Quite pleased to announce that I have sold my Cordwainer Smith/H.P. Lovecraft mash-up story "You Will Never Be the Same" to the anthology Whispers from the Abyss, due out this summer by new publisher .01 Publishing. This is my first time working in any other author's universe, so of course I had to go the hard route and draw elements from TWO other writers, not just Lovecraft. But I think it turned out pretty well. More details on this blog as the release date approaches!
I will also be at Balticon this Friday and Saturday (Memorial Day weekend), so come on by to my panels if you want to watch me be all awkward and such. I will be bloviating on the following subjects:
Is Science Fiction Dead? (Friday, 7:00 PM) -- Let's find out!
The Plot Is Dead! Long Live Characters! (Saturday, 9:00 AM) -- Who says you need a plot, anyway?
I will also be putting my shiny new SFWA membership to good use at the SFWA Gala taking place at 5:00 PM on Friday. But you don't need to be a SFWA member to attend as far as I know, so come by to listen to some great readings and again, watch me be awkward. I also pre-emptively recommend the two readings being put on that weekend by Broad Universe, on Saturday at 4:00 PM and Sunday at 9:00 AM.
Publication Announcement, SFWA Announcement, etc.
I am very pleased to announce that my short story "Super-Parents Last All Childhood Long" will be published in the email and online magazine Daily Science Fiction. This is the last thing I wrote in 2012 (a.k.a. "the year I started writing again, for real this time, I mean it") and I am thrilled that it has found a home. Not sure yet when it will appear, but sign up for the free mailing list to read it a week early, or check back here when it's published on the site.
Also, as of just a few days ago, I am a member of Science Fiction Writers of America. Joining SFWA is one of those things I really should have done when I got my first pro sale, but then I didn't and then I forgot about it and stopped writing. I'm still only an associate member, but I'm 2/3 of the way to a full membership, so you can start campaigning for the Nebula Awards at me any day now (but seriously, don't).
Lastly, have you heard about Balticon? I'll be there on May 24th and 25th, might possibly be on panels, and will definitely be doing a reading on Friday night with some other panelists. More details when I have them. Hope to see one of my three readers there!
Also, as of just a few days ago, I am a member of Science Fiction Writers of America. Joining SFWA is one of those things I really should have done when I got my first pro sale, but then I didn't and then I forgot about it and stopped writing. I'm still only an associate member, but I'm 2/3 of the way to a full membership, so you can start campaigning for the Nebula Awards at me any day now (but seriously, don't).
Lastly, have you heard about Balticon? I'll be there on May 24th and 25th, might possibly be on panels, and will definitely be doing a reading on Friday night with some other panelists. More details when I have them. Hope to see one of my three readers there!
Short Fiction Round Up: March-ish 2013
When Nick Mamatas announced on his LJ that he was working on a David Foster Wallace/Lovecraft mash-up, I knew immediately that it would be my kind of story. So I'm not surprised that Hideous Interview with Brief Man (published in Fiddleblack) was the best short story I read last month (or in February, whatever). It's obviously more relevant to your interests if you're a fan of DFW and/or Lovecraft, but for people who enjoy the former's work, the care taken to replicate his style is well appreciated. The format is of course familiar, and takes the conceit of an interview between the abyss and "an ugly half-orc who sweats excessively and whom nobody could ever ever love." This is supposedly the last SF story that Mamatas plans to write, which bums me out, though I look forward to reading his foray into crime fiction.
Liz Argall's Shadow Play (published in Daily Science Fiction) uses beautiful language to tell the story of a past-their-prime shapeshifter who haunts a low-rent puppet house on the bad side of town. The shifter may no longer have a story of their own, but they can still tell stories, for the cost of a token. This flash piece paints a vivid picture of people and memories that are almost all used up. I look forward to reading a lot more of Argall's work.
The first thing you'll notice about Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince by Jake Kerr (Lightspeed) is its structure, but it is far from a gimmick story. Through false Wikipedia entries mixed with secondary source materials, Kerr builds an entire near-future world, one devastated by an asteroid impact. This structure tells a story in a way straight narrative never could, and focuses more on the titular author's reactions to the Meyer Impact, and how his philosophy and work was shaped by the event and how it goes on to influence the world. The false interviews, novel excerpts, and speeches play off the Wikipedia entries very nicely, each informing and supporting the other. My only real complaint about this story is that I couldn't click on the hyperlinks.
Liz Argall's Shadow Play (published in Daily Science Fiction) uses beautiful language to tell the story of a past-their-prime shapeshifter who haunts a low-rent puppet house on the bad side of town. The shifter may no longer have a story of their own, but they can still tell stories, for the cost of a token. This flash piece paints a vivid picture of people and memories that are almost all used up. I look forward to reading a lot more of Argall's work.
