Sunday was pretty much a wind-down day, but I am still glad to have sat in on the panels I did.

First was "The Superior Form: How Short Fiction Remains the Cutting Edge" with Nancy Kress, Jack Skillingstead, and Paul Cornell. The conversation focused on the merits of short fiction for both writers and readers, as well as the current market situation. Short sf was described as having a "renaissance" recently, as fantasy more and more dominates the book market.

"How I Learned the Craft: Three of My Favorite Books on Writing" (Brenda Cooper, Laura Frankos, Jay Lake, and Vylar Kaftan) was interesting in that the panelists were about evenly divided on whether or not books were a good way to learn how to write. Recommendations ranged from book on the craft of writing to the life of a writer. Most were already familiar to me, but I may look into Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass, which I had been avoiding because the title struck me as too hypey.

"Chronological Dissonance: Modern Archetypes and Morals in a Historical Setting" felt like a continuation of yesterday's panel on the real middle ages, although it benefitted greatly from the wisdom and knowledge of Connie Willis. Again, lots of interesting details with a bottom line of "do your homework" and some good suggestions on what types of historical sources to look to for understanding the attitudes and assumptions of earlier times.

"Discussing Best Related Work" was an odd but interesting panel on the Hugo award category with this name, which is kind of a strange miscellaneous bin when nonfiction books about the genre, art books, biographies, and other hard-to-classify works end up. Not much to take away from this one, although I enjoyed seeing Farah Mendelsohn, whose Rhetorics of Fantasy I found quite interesting and thought-provoking.

"Issues in Role-Playing Game Design" was my low-intensity exit from Worldcon.

So how to sum up? Was this adventure worth the time, money, and effort? On balance, I think so, although I don't expect I'll be repeating it any time soon. My main reason for going was to give myself a more grounded and personal picture of the world of sf and fantasy writing, editing, and publishing. Who are the people whose names I read on my books and magazines, and how do they think and work? Immersion in Worldcon this week did a good job of connecting the dots for me, and making the business seem much less remote, impersonal, and mysterious. I didn't get in anybody's face to "get my foot in the door" (it's not my style, and common sense suggests it's an approach that's likely to backfire anyway), but I did observe and listen carefully.

There was also a kind of bittersweet nostalgia in the experience. I learned of Worldcon, Hugo Awards, and all the rest when I was a teenager. At that time, my life revolved around sf and fantasy in a way that it hasn't since I entered the adult world. I had no means or opportunity to attend a Worldcon back then, and I've had so many perceptual shifts in my life over the intervening years that the experience of being here is emotional complex and not easy to assimilate.

I feel closer to being a published writer than I did a week ago, but less sure of what it would mean to me to be one.

Saturday started off with a panel on "Web Publishing and the Future of Magazines". I wish I could say there was some clear paradigm emerging for fiction in the age of the internet, but at present things are still a tangled mix of different people trying different models with varying degrees of success. If any consensus emerged out of this discussion, it was a broadly painted one: print magazines will not dry up and vanish in the immediate future, but web publishing has already become too important to ignore.

"The Real Middle Ages" (Karen Anderson, Michael F. Flynn, Ellen Asher, and Sean McMullen) was an attempt to tease apart the reality of Medieval Europe from the pseudo-medieval world of much fantasy fiction. The panel was knowledgeable and dished out lots of interesting tidbits, but all I really took away is that if I want to write about the Middle Ages realistically, I better do some research first.

"The Craft of Writing Short Science Fiction and Fantasy" (Adam Troy-Castro, Jay Lake, Robert Reed, Michael Swanwick, and Connie Willis) gave a wonderful window on these accomplished writers' approach to writing short stories. Key points stressed were finding the few salient details that will help the reader paint a picture, putting stories away for a while to get distance and objectivity before revising, and having a strong beginning and ending. I plucked up courage to ask a question: how much time do you spending writing the first draft, as opposed to revising. Troy-Castro said 30%, then Swanwick said the story is done at the end of the first draft, because he revises as he goes. That seemed to close down the answers, but I would have liked to hear the other panelists answer. *sigh*

My kaffeeklatsch with Neil Clarke was good, though a bit strange. Two other people showed up, neither of which had any idea who Clarke was or what he did. I guess they were just bored and signed up to talk with him at random. Nevertheless, they seemed to talk a lot. Happily, we had a whole hour, so I was able to talk with him about editorial process and other things of interest to me - eventually. Although he has slush readers, he does look at everything himself as a kind of double-check. He also keeps a fairly detailed database of his submissions.

