The Gardens of Landler Abbey by Megan Arkenberg (an American woman)

from Beneath Ceaseless Skies, issue 83 (Dec 2011)

This is a novelette about war crimes and the industrialization of warfare, set in a pseudo-English fantasy milieu. The topic is very important – I think – and not as frequently seen in fantasy as in science fiction, but here I felt there was a mismatch between the ambience and the content.

The burgeoning 19th-century style and the depictions of rich socialites really distracted from the plot. It is possible to write about fake-European fantasy nobility and serious issues of warfare at the same time – Lois McMaster Bujold’s space-opera Vorkosigan saga is the proof. But it’s a delicate affair, and this particular novelette didn’t hit that sweet spot of balance, for me at least. (I wonder if the Vorkosigan saga served as direct inspiration, seeing that the author runs a webzine named after one of the Vorkosigan novels, Mirror Dance; or is that a coincidence?)

The pacing also seemed off – I found myself skimming the long, meandering descriptions (and had to force myself not to do that), then when the protagonist had a conversation with the owner of the gardens, the story sped up, only to slow down again. The ending was abrupt at best, and the horror elements seemed tacked on and introduced all too late.

Arkenberg is a prolific and adventurous writer, so maybe I should try something else by her…? Readers interested in the topic of war crimes in speculative fiction should try Ken Liu’s The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary instead.

Again, three reviews to catch up with myself.

Shipbirth by Aliette de Bodard (a Vietnamese-French woman)

from Asimov’s, February 2011

A transgender protagonist! Another first for 2011. Someone told me they did not expect to see any trans characters in this year’s crop, so this was a pleasant surprise. This is not a token mention, either; the character’s gender identity is a major part of the story.

In the future, Aztecs rule space (can I say YAY?). Their society is strongly gender-segregated, but it’s relatively easy for people to change their gender if they so desire. The main character was born female, he presently identifies as male, but he constantly feels out of place. I read it as a story about a gender-fluid or possibly androgynous person in a very much binary-gendered world, but the author might have had something else in mind (note: spoilery discussion after the link). I’m a bit confused by the author’s explanation of the main character having made the wrong decision – to me it looked like choosing either gender would’ve been a wrong decision.

Spoilery quote that should sway you toward my own position : “In the end, he was a man–unable to bear the shame of killing an unarmed woman. In the end, he was a woman–made to give life, to yield life, but never to take it.”

The main plot is about women giving birth to spaceship components. I kid you not. I like body horror, so I read with rapt attention.

What I’m concerned about is how I don’t seem to agree with anyone on how to interpret this story, including, apparently, the author? Many people say it is a good portrayal of a transgendered person – which I disagree with, and which the author explicitly disclaims. But the concept of non-binary gender did not even enter the equation…?

Princess Courage by Nadia Bulkin (an Indonesian-American woman)

A high fantasy story where the empire-builders are presented in an unfavorable light. A nice deconstruction of subgenre tropes – tropes which should be stomped on and ground into dust as far as I’m concerned, I’m not a fan of high fantasy to say the least. So that’s great so far, but unfortunately the story itself is not very engaging beyond that.

I think this is a case of preaching to the choir: I don’t need to be convinced that classic high fantasy is racist and colonialist, so I found the story didactic and the fantasy elements somewhat boring. I confess I have no idea how the general readership would react…

At Livia’s Bar by Pierre Mejlak (a Maltese man) – also available in Maltese

from Words without Borders (Dec 2011, “The Fantastic”), translated by Antoine Cassar

This story is about worldbuilding. Quite literally! I think one can interpret it in an entirely non-speculative manner, but I’m also OK with calling it speculative fiction. In any case, it’s short, poignant and beautiful, so you should read it right now!

There was no update yesterday, so today I offer three reviews – read about stories by women authors from all over the world!

The Map by Nazli Eray (a Turkish woman) – also available in Turkish

from Words without Borders (Dec 2011, “The Fantastic”), translated by Robert P. Finn

This is one of those hard-to-categorize stories – you can call it magical realist, slipstream, or you can even pretend it’s regular literary fiction. Two young women buy “a General Map of Man with a special interpretation” from an old bookseller, and then proceed to use the map to figure out their boyfriends. Strangeness ensues.

