“WorldCon 2012 Con Report” or “David Steffen Finds Fandom”

written by David Steffen

I’m beginning to write this article from the huge lobby of the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Chicago. It’s 10 o’clock Monday morning, the last day of WorldCon, which this year is Chicon 7. As I sit here and watch the escalators, ambushing familiar faces to sneak in some goodbyes, I am feeling very nostalgic about the weekend already.

This is the first big SF convention that I’ve ever been to, and the only one where I came with a large number of friends I’d known ahead of time. The only convention I’ve been to besides this has been MiniCon in the Twin Cities, which is a few hundred people, and although I’ve made some friends there, I didn’t know any of them ahead of time. Here at WorldCon there are literally dozens of people whom I have met in some respect, varying from casual acquaintances from forums, to editors who have considered my stories for their magazines, to close friends who I’ve been in continuous contact with for years. I tried to write down all the names of these people I’d met, and came up with at least 60, and I’m sure I’m forgetting some, with another dozen that I would’ve liked to meet but never quite got the chance.

I think I finally understand, to a much larger extent, what fandom is all about. The greatest thing about SF fandom is how welcoming it is to everyone. No matter what race, nationality, religion, sexuality, body type, no matter what, you are welcomed with open arms. I’ve always loved that, but previously–I don’t know exactly how to explain this–although I never felt unwelcome, I don’t think I ever felt like I was a PART of the group. I felt like I was being welcomed warmly into a group but not exactly part of the group. I think that everything about it was the way I have approached MiniCon attendance. I go to MiniCon during the day, show up at the first panel that I’m interested in and leave after the last panel I’m interested in. Since so much of the programming emphasizes panels, it seemed to me like panels were what it was about (despite others telling me that that wasn’t the point at all). And I would talk to people as the opportunity arose, but since I was so panel-focused, most of the time I spent was sitting listening to other people talk without a lot of opportunity for conversation with others. But now I’m realizing that the way that I have been approaching MiniCon is all wrong. Panels are good, but they’re not the point.

I can pinpoint the moment when this became real to me. One of the first panels I went to was “Short Story as Proving Ground” with some panelists that I’ve known online, Brad Torgersen, Vylar Kaftan, and others. I arrived late, and so I didn’t get a chance to talk to anyone beforehand. After the panel, I met quite a few people that I’ve known online for a long time, shook some hands and was quite happy to be meeting them. But when I met Annie Bellet, who’s been a friend online for years, she didn’t go for a handshake, she immediately gave me a big hug. And moments later a similar greeting from another longtime friend, Laurie Gailunas. I really felt, at that moment, like these people aren’t just friends, aren’t just colleagues. These people are family, welcoming me with open arms. I realize that sounds corny. But that’s how it felt, and that feeling has persisted through the rest of the con. So, thanks Annie, Laurie, and thanks everyone else who has made me feel so welcome.

I’m not even sure where to get started with this con report.

Dude, you’re really only getting STARTED? You’ve written flash fiction stories that are shorter than that introduction.

Don’t pay attention to that italicized bit. That’s my internal critic. He’s just cranky from being ignored–I don’t know how he got out of the dungeon. Anyway, back to the topic of where to get started: I thought about splitting it up by day, but figured that would get a bit too dry of a “list” format that wouldn’t at all match how I feel about my first big con experience.

The People

There is no way that I can possibly list all of the people that I met this weekend, so I’m not even going to try. I will mention a few. I roomed with Donald Mead and Bryant Thomas Schmidt, both very nice guys. I was very excited to meet Annie Bellet, Hugo-nominated Brad Torgersen, Laurie Gailunas, and Alastair Mayer, who I’ve been in a writing group with for the last few years. There are so many others that I met that I know through various forums or publications, Brennan Harvey, Thomas Carpenter, Alex Kane, Laurie Tom, Dawn Bonnana, Christie Yant (who wrote my favorite story in years, the Three Feats of Agani), Nancy Fulda, Gio Clairval. Many others whose work I have enjoyed over the years, like Rajan Khanna, David D. Levine, Ferret Steinmetz. And I got an autograph from Mr. George R. R. Martin, while managing not to go too fanboy on him.

As I have been sitting here writing this article, others have come and gone around me. I have been sitting next to a woman for the last hour as I type away, and moments ago realized that the woman is LaShawn Wanak, whom I have had many a discussion about fiction on the Escape Artists forums over the last few years! Man this is a crazy place, to meet so many people I know digitally.

The Editors

Wait, wait, aren’t editors people? What kind of stupid categories are these, anyway?

I concede that editors are people. Many of them might even be entirely human. Not John Joseph Adams, clearly, because he regularly violates causality by sending rejections from his Lightspeed EVEN BEFORE the story has been sent to him and somehow he does this without unraveling spacetime. On top of that, no flesh and blood human being could possibly juggle all the anthologies that he puts together all at the same time. Regardless of his superhuman state, he seems to be a very nice guy, even though he’s rejected my stories more than any other editor on the planet.

Also met Gordon Van Gelder, who was one of the first editors I submitted to at Fantasy & Science Fiction. And Stanley Schmidt, the current editor of Analog who has seen all the SF stories I’ve written, as well as Trevor Quachri, who will soon be inundated by my stories in Stan’s stead. Jason Sizemore. And Mur Lafferty, who has the unique distinction in my mind of being the only magazine editor I’ve met who has bought a story from me (for Escape Pod).

It was fun meeting these people, whom I’ve corresponded with so often, if in only the most spare and businesslike way.

Those dulcet tones

What kind of stupid category is that? “Those dulcet tones”. Sheesh.

There was one very small category of people whom I was especially excited to meet.

Wait, wait, so you had a category called “The People” followed by two categories which are subsets of people. Your Software Engineer’s license is going to be revoked if anyone ever founds out–

Ah, that’s better. I found my handy dandy internal critic club that I’d left in my other pants, and put it to good use. He’s back in the dungeons where he belongs. Anyway…

So this very small category is but a category of two, podcast hosts who have been keeping me company in a unidirectional fashion on my daily commute. Mur Lafferty, editor and host of Escape Pod, and Kate Baker, host and narrator of the Clarkesworld podcast. I have talked to both of them before this convention. Mur has bought one of my stories. I’ve talked to Kate before, both as part of her work as a staff member of SFWA, and to share my Best of Clarkesworld lists. Corresponding with them via email was one thing, but easy enough to separate from the podcast because of the different medium. Talking to them in person, though, was very strange (in the best possible way). I have listened to both of them for SO many hours, I felt like I was talking to best friends of many years. They both have such beautiful reading voices.

It sort of reminded me of those times when I’ve gone to a play with incredibly good actors, and then greeted the actors afterward. Theater can establish such a perceived intimacy that it’s easy to feel like you know the person as a close friend, and so if I follow my instinct and greet them as a warm friend without thinking, it’s very confusing for both parties. I think in this case it was more so, because I have listened to them both for so many hours. I kept waiting for Kate to say “Let me tell you a story.”

It was really, really surreal, as if I talked to my iPod and it suddenly started responding to me. And, so far, I haven’t been served a restraining order, so at the very least I think I managed not to creep either of them out with one-sided over-familiarity.

The Parties

Every night, parties. Usually I don’t like parties much, but these are writer parties. Many familiar faces, and you can stand around and talk about writing. There’s not really anybody in real life that I talk to about writing without them getting bored after a few minutes, so this was a lot of fun. Tor and Baen both hosted big parties, but one of the highlights of the weekend was the “Pink and Blue” release party of Cat Rambo and Stina Leicht. Cat Rambo just released an anthology of her short stories titled “Near + Far” (she’s the pink) and Stina Leicht (she’s the blue) something as well, I think it was her book “Of Blood and Honey”. This was a highlight of the weekend, a good turnout with lots of people I wanted to meet.

Panels/Events

I’ll just list the ones I went to briefly, for anyone who’d like to know more than I said, ask in the comments.

Thursday

Opening Ceremonies–formatted like a late-night talk show with the entertaining John Scalzi as host, he interviewed all of the major guests of the con.
Mike Resnick Reading
Nancy Fulda Reading
The Short Story as Testing Ground–This was the first panel I went to that I’d mentioned previously, with Brad and Vylar as panelists. Good content, but especially exciting to meet a bunch of people after.

Friday

Mark J. Ferrari Reading–I’ve critiqued some book chapters of Mark’s upcoming book, was nice to meet him
George R. R. Martin Autograph Session–Got a copy of “Game of Thrones” autographed
John Joseph Adams Reading–Fiction reading of stories bought by JJA, including by Christie Yant and David D. Levine. Very enjoyable, especially Levine’s clever parody of Superman from a Lex Luthor point of view justifying his seemingly evil actions.
Filling the Magazines–Great panel of editors, Gordon Van Gelder, Stanley Schmidt, John Joseph Adams, Jason Sizemore, Ellen Datlow
Ferrett Steinmetz Reading–I think Ferrett’s really hit his stride lately, I like each story more and more.
Open Mic Reading–Ferrett inexplicably was scheduled for another 90 minute session and he opened it up for volunteers. I was very happy about this since I registered for the con much too late to be in any programming. So I read my favorite of my own work, the unpublished “Hungry Void”. I had a lot of trouble keeping my voice steady because that story always makes me want to cry.

Saturday

Codex Breakfast–Great fun to meet dozens from my favorite online writer’s forum
George R. R. Martin Interview
Effective Habits for Aspiring Authors–A panel with Annie Bellet and Brad Torgersen
Critique Session–My sole programming commitment, Deirdre Saoirse Moen and I lead a critique session of 3 authors who signed up. A very enjoyable experience. I like critiquing anyway, was enjoyable to do this in person for a change.
Escape Pod Meetup–I showed up very late for this due to the critique session commitment, but was happy to find some people still hanging around. Met some great people involved in one of my favorite podcasts.