The first thing you'll notice about Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince by Jake Kerr (Lightspeed) is its structure, but it is far from a gimmick story. Through false Wikipedia entries mixed with secondary source materials, Kerr builds an entire near-future world, one devastated by an asteroid impact. This structure tells a story in a way straight narrative never could, and focuses more on the titular author's reactions to the Meyer Impact, and how his philosophy and work was shaped by the event and how it goes on to influence the world. The false interviews, novel excerpts, and speeches play off the Wikipedia entries very nicely, each informing and supporting the other. My only real complaint about this story is that I couldn't click on the hyperlinks.
Erica's Infrequent Book Reviews Presents: MIXTAPE FOR THE APOCALYPSE by Jemiah Jefferson
Mixtape for the Apocalypse by Jemiah JeffersonSelf-published (but why??)
Available for Kindle, Nook, and in paperback
Mid-90s Portland twentysomething Michael Bronwynn Squire's been having some problems. His roommate moves in her lunk of a boyfriend against his will. He's failing at both his jobs. His underground comix career is going nowhere. He's just started a romantic relationship with his best friend Lise. And then he starts receiving covert messages from Echo & the Bunnymen songs, and things start going from "kooky 90s romantic comedy wacky" to Walter Bishop-level insanity.
So you know how a lot of people say that it feels like books are written just for them? I find that annoying and self-centered. And yet, that's the feeling I had when reading Mixtape for the Apocalypse. These are characters I know, these are situations eerily similar to ones I lived when I was myself a twentysomething living with friends in another city that begins with a P. I've been, at different times, both Squire and Lise. So I guess I'll just have to be one of those losers whose reaction to a book is based largely on personal history. At least Mixtape is a better book than Generic YA Fantasy Dreck. (Aside: when I looked for reviews of this on Goodreads, to see what other people thought before I wrote my own review -- this book is criminally under-reviewed -- it recommended a bunch of YA dystopia novels. This is why I don't use Goodreads, people.)
After a framing chapter, Mixtape is split between Squire's increasingly madness-driven journal entries and straight narrative, with the latter subsiding once he makes the move into Lise's spacious walk-in closet and doesn't interact with anything outside of his own head. (Aside Part Two: this is probably a side effect of reading on a Kindle, but I sometimes found it hard to tell where the "journal" part of the story ended and the "past reminiscences as told by present-day Squire" began. Not sure if the paper-book version has different fonts or italics or anything; I don't think you can mix fonts in Kindle editions. This isn't anything that hurt the experience of reading the book for me, more of a "I wish there was a better way to show this on Kindle" whine.) While I hate the idea of calling something a "breezy read" because it makes me think of popcorn fiction -- which Mixtape definitely isn't -- it reads fast and compelling. Jefferson's prose flows smooth as crazy butter. I read it in less than two days, stopping all other in-progress books to finish it.
Though the characters and place descriptions give a grounding of realism to the book (oh Portland, someday I will live in you!), what really takes this book from good to awesome is Squire's breakdown, the way it goes from being something just hinted at around the edges to full-on batshit, yet it never feels like a left turn, never feels like something thrust on the character from the outside. There are few books that come close to realistically depicting what it's like to have a nervous breakdown, because it's only one of those things that you can write if you've lived it, and most readers who have not had nervous breakdowns don't know the difference between a good depiction and a bad one. Voices from the Street by Philip K. Dick is one that I can recommend even though it's one of his more misogynist works (it's not genre fiction, either). I don't know whether Jefferson has lived through these experiences herself, but to my trained eye, Squire's breakdown feels legit. What really nails it are the touches of humor, like this line: "They don't show TV, which is good, but they do show static, which is good." Classic. Also the kind of inspired lines you really do come up with when you've been up for over a day, high on caffeine.
In closing, Mixtape for the Apocalypse is one of the best books I've read in months and well worth your $2.99. I also hope Jefferson writes, if not a sequel, at least more books in this vein. My highest possible recommendation!
Short Fiction Round Up: January 2013 (more or less)
It's a few days late, but here's the list of the best short stories I read in January and the first few days of February.
"The Golden Age of Story" by Robert Reed: I've been aware of Reed for almost a decade now, since he was published all over F&SF and Asimov's (where this story appeared, February 2013 issue) when I started reading those magazines on and off back in the early aughts, and also saw his name occasionally in the online magazines. But for some reason, I always ignored his stories when I encountered them. Maybe I read a "bad" one and just instinctively stayed away. But I doubt I'll ignore his name after reading this, a masterfully woven series of vignettes about an experimental nootropic that turns its users into geniuses and pathological liars, and the ramification on society when a significant percentage of its members are reporting from a reality vastly different from the one we inhabit. In some ways "The Golden Age of Story" reminded me of the "neuro-SF" of Daryl Gregory, a.k.a. the best writer I discovered in 2012.
"The Wanderers" by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam: Our broadcast transmissions got out to deep space, and attracted alien visitors who love ultraviolence just as much as humans. The group of aliens named for our cultural heroes come to rule us, but when they arrive, we're already gone. A tromp through "city and suburb" reveals no humans to conquer, but plenty of sights to interpret through the lens of creatures that have only known humanity through our broadcasts, yet perhaps understand us better than we do ourselves. The humor in this story is also not to be glossed over, as the alien warlords pay homage to our "goddess Herbal Essence" or describe the post-apocalyptic wasteland as "no explosion marks... more like The Road." I'd never heard of Stufflebeam before this, but definitely looking forward to watching her career.
