily Science Fiction December 2013 Review

written by Frank Dutkiewicz

 

The Key To El-Carim’s Heart by Henry Szabranski (debut 12/2/14 and reviewed by Dustin Adams) is a dark tale about a king who falls in love, only to be spurned. He locks his heart away behind an encrypted firewall. Free to act without regret, the world falls before him.

I appreciated the emotion of this story, despite it being about a lack thereof in Carim. However, I found the clash of medieval imagery with computer technology difficult to reconcile.

Read this is you’re looking for a no-holds-barred, bleak but well executed story.

 

Lucky Cherry Luck by Kailyn McCaord (debut 12/3 and reviewed by Dustin Adams) is the epitome of speculative fiction. The premise: a girl, with a mysterious yet subtle power to grant good luck by infusing it into sugary cherries, works at a canning factory where she can surreptitiously put them in cans to be sent to the rest of the world.

Much of the story’s (delightful) tension comes from the big brother-like conditions within the factory, and Jolene’s ability to get these lucky cherries inside a can. I was slightly confused by the author’s meaning within the final paragraph, what she imagines the future will bring. However the theme of the story seemed clear to me. If I’m correct, it’s that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

 

A couple says their goodbyes in Patchwork Blouse by James E Guin (debut 12/4 and reviewed by Frank D). The protagonist is a woman who is spending her last day with the love of her life. Her man is one of the first settlers to Mars. A shopping trip is how they spend the last of their time together.

“Patchwork” is a tale of separation. The story is unraveled much like a war story , woman saying goodbye to her soldier as he leaves for war. A familiar premise.

 

A hero is a kiss away from breaking a curse. Asleep by Jeremy Minton (debut 12/5 and reviewed by Frank D) is a tale of a would-be rescuer. Ralph has accompanied his friend, Tom, to Sleeping Beauty’s palace. Tom fell yards from the prize, done in by a last ring of poison thorns. It is up to Ralph to finish the deed, but death and decay fill this place, which ruins the mood for him.

“Asleep” is a tale of destiny. The destiny of this tale, however, is not meant for the protagonist. Ralph had gone along for the journey, but weighs whether the prize at the end of the destination is worth the price paid.

 

A warrior withdraws from society. Sabi, Wabi, Aware, Yugen by Sam J Miller (debut 12/6 and reviewed by Frank D) is the tale of a revolutionary who cannot live with the horrors he has done. Malcom was one of the downtrodden, a poor citizen fighting against the might of the growing power of multi-national corporations. His desire to escape his past led him into a Buddhist monastery but his water-bending nanomites are still a part of him. A warrior like himself can’t hide forever.

“Sabi” is a tale of reflection and forgiveness. Malcom wishes to forget the evil he has done. His teacher’s goal is to guide him on a path that will not undo his evil, but embrace an existence where his past will be irrelevant, thus erasing the guilt that has consumed him. Running away has not solved anything for Malcom. The truth is what has eluded him and it may still catch up to him yet.

“Sabi” is set in the backdrop of a horrible war. The story has a twist that was unexpected to the protagonist and reader alike. The horror and expectations for what he had done don’t quite pan out for Malcom. For a man who sought enlightenment, running away from his past may be the thing that stands in his way all along. The tale serves as an object lesson for those who chose to hide rather than face their own sins. War does indeed bring out the worse in all of us, but hiding from the truth is never the way to deal with your own crime.

A good story.

 

The first time traveler is the last to appear in Time to go Home by Stephen R. Persing (debut 12/9 and reviewed by Frank D). Ward has traveled into the far future. Millions of years has changed humanity beyond recognition. Twenty time-traveling expeditions have all ended at this point of history. The inhabitants of this future have all decided to be caretakers of these people from the past, imprisoning them in a virtual reality. Ward wants no part of it, wishing only to return home.

“Time” is a tale of false perception. The people of the future have made their world where the virtual is the reality. Ward is told that he can’t go back, the limitations of time travel have deemed it impossible but he wishes to try anyway, asking if he can pursue further along the time in hopes of a future breakthrough that will allow him to go home.

“Time” is a story of competing premises. The tale is half The Time Machine and half Matrix. This story of uncertain perspectives leaves the reader with an uncertain finale. I would have liked a more defined outcome, but I think uncertainty was the point of the piece.

 

A teenage boy resents the winged reptile companions of his tribe. The Clasp by Jarod K. Anderson (debut 12/10 and reviewed by Frank D) is the tale of a boy eager to break away from his tribe. The reptiles, who he refers to as The Swoons, are a symbol of freedom that alludes him. He has come to hate them. He is determined to climb down the butte and brave an unfamiliar world to escape them and his tribe.

“The Clasp” is a tale that serves as a suitable metaphor for the growing pains many young men experience as they ascend into adulthood. The protagonist is filled with nothing but irrational hatred for the Swoons, but the reptiles appear to be indifferent to his people and him. He later learns that just because they choose to not interfere doesn’t mean that they are as indifferent as they appear.

“The Clasp” is a short tale that is long on meaning. The point of the tale was not lost on me. It could have been done in a much longer format but Mr Anderson’s telling in this small frame of a narrative did it justice. Well done.

 

An alien species learns about humanity while playing board games with a child. Games by James Valvis (debut 12/11 and reviewed by Frank D) is the tale of a small boy who has found his own ET. He teaches his friend (and the collective the alien is a part of) the competitive nature of board games and the ruthlessness that is required to win.