"The Big Bang Theory: The TV Show, not the Cosmological Theory": I won't describe this panel discussion, but just note with interest that this TV show, which derives much of its humor from depicting the word of obsessive geek fandom, now has its own obsessive geek fandom. Strange but cool.

Sheila Williams's Q&A about Asimov's completed the triad of talks by editors of the "big three" magazines. Williams was just as likeable and approachable as the other two, if perhaps a bit more serious and less casual. I was surprised to learn that (like Stanley Schmidt) she goes through the slush pile herself. Although the assistant editor sends out the form letter rejections, it is at Williams's direction. It was also interesting to hear that Asimov's digital subscriptions are now at about 7,000 (half as many as print subscriptions) and of course rising. It's nice to think that the digital format is actually expanding the reader base of the fiction magazines.

"Ursula Le Guin at 89" (she actually almost 82 now) with Eileen Gunn, Kim Stanley Robinson, Jo Walton, and Sheila Williams struck a nice balance between personal anecdotes of Le Guin and assessment of her writing career. I felt I got to know my favorite writer a bit better through this panel.

"Designing Believable Archeology and Anthropology" was a somewhat misleading name for a panel on how archeology and anthropology can inform world-building for fiction writers. Like the panel on the middle ages, there were plenty of fascinating details but not much overarching theme, making it difficult to summarize.

The focal point of the day, of course, was the Hugo Award ceremony in the evening. Interesting feeling being present at this event, which seemed so remote and awesome to me as a teen-ager. Jay Lake and Ken Scholes did some amusing shtick as presenters, and it was wonderful to see Christopher J. Garcia so genuinely and massively overwhelmed with emotion at winning the Best Fanzine hugo for "The Drink Tank". My own voting agreed with that of the other fans in a good number of cases (Sheila Williams, Best Editor Short Form; Inception, Best Dramatic Presentation Long Form, Lev Grossman, Campbell Award for best new writer; Clarkesworld Best Semi-Prozine), but I did not anticipate the winners of Best Short Story ("For Want of a Nail", Mary Robinette Kowal) and Novelette ("The Emperor of Mars", Allen M. Steele.) Best Novella went to Ted Chiang for "The Lifecycle of Software Objects", and Best Novel was awarded to Connie Willis for Blackout / All Clear. Without a doubt, the highpoint of the evening was Robert Silverberg, who had us all laughing so hard we could hardly endure it.

This was the culmination of the convention; Sunday will be a wind-down day. It's been wonderful being able to participate in a Worldcon at last, reconnecting with my youthful passion with science fiction and fantasy,

Friday was another fun and illuminating day at Renovation.

I started with "New Pro Orientation: Understanding Publishing", a panel with several agents, a newly published writer, and A. A. Crispin of Writer Beware. The discussion focused on agenting and contracts, and gave a well-rounded picture of the issues around signing a book contract.

"What is Consciousness?" was an excellent panel discussion on one of my favorite topics. All the panelists were cogent and articulate, and the conversation never got caught in the verbal model that so often besets this topic. While there was much interesting discussion of neurological and evolutionary models of human consciousness, there were also a couple panelists who kept the "hard problem" of consciousness on our minds as well.

"Traveling before the Motored Horse" with Melinda M. Snodgrass (who lives in Santa Fe!) and Ellen Asher, was a good solidly informative discussion of the realities of keeping and riding horses, geared toward helping fantasy writers who  uses horses in their writing do so more realistically. The panelists were amazed at the size of the audience and the presence of (gasp!) men in attendance. Apparently their usual experience is presenting to half a dozen women who come to share horse stories.

"Consistent Magic Systems in Fantasy" (L. E. Modesitt Jr., Tim Powers, Pat Rothfuss, Jo Walton, and Gregory A. Wilson) touched on lots of different issues: what the writer knows about how magic works v. what is revealed to readers (and how and when), preserving a numious or wondrous quality in describing magic, when magic is reduced to technology, working through the implications of magic for culture and society, and how to handle magic in a real-world setting. Great stuff. I left all psyched to write more fantasy.

