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Short SF Marathon Day 22: K. J. Parker, Richard Parks

Published on February 26, 2015Leave a comment

K. J. Parker, “I Met a Man Who Wasn’t There.” Subterranean, Winter 2014.

Three fantasy stories today, two by Parker, which read as if they’re set in the same or at least very similar worlds. Both star feckless young men who made the wrong choices in their lives and now have to live with the consequences. The first one is a light, humourous piece about a con artist/thief who seeks to entrap another con artist in teaching him magic.

I begin to understand Parker’s strengths as an author, they’re excellent at creating a well put together world through little details and have that ability of a good fantasy writer to take you along with them on their journey.

K. J. Parker, “The Things We Do For Love.” Subterranean, Summer 2014.

Which is even more the case in this story, even if i got this song stuck in my head thanks to its title. This is the longest story so far I’ve read, a proper novella about a young thief who has a witch fall in love with him and the increasingly desperate attempts he undertakes to get rid of her or her love, either by killing her or by killing himself.

This is meant to be light hearted I’m sure, but I found the protagonist to be an ass and some of the details were a bit uncomfortable.

Richard Parks, “The Manor of Lost Time.” Beneath Ceaseless Skies, June 26, 2014.

Richard Parks meanwhile writes a good old fashioned demonic summoning story, told in the traditional monologue to the reader as the demon pontificates on his relationship to the very famous enchantress his summoner was interested in. Well told, with some neat ideas, this still feels more like an advertisement for a novel than a proper short story in its own right.

Short SF Marathon Day 21: An Owomoyela, Susan Palwick, K. J. Parker

Published on February 25, 2015Leave a comment

An Owomoyela, “And Wash Out by Tides of War.” Clarkesworld, February 2014.

This is a story about a woman growing up without her mother because her mother has gone off to war and what happens when she comes back. One of the qualities a good science fiction writer should have is the ability to imply a much larger world than is shown in their story and make it look natural. Owomoyela has that ability in spades.

Susan Palwick, “Weather.” Clarkesworld, September 2014.

Every now and then I still have a dream in which Sandra’s alive and in that dream I both know she’s alive and know she isn’t. I always wake up stressed and depressed The idea of giving the dead a virtual afterlife, of having them interact with their friends and family left behind fills me with dread. That seems like the worst of both worlds, having them there but out of reach, never quite getting closure.

Not a new idea in science fiction, but Susan Palwick gives it a new twist and makes this a deeply humane story about love and regret and wanting to make up for mistakes made when it’s probably already too late.

K. J. Parker, “Heaven Thunders the Truth.” Beneath Ceaseless Skies, October 2, 2014.

I said Yoon Ha Lee had the most stories in this list, but K. J. Parker equals him. Parker is a veteran SFF writer I’ve never read anything by, one of those writers who’s there but never discussed much. As an introduction to their writing, “Heaven Thunders the Truth” would be difficult to improve. Set in a vaguely African country, it’s a story about a wizard and a king and the virtue of telling the truth at all times.

Short SF Marathon Day 19: Sam J. Miller, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Sunny Moraine

Published on February 23, 20152 Comments

Sam J. Miller, “Kenneth: A User’s Manual.” Strange Horizons, December 1, 2014.

As I said before, I started this project partially because I wanted to read more short fiction to be able to vote better in the Hugos, partially to see if Jonathan McCalmont’s fears for the direction of short fiction were justified. If I could guess, both this and the next story are prime examples of what he was talking about.

Because if we’re honest, “Kenneth: A User’s Manual” didn’t need to be science fiction, in its wistful recall of a certain type of early eighties, pre-AIDS gay man through virtual recreation a couple of decades in the future. Leave that framing out and you could publish it as a mainstream nostalgic-bitchy feature.

Yet, as I’ve argued before, plenty of classic honest science fiction had the same problem, could with a few tweaks be sold as a mainstream story, yet wasn’t. That’s where space opera originally came from after all, a derogatory term for this kind of story. But you can’t say that this particular story is cookie cutter in the way old school space opera was and if Miller feels more comfortable in writing what seems to be something of a personal story in a genre he’s used to, let him. In any case this was an interesting look at a sub culture I barely know anything about.

Mary Anne Mohanraj, “Communion.” Clarkesworld, June 2014.