“Games” leaves the reader with an ominous ending. I would hope the aliens would be aware of the entertaining aspect of games, but the author leads me to believe they don’t.

 

Followers by S.R. Algernon (debut 12/12 and reviewed by James Hanzelka)

The game was winding down and Athena was in control. I reveled at my good fortune to have acquired follower rights to her earlier in the year. The midseason injury had diminished her value somewhat, but now in last game of the year, Athena was back to herself leading the team. Seconds were ticking off the clock, slowly the game was moving toward the end. Athena was saving the last shot for herself, fully confident in her ability to win the game. BID FOR MOTOR CONTROL ENTERED – $250,000 bid by Joe Six pack. That was a lot of cash; Joe must have one heck of a day job. BID ACCEPTED. The game paused. “We have an amateur on the court,” the announcer let the crowd know. The intake of air was palpable. The time wound down, the shot was up, and in. But Joe’s shot wasn’t the best of that fateful night.

This is a well told tale in a few lines. The author does a good job of providing both a sense of place and players. Most of all the ending conveys the emotion of what lies beyond the sports venue. Though set in another time and place, it allows us to relate to the present. Well done.

 

Why Woman Turned To Stone by Heather Morris (debut 12/13 and reviewed by James Hanzelka)

Tom tried to concentrate on Miss Collingsworth’s flower arranging, but he was distracted by the stone statue under the arbor. “You were bespelled by that ugly statue, weren’t you Mr. Haversham.” She asked. “It is strangely captivating.” He replied. She laughed and related tales of her and her brother “playing” with the stone woman. “You talk like she’s alive,” he said when she wound down. “Of course she’s alive,” Miss Collingsworth replied. “That’s my aunt Hephestia.”

This is a nice little bit of fantasy that explores the subjects of love, loneliness and companionship. The author has done a good job of weaving the story in such a way that it pulls the reader into both the world and the mind of Tom Haversham. The ending is done in such a way as to let us know just how much of his world is beneath the surface of our understanding. This one is well worth the read.

 

A prisoner forms a plan of escape in We Are All But Embers by Gemma Noon (debut 12/16 and reviewed by Frank D). The protagonist is part of a forced labor camp controlled by a drug pumped into his system. His tube fails, allowing his own thoughts to return. He discovers that the guards are lax and tools for their escape are everywhere. All he needs are numbers, and patience.

“We Are” is a straightforward tale of mind control in a forced labor camp. We see the origins of a breakout. The story has shades of several different classic tales written before.

 

A Tower of Babel crisis has an odd effect on a crumbling relationship in Silence by Lydia Waldman (debut 12/17 and reviewed by Frank D). Language, and the ability to understand each other, is disintegrating. Newscasts are become incomprehensible. Soon, even the written language will become gibberish. Society is bracing for an uncertain future. For a couple that has been drifting apart, the shared anxiety is an opportunity to draw closer together.

“Silence” is a story of need overcoming familiarity. The protagonist and her husband have all but abandoned communicating with each other long before the crisis developed. Their deteriorating relationship has them uniquely prepared for this tragedy.

I liked the novelty of this piece but I confess, it didn’t speak to me as it should have.

 

A cloning specialist replaces his daughter’s pet in Goldfish by Elizabeth Archer (debut 12/18 and reviewed by Frank D). Nala doesn’t think their daughter, Malala, will buy the copy of Gibba her father, Adan, created for her. Nala’s motherly instinct knows that Malala will be able to tell the difference. She doesn’t believe the seven-year old is ready to handle the notion of death and worries the little girl will have a relapse when the news hits her. It had been 3 years since her accident, and death may be too much for a girl who came so close to experiencing it for herself.

“Goldfish” is a tale of acceptance. There is an underlying issue that the accident affected Nala more than it did her daughter. Adan tells Malala that death is a part of life, and that their daughter may benefit from the experience.

This tale takes a twist that I found delightful. It is a story that fits very well in the short, sharp, themes that DSF loves to bring to our email inbox’s. Not my favorite tale, but worthy of my recommendation.

Recommended.

 

Two lovers meet under a total eclipse in Totality by Tony Pisculli (debut 12/19 and reviewed by Frank D). While the protagonist catches a solar eclipse in Munich, he spies two lovers who find each other under the shadow of the moon. Their encounter is brief, lasting only the few minutes of the eclipses life, before the woman disappears before the sun’s light.

“Totality” is a tale of commitment. The woman exists only in the shadow of the eclipse. The protagonist becomes obsessed by the pair and seeks them out, chasing each eclipse.

I found the tale too brief to be sweet, and too short in material to be compelling.

 

A conscripted man and his dog make a formidable team. In Tommy and the Beast by Bud Sparhawk (debut 12/20 and reviewed by Frank D) the protagonist is a sheepherder throw into the meat grinder of an interstellar war. The only one to survive his first battle, he is given a dog as a partner and names him Tommy. The pair can communicate better than any human couple, each complimenting the others strength while watching the other’s back. Tommy and his master are deadly to the enemy. Then the day comes when the pair are confronted by an alien team every bit as formidable as they are, and a third antagonist that will bring enemies together in a final stand.

“Tommy” is a boy and his dog story with a bit of Buck Rodgers mixed in. Tommy and his master learned to rely on the other’s cues. With his loyal companions help, the protagonist is transformed from a quiet sheepherder into a professional soldier. The tale’s climax gives way to a twist at its end, giving this companion tale an extra dimension.