Sunday

The Future of Analog–Panel including Stanley Schmidt (editor until Friday), Trevor Quachri (editor after Friday), Brad Torgersen and Richard Lovett to discuss the editorial change and just generally the future of the magazine.
Podcasting 101–Okay, so I have little interest in starting a podcast (though I’d like to try some voice acting). I mostly went to hear Mur Lafferty and Kate Baker talk.
Neil Gaimain Theatre–One of four plays performed at this convention written by Neil Gaiman, this one a reimagining of the Snow White story with the stepmother as the hero and Snow White as a vampire. It feels entirely more real than the original story.

The Hugos

The Hugo award ceremony was a lot of fun. John Scalzi made a very entertaining host. This was an odd experience too, because it had a feel very much like the major award ceremonies you see on TV (but without the upstaging and with half the runtime), but I KNOW some of these people. I was particularly rooting for Brad Torgersen, Mur Lafferty, and Nancy Fulda to win in their respective categories. They didn’t, but I hope they’re not too disappointed about it–to be voted by fandom to be one of the top 5 favorite in any category is an amazing accomplishment.

I won’t list all the winners here, because those have been published for days. I was excited to see Jim C. Hines win for Best Fan Writer. If you haven’t read his blog posts about female and male poses on fantasy covers, you should–he actually reproduces all of the poses he discusses, to both thought-provoking points and comic effect. I was disappointed that the “Remedial Chaos Theory” of Community didn’t win for Best Dramatic Presentation Short Form, because that category is always dominated by Dr. Who. Game of Thrones Season 1 on HBO won Best Dramatic Presentation Long Form, against a tough field. Ken Liu‘s “Paper Menagerie” for Best Short Story, a well deserved win, that story is so good.

Wrap Up

I’m wrapping this up in my office at home on Wednesday, having hopped a plane home on Monday and gone back to my engineering work yesterday. I still feel a bit disoriented, culture-shock I guess, at being back in my daily life instead of this brief but intense visit into the convention scene.

This has been a really great experience for me, which I’m having trouble finding just the right words to describe. I feel like I’ve found fandom, after never quite being able to see quite where or what it was, and when I finally got here someone had saved a seat for me. Thank you to everyone who has made me feel so welcome–even just the little things added up to a great experience.

Hugo Picks 2012 (Part 1)

written by David Steffen

This is the first year that I’ve chosen to pay for a supporting membership to Worldcon. This is where the Hugo awards, the fan-based major award of the science fiction community, are presented. Paying for a supporting membership not only gives you the right to nominate and to vote, but also gives you the Hugo packet, a package containing most of the individual Hugo nominated works and examples of work from Hugo nominated individuals and magazines. That’s a load of bargain-priced brand-new fiction at $50.

Now, I should mention that I don’t think that the Hugos are generally indicative of the best science fiction and fantasy out there. Many of the nominees and winners I just find perplexing, often dull or unimaginative, and some authors get nominated every year even when it seems entirely clear to me that they are just “phoning it in” and the fans somehow feel that they are obligated to vote for this person.

Another thing I should add is that I only ended up getting registered on July 19th, a relative latecomer to the registration. The Hugo voting deadline was on July 31st, and I had only read a few of the entries. So to fully vote, I had more reading to do than I had time to do it. So for this first installment I’ll only be covering those categories in which I had a chance to absorb enough of the content that I feel comfortable making an informed vote. For each category I’ll list my first choice as well as any others that I was close to voting for.

 

Best Novella

1. The Man Who Bridged the Mist by Kij Johnson
An Imperial engineer travels to a small town on the banks of a mist-river to connect two halves of the empire. Novellas in general tend to be too slow for my tastes. This one is as slow as most, but I felt like it really used the space effectively. I really felt like I knew the characters by the end and I wanted them to be happy.
2. Kiss Me Twice by Mary Robinette Kowal
This one was a close contender for my top pick. It’s an effective science fiction mystery story, which uses the SF effectively as more than just a backdrop. Mystery generally isn’t my favorite genre or I might’ve picked this as the top instead.

 

Best Novelette

1. Ray of Light by Brad R. Torgerson
Brad’s a friend, but I didn’t pick his story because of that. I truly thought that this was the best of the group. It made me care about the characters. This takes place in a future Earth where inexplicable aliens have come and put up a shield between Earth and the sun so that the earth freezes over. The only humans who lived are those who fled deep below the ocean’s surface to live in underwater colonies. Nobody expects the surface to be thawed for several more lifetimes, but when a group of teenagers goes missing, a father goes to investigate.
2. Six Months, Three Days by Charlie Jane Anders
A story about a romance between a man who can see the future and a woman who can see a variety of possible futures. I enjoyed reading this one as well, though its appeal was more of a thought experiment than the emotional connection I am more typically looking for.

Best Short Story

1. The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu
The story of the son of a Chinese mail-order bride and the emotional connection she tries to make with him. Heartbreaking on several levels, this story really made me watch for more Ken Liu stories.
2. Shadow War of the Night Dragons: Book 1: The Dead City: Prologue by John Scalzi
This story was posted as an April Fool’s joke last year on Tor.com, formatted as an excerpt from an upcoming Scalzi novel. It was based on a previous blog post analyzing the most common words used in fantasy novel titles. John Scalzi took this as a challenge, and wrote this beast of a title, and the story itself is just as funny, making fun of all the common epic fantasy cliches. I heard Scalzi read this live at MiniCon 2011, and the live performance made it even better.
3. Movement by Nancy Fulda
The story of a child with “temporal autism”, although the story says explicitly that it is not actually autism but is has some common symptoms. The girl does not think on the same timescale as everyone around her, this story is about her efforts to understand the world around her on her own terms.

 

Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form)

1. Hugo
Awesome Martin Scorsese movie adapted from the children’s book titled The Invention of Hugo Cabret.ÂÂFollows an orphan boy living in the mechanical depths of a train station in Paris in 1931. The main storyline itself is really great, but it was very effective at showing the magical appeal of early cinema in the few decades before that.
2. Game of Thrones Season 1
I haven’t read any of George R. R. Martin’s books in this series, so this was my first exposure to them. The casting is amazing across the board, the special effects are great, great characters, great plot. Not a lot of fantasy in it, though there are a few select key places of fantasy, as the name implies much of it revolves around political maneuvering to rule countries. Great stuff, and it makes me want to read the books. Now if Martin would only ever finish writing them.

Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form)

1. Remedial Chaos Theory (Community)

This is one of the best shows on TV right now anyway, but this episode was above and beyond. It begins with a simple enough premise. The study group that the show centers around is at one of their apartments, and have ordered in some pizza. The apartment building’s door buzzer is broken, so when the pizza man arrives, someone has to go down to retrieve it. Nobody wants to, so they roll a die to decide. From there the episode splits into 6 timelines, each one with a different person going down to get the pizza. It doesn’t sound that interesting, but a lot of small variations add up to major and differing consequences between each timeline. I’m hoping for another Hugo nomination next year for the Community episode “Journey to the Center of Hawkthorne”, in which Pierce and the rest of the study group have to play a very complex 8-bit video game to earn Pierce’s inheritance. Brilliant. I wanted to play that game so much!

 

Best Editor (Short Form)

1. Neil Clarke
2. John Joseph Adams
3. Sheila Williams
4. Stanley Schmidt

 

Best Artist

1. Dan Dos Santos

I just think that Dos Santos’s artwork is the best out there today. I have a signed print of his illustration of Moiraine that was published in ebook rerelease of the Wheel of Time series.

 

Best Magazine

1. Apex
2. Lightspeed

 

Best Fan Artist

1. Maurine Starkey

 

Best Fancast

1. SF Signal Podcast
I like the SF Signal site anyway, but I really liked the discussion in the example episode with a lot of recognizable names about the future of the publishing industry
2. SF Squeecast
A Christmas themed episode that was a lot of fun. All of the members of the group are clearly having fun while they tape, and they really comes across.
3. Galactic Suburbia Podcast

 

Best New Writer

1. Mur Lafferty

Strange to think that she counts as a new writer because I’ve been listening to her stuff for years on the Escape Artists podcasts, and hearing about her self-published books. I really like her style though, some of my favorite EA episodes have been written by her.

 

As the year rolls on I’ll be reading the rest of the Hugo packet just for fun, at which point I might have more posts to pick out my favorites. And this is also the first year that I’ve been eligible for SFWA membership, which means that I can now nominate and vote for the Nebula award–so I may have something about that as well.

Daily Science Fiction: May 2012 Review

written by Frank Dutkiewicz

We have another month of reviews for you! Thank you to those who helped me to smoke out find Mr Anonymous. His reviewing talents were desperately needed missed here. Now on to the good stuff.

 

A woman counts the tragedies in her life in “Seven Losses of Na Re” by Rose Lemburg (debut 5/1 and reviewed by Frank D).

The author of “Seven Losses” uses her own memories as a template for this story. The subject of this depressing tale is of a Ukrainian Jewish peasant girl who tells of events in her life ranging from Stalin’s oppression into the later years of the Soviet Union.

 

Alicia finds comfort with a friends creation in “Clem” by Cassandra Rose Clarke (debut 5/2 and reviewed by Frank D). Clem, Alicia’s close friend and co-worker, has passed away. She evades her colleagues by eating her lunch in Clem’s old office. After four days of dining in her departed friend’s work environment, the computer that Clem created speaks to Alicia.

There wasn’t much to this piece. It was a type of story I have seen before, two people connect by a common friend who has died that become fast friends. What made it different was that one of the people was a machine. I had trouble buying that the office Clem worked in would be left vacant yet her equipment would be left undisturbed as if she were on a vacation. It was a hole in the premise that felt should have been filled.

 

The boogeyman returns to the protagonist’s life to ask for a favor in “An Old Acquaintance” by K. G. Jewell (debut 5/3 and reviewed by Frank D). It seems times have gotten hard for Oscar (the name the protagonist has given his boogeyman). Kids have night lights and stay up later these days. He needs a referral, and the much older protagonist has just the kid in mind.

This story is short so I won’t reveal any more of this very delightful and funny tale. I enjoyed it immensely.

Recommended.