Meanwhile “Communion” is, apart from a story that tells more than it shows — was this a sequel to a previous story perhaps, also a story that doesn’t make any sense when you think about it too long, even when you’re reading it. The political situation doesn’t make any sense; humans are at war with aliens or are they, but still one can come to the planet where his brother died? Meanwhile there are internal’religious’ conflicts about gene manipulation as well? And why provide the elaborate cod-scientific explenation for the alien’s death rites that really doesn’t make much sense when you think about it, if it could just as well have been explained as a cultural thing?

But where this story succeeds is in its emotional truth, of a grieving alien who gets involved outside his will in the domestic troubles of the couple that have kept the remains of his brother safe for him to take home. Again, with a bit of squinting this could just as well been a non-sf story, but I’ve been coming more and more to the conclusion that the particulars of a story matters even when generally it could’ve been told in another way as well. The shape of the story is what it is and should be judged on. We don’t need to worry about ersatz science fiction from pulp writers anymore; they’re long gone.

Sunny Moraine, “So Sharp That Blood Must Flow.” Lightspeed, February 2014.

The one thing that always annoys me about retold fairytales and allegoric tales undsoweiter, even the best of them, is the usual insistence that the story follows a set of arbitrary, unclear rules, that they run on deterministic tracks. Well, this is one fairy tale whose heroine has decided to break all the rules…

Short SF Marathon Day 17: Carmen Maria Machado, Usman T. Malik

Published on February 21, 2015Leave a comment

Carmen Maria Machado, “Observations About Eggs from the Man Sitting Next to Me on a Flight from Chicago, Illinois to Cedar Rapids, Iowa.” Lightspeed, April 2014.

It’s interesting to see a writer like Carmen Maria Machado represented here with two stories, one from Lightspeed Magazine, part of the new breed of sf online zines and one from Granta, the long running literary UK magazine. It’s perhaps an example of the increasing integration of SFF into the wider literary world, something you might appreciate or not.

Machado’s writing reminds me of old school New Wave, some experimenting with genre and ways of storytelling as here, by presenting a numbered list of egg facts and then slowly letting the strangeness creep out. Effectively done, though one of those stories that may seem more experimental than they are.

Carmen Maria Machado, “The Husband Stitch.” Granta, October 28, 2014.

This has been nominated for a Nebula and I can see why. Told in the first person and with instructions for those who are perhaps reading it out loud to their guests, this is again a story where the creepiness well, creeps up on you. A very meta sort of story, constantly refering to non-existing fairy tales, to build up dread and expectation that pays off in the final scene.

This is also a fantasy story which has nothing supernatural save for one, seemingly minor detail, a fantasy story where that detail is clearly allegorical. One that keeps you thinking after having read it. It reminds me in places of Jo Walton’s My Real Children, which I’m currently also reading, in its concerns. This is a deeply feminist story.

Usman T. Malik, “Resurrection Points.” Strange Horizons, August 4, 2014.

This is a more straightforward fantasy story, about a father and son healer somewhere in Karachi Pakistan where religious tensions are flaring up and it might not be entirely sensible to show off your ressurrection talents. The story starts well but feels unfinished, more an excerpt than a full story. It also has that ripped from the headlines feel to it, but done by somebody who has some inkling of what life in Karachi might actually be like for the people he writes about, supernatural powers or not.

Short SF Marathon Day 16: Kelly Link, Ken Liu

Published on February 20, 2015Leave a comment

Kelly Link, “I Can See Right Through You.” McSweeney’s Quarterly 48, 2014.

As you might expect from a story published in McSweeney’s, this is more of a slipstream than a solid genre story, about an actor best known in his role as the Demon Lover and the woman who used to be his love interest in the movies but is still his best friend and how they end up in Florida looking for nudist ghosts. Any real genre element is almost non-existent, though of course this is still a good story.

Ken Liu, “Reborn.” Tor.com, January 29, 2014.

This on the other hand positivily revels in genre: alien invasion, alien possession, memory loss, flying saucers and wraps it up in a story about identity and memory and whether the first is just the absence or presence of the latter.

Ken Liu, “The Long Haul, From the ANNALS OF TRANSPORTATION, The Pacific Monthly, May 2009.” Clarkesworld, November 2014.

Ken Liu’s second story is also fixed in genre, but in an entirely different way. Here he takes that symbol of alternate history, the zeppelin, and imagines the kind of articles a John McPhee might have written if the Hindenburg hadn’t caught fire and zeppelins were kept in service. Basically the sort of intersection of slice of life & mild technoporn you might have found in The New Yorker or summat if zeppelins were real.