“Tommy and the Beast” has a familiar, yet old, feel to it. Like many sci-fi tales written in the height of the Cold War, the story is an ‘us vs them’ military theme. Mr. Sparhawk spent a good deal of effort showing his protagonist in the thick of battle , a not bad effort at that. However, I found the stories opening needlessly long and thought the ending dragged on longer than it needed to be. That being said, the Space Westerns that were once so prevalent in sci-fi are becoming a rare finds these days.

 

A soldier is confronted by a desperate girl. The Decent Thing by Dex Fernandez (debut 12/23 and reviewed by Frank D) tells the tale of a battle harden soldier coping in a war ravaged land. He just shot a revolver-holding woman who killed his buddy, leaving the cold-eyed little girl standing next to her, all alone. The little girl’s next words shock him more than the sight of the two dead people lying before him.

“The Decent Thing” is a tale of devastation. This short story brings the effect of war on the civilians. Survival has left the small child in an automated state. Her eyes and words show how soulless she has become. The appalling opening and following storyline is a set up for a shocking finale. If you were looking to capture the real horrors of war in a flash length tale, this story is the one for you.

 

A young girl values her security. In a Highest Possible Setting by Em Dupre (debut 12/24 and reviewed by Frank D) the protagonist is a single woman who works on the dangerous streets of an unidentified city. She has the latest in protection software uploaded in her brain. Sentinel will help her, calculating the safest routes, cataloguing suspicious faces, and preparing her for the worst. Sentinel will guarantee that she will be safe, and who needs a social life when you can have complete security.

“Highest Possible” is a tale of paranoia. The software implanted in the protagonists skull, is designed for one purpose , lessen the customer’s chances of become a victim of violence. I found this tale to be visionary. The likelihood of such a product becoming available to the public is all but guaranteed, in my view, and the author accurately predicts the downfalls of its usage.

A perceptive work of science fiction.

Recommended

 

Miracles can happen even for the undead. The Christmas Zombie by Marissa James (debut 12/25 and reviewed by Frank D) is the story of an adolescent turned zombie named Grrg. His undead parents have done their best to care for their family. The alive neighbors have struck a truce with them, even feeding them dog food to keep them satisfied. Fresh kills have become rare and Grrg hadn’t a real meal since the Christmas Zombie brought them live meat last year. Times are getting tough but Grrg believes in the Christmas Zombie, and hopes he’ll deliver another fresh meal to them this year.

This silly story is a demented tale of hope. Aptly debuted on Christmas, Grrg has faith in the mythical creature. Is he real? Or is the urge to believe too important to abandon?

A funny message piece.

 

The evolution of a role model is examined in Child Soldier by J.W. Alden (debut 12/26 and reviewed by Frank D). A shunned soldier stops in at a restaurant. The once patriotic war he fights is now something the public sooner forget. Most avert their eyes from the protagonist but a young child looks up to him with admiration. The child can’t wait to grow up so he can go to the stars and kill bad guys too. The protagonist knows humanity doesn’t need future warriors. He’s fighting for something more profound.

“Child Soldier” is a tale of hope. The author draws upon the experiences of his family and how society has looked upon the soldier in past wars. The protagonist is looked down on by the citizens. He is a reminder of a past and present that most would like to forget. The young child, who immediately sees him as a hero, represents a future the protagonist is fighting for.

“Child Soldier” is satisfactorily profound for the message the author was attempting to convey. The soldier hasn’t forgotten what is important and why he chose to join the military. The young boy who salutes him just wants to help. The protagonist steers him in a direction where he can. Nice job.

 

A tale of a mixed marriage is the theme of The Dragon and the Bond by Mari Ness (debut 12/27 and reviewed by Frank D). The protagonist is a local villager who has been wedded to a dragon. The dragon needs her heart, but he can wait. The two need time to grow into each other. For a pair so unlike, they discover they have more to share than anyone could have imagined.

“The Dragon” is a story about relationships. The dragon will take her heart one day, and nothing will change that. She is left to live her life until the time they are ready. It will take time, but while they wait, the protagonist discovers that such a hard and sharp creature has a soft side indeed.

There is a lesson in this odd tale. Despite their differences, the two gradually start to understand each other. There is a fondness between them that is the sweet to a sour eventuality. The tale reminds me of marriages that are arranged; strangers that learned to first respect then love each other. Although I didn’t see the need for them to be married, I didn’t miss the metaphor of the protagonist giving her heart to her husband.

 

A necessary but thankless job is told in this confession of a 21st Century Dragonslayer’s Lament by Susan E. Connolly (debut 12/30 and reviewed by Frank D). The protagonist is a veterinarian. Dragons, thanks to enhanced genetic manipulation, are now a reality. Many have become abandoned, abused, and neglected. It is the protagonist’s job to fix this growing problem.

“Dragonslayer” is an anti-hero tale. As we do with stray and abused pets, the slayer of this story is preforming a distasteful task. The slayer’s job is the opposite of the romantic tales of knights defending the countryside against monsters. Instead, the monsters are the irresponsible people who disregard their commitment to care for them.

The tale serves as a commentary on how we treat our loyal companions in our society.

 

Fairy tale endings aren’t always what they’re cracked up to be. And Silver Foundations, Mud by Lisa Nohealani Morton (debut 12/31 and reviewed by Frank D) is a tale set inside the premise of Sleeping Beauty. The princess awakes but her hero is nowhere to be found. The kingdom rejoices and the king is ready to wed his daughter off to a worthy prince. The beauty is less than enthused. She has come to miss her walls of thorns and brambles. The good and justice philosophy of her people has lost its luster. It may be time for a change.