"Feminist Science Fiction and the Sociological Imagination" was an academic presentation by Nolan Belk, based on study of the published and unpublished works and correspondence of Le Guin, Russ, Delaney, Tiptree, and others. Although he did was not the sort of person I expected to find working in this area (a young southern man with a questionable sense of humor), the presentation was of considerable interest, illustrating how a group of feminist writers worked in a kind of loose, collaborative community to re-vision gender and society through the medium of science fiction.

I took a break during the 3:00 hour, and found myself waiting with a couple other attendees for Gordon Van Gelder's Q&A session on Fantasy & Science Fiction to begin. As we are standing there, Van Gelder arrives, toting a suitcase and looking quite disheveled. He explained that his flight had been delayed, and he just arrived after many hours in airports and planes, rushing to the convention center hoping to arrive in time for his talk. Despite the circumstances, the discussion was interesting and fun, ranging from topics such as the future of magazine publishing, the F&SF editorial process, and the history of the magazine. I found Van Gelder eminently approachable and congenial.

"Mud and Blood: The Grittier Side of Fantasy" (Glen Cook, Pat Rothfuss, and Ken Scholes) was another fascinating panel discussion, offering not only interesting insights into the use of realism and anti-heroic elements in fantasy, but glimpses into the inspirations and creative processes of three important writers.

I had only a few minutes in my room before heading down to the Masquerade (costume competition). This was a whole lot of fun, starting off with some entertaining fan videos, then moving on to the competition itself, with Phil and Kaja Foglio serving as very fun and funny emcees. The competition itself was different from what I expected. I had always imagined it as a kind of free-for-all party with hundreds of fans dressed in Star Trek uniforms and such. Actually there were less than thirty contestants, each with a few minutes in the spotlight. The amount of work put into some of the costumes boggles the mind, and the presentations were almost all delightfully creative.

The convention runs "kaffeeklatsches", where a small group of attendees (no more than nine) gets to spend an hour talking with a writer, editor, or other illustrious personage. It's a first-come first-served signup system, with sign-ups opening the day before the particular kaffeeklatsch. I didn't tumble to the system soon enough to sign up for Sheila Williams of Asimov's, but I had a hope of signing up for Neil Clarke of Clarkesworld. When I got out of one of the programs I was attending about 10 minutes before signups were to open, there was already a long line, so I gave up on the idea. Later, I was delightfully surprised to find that there were so many different kafeeklatsches on the schedule that the people in line had only filled one or two of them. Neil Clarke's signup was still blank! So I get to spend time with him Saturday, possible in a very small group. How cool!
 

Thursday was a full and interesting day; so many familiar names of writers and editors have now attached themselves to real people in my mind. Very nice!

I began the day with Stanley Schmidt's presentation for Analog, which was billed as news of upcoming issues of the magazine, but evolved quickly into an open Q&A about submissions and editorial process. Schmidt is a very likeable and articulate individual, and I left with a very good feeling about who I'm approaching when I submit to Analog and what really happens to my manuscript. Some interesting tidbits: Analog recently began accepting electronic submissions. Why not sooner? Because neither reading huge quantities of submissions on a computer screen nor printing them out at the magazine's expense just to be discarded after reading made much sense. That changed with the advent of the e-reader. Schmidt reads submissions on the Kindle. The upside of electronic submissions: some good writers are submitting now that hadn't before. The downside: because submissions can now be made with zero expense and minimal effort, the magazine is being flooded with manuscripts that are not even remotely suitable for Analog.

Another interesting insight: Schmidt asserted (and I trust his sincerity) that he cares only about the quality of the story, not about whether the author has a famous name. The rationale is that almost all their circulation is subscription. The small increase in newsstand sales that might result from a famous name on the cover is outweighed by the damage done to the subscription base by publishing a story that disappoints the regular readers.

Next I attended a panel discussion on "When Faith and Science Meet". They did a good job of keeping the discussion nonconfrontational, but perhaps overcompensated, as it seemed a rather bland look the subject at times. Still, nicely done and interesting to listen to.

The panel discussion on "Fairy Tales and Story Telling" covered a lot of ground, from the roots of folktales to the merits and issues of modern retelling and revisioning of traditional stories. Joan D. Vinge talked about goddess religion in folktales, and Ellen Asher and Bill Willingham had a spirited and protracted debate on the ethics of appropriating traditional stories from outside one's own culture, which had to be truncated by the moderator.