 

Becca has a special relationship with her departed uncle in “Dancing in the Dark” by Stephanie Burgis (debut 5/4 and reviewed by Frank D). Becca’s family is getting smaller. Both of her parents have just died. Now her uncles Kev and Rom care for her and her brother Billy. Jack died in a robbery years before but keeps Becca company. A photo she has of him with an old girlfriend is what keeps him around. Only she can see Jack, and she sees him in a different light when the strange woman in the photo shows up at the front door one day.

“Dancing” is a sad tale. The grim tone of it made it difficult for me to enjoy. However, after reading the author’s comments on the inspiration of the piece, I can see that the tale was a work of therapy for the author. I did find the end satisfying.

 

Sylvia wants to know from her parents when they’ll be going on their yearly vacation in “One Childhood of Many” by Andrew S. Fuller (debut 5/7 and reviewed by Frank D). Sylvia is eager to start the family trip to Lake Moo-noo fHul-pa, a magical place fitting ‘Alice in Wonderland’. She speaks of the spectacular things they do every year there.

“One Childhood” reads more like a spoiled and bored child’s wool gathering in her over active imagination, which may be what the tale was all about in the end.

 

“The Rush of the Wind and the Roar of the Engines, and the Call of the Open Road” by Lavie Tidhar (debut 5/8 and reviewed by Dustin Adams) is more of a summation, or a cataloging. For a moment I thought perhaps a character was on a super-futuristic ride, a history of a local portion of the universe, but no. Maybe?

The writing was fine, but I think this story would work best upon a second read. There could be nuances here I didn’t catch reading it though only once. However, I find stories without characters difficult to latch on to. Especially one spanning a time frame, and divulging a history. In the end, I have to ask myself if it’s worth committing this litany of fictional facts to memory.

I’ll skip the second read.

 

The protagonist travels to the Great Library of Tourmaline to read the Tome in “The Tome of Tourmaline” by Ken Liu (debut 5/9 and reviewed by Frank D). The words in the book have power. Power of the inner wonder in each person. It is mysterious, moving, and magical. The story within is the story each person needs to read for themselves. What is in it? You’ll have to read the Tome for yourself to find out.

If you are looking for a story as marvelous as the fictional book in “The Tome”, you might as well pass this story by. This tale is only about how one man is moved by words and a tale you will never see. So what is the point of “The Tome”, you may ask? This story was an exercise in prose. Ken Liu demonstrates on how writing a story that is only about a person reading a story, can be done so well. Even the ending to this piece I found intriguing.

“The Tome” is a tale for writers and serves as a lesson on how to write well.

 

In “Wrong World” by Steve J Myers (debut 5/10 and reviewed by Anonymous) the story is delivered as a monologue to doctor (psychiatrist, methinks…). The main character is explaining why he was picked up by the police, naked and ranting on the highway.

The story glances at the idea of a multiverse; a theory that every possibility can happen and does happen in other versions of the universe and there exist an infinite number of universes.

It’s a nice idea to think that in some universe, by making a different decision at some crucial point in your life, you are a rich and famous author, loved by all (or perhaps that’s just me…). In ‘Wrong World’ –the title kinda gives it away–things don’t go as planned for the main character.

I found this story mildly entertaining. The main hook is the explanation of events leading up to the main character being arrested running down the highway naked. I found motivations a little lacking–someone who has saved money for years suddenly risking it all on the roulette table based on some knowledge of physics seemed a little far-fetched. No doubt people do odd things, but I’d want some reason for their sudden change in character (stopped taking his meds?). Turning thirty wasn’t enough for me.

 

“Great White Ship” by Lou Antonelli (debut 5/11 and reviewed by James Hanzelka).

A traveler stuck waiting for a flight strikes up a conversation with an old airline employee. The Old Timer tells him a story of a Great White Airship that arrives from a most unusual destination. The story of a craft from an alternate reality and how it got there is only the precursor to the final act.

This is one of my favorite stories from this site. I have a great passion for lighter-than-air craft and their potential as a future means of transport, which opens the story. The author uses this speculation to launch into an engaging tale. As fascinating as the main story line is, the alternate history premise that accompanies it is just as worthwhile. This story was well written and very well thought out. It is well worth the read.

Recommended.

 

The family hears the call in “The Call” by Erin M. Hartshorn (debut 5/14 and reviewed by James Hanzelka), a summons to adventure and new worlds. It’s a call that ends in death; yet it’s a call that none can ignore. Ash heard it first and has answered his last call. His sister has heard it at times, but she know his oldest child is hearing it more strongly, and far too early. When she finally hears it clearly, can she ignore it? Even if she must to protect Ash’s child?

This is a good story about family, far off adventures and unheeded callings. I like the way the author built the suspense and mystery in a short story set in a single venue. She also touched on how differently our destiny calls each one of us. Nicely crafted tale and well written prose.

 

“Dragoman” by Helen Jackson (debut 5/15 and reviewed by Frank D). Amanda is the only person who can save the planet from giant lizards, so the story begins. She is a young girl who plays two grandfathers to get what she wants, and she wants a lizard for a pet. The lizards like to dance, and Amanda seems to know what their steps mean.

“Dragoman” starts as a rivalry between two grandpas. The tale drifts away from that subplot and becomes a completely different story. It made me wonder if half the story was needed to tell this tale.

 

Young Jason is on the run from a monster in “Monsters Big and Small” by Jakob Drud (debut 5/16 and reviewed by Frank D). Jason is a troubled child. He just hurt another child and his single parent father is furious at him. His teachers say he is filled with anger, but Jason has a bigger worry; there is a monster under his bed.

“Monsters” is a tale where metaphors become reality. Jason is afraid. He really doesn’t believe he is an angry boy but he knows that he is scared. He feels alone and frightened. What he needs is someone to slay his monster for him. Salvation comes from a person who is familiar yet a stranger to him.

It is a very rare feat when an author can write a metaphor within a metaphor. This is a very good story, one worth reading.

 

An Ark to the stars is man’s last chance in “Hoist With an Ark to the Stars” by David Glen Larson (debut 5/17 and reviewed by Frank D). A comet is headed straight towards the Earth. All attempts to stop it have failed. The Ark is the vessel that will repair the Earth. Filled with the genetic make-up of the planet, it is set for a half million year journey back to its home.

“Hoist” is told from the eyes of a janitor left roaming in the most important room in history. The fate of Earth has been sealed, but there is no time like the present time for cleanliness. The silliness of that notion was just one of the problems with the premise that I had. The ending to this piece is one that I have seen before.

 

John is marooned on a wasteland in “The Vault” by Leslie Claire Walker (debut 5/18 and reviewed by Frank D), and discovers he has brought with him what he hoped to escape from. John has crashed on a world others avoid. He has done so intentionally but finds his most precious possession in the vault of the ship, his 15 year old daughter, Reya.

John wants to know why his daughter would stow away. She has questions of her own for her father. John discovers the answers are what he was escaping from all along. His journey to get lost becomes an opportunity to be found.

“The Vault” is a voyage of self-discovery. Items John has lost and forgotten about, are found with his daughter’s help. A moment in the story shows the wayward soul what true loss is all about. Although heartwarming, I found this tale to be a slow solving puzzle. It took half of the tale for me to figure out what the real dilemma to the story was. By then, any sympathy I had for John’s blight was long gone.

 

The protagonist is waiting for her magical moment in “Fantasies” by Jasmine Fahmy (debut 5/21 and reviewed by Frank D). She counts the day on her calendar, waiting for a letter, sign, event that she has read about in the many books that she has read.

“Fantasies” is a cute tale. My own daughter went through the same dilemma the over-imaginative child in this tale goes through. A very enjoyable tale.

 

“The Numbers” by Timothy Moore (debut 5/22 and reviewed by James Hanzelka).

The world is plugged in, tied together to the point where everyone can view each other’s emotions. Everyone lives vicariously through the eyes of others. Parties and hedonism is the rule. Danny feels out of place, a schmuck lost in the sea of beautiful people. Now they are sending out numbers, the sum total of you as a being. Danny is sure his will be the source of amusement, something to provide comic relief to the world. He is astonished when they are shown, but he has forgotten how saints are treated in their own land.

This story was well written and shows us a glimpse of a possible future. One where idle frivolity is the rule of the day. Where individuals derive pleasure from the joy and misery of others. Into this the author has placed a genuine good person, one who actually cares for others. The story of what happens is a well written and well thought out cautionary tale. This is a good read.

 

The protagonist searches the bookstore for something to fill her empty life in “Wishes” by Patricia Ash (debut 5/23 and reviewed by James Hanzelka), something to provide brightness she doesn’t have. She finds it in a book titled “Wishes”. She finds more than she bargained for. She finds peace, but will others see it the same way?

This story is a nice little fable. A story of finding solace and our place in the world. A story of finding something that someone else couldn’t understand. It’s also a fable about finding happiness where you least expect it. This is a good story.

Recommended.

 

In “Pocket” by Elizabeth Creith (debut 5/24 and reviewed by Anonymous), a customer at a cafe notices how the pretty waitress, Zenobia (Zen for short) is able to produce, from her tiny pocket, whatever customers need– extra creamer, sugar, ketchup, etc. It is a very small pocket…

He turns up one day unexpectedly and discovers a little too much…

This very short story was nicely done. It is well-written and subtle with a nice tone throughout. I liked the ending, although a touch more explanation wouldn’t have gone amiss. I would give the story 5 out 7 rocket dragons.

 

“Ballad of a Hot Air Balloon-Headed Girl” by Douglas F. Warrick (debut 5/25 and reviewed by James Hanzelka).

A young man trains to be a soldier and loves a girl who fantasizes her head will burst into flame and carry her away. The girl has fashioned a balloon to catch the heat from the conflagration and attached it to her body. The boy like to climb trees. As the young man is drawn into the harsh realities of war, the young woman becomes more enmeshed in her fantasy. The girl begins to change, but so does the young man. Finally they have grown apart and she makes a final appeal for him to leave reality and join her, but he cannot. He spends the rest of his life regretting the decision, finally trying to join the girl, but is it too late. Has the chance passed him by, or can he regain what was lost?