The Sleeping Beauty fairy tale is perhaps the most popular of the Daily SF staff. A lot of tales on the subject have been reviewed here. This one didn’t strike me as a particularly original one, but it is one of its darker variety. A different ending.

 

Three Degrees of Separation

In my closing comments for my June 2013 review that debut on September 16th of last year, I noted Dr Stephen Gordon’s announcement that he would no longer review Daily SF on his daily blog Songs of Eretz. Dr Gordon was the only other committed reviewer who tackled the task of reading, reviewing, and sharing his views on the daily speculative fiction email publication. For a full year he commented on each story that was published but said he would no longer do so. We shared our disappointment with you on his decision, shared his opinions on the stories the Diabolical Plots staff had published in DSF, and made a public offer to the good doctor that he could continue to review DSF on a limited basis for us here at DP. I learned two things after my proposal to Dr Gordon†¦

1) The good doctor doesn’t read Diabolical Plots.

2) But a lot more of you than I ever suspected, do

On October 13th, Dr Gordon made this little announcement on passing an impressive milestone for his ezine†¦

I am pleased to announce that Songs of Eretz recently passed 50,000 views. Even more significant is the geometric explosion of views–11,000 of the 50,000 occurred in the month of September 2013 alone! One day in September, there were over 1,000 views in a single day!

Stephen never said which day marked the big explosion of viewers, but if I were to guess, I would say it was the day the editors of Daily Science Fiction posted a link to our review (which is usually around a week after we post it).

So let me first say to all of you, thank you for reading our reviews. It really means a lot to us. Dr Gordon never mentioned the anomaly again. I would like to ask you two favors, if I may. Give Dr Gordon’s splendid ezine another visit and when he comments on the mysterious spike of viewers , and of the odd attraction to a 6 month old post , don’t clue him on why.

 

The SubmissionQ Grinder is very pleased to announce that the Letter Q has renewed its sponsorship of the writer’s submission guide. Despite the Letter X’s offer to triple Q’s contributions, the staff at the Grinder elected to stick with 17th letter of the alphabet. As SG management stated in a company memo†¦

†¦Q has been with us right from the start, and although we appreciate X’s outstanding offer, being tied to such a salacious and scandalous consonant does not represent the image we envision for the Submission Grinder

So we at Diabolical Plots welcome a return to our partnership with Q as the sole sponsors for the fastest growing writer’s guide website in the industry. It is an honor to be associated with a letter that has supported Her Majesty’s top weapons specialist at the highly classified M spy network for years, as well as lending itself to a superior futuristic multi-dimensional being whose sole purpose is to irritate Star Fleet captains.

The Best of Lightspeed Podcast 2013+

written by David Steffen

My last list for this podcast was actually a combined list of The Best of Lightspeed and Fantasy podcasts, since both were under the editorship of John Joseph Adams and then the two magazines were consolidated into one. The consolidation is still called Lightspeed and publishes four stories on their podcast every month, two of them SF and two of them fantasy (there are more on the site in text, but those are not part of this list). Both Lightspeed and JJA continue to be popular as they have been for years, garnering award nominations. I expect it will only be a matter of time until Lightspeed wins some of those.

John Joseph Adams continues to edit the magazine, and the stories are good as ever. Cutting down the great stories to just a few was a brutal process.

 

The List

1. The Battle of York by James Stoddard
How best to describe this. It is a myth written about the history of the USA based on half-heard fragments and scraps of memory by a person in the future after earthquakes have destroyed all the landmarks and EM has destroyed all the electronic records. It is over-the-top, bizarre, hilarious, yet tells a compelling story amongst it all. You’ve really got to read it just to see how it was done.

2. The Boy and the Box by Adam-Troy Castro
A boy has a box into which he has put the world. A good extension of the age-old “children would be scary if they had absolute power.”

3. Breathless in the Deep by Cory Skerry
Good action story about a pearl diver in a world where there is magic based around kraken ink.

4. A Fine Show on the Abyssal Plain by Karen Tidbeck
Another one that’s hard to explain. Very metafiction. Just read it.

5. Invisible Planets by Hao Jingfang
On the surface it’s a story describing fanciful and imaginative fantasy planets, but the format is used to work well into a broader story.

6. HELP FUND MY ROBOT ARMY!!! by Keffy R.M. Kehrli
Written as a Kickstarter campaign to fund a world takeover by a mad scientist, with everything you can imagine like stretch goals, donation levels with appropriate rewards, reasons why you should fund, interaction with the Kickstarter userbase. Very fun!

7. Alive, Alive Oh by Sylvia Spruck Wrigley
One of the more heartfelt stories I’ve read this year about a woman and her daughter on an off-Earth colony, and the reminiscences the woman has with her daughter about their old home.

Honorable Mentions

Division of Labor by Benjamin Roy Lambert

Ragged Claws by Lisa Tuttle

Get a Grip by Paul Park

 

 

 

Anime Review: Samurai Flamenco

written by Laurie Tom

Samurai Flamenco is a send-up/meta-commentary of the Japanese superhero genre, particularly the various Super Sentai series, which Americans have mostly been exposed to in the form of Power Rangers.

Twenty-year-old Masayoshi Hazama grew up idolizing the televised superheroes of his childhood, so much so that even into adulthood he never gave up his dream of becoming a hero. He lives in a world much like ours, where criminals are handled by the police; a world that doesn’t have or need superheroes. But Masayoshi isn’t like normal people.

