SFFreader

Don’t forget your Hugo ballots! They are due on Tuesday (July 31).

Also in the mailbox this week is the 24th Annual The Year’s Best Science Fiction, edited by Gardner Dozois, from the SFBC. Of all the “Year’s Best” books out there, the ones I normally purchase are this one, the Nebula Showcase books (different editor each year), and Jonathan Strahan’s Best Short Novels collections. It’s unclear if the SFBC will keep that series going after the shakeup over there.

One of the things I like about the Dozois books is the detailed “State of the Genre” essay he writes for each volume. This time, I scanned it for mention of the online mags - 2006 was a big year for them. He seemed unimpressed (yet hopeful) with OSC’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, where my first story appeared in the March 2006 issue. He obviously missed my story…

For a Table of Contents, click here. SFSignal has the goods.

And two more magazines in the mailbox, as well - here they are with a listing of the fiction contents:

Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, September 2007
NOVELETTES:
“The Caldera of Good Fortune” by Robert Reed
“The Prophet of Flores” by Ted Kosmatka
“What Wolves Know” by Kit Reed
“The Good Ship Lollypop” by R. Garcia y Robertson

SHORT STORIES:
“My Heart as Dry as Dust” by Kim Zimring
“How Music Begins” by James van Pelt
“Draw” by Pati Nagle
“By Fools Like Me” by Nancy Kress

POETRY:
“Asteroid People” by Bruce Boston
“Cendrillon at Sunrise” by Jo Walton
“Reservations Suggested” by G.O. Clark
“A Meeting of Minds” by Karin L. Frank

Analog Science Fiction and Fact, October 2007
NOVELLA:
“An Angelhearted Hipster Escapes” by Daniel Hatch

NOVELETTES:
“El Dorado” by Tom Ligon
“The Hangingstone Rat” by Barry B. Longyear

SHORT STORIES:
“A Bridge in Time” by Joseph P. Martino
“Virus Changes Skin” by Ekaterina Sedia
“On the Quantum Theoretic Implications of Newton’s Alchemy” by Alex Kasman

IN MY BROWSER
At Strange Horizons this week is “Limits” by Donna Glee Williams.

IN MY PODCATCHER
StoryPod 2.0 - “The Wreck of the Godspeed” by James Patrick Kelly
Escape Pod - “Ej-Es” by Nancy Kress. And there is news from Escape Pod, scooped by SFFaudio - a new podcast is being launched by the brains behind Escape Pod. It’s called PodCastle, and it will podcast fantasy fiction - submissions are open, so check out the guidelines on the site.

Wow, there’s so much coming in this week that I’ll do two posts.

I’ll start with Ted Chiang’s new story, which showed up in the mail on the same day in two different forms; it’s in the latest issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine, and in the nice limited edition (pictured) that I pre-ordered a long time ago from Subterranean Press. The novelette is called “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate”. Chiang again combines religious themes with scientific themes in a fresh way as he tells a time travel story, inspired by the work of physicist Kip Thorne and fraught with human possibilities and disappointments, set in ancient Baghdad.

The Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine is the September 2007 issue, and here are the fiction contents:

NOVELETTES
ebook manager “Wrong Number” by Alexander Jablokov
“Episode Seven: Last Stand Against the Pack in the Kingdom of the Purple Flowers” by John Langan
“The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” by Ted Chiang

SHORT STORIES
“Envoy Extraordinary” by Albert E. Cowdrey
“Atalanta Loses at the Interpantheonic Trivia Bee” by Heather Lindsley
“Requirements for the Mythology Merit Badge” by Kevin N. Haw
“If We Can Save Just One Child…” by Robert Reed

Yup, still around. But I’m enjoying the heck out of the summer, and frankly have not been getting any List reading done.

I’ve got to be honest and say that taking that two week computer-free vacation has made me realize that computer-free is actually darned nice. There’s a whole world out there, and it’s not in here.

I’m still going to work my way through these stories, because it’s something I want to do, but I’m not going to attempt to stick to any kind of regular schedule.

That is all, have an excellent summer.

IN THE MAIL
The latest Apex Science Fiction and Horror Digest is Issue 10. Fiction contents:
“Bad Sushi” by Cherie Priest
“Daydreams” by Lavie Tidhar
“Memories of the Knacker’s Yard” by Ian Creasey
“Pigs and Feaches” by Patrice E. Sarath
“Cain Xp11 (Part 2): The Henry Lee Lucas Memorial Highway” by Geoffrey Girard
“Monument” by Nancy Fulda

IN MY BROWSER

IN MY PODCATCHER

This wonderful story is an example of Slipstream fiction - a piece of fiction that falls somewhere between science fiction and mainstream literary fiction. There has been a lot of discussion on the interweebs of late about what science fiction is (it’s really a never-ending discussion), and this story, a 2003 Nebula winner, is arguably not science fiction at all. There is no specific science fictional element upon which the story turns, yet the characters are all scientists and they do the things they do partially for scientific reasons.

Fowler’s story is told in first person by an old woman who, in the 1920’s when she was younger, was a member of a gorilla hunting expedition to the jungles of Africa. She was one of two women in the group who were brought along for a specific reason. Archer, the man who organized the group, insisted on the presence of women on the expedition because he deduced that gorillas were “sweet natured vegetarians” and not the dangerous creatures they were portrayed to be, and he wanted to prove it.

Archer says: “If one of the girls should bring down a large male it will seem as exciting as shooting a cow. No man will cross a continent merely to do something a pair of girls has already done.” His idea was that he could protect gorillas by having women hunt gorillas. Men simply wouldn’t find it exciting to hunt something a woman could hunt. Of course, after the expedition he’d have a lab specimen of his own to study.

Interestingly, Fowler details two connections between this story and James Tiptree, Jr. (Alice Sheldon). First of all, Tiptree participated in a similar expedition. Second, the story is written partially as a response to Tiptree’s “The Women Men Don’t See”, which is about two women who, after going unnoticed by a self-important man, prove themselves to be quite well-connected and knowledgeable about big things the man had no idea about. Fowler says, “I wished to add two subsets I felt her story ignored - the women men do see and the men women don’t.” The interaction of genders plays a large and thought-provoking role in both stories.

The story is on SciFiction, which is still online: LINK

Karen Joy Fowler’s website: LINK

The List? Find it here: LINK

IN MY BROWSER

IN MY PODCATCHER

…anything you can’t cope with is therefore your own problem. (Douglas Adams)

Yes, this blog is rapidly approaching normalcy which should result in regular posting-type activity. This blog’s vacation was excellent, thank you very much, and the blog is now hard at work preparing a post on Karen Joy Fowler’s “What I Didn’t See”.

Hello! After two weeks off, I’ve got all kinds of incoming short fiction.

NEW AUDIO
Escape Route by Peter F. Hamilton is the latest offering from Infinivox, a company that has been publishing quality audio short fiction for years.

IN MY MAILBOX
Fantasy and Science Fiction, August 2007
Novella

Novelettes

Short Stories

Asimov’s Science Fiction, August 2007
Novelettes

Short Stories

IN MY BROWSER
Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show published Issue #5. Fiction contents:

Strange Horizons:

IN MY PODCATCHER

This blog is on vacation until July 5th or thereabouts. It’s very excited about the ocean water and sandy beaches that it expects to see during its time off. The key is under the mat - happy reading!