This is a tale that interweaves the harsh reality of war and politics with pure fantasy. The author does a good job of playing off both storylines and intersecting them in the lives of two young lovers. The writing is vivid and well structured; though it was long I found it easy to read. The story will not be for everyone, but if you invest the time your will be rewarded.

 

A man toys with death in “Endgame” by Thomas Canfield (debut 5/28 and reviewed by Frank D). The protagonist in this tale has received his death machine. It is set at 30 seconds and counts down from there. The voice is seductive, inviting. Once the machine is started, the time cannot be reset but can be stopped. It is scary and alluring.

“Endgame” is about dancing with death. Your own means of expiration is in your hands. What will death be like? What will I feel when it comes? The questions have an answer, it is all a matter if your curiosity is stronger than will for preservation. Good story but if it were me, I would have bought a safe and locked the damn thing inside.

 

A pair of research scientists conduct a series of interviews with the were-people in “Brief Interviews With Therianthropes” by Marissa Lingen & Alec Austin (debut 5/29 and reviewed by Frank D). Dr’s Yue and Bjornson contact and question the werewolf, were-bear, were-orca, and such, of society, trying to determine how they fit into today’s world.

This is an amusing tale. A fun piece to read.

 

In “The Girl She Truly Was” by Lauren K. Moody (debut 5/30 and reviewed by Anonymous) Ms Moody re-tells the story of Cinderella. The only difference between this and the classic fairytale is that Cinderella is born a boy, but feels as though he should be girl–what we call gender dysphoria nowadays. Apart from that, the story pretty much unfolds the way you’d expect, with magic filling the gaps and making the whole thing work.

It was well written, but since the twist of the story (what makes it unique) happens at the beginning, the rest of the story seems a little predictable as barely changes from the original.

 

The protagonist is meeting her alien hybrid daughter for the first time in “Sapience and Maternal Instincts” by Krystal Claxton (debut 5/31 and reviewed by Frank D). Twenty years later, she can see a bit of herself in her alien offspring. Gathering the nerve to meet her was difficult but they do share a bloodline, and a bit more she soon discovers.

“Sapience” is a unique twist on the parent/child reunion trope. Like a mother who is meeting the child she gave up for adoption, the protagonist is full of anxiety. Unlike those women, she was forced to carry the daughter who is sitting before her. The story evolves into something sweet and loving. I found myself as surprised at the outcome as the protagonist did.

Recommended.

 

Making the List

While looking for material to post here, I found this delightful reviewing site, BestScienceFictionStories. The ezine reviews speculative fiction spanning several decades with links of where you can find them. I just read and enjoyed the sites administrator’s (Rusty) assessment of OSC’s award winning novelette Ender’s Game.

Rusty invites guests to post a review and I found one done by an Amanda Watson. She lists the top four magazines new writers should consider when they are submitting their speculative fiction tales. Daily SF ranked # 3 on her list (behind Lightspeed and Clarkesworld). Here is a short excerptâ€

â€Daily Science Fiction publishes a relatively high volume of stories, many new writers find it to be an excellent site to use as a vehicle to establish themselves in the science fiction writing world. Just don’t be surprised if your first few submissions to this magazine don’t make the cutâ€

#4 on her list is Asimov’s (never a bad thing when you can beat Asimov’s on a list). I found that I agreed with most of Ms Watson’s advice, but heading my list of the greatest understatements of the year, she writesâ€

â€Don’t get discouraged if your story doesn’t get published by one of the magazines listed aboveâ€

Please, please don’t be discouraged if you don’t get published by any of the publications on her list but plan on buying a sheet of drywall if you do. You will need to repair the hole in the ceiling your head made when you jumped for joy when you received your acceptance.

Unidentified Funny Objects edited by Alex Shvartsman is an anthology of humorous speculative fiction. The publication will debut in late 2012 and will be available in print and e-book formats. UFO has already locked up many regular Daily SF authors , such as Mike Resnick, Lavie Tidhar, and Ken Liu (to name a very few) – and has opened up their kickstarter campaign, an opportunity to guarantee your own copy of the book and contribute to expand this ambitious project.

ÂThe editor and Daily SF author, Alex Shvartsman, has said the project is filling up nicely (a claim this associate editor can verify) but says he still has room for more hilarious material. If you think you have what it takes to be funny, feel free to check out UFO’s guidelines. For an idea what it takes, UFO would like to give you a taste of funny with Jake Kerr’s “The Alien Invasion As Seen In The Twitter Stream Of @DWEEBLESS”.

 

The Best of Lightspeed (& Fantasy) Podcast

written by David Steffen

John Joseph Adams has been getting a lot of attention in recent years. He used to be the slush reader for Fantasy & Science Fiction, but has gone one to be the editor and publisher of Lightspeed, and of their horror sister Nightmare. He has also published quite a few themed fiction anthologies like The Living Dead, Wastelands, and By Blood We Live.

Fantasy Magazine has been around for quite a few years. Lightspeed is only a couple years old, started by Fantasy‘s publisher Sean Wallace and edited by John Joseph Adams. In 2011 John Joseph Adams became the editor and publisher of both, and chose to consolidate the two into a single magazine titled Lightspeed, but which contains the same amount of fantasy and science fiction stories that the individual magazines had carried. From the beginning Lightspeed has had a podcast that has broadcast all of their stories alongside the text publications. When JJA took over Fantasy, he started their podcast as well, but it only lasted 10 episodes before the merger absorbed Fantasy into Lightspeed.

So this is a “Best of” list combining all of Lightspeed‘s podcasted backlog, combined with the 10 Fantasy Magazine episodes in consideration as well.

 

1. The Way of Cross and Dragon by George R. R. Martin
Yes, Lightspeed has managed to attract some big household names like George R. R. Martin. This particular short story was published before I was born. But George is not on this list because he’s well known. These lists are based strictly on merit–I considered his story on the same grounds as everyone else. My #2 choice was very close to this story in my ranking, but this one edged it out because it is centered around my favorite topic for speculation–religion. This story is about a member of an intergalactic Catholic church in the future who is tasked with rooting out heretics in far-flung star systems. He is sent toward a particularly strange sect centered around Judas Iscariot.

2. The Old Equations by Jake Kerr
Based around a future civilization with quantum-based technology, which is an alternate future, based around a past in which Albert Einstein’s theories were dismissed as nonsense. In this future, one of the first interstellar trips at near-light speed is begun. Since they don’t understand the concepts of relativity, they have to figure out all those problematic details as they go. An interesting science problem, with a strong human story at the core of it. In some ways it reminds me of the excellent flash story “Deep Moves” by Bill Highsmith (which I cannot seem to find active link for, too bad)

3. The Taste of Starlight by John R. Fultz
Fair warning: This one will likely be too dark for many viewers. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. A long-haul intergalactic trip with a crew in stasis goes wrong in mid-flight when the cryochambers become damaged and a crew member wakes up years too early. He can’t re-enter cryo, and he has to figure out a way to stay alive until the end of the flight. An entire colony’s survival depends on his technical skills, after all.

4. Using it and Losing It by Jonathan Lethem
A man who is sick of dealing with people enjoys a visit to a country where he does not speak the language because of the freedom from conversation it grants him. Returning home, he decides that he wants that freedom in the comfort of his own country, and he sets out to forcefully forget all language.

5. A Hole to China by Catherynne M. Valente
A very fascinating story in the age-old tradition of a child who finds a secret fantasy world. A girl sets out to dig a hole to China and finds hidden worlds beneath her backyard. Lots of great worldbuilding here, a lot of fun to read.

6. Mama, We are Zhenya, Your Son by Tom Crosshill
I always like a good story from a skewed perspective. This story is told from the point of view of a Russian child who is the subject of scientific experiments to see if he can be taught to move and manipulate objects on a quantum level. It’s a bit confusing at first, because the boy does not understand what is happening very clearly, but stick with it and it sorts itself out.

7. Transcript of Interaction Between Astronaut Mike Scudderman and the OnStar Hands-Free A.I. Crash Advisor by Grady Hendrix
“You are going to die,” are the first words from the OnStar crash advisor after crash landing on a planet. (don’t worry, that happens right away, that’s not a spoiler). This story is exactly what the title makes it sound like. Lots of fun, dark humor, and the ending is superb.

8.ÂÂ More Than the Sum of His Parts by Joe Haldeman
A man badly injured in an industrial accident is reconstructed with cyborg parts. The story begins as he is going through his procedures, and progresses as he becomes more and more familiar with his new superhuman abilities, and how they set him apart in every way from his fellow men.

 

Honorable Mentions:

Bubbles by David Brin

Dark Sanctuary by Gregory Benford

Four Short Novels by Joe Haldeman
“Eventually it came to pass that no one ever had to die.” A vague opening that could lead any number of routes to tell a good story. In this case, Joe Haldeman has taken this beginning and gone four separate ways for it. Generally these are very high level, often without individual characters, or I probably would’ve ranked this one higher, but it was very interesting, if not emotionally engaging. It’s illustrative of the concept of story triggers, wherein a single prompt can send four authors in four completely different direction, but with just one author involved.

Lessons From a Clockwork Queen by Megan Arkenberg
Generally this one is written a bit distantly for my tastes, but the ideas in it are good enough, and the writing is charming enough that I liked it nonetheless. It’s written as a fairy tale story about a clockwork queen, with fable-style morals sprinkled throughout.

Lucky Pig Studio Relaunch!

written by David Steffen

In late 2010, I launched a 2010 Cafepress store called Lucky Pig Studio with artist Joey Jordan who did our site art. Not a lot has happened there. I think part of the reason is that I never figured out how to make a unified storefront.

Well I’ve put it together now, and so I’m in the midst of a relaunch of the store. I really hope that people like it. I’m talking with Anthony to see if we can figure out how to insert a Cafepress sidebar to the site to make it easy to from this site.