He has an uncompromising sense of morality and in his homemade costume as Samurai Flamenco, he decides to make the world a better place, even if it’s just as simple as getting someone to stop littering.

His first attempt at being a hero is downright miserable (Batman he is not), but fortunately he soon meets Hidenori Goto, a jaded policeman a few years older than him. At first all they have in common is a fondness for childhood superhero shows, but as time passes, Goto starts to help out Masayoshi as he gets in over his head. As a vigilante, it helps to have a friend on the police force, and for the audience Goto serves as the straight man to antics that only Masayoshi could possibly take seriously.

Eventually Masayoshi makes allies, rivals, and even enemies. During episode 7 the show takes a huge right turn that is completely crazy and runs against everything that had been set up about how the world works, but it’s just so damn good and completely in the spirit of the show that it’s hard not to just roll with it. Episode 7 is really what sets the tone of the rest to follow.

Once the real spirit of the show reveals itself Samurai Flamenco runs fast and furious, barely stopping to take a breath. Like in a TV series, the hero defeats one enemy only for another to appear, but it does what would be 5-6 seasons in another show in just two (and it works!). There was one point where I wondered just how the hell the series could possibly wrap up in the wake of ever escalating adversaries, but wrap up it does, and it does it in the unexpected and completely off-beat manner that the show has been displaying its entire run.

Samurai Flamenco manages a neat balancing act between the laughs and the drama, sometimes even juggling both in the exact same scene, with a couple teary-eyed moments I just wasn’t expecting.

That said though, this is a series I find difficult to recommend, since so much of the humor hinges around Japanese superheroes. If you watched Power Rangers as a kid and know a little bit about its Super Sentai origins, or if you happen to be a fan of the American comic Kick-Ass, I’d say this is worth giving a shot, but it’s probably too bizarre to be someone’s intro to anime.

Otherwise, if you’re an anime fan looking for something new, there really isn’t anything else like Samurai Flamenco.

Lasting 22 episodes, Samurai Flamenco recently finished its run with the end of the winter 2014 anime season.

Pluses: commentary on the staples of Japanese superheroes is hilarious, story never loses sight of itself, clear that the creative staff loved what they were doing

Minuses: takes a few episodes to get to the real plot, most of the villains don’t last long enough to make an impact, very niche appeal

Samurai Flamenco is currently streaming at CrunchyRoll and is available subtitled. Aniplex of America has licensed this for eventual retail distribution in the US.

 

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 inGalaxy’s Edge, Penumbra, and Solaris Rising: The New Solaris Book of Science Fiction.

 

An Unexpected Writing Milestone

So I’ve reached an unexpected writing milestone this week: being banned from submitting to a publication after pointing out some questionable business practices. I’ve posted this elsewhere but I decided I’m going to post the email transcript of my conversation with Collidor’s Ray Taylor which ended with me being banned from his publication. I have never done this kind of thing before, but I haven’t said anything in the email conversation I’m ashamed of and I’d rather that people make their own decisions with the words in front of them rather than taking my word for it.

Neither half of the conversation has been edited from it’s original format except when I quoted some text within my emails and responded to them in the next line I added the label “Me: ” to make it clear where the quote ended and the response began.

Also note that their guidelines say that reprints are acceptable.

Share if you like.

(After submitting a story)
RAY TAYLOR:
Dear David,

Thank you again for sending us your work, Marley and Cratchit. While it is still in the queue, I’d like to ask you if you can lend a hand while we get our Appzine off the ground.

Collidor is a community project. We believe that authors and other creative people should be able to earn a living doing just that – creating.

While we are financed for the first couple of issues, we need to demonstrate market potential in order to get to a second round of financing. That means as many advanced subscribers as we can muster through our crowdfunding initiative.

While we are not in any way suggesting that you must donate or purchase a subscription (there are no strings attached to a submission acceptance), authors such as yourself will utimately benefit the more subscribers we have. Your show of support would be greatly appreciated.

https://fundrazr.com/campaigns/0hqF6/ab/32lk04

If you are not in the position to subscribe or donate yourself, you could perhaps help out by promoting Collidor to your own network of friends and acquaintances. With your help we can get the word out, build momentum, and make Collidor the best science fiction market as we lead the new wave in publishing.

If you have not already done so, please follow us on Twitter (@collidormag) and like our page on Facebook (www.facebook.com/collidormag)… and if you can, retweet and share posts to your own friends and followers.

Thanks again for your submission, and keep writing!

Ray Taylor, publisher
COLLIDOR: A Science Fiction appzine for mobile

DAVID STEFFEN:

Ray,
Mass-sending solicitations is an abuse of your submission system, and likely a violation of anti-spam laws in some countries. You might want to check your terms of service with Submittable as well.
In any case, it seems like soliciting your slushpile is barking up the wrong tree. To be successful, you need to get the attention of fans to kick in, not your submitters. Presumably there will be overlap between the two groups, but a submitted story is not an open license for solicitation.
Please do not send more.
,David

RAY TAYLOR:

Thanks for your email. Actually Submittable has a bulk email option on enterprise accounts, however these emails were sent out one at a time. The idea actually came from another author and a number of our submitters already contributed and promoted us on social media without solicitation.

We have also not violated any anti spam laws as you as well as other submitters established the relationship and as a result allows us to communicate with you on any topic we feel might benefit our mutual investment.

And not only is solicitation OK, it is actually possible to set up a Submittable account to charge a fee for each submission. I have elected not to do so as I do not believe in a pay to play model in publishing. I have decided to eat the cost of having stories read where maybe 1 in 10 or even 50 might actually make it to publication.