It’s a quick fun read, but one that stays with you. The general idea of “interpretative maps” of continents, countries and even people really charmed me, I wish there was a similar map of Hungary *chuckle* – the only thing I can think of along those lines is the Subjective Atlas of Hungary, unfortunately the official website seems to be down at the moment… but even that’s not exactly the same. Probably good for all of us – “interpretative maps” seemed quite dangerous in the story!

(By the way – Lamb by Elham Eshraghi and The Mirror by Soheila Beski from the same issue of the magazine are also interesting reads, but I think they do not contain any speculative element, so I’m not reviewing them.)

The Fox by Malinda Lo (a Chinese-American lesbian woman who is also an immigrant)

from Subterranean Press (Summer 2011, YA special issue)

Malinda Lo has two novels out – and more forthcoming -, but this is her first published short story. The protagonist also appears in her novel Huntress, which I haven’t read yet – the author says this story should stand on its own, but it might contain minor spoilers.

It is a lesbian romance story featuring a shapeshifter. The setting is kind of bland and nondescript – maybe it’s better fleshed out in the novel. There is a human king, a fairy queen, a chosen one, a magical object… all well-trod high fantasy terrain, except with lesbian romance.

The Fox might possibly be the only lesbian YA SF story available for free in the Hugo 2012 crop – it’s definitely the only one I’ve seen, comment if you know of others -, but beyond that it’s not particularly interesting.

Tloque Nahuaque by Nelly Geraldine García-Rosas (a Mexican woman)

from Future Lovecraft

The Large Hadron Collider will destroy the world as we know it – we’ve heard this from alarmists the world over, but finally someone wrote a good story about it too. In sharp contrast to the alarmists, García-Rosas knows what the LHC actually does, and she can also write in sweeping Lovecraftian style. The end result is much appreciated.

The story is set in Mexico, where some people have an unsettlingly clear idea what to do if a sleeping Aztec deity awakens… There are some juicy Mythos parallels in there. I wonder about my own religion (BTW – there is a Lovecraftian Bible story in She Nailed a Stake Through His Head: Tales of Biblical Horror, but it’s not really what I have in mind here.)

I’m sorry there was no update on Thursday – I had connectivity issues. There was a change of ownership at our ISP, and we’ve been seeing more downtime than usual.. let’s hope I manage to post this one!

A Prince of Thirteen Days by Alaya Dawn Johnson (an African-American woman)

from the June 2011 issue of Fantasy Magazine

This is a novelette from the Borderlands anthology, reprinted in Fantasy. (Yes, it’s eligible for this year’s Hugos – the reprints cycle is faster and faster!)

It’s an urban fantasy story, maybe a bit too urban-fantasy-ish for my tastes… does every work in this subgenre have to do with the characters having sex? That and vampires. There are no vampires in this one, but it’s all about sex. I didn’t really understand how the protagonist went from receiving a prophecy of love to “I must have sex with a statue”. It’s not graphic at all, but very sex-centered nonetheless, and in a rather forced way.

I’m all for thoughtful or deeply felt explorations of sexuality (for example see my glowing review of Amal El-Mohtar’s lesbian steampunk story), and this story had all the potential, with a multigenerational family setup, teen pregnancy, etc., but ultimately the sexual theme felt like a gimmick. As if the whole novelette was written just so that in the opening paragraphs, the heroine could ask a statue to have sex with her.

I also found the first-person / third-person transitions slightly distracting… when I’m thinking “look, a literary device” while reading, that’s not a very good sign. I prefer to enjoy the work as a whole, not its form by itself, unless the form is very very inventive. This wasn’t inventive, just distracting.

On the plus side, I really liked the casual mentions of everyday magic (cooking magic, minor prophecies, etc.) and the interactions of the family members. I wished there was more of that and less of the main plot… maybe I’m just not sexual enough!

This is going to be a semi-regular feature if all goes well. Here is my weekly roundup of links of interest.

* Demonstrate! If you’re an EU citizen, join a Stop ACTA protest in your neighborhood on Feb 11! One-sentence summary from Reddit: “ACTA is an international intellectual property enforcement treaty with far-reaching implications for freedom of expression and human rights.” Here’s the central site with a nice map and all. You can also read about the protests on FSF.org.

