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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 18: Usman T. Malik,Tim Maughan, Sandra McDonald

Published on February 22, 2015Leave a comment

Usman T. Malik, “The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family.” Medium, October 22, 2014 (originally in Michael Bailey (ed.), Qualia Nous, Written Backwards, 2014).

This shares the same handicap as the previous Malik story, in that it feels like more of an excerpt rather than a complete story. Malik here uses the gimmick of starting each chapter of this story with an abstract about the various stages of matter, mimicking what’s happening to the protagonist in it. Again like the previous story, it’s set in Pakistan and revolves around the intersection of religion and modernity. It’s very now, which may date it in a decade, but that has gotten it nominated for the Nebula, not undeservedly.

Tim Maughan, “Four Days of Christmas.” Vice, December 24, 2014.

Inspired by an article appearing in the same month as Maughan wrote this story, about the intricaties of the Chinese manufacturing process that feeds the world its cheap plastic crap. This is a great old-fashioned anti-capitalist story taking that process to its logical conclusion a decade or so in the future, through four vignettes, the last one set somewhat later. Quick writing to get it out so fast.

This is the first and only story on the list published in Motherboard, the guys who launched a new sf imprint because nobody else was doing good science fiction online. To be honest, it is the sort of Sterlingesque story they were looking to publish, so good on them. Considering Ken Liu’s “The Long Haul, From the ANNALS OF TRANSPORTATION, The Pacific Monthly, May 2009”, which this resembles somewhat in its approach was published in tired old Clarkesworld you wonder how necessary it really was to set this up…

Sandra McDonald, “Selfie.” Lightspeed, May 2014.

I wanted to like this more than I could. There was an interesting idea here, of having a robot double that could take an implant of your memories then go off to do something independently you couldn’t or wouldn’t do yourself, then come back to reintegrate its memories in yours. Not necessarily all that new an idea, but naming it a selfie is brilliantly obvious. The problem was that the plot was too predictable as well as saddled up with all sorts of cruft (time travel) not really needed to tell it. A disappointment.

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.

Short SF Marathon Day 15: Yoon Ha Lee, Rose Lemberg

Published on February 19, 20152 Comments

Yoon Ha Lee, “The Contemporary Foxwife.” Clarkesworld, July 2014.

With three stories in this list, Yoon Ha Lee is the most successfull author on it. It’s well earned for me, as I enjoyed each of the three stories. All three are of a similar kind, science fictional reimaginations of folklore and mythology. In this case the foxwife, from the Japanese (and earlier Chinese) traditions of foxes taking human shape to trick or help; the distinction isn’t always clear. Here, sometime in the far future, a male foxwife appears in the space station flat of a hapless grad student asking her to allow him to do her chores.

This is a rather quiet, domestic story where the sfnal and fantastic elements are there mainly as props to help the protagonist resolve her mundane dillemas. What makes it interesting is that it undercuts the traditional fairytale by having a happy ending by not having the human fuck up their relationship with the foxwife. What’s also interesting and which has echoes in the next story, is the matter of fact use of trans/genderqueer characters here, both arguably the foxwife as well as the roommate.

Yoon Ha Lee, “Wine.” Clarkesworld, January 2014.

In “Wine” it’s the protagonist who’s trans. As the story put it, Loi Ruharn was a gifted but low ranked officer who “came to the Falcon Councilor’s attention as a minor novelty, as a womanform soldier who lived as a man” and was taken as her lover. When their planet is invaded the Council of Five take drastic measures to ensure they will be able to fight off their attackers; Loi disagrees with the methods their mercenaries employ and takes steps to amend them.

This story didn’t need Loi Ruharn to be a trans man; another reason could’ve been found to let him catch the eye of the Falcon Councilor, nor does the story dwell on it other beyond what’s quoted above. With trans characters, as with most other characters not fitting the straigh cis white male template, there’s always the perceived need to have a reason for them to be in a story, rather than just existing. In this case Yoon Ha Lee has it matter in a way that feels natural but then doesn’t make Loi Ruharn into a token. He just is who he is.

Rose Lemberg, “A City on Its Tentacles.” Lackington’s, Winter 2014.

Another sort of fairytale, by somebody I’ve know by name for a year or so now, as somebody both involved in fandom and being spoken off highly by people I trust as a poet and writer. Certainly there is a poetic gleam to this story, of a mother who sells her most precious belongings to help her daughter become better for a few months, at the cost of her own health. It’s clear she has done this before and will need to do this again; as Lemberg makes clear through an encounter in the middle of the story, she also can’t afford to take chances on finding a more permanent solution.

This is a story about the importance of stories and imagination grounded in a reality of life for people without the resources or privilege to make use of it in the way we’re conditioned to see as right by those very same stories. It chimes in well with a blogpost Lemberg just posted on the privilege and necessity of writing and it speaks to a larger debate going through science fiction and fantasy about marginalised voices and the circumstances that make it difficult for so many to get themselves heard.