In that regard I suggest you do your research and get your facts straight before making accusations.

Now of course you are under no obligation as I had clearly stated, but it is in your interest, as in every aspiring professional author, to help promote paying venues for content. The trend in publishing has been a steady erosion of content licensing fees, and this is largely because authors have not done their fair share to support the economy that pays them. Support is as simple as following us on Twitter, liking our Facebook page and asking your own community to take a look at a venue that is not only author friendly but pays the highest rates in the industry (and the plan is go even higher as we gain subscribers and sponsors). Gone are the days that solitary writers can sit in their rooms and write and expect enough cheques will come in to pay the rent. That might still be true for the less than one per cent of professional authors out there, but trust me, you are a very long way from that, my friend.

So you can slog away for exposure and self publish and self promote and hope that by giving away your work you can gain momentum and followers if that is your goal (I suggest Wattpad), or you can help a startup that has as its goal the creation of a high paying market for quality writing. One that also dedicates resources to editorial development and your success and skill as an author. We expect many of our authors will go on to become successful in other well paid publishing venues with our help, and not be forced to work for free or next to nothing.

Basically if you like the idea of getting paid $0.25 a word, benefit from our editorial expertise and the exposure we can bring you, it should not be a problem to consider lending a hand. Many have done so already.

Regards,

Ray Taylor, publisher

DAVID STEFFEN:

Ray,
I’m going to drop Submittable a line, to ask them what their policy is about solicitation.

I think we have fundamental ideological differences here that we won’t agree on, but I wanted to respond to a few of the points:. You can respond or not as you like–I’m not demanding a response.

>>Actually Submittable has a bulk email option on enterprise accounts
Sending emails individually rather than a bulk email doesn’t really change things. Me: The email being tagged as having been sent through “mailgun” doesn’t encourage a non-spam interpretation.

>>We have also not violated any anti spam laws as you as well as other submitters established the relationship and as a result allows us to communicate with you on any topic we feel might benefit our mutual investment.
Me: Asking to receive call for donations was not a part of our communication. It is not only NOT a part of the communication necessary for the submission process, it is a blatant advertisement. Establishing a relationship does not give a free pass for advertising.

>>And not only is solicitation OK, it is actually possible to set up a Submittable account to charge a fee for each submission.
Me: That’s very generous of you to not charge me for sending you content. How exactly does this justify solicitation?

>>I have decided to eat the cost of having stories read where maybe 1 in 10 or even 50 might actually make it to publication.
Me: That’s how starting a business works, yes. It’s an investment of money and in time. If the business plan is sound and you find a market, then your initial investment may become profit when you have enough customers. Making money selling fiction is haaaaard. A lot of magazines out there aren’t making money. There are many reasons for it, including an abundance of free fiction to be had, but I’m sure you know about all that.

>>The trend in publishing has been a steady erosion of content licensing fees, and this is largely because authors have not done their fair share to support the economy that pays them.
Me: So the reason that writers aren’t getting paid enough is that writers aren’t paying enough to the publishers that publish them? A publishing system in which the primary money comes from the writers is flawed. Where is the money coming from? You need to find content from writers. You need to find readers who will pay for the content. There is overlap between these groupsbut you can’t treat them the same and expect to succeed.

RAY TAYLOR:

Mailgun? These were sent through Submittable’s messaging system. You might want to take that up with them in your request. I can look into that on my end.

Actually if you go back to what I wrote, I was not suggesting pay to play at all, even though it’s an accepted model, but that authors do not do enough to promote the idea that good writing is worth paying for. Publishing is an ecosystem, and it does not flourish because creators are typically the ones having to accept whatever crumbs are thrown their way, we are in a model where content is cheap but low quality as a result because the best writers do not have the financial incentive to further hone their craft.

If you take the music or book publishing business, publishers no longer invest in new or mid listers until it can be proven they can self promote. This is perhaps unfortunate that people are reluctant to pay for content, but indeed one can’t expect to be paid If you do nothing to change that environment and expect other people to do the work for you. And I have solid data to back that up.

DAVID STEFFEN:
>>Actually if you go back to what I wrote, I was not suggesting pay to play at all, even though it’s an accepted model, but that authors do not do enough to promote the idea that good writing is worth paying for.
Me: You must be hanging out with different writers than I hang out with. That is often the topic in various contexts with those that I interact with.
It’s hard to do much to promote an entity that hasn’t produced anything yet. If I read what you published and I thought you made good choices, I’d promote at the slightest opportunity. I heard about your magazine because another writer posted a link to your guidelines in a writing forum. I have shared that link in other venues as well. It’s not the promotion that bothers me, but the format it takes of unsolicited email advertisement. For all I know, you don’t have interest in the kinds of stories I like to read–I can’t know that until some of it is available for me to read.

>>we are in a model where content is cheap but low quality as a result because the best writers do not have the financial incentive to further hone their craft.
Me: Content being cheap per unit doesn’t necessarily mean that no money is being made. I know some writers who have made some steady income from epub sales, which are cheap but if you can get enough quantity the bulk can make up for it.
And I certainly don’t agree that stories on the market are of low quality if you look in the right places.