Last time I launched all at once. This time I’m going to try a more measured approach. I’m going to open a new design each day that comes on a wide range of products, and for now they’ll be about 10% less than the usual price.

So this is the 1st day, and here’s the first design. It’s the iconic image of Lucky Pig Studios, the “Lucky Pig!” This design is based on the studios namesake, a piglet that my wife and I rescued from the side of a South Dakota Interstate in the summer of 2010 in the heat of summer. We got it some food, and got it out of the brutal August heat, and to a hooved animal rescue society. So that was one lucky pig.

Interview: Lois Tilton

interviewed by Carl Slaughter

Lois Tilton is the short fiction reviewer for Locus Online. ÂPreviously, she reviewed short fiction for the Internet Review of Science Fiction. ÂShe won the Sidewise Award for Alternate History in the short form category for her story “Pericles the Tyrant” in 2006. In 2005, her story, “The Gladiator’s War” was a nominee for the Nebula Award for Best Novelette. ÂShe has also written several novels concerning vampires and media-related novels, one each in the Babylon 5 and Deep Space Nine universes. She has published 4 novels: Vampire Winter (1990), Darkness on the Ice (1993), Written in Venom (2000), Darkspawn (2000). She sold over 70 piece of short fiction between 1985 and 2009, many of which appeared in Asimov’s and Realms of Fantasy. Many of her stories have been included in anthologies.

 

CARL SLAUGHTER: What type of relationship does a reviewer have with the science fiction community? Do you hobnob with authors and publishers? What happens at conventions when fans, authors, editors, and publishers discover you’re the Locus reviewer? Do they argue with you, thank you, lobby you on behalf of an upcoming story, avoid you?

LOIS TILTON: Essentially, I don’t have a relationship with the science fiction community. I don’t believe I’ve been to a convention since I started reviewing. For one thing, they don’t invite me. And I don’t really see the use in it. I don’t particularly enjoy most conventions, where I find myself with nothing much to do except maybe the token panel. An author goes to these things to rub the elbow with agents and editors, bask in the presence of the famous, hang out with the posse. I’m not there anymore.

Almost all my previous interaction with the SF community has been online, but online has gone Elsewhere these days and I feel no inclination to chase it around. This makes me fairly insulated from the tides of community opinion, which I consider to be an advantage. It lets me form my opinion of a story without being influenced by prevailing views. I don’t know what stories are currently popular on Facebook or being denounced on Twitter. Think of a hermit in a cave with limited internet access.

CS:Â How does your background as a successful writer influence your reviewing?

LT: It’s a huge advantage that I’m no longer writing fiction. I don’t have to be concerned about the reactions of publishers and editors who might be in a position to reject my stuff. In my first column at IROSF, I wrote as my manifesto: “I consider that my mandate is to the readers, not the authors or editors of the stories I review. I have no one else to please and no one else’s opinion concerns me, save that of the editors of IROSF.” This still holds true, mutatis mutandis, with Locus. If it didn’t, I wouldn’t keep doing reviews. When I reached the age of curmudgeonhood I decided that the rest of life is too short to let other people tell me what I can and can’t say.

CS:Â Have an author or publisher ever tried to fire or prevent you from reviewing any more of their stories, or wrote you nastigrams, or publicly corrected your review?

LT: If any publishers have ever attempted to get me fired, it apparently hasn’t worked so far. On a very few occasions, publishers have indeed been peeved by my opinions enough that they stopped sending me stuff for review. Sometimes I review it anyway, and it doesn’t work in the case of online zines that anyone can read.

As far as author reaction goes, I find that it usually falls into two categories: “Lois Tilton trashed my story, who the hell does she think she is?” and “Lois Tilton recommended my story, what a great reviewer!” Writers tend to take critical reaction personally. I do everything I can to keep it from being personal on my side. So if it comes to that, and it has, I’ll write a negative review of a friend’s story and recommend stuff from a person I happen to dislike.

CS:Â Do meet or correspond with other reviewers and what do you talk about?

LT: I’ve always liked reading reviews, by which I mean reviews with something to say, not just lists with a few stars next to the titles. I like to read other reviewers’ opinions of the stories I’ve read, to see how far we agree and disagree. Have I seen many reviews from other sources that totally changed my assessment of a work? Not really. Sometimes I think, well, that’s a good point. Sometimes, “Duh! How could I miss that!”

Even where there is strong disagreement, it’s definitely a Good Thing to have reviewers who come to a work from different points of view, using different scales of critical measurement. There’s a lot of subjectivity in these things. Even in factual matters, if an author, say, misstates the size of the solar system, different reviewers will assign more or less importance to the error.

Earlier this year, the three regular short fiction reviewers from Locus , Horton, Dozois and Tilton , did a roundtable thing for podcast on reviewing the year’s stories, but there were technical difficulties in the recording. Which was too bad, I think readers would have found it interesting. One thing on which we all agreed was not having enough time to read many novels.

CS:Â Tell us about the reviewing process.

LT: The advantage I have, reviewing online, is the absence of space constraints. I don’t have the word limits that reviewers for print venues have to put up with. When I started doing this, it was common for reviewers to pick out the most notable stories in a magazine and skip over the rest. There wasn’t a lot of negative commentary. Because I don’t have the space constraints, I decided I would comment on every story in every publication I review, including the bad ones. This definitely means some negative reviews. Authors may not like this, but as I’ve said, I’m writing for readers, not authors.

In choosing publications to review, I first look at what I think most readers will be reading. The digests, the regular prozines, both print and online. I also like to review the little magazines and less-seen publications of higher quality, to point potential readers in their direction. I’ve made it a point to read any new publication sent to me, but that doesn’t guarantee I’ll review it if I find the quality to be sub-professional. In essence, I want to review publications that I think readers will want to read.

There don’t seem to be many high-quality original anthologies anymore, and publishers don’t always send them to me, which is vexing. I miss out on some good stuff that way. But another policy I adopted when I started this gig is “Text flows to the reviewer.” Which means I don’t spend my own money on material for review. I’m also not happy about jumping through hoops to access stuff from third-party sites with proprietary formats and encoding.

CS:Â Do you wear kid gloves when you review a story by a new writer?

LT: I don’t hold new authors to a different standard. If a story is supposed to be good enough to be professionally published, this means it ought to be ready for review as a professional story. It does no one a favor if I say, “Well, this one is good enough for a new writer.“ I think readers want to find good stories, regardless of the author’s age or experience. What I will do, particularly in the case of excellent work from a new author, is point out that the writer is new to the game so that readers can look out for more stuff from that author.

CS:Â Any stories you labeled duds that won awards; stories you consider a jewel that received little or no attention; cases of the rest of the speculative fiction community agreeing with you that a story is a dud or a jewel?

LT: The trouble with awards is that most of them are made on other grounds than quality. There’s the popularity of some authors, there’s outright logrolling, there’s contagious groupthink, whereby people assume that if so many other people like a given work, it must be good. And beyond all that is the inescapable fact that most readers, including some of those who vote on awards ballots, don’t read all that widely. They may only read stuff by their friends, or stuff recommended by their friends; some people will vote for stuff by their friends without bothering to read it.

Knowing this, it’s no surprise when inferior fiction ends up getting awards. I very much doubt if a negative review by me has ever changed this. I do think that a strong recommendation from me may have helped boost some stories into contention. At least, I’d like to think so.

 

Carl Slaughter is a writer, reviewer, critiquer, muse, English teacher, recruiter, webmaster, editorialist, essayist, and journalist. His essay on Chinese culture is in Beijing Review and his essay on Korean culture is in Korea Times. His latest essay is on Internet piracy. He is also the editor of ESL Book Review. He has traveled to 19 countries on 4 continents. He has a collection of 1500 DVD movies and TV shows, a collection of Asian and Egyptian art, and an almost unmanageable number of ESL, history, law, business, and science textbooks. At the moment he is teaching ESL in China. He reviewed extensively for Tangent for 2 years, has participated extensively in the Critters Workshop for 5 years, contributes research frequently on the Writers of the Future Forum, and currently writes reviews and conducts interviews for Diabolical Plots. His career plans include contest judge, anthologist, magazine editor, and eventually television producer.

Daily Science Fiction: April 2012 Review

written by Frank Dutkiewicz

Are you still an avid reader of Daily SF? You should be. Read on and see whyâ€

 

“What Jerry Knows” by Shane D. Rhinewald (debut 4/2 and reviewed by Frank D) is the tale of a savant. Jerry prattles off numbers, important events in history, and formulas. Jerry is lost in his mind, but the protagonist knows how lost all of man would be without Jerry’s obsession with numbers.

“What Jerry Knows” is more of a reminiscence, than a tale. The story is brief, and I don’t want to reveal too much, but the tale is about the protagonist’s need to show his gratitude. Not a bad tale. Very nice.

 

“This Rough Magic” by Christie Yant (debut 4/3 and reviewed by Dustin Adams) is somewhat abstract, drawing little on a plot arc, but is nevertheless quite a delightful read. I classify this as a romance story, and while that might not be for everyone, perhaps not even me, I enjoyed each word of this flash fiction length tale.

The writing is solid and flawless. The setting, while simple, is given complexity by the uncertain nature of the story’s narrator. She has great power, yes, but it’s mollified by a man whose life she saves, leading to a great dichotomy of character.

While this strikes me as more of a scene than a story, I’m inclined to *recommend* it based on the writing skill alone, but it also happens to be a great scene.

Recommended.

 

Sora saves the Emperor’s life with the magic of his flute in “After” by C. L. Holland (debut 4/4 and reviewed by James Hanzelka). He is rewarded with gold and the removal of his hands. Once healed, he is escorted outside the palace to be robbed. Found by others who have suffered a similar fate his damaged soul is healed by their presence, allowing him to repay the Emperor in time.

This was an interesting piece, well developed and well written. The story of revenge served by those most harmed is a satisfying, if familiar tale. The twist provided in this one will hold your interest.