(for fellow frummies: several demos end well after motzei Shabbat, so we can join in the fun this time…)

Read:

* Hugo-eligible works by people of color published in 2011 – a really helpful crowdsourced list! I’ve found lots of stuff to review there.

* Best LGBTQ works of 2011 – also includes non-SF (Note: I’m not sure I’d recommend Cage of Zeus, it was interesting, but it had several aspects I found really problematic. I’ve been meaning to write a review for ages now…)

* Errors in Mass Effect: Deception – Tie-in novel series gets a new writer (William C. Dietz), who then proceeds to rewrite minority characters as majority characters. Choice quote: “While this list may seem nit-picky considering some of the errors, there are a handful worth mentioning that have very legitimate reasons for being upset over.  This includes a character ‘growing up’ from being autistic, turning Mass Effect’s only gay male character straight and then killing him, and being literally impossible to reconcile with the timeline made by the games, comics and other books.” There was such fan uproar that the publisher vowed to fix these issues in upcoming editions. We’ll see…

* The Hey Sweetheart Scenario: Deconstructing How Role-Playing Games Talk to Women – Accurate and insightful. After 20-30 hours of playing Fallout 3, I came across the first such “oh look you are a woman” conversation, and I realized that one of the features that contributed to my enjoyment of the game was that it did not constantly push this on me when I was playing a female character. The linked article explains the issue very eloquently!

See:

* Kilian Eng, Selected Works + Interview – Kilian Eng is a Swedish SF artist whose work is absolutely, mind-numbingly awesome. If you’re a Moebius fan, you’re  especially going to love his style. For more great art, check out Eng’s portfolio!

Today I’m reviewing reader recommendations! To be honest, one was a “read this one because it has characters who belong to underrepresented groups, but you’ll probably hate it” kind of recommendation… but that still counts, right?

To Follow the Waves by Amal El-Mohtar (an Arab Canadian woman)

from Steam-Powered I: Lesbian Steampunk Stories, free audiobook available from Podcastle

Amal El-Mohtar was kind enough to send me a copy of the anthology, as the story text is not available online free of charge. But don’t worry, there is a 100% free audiobook version! (People asked if I also considered reviewing stories which only had free audio versions. Short answer: yes, but you’ll probably see a review faster if you send me a copy of the text.)

This is a lesbian fantasy story (well duh!) set in Awesome Alt-History Damascus. It’s not very strictly steampunk, but that’s probably a plus, because the setting is the diametric opposite of derivative.

I loved the way hair, especially unbound hair, had erotic appeal – this is a concept that’s also present in my culture, but which usually gets blank stares from Westerners! Now I’ll know where to refer those people, as El-Mohtar’s descriptions are really beautiful and convincing at the same time.

Geeky women are very, very underrepresented in SF – I am pleased to say this story has a geeky protagonist, if that concept even makes sense in Awesome Alt-History Damascus.

The main technological gimmick has to do with dream control. Telepathy also seems to be a theme without ever being named; the two main characters share a bond they themselves find hard to understand. There is also a small hint of BDSM toward the end, more implied than explicated – now, telepathy and BDSM sounds like a recipe for disaster, but I loved the way it was presented here.

I haven’t read the rest of the anthology yet – were any other stories sold as reprints? I’d prefer to link to free stuff.

Long Enough and Just So Long by Cat Rambo (an American woman)

from Lightspeed (Feb 2011)

I usually enjoy Cat Rambo’s work, and she picked Long Enough and Just So Long as the story she would push for this year’s award nominations, so I thought this one would be great. Sure, there are interesting characters in there: a physically disabled protagonist, a character with Asperger syndrome, etc. (finally I get to use my disabled_characters tag again!) But I’m frankly puzzled about Rambo’s decision.

Many details did not cohere for me, and I had to read the author interview to understand that. This story is based on a Heinlein juvenile. I have to say I don’t have the same emotional attachment to Heinlein juveniles as many American SF fans seem to do, having grown up in the Eastern bloc; I tried to read some as an adult, but failed to see the allure. I also can’t comprehend why someone would pick as their best of 2011 a work that was heavily inspired by another author’s work.