>>one can’t expect to be paid If you do nothing to change that environment and expect other people to do the work for you.
Me: I’m not even sure what exactly you’re saying. What work is being done for me? I happily promote fiction magazines that publish fiction I like. I happily contribute financially to fiction magazines that publish fiction I like. At this point I don’t know if you publish fiction I like because you haven’t published any yet (as far as I can tell). I’ve contributed to startups, but generally it will be if the mission statement sounds especially exciting or if the editor is an entity who has picked stories I like in other venues.

What I am taking issue with is not the suggestion of promotion, or the suggestion of contribution. You can suggest those all you want, and I will continue to choose what I want to promote and what I want to contribute to based primarily on the merit of the content produced. It is the medium of the communication that I take issue with, the unsolicited advertisement in email.

RAY TAYLOR:
Well precisely, you are free to choose, I asked without any obligation on your part, and you have chosen not to participate. Fair enough.

As someone who has followed science fiction for over 40 years, I can safely say that the current decline in literacy has coincided with a decline in the quality of writing. While you can state that money is being made and there are indeed good writers out there eking out a living, the harsh reality is that it ain’t like it used to be.

There is an urgent need for curation, and the better paying markets such as Tor (backed by a huge multinational) are unfortunately few and far between. Most paying gigs for fiction pay abysmal rates, as I’m sure you already know. The only winner in this commodity approach to content is in fact Google and to a lesser extent, Amazon.

So there is a way out of this mess. But it does mean fighting the system as it stands, and it takes a community to build it, as the traditional publishers don’t have a clue how to make money any more . Taking an adversarial or what I might call a consumer approach (you claim that not being able to evaluate our content is your reason) is a bit odd when we are essentially both on the same side of the fence when it comes to monetizing content. You would like to make good money and I’m interested in developing a market for that.

I regret you withdrew your submission, even though it was really not what we are looking for in terms of reprints. In general a story should not be freely accessible on the web or at least have some claim for fame such as an award or serious critical acclaim. I question your motives for submitting a story that anyone could read on Escape Pod, and I would have obviously rejected it on those grounds alone. We have a different venue for archival material but it will be on a shared revenue model. At the moment we are only offering that opportunity to a very select group of well known authors with a long track record.

Good luck with your writing career.

Ray Taylor, publisher

DAVID STEFFEN:
I say your strategy is deeply flawed. You say I don’t know what I’m talking about when I don’t want to support your market. Time will tell.

But, that completely bypasses the core question: why spam?
a professional would not stoop to that, whether or not it’s illegal. Which it is illegal.

I submitted a story that’s already available to test the waters. And I learned what I needed to know–I don’t want to work with you, because you spam your contributors, it’s clear to me that you don’t know how to run a publishing company, and you also can’t take criticism. Prove my wrong by succeeding if you like.

From my end, I don’t see any point in continuing the conversation further as I’m definitely not getting anything out of it, and it’s equally clear that you’re not interested in hearing what I am saying.

RAY TAYLOR:
David,

I have sought a legal opinion, and in the United States (and with similar legislation in Canada), the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 defines unsolicited email (which in my case it was not unsolicited) as legally permissible as long as certain header information is not forged (e.g. false sender email addresses, false subject lines) and naturally anything fraudulent. By withdrawing your story you have effectively opted out the relationship with us and there will be no further communications through Submittable.

Just because you received an unwanted email does not make it spam. The reality is you solicited us by submitting a story and by divulging your email address. You had established a relationship with Collidor by doing so and as a result could expect communications that may be to the benefit of our relationship.

http://www.business.ftc.gov/documents/bus61-can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business

As I had stated in my first reply to your email, you should do your homework before making accusations.

Adversarial approaches with publishers are not terribly good strategies for establishing constructive relationships. Furthermore, I take a very dim view of time wasters who are ‘testing the waters’. This is borderline abuse of the goodwill of publishers who dedicate resources to open and unsolicited submissions.

You will receive no further communication from me and any future emails or submissions from you will be automatically and summarily deleted.

Ray Taylor

The Best of Dunesteef 2012-2013+

written by David Steffen

My last Best of Dunesteef article was in October 24, 2011. For most of the podcasts I listen to, I try to do an updated list on a yearly basis, but I also like to make sure that I get batch of stories big enough that a best of list is meaningful. Dunesteef has an often irregular publication schedule, so it’s taken a little longer to get the minimum 30 episodes I like to work with. So this list covers all 33 of their stories published between then and now.

Rish Outfield and Big Anklevich put together good productions from their team of volunteers, and have quite interesting though long after-episode chatter. Their episodes have been even more irregular due to Big moving to a new house, but what they lack in frequency they more than make up for in entertainment.

The List

1. Saying Goodbye by Christopher Munroe
One of the winners of their Broken Mirror Story event in which writers submitted a story that meets the following description: “A phone rings in the middle of the night. The voice on the line says only one word†¦but it is enough.” While the story at first seems to be one that we’ve all heard before, about the ghost of a man trying to send a message of love to his widow, I appreciate the novel direction taken by the end of it.

2. The Dead of Tetra Manna by Mark L.S. Stone
Cool world building here, and multiple cultures with varying kinds of magic. Erik of Ciohar heads out on a quest to find out what happened to his last body that died.

3. Todd Elrin and the Forever Reset by Jonathan C. Gillespie
I’ve seen this premise a few times recently, where a single person relives the same year over and over again, but each one was different and told well.

4. The Question by Robert Lowell Russell
“It’s the question on everybody’s minds, as soon as they hear about fully-functional, human-like robots.” That’s all well and good, people say, but can you f*** it?

5. Wedded Bliss by Rish Outfield
A conversation between married men goes from the mundane to a ludicrous game of one-upmanship.