The panel discussion on Far Future sf (Howard V. Hendrix, Kay Kenyon, Louise Marley, and Alistair Reynolds), was exceptionally good, with lots of talk about the challenges writers face in writing about the future. For me, this transcended the particular focus on far-future sf and said a lot about speculative fiction of all sorts. I was disappointed by the absence of Larry Niven, who was on the list of panelists, but everyone on the panel did an excellent job.

"Short but Containing the World: A Look at Novellas" (Jonathan Strahan, Gardner Dozois, Robert Siverberg, and Robert Reed) was simply wonderful. These four long-time masters of the writing and editing world were completely at ease with one another and with the audience, and spoke candidly about all different aspects of the business. The virtues of novella-length fiction were contrasted with novels that are too often padded with words that do not contribute much, and there was some fascinating discussion of the shifting trends in what lengths of fiction are desired by publishers.

By the time I got to the panel on "Creating Gods", it was standing room only, so I took a break and checked out the art show. Fascinating to see how many sf/fantasy artists work on remarkably small formats. A thrill to see some Kelly Freas originals, including two of a series of portraits of the bridge crew from the original Star Trek.

"Writing Non-human Characters" was a fascinating discussion, leaving me with more questions than answers. There was a brief but surprisingly heated exchange between Robert J. Sawyer and Amy Thomson about whether relying on half-alien characters to establish reader identification is racist.

"An Introduction to Linguistics" was moderated by Stanley Schmidt and included (among others) Lawrence M. Schoen, founder of the Klingon Language Institute. Even as a self-identifying language nerd, I  found this panel embarrassingly geeky. There seemed to be no real roadmap for how to introduce the subject of linguistics in 50 minutes, so it degenerated into the panel showing off their knowledge of obscure linguistic facts and terminology. All was familiar to me, but I think anyone coming in for an "introduction" would have been bewildered and left shaking their head. In fact I think I saw just that as I was leaving. The hour was saved by the Klingon in the audience, who reacted with appropriate drama when the panel used examples from Klingon.

I finished up the day with a panel on worldbuilding with Greg Bear, Kay Kenyon, Colin Fisk, and Amy Thomson. Lots of good tidbits and inspiration here, even though there was a lack of focus most of the time.

All in all, a wonderful day spent in the company of "pros" discussing so many things of interest to me as an aspiring creator of speculative fiction.

Tom's adventures at his first world science fiction convention, part one.

The flight from Albuquerque to Salt Lake City was like any other, but the number of people with geeky T-shirts and scraggly hair waiting for the connecting flight to Reno gave a clue of our shared destination. The woman across the aisle from me on the plane was editing a fiction manuscript to pass the time! It made me realize was a solitary business it is being an aspiring writer. The only other person I've actually seen editing a piece of fiction is me!

I got the shuttle from the airport and checked into my room at the Peppermill - like all the large hotels here, also a casino. The most science fictional thing about the trip so far is the room itself. The television bears this warning:

This television is equipped with a silent alarm and tampering with it will sound an alarm in Security. This television has been modified by Sony to work only at the Peppermill.

What is doesn't say is that it really doesn't work at the Peppermill either. After a minute or two on a given channel, it starts to look like streaming video over a bad internet connection, and then usually goes altogether dead until you switch to another channel and back again. So you can watch PBS, for example, if you repeatedly intersperse it with a few seconds of ESPN, say.

The TV also has the interesting feature of turning itself on at random times. It took me a while to determine that hitting the power button puts it in a "standby" setting where it only appears to be off, but is actually just lurking in wait.

Then there is this warning on the snack tray and minibar:

Mini Bar and Snack Tray are on live sensors. If items are removed an automatic charge will be added to your folio.

Alright then. So how does this work? Weight detection with each item having a unique weight. Cllever RF tags on each bag of peanuts? Or criss-crossing lase beams, perhaps? I'm not touching it. I have no desire to learn if it is also capabe of delivering a "quaint, old-fashioned electric shock" to my pilfering fingers.

I've taken to muttering "open the pod bay doors, Hal" when slipping my key in the door lock to enter the room.