 

Ava is enduring a visit from her father in “Back In My Day” by Stacy Danielle Lepper (debut 4/5 and reviewed by James Hanzelka) . Tired about hearing how everything was better, “Back in My Day”. He blithely ignores each of her counter arguments, continuing the argument until she demonstrates the upside of progress.

I’m conflicted on this story. There are some odd constructs that I found confusing. For example, in the opening when she flicks a switch and the baby opens his eyes; it lead me to believe he was an android. This ambiguity is disconcerting and it took several reads to sort out the intent. In spite of this I generally liked the story, particularly the ending. Something I wish was possible today.

 

In “Nameless” by Mari Ness (debut 4/5 and reviewed by James Hanzelka), the protagonist’s name has been stolen. The singer tries to sing her a name, her aunts and uncles try to find her name and she can’t remember her name. The singer takes her on a trek to find her name, but as she discovers it can be a long journey for someone who is nameless.

This is a long meandering story of discovery, with little discovered. It does a good job of creating a world, but not much else. If you are drawn to esoteric studies in world building this is your story, if not, I would advise not investing the time.

 

A time traveler sets to compound a wrong into a right in “Older, Wiser, Time Traveler” by M. Bennardo (debut 4/9 and reviewed by Frank D). The protagonist in this tale talks of a hypothetical circumstance with himself on the merits of time traveling to undo a crime of passion. The man discusses steps needed to carry out his plan while he steels himself with what must be done.

The narration of “Older” has the appearance of an interview. It took me some time to place who and what the characters in this tale, and their roles, were. Intriguing tale told by a strong writer. I enjoyed the end result.

 

Hero devolves into a relic in “Rust” by Steven Saus (debut 4/10 and reviewed by Frank D). Max Ribaldo had been one of many soldiers cut down in battle. But good soldiers never die when advanced technology can find another use for them. Max serves many years as a cyborg fighting machine. Now he is the last one. His remaining time is as an artifact and guide for a museum. Max thinks back to his time as a soldier, and contemplates how much of his humanity remains.

“Rust” is less about a battle droid and more about the line in which machine erases the man within. Max has always believed, or perhaps has an overriding program, that convinces him that he is still human. The story bounces from a museum tour group to flashbacks of Max’s career.

Max is a cold and clinical being. His answers to questions are factual, even when the questions are meant to elicit an emotion response. The reader is left with the impression the man within has been erased, but the question remains on whether it is the hardware that has made Max that way or the horrors of war.

Rust is a thought provoking work of science fiction.

 

A man must have a mysterious box in “A Case of Curiosities” by Guy Anthony De Marco (debut 4/11 and reviewed by Frank D). The protagonist is intrigued with a box in a novelty store. The box is full of curiosities, alluring items that can’t be removed.

The story is full of twists. The tinkerer who sold him the box proves to have ulterior motives. The changing story made it difficult for me to buy the premise.

 

Elle receives two presents for her birthday in “A Hole in Time” by Amy Gaertner (debut 4/12 and reviewed by Frank D). A gift that is purchased with sentiment, and another that erases the sentiment away. Elle is a research scientist. Her colleague, Luisa, presents her with her latest invention, a hole in time. She is willing to share credit with Elle but Elle fails to see the value of Luisa’s findings.

The protagonist in “The Hole” is suffering from an early version of a mid-life crisis. She comes off as irritated from the start, so when Luisa has two unexpected gifts for her, Elle is cold, contrite and unappreciative. The ‘hole’ Luisa discovers is an imperfection in time and space but its effects are psychological.

I confess, I wasn’t taken in with this story. An unlikeable protagonist coupled with a premise that didn’t go anywhere made for a tale where I didn’t really care about. Like Elle, I couldn’t see the significance of Luisa’s hole, although I doubt I would have dismissed it as she did. Most of the story was a subplot of Elle’s dour disposition. Sure, her career hasn’t turned out the way she would have liked but that only made her like everyone else.

“A Hole in Time” is a good metaphor for my experience reading it.

 

“A Slice of 3.141592653589793238462643” by Oliver Buckram (debut 4/13 and reviewed by Dustin Adams).

How can you argue with a story that’s 314 words long and about Ï€? Three characters with historically significant names eat Pie, drink coffee, and debate the strange patterns surrounding this enigmatic number.

314 words. Really? Yes. Fun story. Worth reading.

 

The protagonist is dumped by her boyfriend in “Objects in Space” by Alex Livingston (debut 4/16 and reviewed by Frank D). David’s ‘Dear John’ letter only states that he ‘needs space’. The protagonist had to sacrifice something dear to her just for the right to read it. She hunts down David to find out what he meant.

This story is set in a future where there is a limit for the amount of things you can have. Not conducive to a pack rat, to say the least. “Objects” is semantically clever. I liked the to-the-point ending of this piece.

 

Reality TV catches Mars’ first astronauts by surprise in “Infested” by Stephen V. Ramey (debut 4/17 and reviewed by Frank D). A crewmember finds the first micro-camera in a bathroom. Soon, the news leaks to the rest of the crew and a search to find all the cameras tears the ship apart.

“Infested” is a story of how people react when they discover their privacy has been sacrificed for a voyeuristic public. I found this tale to be quite clever and accurate. If I were I a part of this crew, I may have done the same thing they had, even if he consequences proved to be far worse than the violation of my privacy.

Recommended.

 

“A Special Day” by Shannon Fay (debut 4/18 and reviewed by Frank D). A ski bunny takes a sudden interest in the protagonist and buys him a coffee. The ensuing conversation drifts to an unlikely subject.

The subject matter in “A Special Day” is about the day no one celebrates, the pre-anniversary date of their death. It is a day only the snow bunny can appreciate. The tale has a twist that comes out of nowhere yet isn’t surprising when it is revealed. I found the story to be sound but was one where the protagonist became a third wheel in the tale. Interesting.

 

Artor the Sorcerer aims to seize the great books of sorcery held in a vault in “Undone” by Greg Porter (debut 4/19 and reviewed by Frank D). But a pest has foiled his ambitions.

This very brief tale introduces a pun-ly named creature that completes the crafty twist of this tale.

 

Something menacing lurks in the deep in “Mad Cats and Englishmen” by Laura Anne Gilman (debut 4/20 and reviewed by Frank D). The pirate ships’, Fifth of Moon, mascot can feel its presence. As a cat, Oliver knows when he is being watched. The ships extrinsic Captain has been oddly distant and on edge. Herself, the Quartermaster, is aware of his strange behavior as well. The Fifth of Moon is a hunted vessel, hunted by something evil below the waves.

Taking “Mad Cats” all in is an adventure all by itself. It is a serious tale set in the high seas of the 17th century with a mythological monster, and a cast of characters worthy of a Disney cartoon. The story centers around a mismatched trio: a talking cat, a woman who serves as second-in-command, and a brighter than the average parrot. The first half of the tale serves as a gradual buildup of tension. Danger lurks unseen. The crew can feel it. Danger reveals itself in the form of a sea serpent. The beast is after the Fifth of Moon, and the Captain is up to the challenge of facing down a worthy opponent.

“Mad Cats” is long tale for Daily SF, and I don’t just mean its actual length. The story is told unnaturally long for the publication’s usual choice of sharp and to-the-point fiction. Despite the unusual characters used to tell this tale, the plot to “Mad Cats” reads like a cliff note version of Moby Dick, but with a monster motivated by the thrill of the chase instead of vengeance.

On the surface, using Oliver as the stories protagonist seems odd and unnecessary, but as I was reading the tales climatic scene, I concluded that using a talking cat as the narrator was a stroke of brilliance. Fifth of Moon became the monster’s play thing. Only a cat could identify with the chasing of prey for sport. Oliver’s inner psyche knew they were in trouble before any signs of danger became apparent to the rest of the crew, which helped to set the tone of this piece.

If you have little patience for a slowly developing plot, you may want to avoid this tale. But if you like the idea of meshing Narnia-like characters into a literary classic storyline, by all means give “Mad Cats” a look.

 

Two sisters stop at an intersection and are confronted with the image of a Mutie in need of help in “Ella and The Man” by K.S. Clay (debut 4/23 and reviewed by Frank D). Muties are the diseased of a future tomorrow. Inflicted with a sickness that leave them speechless, and other aliments not clearly defined, they are the pariah of society. The Mutie looks familiar to Ella. She wants to help the man but her sister, Carmen, is dead set against it. A passing motorcyclist changes things when he throws a Molotov cocktail on the Mutie. Ella springs into action, forcing her sister to react.

The Muties’ in “Ella” are modern day lepers. The disease has become so widespread the hospitals no longer treat it. Things have degenerated to the point where compassion has gone out the window.

I found this tale choppy. The dialog came out in half spoken sentences, the author’s way of showing her protagonist’s distraction. It made much of tale confusing, which is too bad because I rather liked the sudden change of events when the cyclist appeared and the twist at the end. Not too bad of a story.

 

A man has a hard time getting over a break up in “You’ve Ruined This For Me” by Ewan C. Forbes (debut 4/24 and reviewed by Frank D). The protagonist is depressed. He won’t leave his house, answer the phone, go to work†Nothing outside, even Armageddon, can get him to care enough to rejoin the real world.

This is the tale of one self-absorbed man. All the noises, news reports, and warnings from his friends can get him to see if the world has gone on without him. As odd of a premise as that sounds, I am betting everyone has been in the same place this clod finds himself in this story. Kudos to the author for creating such a convincingly heartbroken man.

 

“Dolly at the End of the World” by Amanda C. Davis (debut 4/25 and reviewed by Anonymous) is a brief, post-apocalyptic story about a young woman/girl called Dolly, who looks after a red box. Most of the dialogue in the first part of the story is Dolly conversing with herself, and responding as though it is her Pappy speaking, and not her–a split personality kind of thing. It’s quite a nice touch and gives a sense to the odd circumstances she grew up in. One thing Pappy told her was to never open the red box–okay, pappy…

But then Malcolm turns up and he seems to have little respect for Pappy’s edicts…

It’s quite a nice little story, but since it was written from the point of view of a naive young person who has grown up alone and has very little experience, it felt a little one dimensional at times, but the nice writing helped.