It is also a sexbot story. (Maybe I should say OH NO THIS IS YET ANOTHER SEXBOT STORY. Expanded Horizons has this theme on the instant rejections list, and for good reason.) “I want to please you. But at the same time I know it’s just the way I’m programmed.” *GROAN* Do I really have to explain why this is so problematic? Do I really really have to?

And before someone brings that up – the fact that the story features a male sexbot doesn’t make it much better.

Bonus: a great flash story by Cat Rambo, also from this year’s crop. Snappy, cute, funny! If only Long Enough and Just So Long was this good…

I don’t want to nominate flash stories for awards, and it seems pointless to review such short works at length, but I do want to list them and tag them appropriately… hopefully it’ll help others find them! All of these stories are eligible for the Hugos and are under 1000 words – or, in some cases, just barely over 1000 words; I decided to include stories just over the limit, because my word counts might not be perfect.

I’ll also have a separate battle for these stories, I think people like that feature.

Note: I always keep the original capitalization in titles – I haven’t mentioned this before, but the magazines in this entry use different capitalization schemes, and it all looks a bit messy.

Orkish Cornbread by Ranko Trifković (a Serbian man)

from Words without Borders, Dec 2011. Translated by the author

A fun idea, but the translation could’ve used some editing.

The Death Collector by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (a Mexican-Canadian woman)

from AEscifi.ca, Feb 2011

Great, atmospheric, deadly. Similar to her previously reviewed story, except even better. Highly recommended.

The Universe reef by Tobias Buckell (a Grenadan-American man)

from Nature Futures, May 2011

An interesting setting, but little story. This would’ve better served as a backdrop for a lengthier work. (Great point about islands though!)

Futures by Cat Rambo (an American woman)

from The Dream People, 2011

Poetic; not very unique, but well told. Also very short – even for flash.

Every girl dreams of falling in love by Shelly Li (a Chinese-American woman)

from Nature Futures, Sep 2011

This is basically the Super Soldier trope, with Super Soldier Guy further othered by having the POV character be a different person.

Today we have two stories by women authors. I’m trying to come up with a schedule… I’ve just read something I loved, recommended by a reader (review coming soon IY”H), so keep those recommendations coming! Also, feel free to recommend bad stories, especially if they have to do with underrepresented groups. I’ll review them and hopefully that’ll help others avoid Teh Suffarz

Nebula nominations are closing in two weeks! There’s still time for the Hugos though… and I also need to decide what to nominate for the Carl Brandon awards. I have a metric TON of short stories I’d love to nominate, but seeing as these awards usually go to longer-form works, that might be a waste of time. Still, I’ve read several good novelettes and novellas that would be a good fit; I just need to make up my mind. Carl Brandon nominations are open to everyone, so head over:

The Carl Brandon Parallax Award is for an outstanding speculative fiction work by a self-identified writer of color. The Carl Brandon Kindred Award is for an oustanding speculative fiction work dealing with race and ethnicity. You may nominate the same work for both awards.

After the short intermission, back to today’s stories:

This Strange Way of Dying by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (a Mexican-Canadian woman)

from GigaNotoSaurus – audio version available on Podcastle

This story was published in GigaNotoSaurus, a magazine specializing in novelettes, but it’s not actually a novelette (the word count is around 5400) – just mentioning this in case you want to nominate it for awards. Despite the length, it is a quick read, as Moreno-Garcia’s other stories: she writes lean prose that simply flies by. Let’s see what this one offers!

A girl makes a pact with Death, over the backdrop of the Mexican Revolution. The fascinating setting saves the story from being a boring rehash of the old theme.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia also writes straight-up fantasy, but to be honest I appreciate it more when she sets her stories a bit closer to home – especially since she does not tend to overexoticize anything. I’ve wondered if some magazines pressured “ethnic” writers in that direction, or maybe that’s just the kind of style that tends to resonate with the (white, American) editors. Anyway, Silvia Moreno-Garcia is a good counterexample: her stories are not loaded down with extraneous detail, but they are still pronouncedly local. More please!

The Sighted Watchmaker by Vylar Kaftan (an American woman)

from Lightspeed (Dec 2011)

An “alien observer” story, with a twist. I think I dislike this “with a twist” template more and more with each passing day: in a story building on ages-old tropes, where said tropes are changed in one specific way, the reader (ME!) still has to wade through too much of the same old same old in order to get to the heart of the matter.