Oh yes, the convention. So many things on the schedule that it's very difficult to choose. (5-10 in each slot on Wednesday, about twice that on subsequent days). Things didn't really start in earnest until noon Wednesday, but I arrived early and passed the time watching a fun and inventive anime series, "Read of Die", which was showing in one of the meeting rooms.

I expected to be well entertained by John Scalzi's account of his visit to the Creation Museum. Of course creationism is an easy target for the scientifically literate types wo read sf, but Scalzi takes it over the top. A fun time was had by all.

Next came a panel of "designing believable physics", which I assumed would be about how sf writers can play around with the laws of nature to create interesting alternate realities or something. It turned out to actually be more of a discussion of how the laws of physics, values of physical constants, etc., influence the universe as we know it. A nice topic, but more science than science fiction. It was nice to see and hear Gregory Benford, who was one of the panelists.

The opening ceremony introduced the guests of honor - Ellen Asher (Science Fiction Book Club editor for 34 years), writer Tim Powers, artist Boris Vallejo, and Locus founder Charles N. Brown, who died in 2009. Dr. Demento helped out with the introductions, and things were nicely wrapped up with a fun musical number by Tricky Pixie.

I then went to a sparsely attended interview with upcoming writer Aliette de Bodard, who writes historic fantasy and alternate history stories, usually in an Aztec milieu. She had some interesting thoughts to share on her writing process, sources of inspiration, and writing in a language that is not her native tongue.

I indulged my interest in gaming by attending a presentation on game design and development by Steve Jackson (Steve Jackson Games) and Jon Schindehette (Wizards of the Coast). Lots of interesting observations and anecdotes.

I wrapped up the day with a presentation about the art collection of Ken Moore by the executor of his estate. Alas, a computer crash destroyed her slide show, so what I had hoped would be retrospective of the history of sf art became more a series of reminiscences about Mr. Moore and his interests.

All in all, a rewarding day, full but not overwhelming. More anon.

I've been on an extended hiatus from fiction writing. This was partly because of pursuing other interests (I decided to start hybridizing irises again, and that consumed my attention for some months), but it was also partly because I felt like I was in a rut.

In January and February, I took two online classes through Odyssey: one on three-act structure with Jean Cavelos, and one on writing in scenes with Nancy Kress. Both were extremely helpful, but I knew that to get the most out of these classes I would need to do more than just nod my head and think "yeah, that's good" - which is my usual reaction to reading books on writing. To take the next step, I would need to internalize what I had learned and change my writing process to reflect that.

Here are some of the issues I faced during my hiatus and during the classes, and what I have chosen to do about them.

The Plot Thickens

Plot is my nemesis as a writer. When I read books on writing, what they say about plot usually makes me think of thrillers and action movies. Escalating conflict between protagonist and antagonist, constantly raising stakes (usually involving threat to life or limb), and the implication that character development, setting, and theme need to take a back seat to suspense. It all struck me as pretty crassly commercial, like a formula for a Rambo sequel or something. This is not what I enjoy reading, and so I was resistant to learning to write according to this model of "plot." Jean Cavelos's workshop was an eye-opener, though. We looked at all different kinds of fiction, some commercial action fiction, but also other examples that were much more literary and with more subtle or internal conflicts. It became clear that classic structure and plot, although perhaps easiest to explain through an example like Star Wars, pervades all different types of writing, not just action stories.

In simplest terms, three-act structure works like this:

In the first act, something happens to disrupt the character's life and engage them in a problem of some kind.

In the second act, the character pursues solving the problem, which becomes larger and more complex than it seemed at the outset. The second act ends when the character seems on the brink of solving the problem (or failing), and something happens that changes the rules.

In the third act, the change at the end of act two plays out and the basic problem is conclusively resolved.

Although this pattern can be criticized as a simplification and generalization, and it can certainly lend itself to formulaic storytelling, I think it carries a chord of truth about what keeps a story interesting. A story is about an interesting episode in a character's life, and begins when the character becomes engaged, somehow, in something out of the norm. If nothing new is added to the problem as the story progresses, there is no reason to keep reading. And if the story ends in a predictable success or failure, there is no gratification in having discovered something or learned something. So it seems like the "turning points" at the end of act one and act two almost must be present in some form if the story is going to hold interest and deliver some kind of reward at the end.