 

A brother would do almost anything for a sister who has always been there for him in “You Can’t Come Here Anymore” by Luc Reid (debut 4/26 and reviewed by Frank D). Almost.

This very short tale had an ending I still haven’t fully grasped.

 

Pritchard chooses to get in touch with his emotional side in “The Bittersweet Here and After” by Maggie Clark (debut 4/27 and reviewed by Frank D). Pritchard’s wife Myna is dying. Frail, hacking up blood, her end is near. Pritchard wants to be able to experience the grief of losing a loved one so chooses to disable his emotional governing nano-protocols. Absorbing the full brunt of bitter emotions grants him the ability to see people for who they are, while making him appear dangerous to those around him.

“The Bittersweet” is set in a world where emotional outbursts are kept in check by technology. “Ease” tapers the bitter feelings that mankind suffers through. Those who have embraced the technology have excelled in society while the ones who haven’t are falling behind. The benefits aren’t always so grand, however. A story of a dancer who kept dancing on broken feet moves Pritchard to forgo Ease while his wife is ill. He senses he has lost something, and wishes to not miss what will be important during his most trying of times.

I had to read this tale twice to be able to grasp its meaning. The author chose to tell this original concept from the perspective of a man experiencing the feelings of men in years gone by. Nano-protocols in this tale are shown in a soft 1984-esque light. Society has benefited from the technology. Crimes of passion have fallen, children are easier to deal with, and wars are things of the past. Governments, production, businesses , all run smoother. All the people in Pritchard’s life tell him he is making a mistake and that his choice is a selfish one.

Pritchard sees the world through the eyes of a bitter man struck with grief and guilt. Ease has taken away the filters many of us have installed to spare our fellow man from the hurtful thoughts we have stored safely within. His friends and co-workers are rude. The observations they make are callous and uncalled for. Still others wonder what real feelings are like, questioning whether the people that are close to them have suppressed the real them within because technology has deemed it better for society.

“The Bittersweet” is a thick tale. It is told through subtle body language and with the gurgling feelings of a man who hasn’t truly grasped his own feelings in a very long time. There is an underlining subplot in that the story explores the age old question of what is best for society; the greater good of man versus what it is to be a man. I am glad I read it a second time or I wouldn’t have been able to appreciate the effort Ms Clark put into it. The story is difficult to grasp with the way she told it, but a story like this could be told in only the way she chose. For those of you who wonder where man is heading attached with the little bits of technology that have become so ingrained into our culture, this story is a can’t miss. It may prove to have been prophetic, one day.

 

“Diatra” by Kevin Pickett (debut 4/30 and reviewed by Anonymous) is a short story about the decommissioning of a living space craft and it glances at the relationship that has developed between the craft and its captain.

This is a very brief story that didn’t really grab me as it feels like not much happens. The ship is manoeuvred into position and is driven toward a star. There is some dialogue between the ship and the captain and there are some emotional buttons pressed, but only in passing.

I am aware from the bio that this is the author’s first published piece and, with that in mind, there are a lot of positives to take away (smooth writing, nice pacing) but I think the story would have benefited from a little more happening, perhaps a final twist or something.

 

?????

I have nothing to add here. I would have liked to have announced a Daily SF story as a finalist in the Million Writer’s Award (didn’t happen), or cheered that Locus and/or Tangent Online has decided to change their policy and include Daily SF in their circle of publications worthy of covering (fat chance). I can tell you about the wonderful Kindle editions of past months of Daily SF, they are worth checking out.

There is one opinion I’d like to share. I would like give my first recommendation for the art of this month. I think all of the monthly covers DSF have used have been first class, but this month’s DSF rocket with a wonderful fiery moon and outstanding star filled sky was extra special. Jonathan Westbrook deserves recognition for the splendid work of art.


Have you’ve seen this person? He is wanted for crimes against the written word and for assault and battery on the English language. Despite being rejected over 800 times he still mercilessly stalks and harasses editors of speculative fiction, and may be responsible for several of them closing down because of his failure to take a hint. If you have seen him or know of his whereabouts, contact Diabolical Plots immediately. Seize any material he is in possession of (laptop, pad and paper, quill and parchment) to stop his crime spree, by any means necessary.

Specutopia Inaugural Issue!

written by David Steffen

Just a brief note to point out that the brand new speculative fiction magazine Specutopia has launched, edited by Dale Wise. They publish every 2 months in various and sundry electronic formats, for $3.49 you’ll get 7 short stories, including my story “Never Idle” about a man who can talk to cars and the woman he stops to help on the side of the road when she’s having car trouble.

If you want a sample of the kinds of stories are in the issue, you can read Greg Mellor’s “Hollow Spaces” for free on their website. If you check back around August 1st, James Beamon’s “Death of the World’s Greatest Detective” will be available to read for free.

Enjoy! And if you do buy a copy, feel free to make a comment here about my story or the issue in general!

Book Review: Fifty Shades of Grey

written by David Steffen

The book Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James has been mentioned in many many different media sources over the last year, to a much larger degree than most books get attention. Now, this happens periodically with books that gain some mainstream appeal, like Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code and, Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series, and JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series. I didn’t really know what kind of book this particular one was until I saw a Saturday Night Live fake Mother’s Day commercial, wherein various families come home to give their mom breakfast in bed or other traditional gifts, and find her in bed, in the bathtub, or in the laundry room masturbating, causing much embarrassment on everyone’s part. Ah, erotica.

Now, it’s not news to me that erotica is popular. Any book store, or even your average department store, has a huge rack of romance and erotica, easily picked out by the bare-chested musclemen on the covers. What did surprise me, though, is that any particular erotica book has become so popular to become visible enough that it makes a good topic for a fake SNL commercial. Your average fan of erotica reads voraciously, and so as a result there are so many different books on the shelves, seemingly rotating by the week, that it’s very unusual for a single one to become so popular. So I decided to read it to find out what all the hype is about. I have not read an erotica novel before. I have read plenty of novels and short stories with erotic scenes or erotic themes, but never one where the primary purpose is to get the reader hot and bothered. And… realize I am not the target audience for this book. I am judging it based on my tastes which are not the same as other people’s tastes. I also realize that this doesn’t fall under Diabolical Plots‘ usual jurisdiction–but I reserve the right to move the boundary from time to time, especially for a book with so much hype.

Okay then, on we go:
The protagonist of the story is Anastasia Steele, and shortly after the story begins she travels from Portland to Seattle to interview Christian Grey, a CEO who will be speaking at her college commencement in the near future. Ana (as she prefers to be called) is not only a virgin, but she had never felt sexually attracted to anyone in her life, until she met Christian. Christian is a dazzlingly attractive well-endowed billionaire who is very sexually experienced but who is only interested in relationships with himself as the Dominant member, with lots of bondage and sadomasochism. There is an immediate attraction between the two of them, and they begin a trial relationship which tests the boundaries between what he demands of her and what she is comfortable giving. The seeking of this balance is the primary arc of the book, and the source of most of the tension (there are some sideplots but that’s the core of it all).

When considering a piece of fiction, I think one of the more meaningful measures of value is the question “Was it effective?” where the definition of “effective” depends on what effect one expects from a particular genre. With erotica, I’d consider it effective if I was turned on by it, which probably makes it almost as difficult as judging comedy, because each person’s tastes will be different. I will say that it was somewhat effective for me. There are early “vanilla” sex scenes in which he eases her into sexual experiences without yet introducing her into bondage and sadomasochism. Despite the annoying narration style (about which I will elaborate shortly) I found these initial scenes effective. But the book as a whole after that point, didn’t work for me all that well for me. This could just be a matter of what I find sexy compared to other people. I don’t understand the pain equates with pleasure concept, and I cringe at the idea of intentionally inflicting pain on others. As the book went on, in my imagination Ana became less and less of a person because of the narration style and because I was skeptical that anyone would make the choices she made, and so instead of feeling like a story about real people really having sex, it became much harder to take it seriously.

Okay, so I mentioned annoying narration. Allow me to elaborate. For one thing, this book has a large amount of internal monologue. Probably about half of it is just expressions of surprise like “holy crap” and stronger expletives. Which gets really old when it happens every few paragraphs. I can at least understand it when it’s used in regard to major events like losing her virginity, and starting to experience bondage. But she uses it in the strangest places, like “Holy crap. Christian Grey just emailed a winky face to me.” This after she’s had sex with him a bunch of times–why is that so shocking at that point? At another point he asks “Sugar?” while making her tea, and she thinks he’s calling her by a pet name, rather than asking what she’d like in her tea. Which… makes me really wonder what’s wrong with her.

But the aspect of the narration that was strangest and just distracting was the way she split her inner thoughts into three distinct characters. There were parts that had no attribution, and then parts that were attributed to her subconscious and others attributed to her inner goddess. Judging by the nature of these different characters’ actions, I guess that the inner goddess is her long-dormant libido, and her subconscious is her somewhat repressed sarcastic side? Anyway, the inner goddess gets lots of descriptive play, putting on cheerleading uniform to cheer on some new sex position or toy, doing Olympic flip routines to celebrate, while the subconscious generally spends her time making sarcastic comments and giving skeptical looks through wing-shaped glasses. During some scenes these two are described as arguing with each other, and generally do everything that Ana is too afraid to do. Okay, I understand that everyone’s personality has different aspects that each become stronger during different settings, with different people, and so on. And I think that this is meant to convey that. But it was so over the top for me that I just found it really distracting from everything else in the story–at times I wondered if she’s actually supposed to be schizophrenic.

One of the biggest problems I had in the story was that an adult virgin, who is aware that she has no experience with any kind of sex, would so easily consent to a sexual relationship based around bondage and sadomasochism without even experiencing any other kind of sex first. At several points she is not sure if some of his strong behavior is what every man does or if it is just him, and any amount of experience would help her learn that.