For the past few months, I've really been enjoying plowing through a few collections of Robert Silverberg's short fiction that are cheaply available on Kindle. Silverberg is not the first name one thinks of when thinking of New Wave science fiction, and I wonder why. Maybe because he started as a pulp writer, which is more an accident of timing than of any lack of quality on Silverberg's part. Some aspects of his stories are outdated, but they're from the sixties and seventies, so what do you expect? The stories in Volumes 2, 3, and 4 are all quite good, but some representative stories that I thought were especially good were "Schwartz Between the Galaxies" (an anthropologist struggles to continue his work on an Earth with one homogenous, globalized culture), "Hawksbill Station" (what Terra Nova could have been if it wasn't fucking awful), "When We Went to See the End of the World" (darkly ironic story about apocalypses both futuristic and present day), and "The Wind and the Rain" (in which we're reminded that conservation shouldn't be about saving the planet, it should be about saving humans) Seriously, I could have listed about a dozen stories here. It always does seem silly to review things this old on a blog but if you like New Wave SF or are just interested in reading some then buy these, especially if you have a Kindle.
"During the Pause" by Adam-Troy Castro: Of course I'd like this story, it's just one long damn hypothetical argument. An alien transmission describes a "phenomenon" that will soon (and you will eventually find out just how soon!) overtake the Earth. There is nothing we can do to stop it. The horrific phenomenon is described in ghastly detail, even as the alien message laments that much of it is untranslatable. There is something we can do, doomed as we are, to make our existence meaningful. But it comes at a cost. Anything more would ruin the story, which you should just go read. I thought about this story for like two weeks after I read it, and it's still in my head.
That's all for now. As per usual, if you know of any short stories that I should have already read, link them in the comments.
"The Golden Age of Story" by Robert Reed: I've been aware of Reed for almost a decade now, since he was published all over F&SF and Asimov's (where this story appeared, February 2013 issue) when I started reading those magazines on and off back in the early aughts, and also saw his name occasionally in the online magazines. But for some reason, I always ignored his stories when I encountered them. Maybe I read a "bad" one and just instinctively stayed away. But I doubt I'll ignore his name after reading this, a masterfully woven series of vignettes about an experimental nootropic that turns its users into geniuses and pathological liars, and the ramification on society when a significant percentage of its members are reporting from a reality vastly different from the one we inhabit. In some ways "The Golden Age of Story" reminded me of the "neuro-SF" of Daryl Gregory, a.k.a. the best writer I discovered in 2012.
"The Wanderers" by Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam: Our broadcast transmissions got out to deep space, and attracted alien visitors who love ultraviolence just as much as humans. The group of aliens named for our cultural heroes come to rule us, but when they arrive, we're already gone. A tromp through "city and suburb" reveals no humans to conquer, but plenty of sights to interpret through the lens of creatures that have only known humanity through our broadcasts, yet perhaps understand us better than we do ourselves. The humor in this story is also not to be glossed over, as the alien warlords pay homage to our "goddess Herbal Essence" or describe the post-apocalyptic wasteland as "no explosion marks... more like The Road." I'd never heard of Stufflebeam before this, but definitely looking forward to watching her career.
For the past few months, I've really been enjoying plowing through a few collections of Robert Silverberg's short fiction that are cheaply available on Kindle. Silverberg is not the first name one thinks of when thinking of New Wave science fiction, and I wonder why. Maybe because he started as a pulp writer, which is more an accident of timing than of any lack of quality on Silverberg's part. Some aspects of his stories are outdated, but they're from the sixties and seventies, so what do you expect? The stories in Volumes 2, 3, and 4 are all quite good, but some representative stories that I thought were especially good were "Schwartz Between the Galaxies" (an anthropologist struggles to continue his work on an Earth with one homogenous, globalized culture), "Hawksbill Station" (what Terra Nova could have been if it wasn't fucking awful), "When We Went to See the End of the World" (darkly ironic story about apocalypses both futuristic and present day), and "The Wind and the Rain" (in which we're reminded that conservation shouldn't be about saving the planet, it should be about saving humans) Seriously, I could have listed about a dozen stories here. It always does seem silly to review things this old on a blog but if you like New Wave SF or are just interested in reading some then buy these, especially if you have a Kindle.
"During the Pause" by Adam-Troy Castro: Of course I'd like this story, it's just one long damn hypothetical argument. An alien transmission describes a "phenomenon" that will soon (and you will eventually find out just how soon!) overtake the Earth. There is nothing we can do to stop it. The horrific phenomenon is described in ghastly detail, even as the alien message laments that much of it is untranslatable. There is something we can do, doomed as we are, to make our existence meaningful. But it comes at a cost. Anything more would ruin the story, which you should just go read. I thought about this story for like two weeks after I read it, and it's still in my head.
That's all for now. As per usual, if you know of any short stories that I should have already read, link them in the comments.
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