 

Interview: Christopher Priest

interviewed by Carl Slaughter


 priestbannerThe Prestige, a box office hit directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Michael Caine, and Scarlett Johannson, was based on a novel of the same name by Christopher Nolan. I seldom watch a movie more than once. The Prestige is an exception. Every time I watch it, I discover something new. Another science fiction movie hit was Inception starring Leonardo DiCaprio and also directed by Christopher Nolan. Christopher Priest put the premise of Inception in print 3 decades earlier with his novel A Dream of Wessex. His latest novel, published in 2013, is The Adjacent. Christopher Priest talks to Diabolical Plots about the themes and elements of his novels, his definition of science fiction, and the influence H.G. Wells had on him.

 

CARL SLAUGHTER: Why magicians?

CHRISTOPHER PRIEST: Because when you know what they’re really like, they are co-o-ol.

 

CS: Why war?

CP: Because it’s a constant force, even if you don’t happen to witness it every day. Since 1945, more than one hundred full-scale wars have been fought, many of them still ongoing now.

 

CS: Why WW1 and WW2?

CP: WW1 because of the poetry. WW2 because it isn’t over yet.

 

CS: Why airplanes?

CP: I’m still struggling to come to terms with the theory of flight, which as far as I am concerned remains only a theory.

 

CS: Why doppelgangers?

CP: Don’t you have an inner life? A shadow identity no one sees?

 

CS: Why the theme of what’s reality?

CP: When you discover what reality is, let me know. That search is largely what the books are about.

 

CS: What is the Dream Archipelago, what role does it play in your stories, and how often have you included it?

CP: The Dream Archipelago is a world with two continental masses, north and south. The north is complex, modern and industrialized, full of technologically advanced countries who have formed alliances and are at war. The south is a barren, frozen, uninhabited wilderness, where the armies of the north try to resolve their issues by violent means. Between the two continents is a vast ocean girdling the world. The ocean is crammed with uncountable islands. Culturally and racially their peoples are peacefully mixed, politically they are neutral, ideologically they are dreamers.

 

CS: Several reviewers have said that although they admired your stories and were impressed with your skills, they had to reread and re-reread your stories to put all the pieces together. Why not a more pedestrian approach?

CP: You want a pedestrian approach? Look elsewhere. (Plenty of it about.) I’m pleased to hear reviewers are re-reading my books. That’s music to my ears. After all, reviewers get paid to read books, which most people don’t.

 

CS: The characters in your books are victims or cogs. Why no heroes?

CP: How many genuine heroes have you ever met? Or even heard about? Most people do the best they can in the circumstances in which they find themselves, and some do better than others. The majority of people in the world are in one way or another victims: of financial greed, despotic governments, prejudice, cruelty, autocratic corporations, ignorance. Do you want every novel to be about Superman? I prefer to write about the world as I perceive it.

 

Adjacent_DJ.inddCS: The Prestige has a device that copies and transports people. Your latest novel, The Adjacent, has a device that transfers people to an alternate universe(?). You don’t delve into the science of these devices. No effort to make them seem plausible. They’re just invented and they just do what they do. Why no hard science in your stories?

CP: On the contrary, my novels always have hard science in them. What you and I call science is not the same thing. You’re thinking of the exact sciences, excluding others.

I have a broad, inclusive approach to the scientific method. There’s a science of society. A science of politics. Of demographics. Of interpersonal relationships. Of surveillance. Of criminology. A science of sex, fear, influence, people, culture, history, thinking. These are the sciences I write about, I research them thoroughly and consider that my approach to them, if not exactly hard, is certainly firm. “Science” means “Knowledge”.

As for what you call “not delving into the science” — when you use a photocopier do you tell everyone in the room how fascinating it is that inside the cabinet there is an electrostatically charged drum, which uses negatively charged paper exposed to a light source …? When you make a call on a mobile phone, do you tell the person you are talking to that all this is possible because your voice has been converted into an electrical signal which has been relayed through a series of hexagonal cells at a variety of radio frequencies …? When you drive a car …? Get the idea? That’s how my characters use matter transmitters.

 

CS: What’s the best way to describe your chosen genre? Science fiction? Speculative fiction? Defies categorization?

CP: The only exact definition I have ever come up with is: “Books by Christopher Priest.” However, I confess that isn’t much help to someone who hasn’t read any of them.

 

CS: The theme of “what is reality” was also in Philip K. Dick’s books. Were you influenced by him?

CP: I read Phil Dick’s stuff when I was a teenager, and really liked it. However, at that time I was reading and liking a lot of science fiction writers, so I can’t say Phil Dick’s work was a special influence.

As for the “what is reality” riff … As I recall much of that in Dick’s books was related to chemical substances, or some kind of physical interference with the mind. My own take on inner reality is much more to do with perception, with memory, with muddle, with forgetting, with imagining, with being mistaken.

 

CS: How did H.G. Wells influence you?

CP: He wrote “The War of the Worlds” and “The Time Machine,” and in particular a large number of wonderful short stories. He was the first writer I came across who made me feel he was speaking directly to me, on my wavelength, away from the world of teachers and parents and critics.

 

CS: What’s your role in the H.G. Wells Society?

CP: My role is a more or less honorary one of Vice President. I don’t have any official duties, but I do what I can, whenever I can, to “promote a widespread interest in the life, work and thought of Herbert George Wells.” He was a great man and a great writer.

Here’s an example of something I did last year.

 

Carl_eagleCarl 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.