One thing that I thought that the story did VERY well was flirty emails between Ana and Christian. Throughout the whole book I looked forward to the two characters parting ways so that they could exchange some more emails. The change in subject lines as they reply back and forth, snarky answers, misdirection, flirty comments. I liked that a lot, and I never got tired of it.

My wife also read the book about the same time that I did in order to find out what the hype is about, and her opinions were similar to mine in most respects. So not every member of the female sex is a huge fan. And, no, she didn’t just agree with me to humor me–she has no compunctions about disagreeing with me when she thinks I’m wrong. We had quite a lot of fun pointing out things about the book that we found strange.

SPOILER

This isn’t a book review in which I’m too worried about spoilers, since it’s much more about the experience than any surprise plot elements, or anything like that. But endings are important, and so if you don’t want to find out how it ends, skip past this section. Christian makes it very clear very early on that he enjoys causing her pain. From the very beginning she does not understand that, and it frightens her. She allows him to cause some pain in the story, and finds that she even likes it, but it still troubles her that Christian wants to do it not so that she will like it, but to punish her. Even though he wants to punish her when she disobeys him, he has allowed her to draw where the limits are in this punishment. They discuss this as the story goes on, but they make little progress in the discussion because of their different points of view. But near the end of the story the argument comes to a head, and she tells him that she wants to find out how extreme the punishment will get, and she tells him to just let loose. He does, beating her with a strap with all the force he can muster, and she ends up breaking it off with him as a result. I can’t say that I understand why she does it. Well, I mean, I can understand why you would break up with someone who wants to beat the hell out of you, but he had been upfront about that from the very beginning. He only strapped her like that when she demanded that he do so, and then she breaks up with him over it. That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. In any case, the story ends with them parting ways, and her feeling like her life is falling apart. There more books in the series, so presumably their paths do cross again in the near future.

END SPOILER

All in all, I don’t regret reading it. I like to have an idea what appeals to the masses. I like to criticize popular fiction, and when I do so I want my opinion to be based on the source material not just hearsay. Some of the earlier sex scenes were reasonably good, and the flirty emails were consistently entertaining and a highlight for me. But overall I was glad I got it from the library instead of buying it. I wouldn’t personally recommend the book to anyone because of the distracting narrative style and the fact that I just didn’t find it all that exciting for most of the book. But, it sold enough copies to become a New York Times bestseller, so in the words of Levar Burton, “You don’t have to take my word for it.”

Interview: Leah Cypess

interview by Carl Slaughter

Leah Cypess is a fantasy author with 2 novels under her belt (“Mistwood” and “Nightspell”, 2 recent stories in Asimov’s (“Twelvers” and “Nanny’s Day”), another novel due in early 2014 (“Deathsworn”), and a fist full of rave reviews. A free anthology of her short stories is entitled “Changelings and Other Stories” and is available from B&N, Amazon, and Smashwords. Her website is www.LeahCypess.com.

“I wrote my first story in first grade. The narrator was an ice-cream cone in the process of being eaten. In fourth grade, I wrote my first book, about a girl who gets shipwrecked on a desert island with her faithful and heroic dog (a rip-off of both The Black Stallion and all the Lassie movies, very impressive). After selling my first story (Temple of Stone) while in high school, I gave in to my mother’s importuning to be practical and majored in biology at Brooklyn College. I then went to Columbia Law School and practiced law for almost two years at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, a large law firm in New York City. I kept writing and submitting in my spare time, and finally, a mere 15 years after my first short story acceptance, I sold my first novel to Greenwillow Books (HarperCollins). I live in Brookline, Massachusetts (right outside of Boston) with my husband Aaron, a researcher and doctor at the Joslin Diabetes Center, and our three children.”

Carl Slaughter: You have 2 stories in Asimov’s, science fiction’s leading magazine. How does an author who specializes in fantasy accomplish such a feat?

Leah Cypess:Â By writing science fiction stories! For years, I submitted borderline fantasy stories to Asimov’s and got form rejections. But as soon as I started submitting science fiction stories, I got positive responses and then, rather quickly, my first acceptance. Even though I write mostly fantasy, I read both fantasy and science fiction, so writing science fiction stories is not difficult for me (although since it often requires research, it does take longer).

CS: You gave up a promising career in law to become a full time fiction writer. How has that worked out for you so far? Ever tempted to second guess yourself?

LC:Â It has worked out great so far. And I’ve never second guessed myself, because even though law pays very well, it is a very all-consuming lifestyle. For people who enjoy what they’re doing, that’s great. I didn’t enjoy the practice of law enough to do it all the time, and because of that, the lifestyle made me very unhappy.

CS: You’ve had 3 children while forging career as a highly successful author. Raising a child, especially a young child, is the ultimate challenge, and you’re doing triple duty. So how have you accomplished THAT task?

LC:Â That one I’m still figuring out! A part of the answer is that my kids are naturally, and are encouraged to be, rather independent. Another part of the answer is that I definitely do not get enough sleep.

CS: Your newest novel, “Deathsworn,” was originally scheduled for fall 2013, then pushed back to winter 2014. This is summer 2012. I assume you wrote “Deathsworn” in spring 2012. Why does it take so long to get a book into print?

LC:Â The book wasn’t actually pushed back; fall 2013 was my agent’s estimate of when it would be published, but when the publisher put it into the schedule, it went in winter 2014. It takes at least a year to get a book into print because of all the work that has to go into the manuscript first — multiple rounds of revision, copyediting, proofreading, etc. And once that’s done, the publisher needs time to get the advance copies into the hands of librarians, bookstore owners, reviewers, etc. Plus, of course, publishers are working on many books simultaneously, so no single book can get rushed through all those steps at maximum possible speeds.

CS: Is the plot to “Nightspell” related to “Mistwood”? Is “Deathsworn” related to “Nightspell” or “Mistwood”?

LC:Â All 3 of those books are stand-alones. Nightspell takes place a few years after Mistwood, but in a different part of the world and with a different main character. There is one crossover character, but aside from that there is no connection between the books. Deathsworn is set in the same world but hundreds of years in the future, when things have changed a lot; I’m not even sure if my publisher will call it a companion novel or a completely new duology.

CS:Â Will “Deathsworn” be one story or will one of the novels be a prequel/sequel?

LC:Â Deathsworn is the first in a duology. It has a complete story arc of its own, with a beginning, end, etc.; no cliffhangers, I promise! But the sequel will pick up where the first book left off.

CS: For several years, you’ve been a member of the Critters Writers Workshop. What kind of feedback do you get from other members and to what extent does that help you? Do you submit all your stories to Critters? Do you make major revisions based on workshop critiques? Do you have other first readers besides on Critters? Have you tried other workshops?

LC:Â I get all sorts of feedback from Critters, and I find it all very helpful. One of the things I like about Critters is that you get multiple feedback from different people who are not bouncing off each other, so it’s very helpful in spotting trends. (i.e. If one person is confused by a sequence in my story, but everyone else seems to get it, I’ll react very differently than if 7 out of the 10 critiquers are confused by it.) I submit all my stories to either Critters or my other critique group, Codex, before sending them out. If the critiques seem to call for it, I do make major revisions, often multiple rounds of revisions.

CS:Â Why do so many of your stories feature ghosts?

LC: I hadn’t realized they did, and had to stop and think about it myself! Ghosts are one of those enduring tropes that you can play with in so many ways, and of course they tie into the ultimate mystery, which is what happens to someone after they die. Fantasy is all about the unknown, and the idea that there’s more to life than what you can plainly see, so I guess my love of fantasy segues naturally into a love of ghost stories.

CS:Â Why a medieval type setting so often?

LC:Â Short answer: Tolkien.

Longer answer: I love fantasy books that take on new, non-medieval non-European settings, but at the same time, I think there is a reason why that setting is so popular. The limitations on technology in medieval times lends itself naturally to being a fantasy setting. In addition, the fact that it IS the default fantasy setting means that readers have an understanding of it and know what to expect, which means you get to spend less time on the worldbuilding and more time on telling your story.

CS:Â Why YA?

LC:Â When I was writing Mistwood and Nightspell, I actually didn’t realize that I was writing YA. All the high fantasy I’d read until then was published as adult (even though so many of them featured teenage characters, coming of age stories, etc.), and I just assumed high fantasy had to be adult. Problem was, I told the story in 70,000 words, which I was told repeatedly was too short. I didn’t want to pad the story with another 30K words, so I didn’t know what to do. Luckily, at about that time I read Dreamhunter by Elizabeth Knox, which made me realize just how much the YA genre had expanded since I’d grown up reading L.J. Smith. When I began submitting Mistwood to YA publishers, I got immediate positive responses, which made me realize that at heart it really was a YA story after all.

CS: Your science fiction stories don’t follow a distinct pattern. But almost all your fantasy stories involve the main character trying to solve a mystery about themselves and the people around them. The plot resembles a detective story, with pieces of the puzzle uncovered scene by scene and chapter by chapter, with the final revelation reserved for the very end. What’s the explanation for this pattern?

LC: Probably that I love detective stories, and that’s the pattern I naturally fall into for most stories. My science fiction stories tend to follow a different track from my fantasy stories — rather than starting out with a character and a situation, as I do with fantasy, I usually start with an idea. My main job is figuring out how to build a story around that idea, and often it’s enough work weaving the idea into the story without adding other secrets and mysteries as well. (Often! Not always.)

CS: So many fantasy writers rely on traditional magical beings. Dragons, unicorns, mermaids, vampires, werewolves, zombies, angels/devil. In your case, witches, ghosts, and shapeshifters. Why not original characters?

LC:Â I agree — why not original characters? — and I don’t hesitate to write readers who do use original characters. Myself, I find it much more fun to play with tropes. I also think that the tropes cover a lot of ground, and some writers seem to bend themselves over backward making up names and descriptions for some sort of original creature when, actually, it’s just a dragon (or whatever) with some changes. When writing the fantastical, I think any tropes or standards you can assume the reader shares with you are things to be taken advantage of rather than scorned.

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