I've resolved to build this kind of structure into every story I write for publication, at least until I can say I have mastered it and made it second nature. It's something I need to make my own, despite my early misgivings.

Revise, Revise, Revise

Revision is another specter I was reluctant to face. I worked as a technical editor for many years, so I'm certainly comfortable with the idea of improving a piece of writing by editing. I edited all the stories I wrote before sending them off. However, my editing tended to be superficial: polishing the words, adding a bit of description here or there, changing the emphasis of a passage to make sure the reader would get the intended impression.

This is all well and good, but most drafts require deeper editing than this. Writing a story is like thinking out loud: interesting stuff may come out, but not necessarily in the right order or in the right combination for making a coherent, interesting point. To make the most of draft, a writer needs to be prepared to go in and slash out whole scenes, characters, or ideas, and arrange what's left in the most compelling pattern possible. I resisted doing this because I was afraid that the story would become stale if I actually wrote it over. I rationalized by saying that I'd rather take what I learned from it and move on to the next story.

I'm now convinced that it is deep revision and rewriting that separates recreational writing from professional writing. I got over my psychological barrier to doing this by telling myself that the draft is not the story. The draft is the raw material of the story, the ingredients. The draft is a tool to help you learn whatyou're writing about. It's like grocery shopping when you're not really sure what you want to make for dinner.

I also intend to take a long pause between draft and rewrite, to gain perspective and pick up some critiques. This will give the ideas a chance to stew and reassemble, and perhaps help the piece feel a little fresher when I return to revise it.

Wanderlust

For many years, my passion for world building was dominant over my desire to write stories. I love thinking about the geography, history, languages, and ecology of fictional worlds. When I started writing seriously, I made a conscious choice to reverse this predilection. I was determined to produce actual stories, one after another, fleshing out the settings only as needed. It was good discipline, because it taught me not be afraid of banging out a story, and another, and another. I learned I didn't have to wait to get that one perfect idea all lined up and ready. I could just get on with it.

I'm a fan of the Magic: The Gathering game. I like to read the weekly columns by Magic designer Mark Rosewater, as he often has interesting reflections on creativity. In one column, he told of his first day in screenwriting class. (Rosewater worked briefly as a writer for Roseann before becoming a game designer.) The professor said their assignment for the semester was to write a screenplay. Rosewater asked how long it should be. The professor said "as long as it needs to be." Rosewater countered that he had heard new writers couldn't sell screenplays unless they were around 90 minutes. The professor said that was true, and that part of becoming a good writer was to recognize which ideas would develop into a screenplay of the length you hoped to sell.

This hit a chord with me. Like most creative artists, I feel a tension between the ideas that I want to explore and the constraints of marketability. In bad moments, it can feel like having to choose between what you want to do and what you think others expect. This anecdote suggested that this a false dichotomy. I can write whatever I like, and then select from that work ideas that seem to have commercial potential. With practice, I expect it will become easier to notice the marketable ideas earlier in the brainstorming.

So I resolve to allow myself to have free reign to write character vignettes, bits of backstory, historical appendices, and spontaneous stories without planning or plotting. At the very least, this is a world building exercise. At best, I may find some diamonds in the rough.

Writing is More than Writing

What this all comes down to is a shift of focus away from completing one draft after another. I had been spending perhaps 10% of my time planning, researching, and world building, 80% writing the first draft, and 10% editing. I'd like to shift that to 25% brainstorming, exploratory writing, world building and planning, 25% writing first drafts, and 50% revising. This probably means only a few stories ready for submission each year, rather than one a month. I'm glad I tried that more aggressive approach for a couple years. It did keep me writing and submitting, which I think is an important hurdle for an aspiring writer. But now it's time to move on and focus on making better stories, not more stories.

Stories:

*** "Curse" by Samantha Henderson
**** "Animus Rights" by John Shirley
***** "Angie's Errand" by Nick Wolven
*** "A Road Once Traveled" by Richard Parks
*** "Felicity's Engine" by Sharon Mock
**** "Birdwatcher" by Garth Upshaw
***** "The Poacher" by Ursula K. Le Guin
**** "Graveyard Shift" by Stephen King
***** "Sandkings" by George R. R. Martin


QuickTakes:

"Angie's Errand" by Nick Wolven (Asimov's): a masterfully written story capturing a moment in time: the end of civilization as experienced by a young woman struggling to keep her family alive as society descends into barbarism.