Still, the change was interesting (it made me feel the author would see some opposition from both sides of the creationism debate) and the writing was touching. I also liked the sweeping perspective. I wouldn’t choose this story as one of the year’s best – like Rich Horton did -, but it was decent enough.

I was not able to post yesterday, so for today’s update I’ve picked something longer – a novelette by Zen Cho.

The House of Aunts by Zen Cho (a Malaysian woman)

from GigaNotoSaurus (Dec 2011)

This is a vampire story with local flavor, set in present-day rural Malaysia. Or maybe I should say it’s a pontianak story, as the Malaysian pontianak differs from the European vampire in several important respects – but you’ll learn about all that during the course of the novelette.

I really enjoyed it when the characters spoke Manglish. Awesome lah! The story was heartfelt and touching (and just a wee bit gory ), but the characters of the aunts blurred together a bit at times. Maybe there could’ve been more elaboration or something else to help readers keep track of them as individual persons, even if that made the novelette longer.

All in all it was a nice read, not very fast-paced, but not everything needs to be fast-paced. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the free story! It also comes with a free epub version, I think that’s great – I’ll have to read more of the GigaNotoSaurus novelettes.

I also totally need to read more from Zen Cho – she has a bunch of other eligible works this year, unfortunately not all of them are available online free of charge… I liked The Guest, but that one was published in 2010, so it’s not eligible for awards this year.

Today we have two stories from venues I haven’t discussed yet – the Boston Review (!) and Fantasy (which recently merged with Lightspeed).

Thirty Seconds from Now by John Chu (a Chinese-American man)

from the Boston Review (Sep/Oct 2011)

This is a surprisingly well-written story about a gay relationship featuring a precognitive protagonist. (I was surprised primarily because this was the author’s first publication and it did not even appear in a genre magazine -  literary authors who casually try genre writing often end up producing really derivative content.) I’ll certainly be keeping an eye on John Chu from now on!

There’s something I really disliked in this story, though. Precognition is not portrayed similarly to the way people report precognitive experiences in real life; it’s more dramatic and SFnal. That alone would not be a problem, but I have issues with the way it’s presented.

My friend Dash has an excellent post on precognition in SF, you should read it; it’s a lot longer than this review, with plenty of food for thought. Precognitive characters in SF never having a stable romantic relationship is explicitly called out.

The author – a gay man? – successfully avoids the bad gay tropes, but still hits many of the bad precognition tropes. (Whether precognition is “real” is completely irrelevant here – what matters is that many people have experiences they interpret as precognitive, and that should be considered.)

At least the story is told from Scott’s, the precognitive person’s point of view, and as his partner Tony (spoiler!) first belittles, then rejects his experiences, Tony comes across as a jerk. This still begs the question why Scott, knowing everything in advance, still opts to enter the relationship. A bad relationship is better than none at all? I don’t buy that.

I strongly dislike the formatting on the magazine’s website, but I shouldn’t blame the author for that If you try to export the text, be sure to remove the out-of-place quotes. The printable version doesn’t have them, but still has, of all things, the comment form. *grumble!*

Choose Your Adventure by Kat Howard (an American woman)

from the April 2011 issue of Fantasy Magazine

I came across this story in a year’s best list, but it was somewhat of a disappointment. At least it’s short – barely over flash length.

It’s structured as a kind of faux Choose Your Adventure book, but it’s meant to be read in a linear fashion. That’s an interesting innovation – if I can call it an innovation rather than a setback!

I felt like the author was trying to “tame” the medium of interactive fiction to make it palatable to the mainstream. I hazard a guess that most people familiar with interactive storytelling will find the story boring and derivative in comparison to what’s available out there, not in pro venues like Fantasy, but out there regardless.

For everyone else, allow me to recommend the Interactive Fiction Database instead. And a bit of shameless self-promotion: I have also written introductions to interactive fiction both in English and in Hungarian.

Also, while we’re at the 2012 Hugos, Yoon Ha Lee’s Conservation of Shadows is a much better story based on similar themes (second-person narrative, linear fiction inspired by nonlinear fiction). It’s one of my candidates for nomination so far.