"The Poacher" by Ursula K. Le Guin: usually stories that revisit classic fairy tales don't end up saying much. This one is different.

"Sandkings" by George R. R. Martin: nicely crafted tale of hubris and horror, well thought-out sf premise.



My ratings:
*****excellent: memorable, satisfying, a pleasure to read
**** very good: well written, good read
*** good: readable, engaging, but not very memorable or exciting for me
** sub-par: a rough read, I found it flawed or just uninteresting to me
* huh? someone published this?

My ratings are part objective appraisal of the writing, part unapologetic personal preference (certain subjects and subgenres just don't appeal to me as much as others)

Books:




Stories:

*** "Curse" by Samantha Henderson
**** "Animus Rights" by John Shirley
***** "Angie's Errand" by Nick Wolven
** "Clockwork Chickadee" by Mary Robinette Kowal
**** "Leaving the Station" by Jim Aikin
*** "A Large Bucket, and Accidental Godlike Mastery of Spacetime" by Benjamin Crowell
*** "Flight" by Jeremiah Sturgill
**** "The Bride of Frankenstein" by Mike Resnick
** "Some Like It Hot" by Brian Stableford
** "The Captain's Lament" by Stephen Graham Jones
***** "Stories of the Sand" by Dirk Strasser


QuickTakes:

"Angie's Errand" by Nick Wolven (Asimov's): masterfully written and moving story of a moment in time: the end of civilization as experienced by a young woman trying to take care of her family after society collapses.

"The Bride of Frankenstein" by Mike Resnick (Asimov's): witty take on the familiar tale from a most unusual point of view

"Some Like It Hot" by Brian Stableford (Asimov's): a novelette looking at a future conflict between people trying to reverse global warming and others trying to accelerate it; way too talky for me, characters lecture each other about bioengineering and global politics, but nothing else ever comes to life.

"Stories of the Sand" by Dirk Strasser (Realms of Fantasy): rich, dreamlike tale of a journey through a mystical desert that is also a journey of loss and redemption.


My ratings:
*****excellent: memorable, satisfying, a pleasure to read
**** very good: well written, good read
*** good: readable, engaging, but not very memorable or exciting for me
** sub-par: a rough read, I found it flawed or just uninteresting to me
* huh? someone published this?

Myratings are part objective appraisal of the writing, part unapologeticpersonal preference (certain subjects and subgenres just don't appealtome as much as others)

Books:

**** Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock


Stories:

****"Amabit Sapiens" by Craig DeLancey
***"Foreign Exchange" by Jerry Oltion
**** "Tetris Dooms Itself" by Meghan McCarron
*** "I'm Alive, I Love You, I'll See You in Reno" by Vylar Kaftan
*** "Thanksgiving Day" by Jay Werkheiser
**** "Joan" by John G. Henry
**** "Blue Ink" by Yoon Ha Lee
***** "My Father's Singularity" by Brenda Cooper
*** "A Lovely Little Christmas Fire" by Jeff Carlson
**** "As Women Fight" by Sara Genge


QuickTakes:

Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock: another classic I've just gotten around to reading. Wonderfully atmospheric tale of an ancient forest where myths and racial memories come to life.

"Amabit Sapiens" by Craig DeLancey (Analog): a gene that makes people care as much about the future as they do about the present...

"Foreign Exchange" by Jerry Oltion (Analog): playful comedy of errors about a Mars mission gone awry

"Joan" by John G. Henry (Analog): surprisingly satisfying story of a woman obsessed with Joan of Arc who travels back in time to save from execution



My ratings:
*****excellent: memorable, satisfying, a pleasure to read
**** very good: well written, good read
*** good: readable, engaging, but not very memorable or exciting for me
** sub-par: a rough read, I found it flawed or just uninteresting to me
* huh? someone published this?

My ratings are part objective appraisal of the writing, part unapologetic personal preference (certain subjects and subgenres just don't appeal tome as much as others)

Set in New Mexico two centuries from now, "Chlorophyll" tells the story of a young woman who carries a gene for making chloroplasts - she's green and doesn't need to eat. In this post-apocalyptic anti-science Earth, however, she is an object of fear and resentment. It's told from the point of view of her boyfriend, torn between his love for her and the approval of his community. About 7800 words.