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’s stories are both about… apples! In a roundabout way, at least… You know you are tempted to read on!

Black Fire by Tanith Lee (a British woman)

from the January 2011 issue of Lightspeed

This has to be the first British work I’m reviewing unless I’ve managed to miss something. It is a retelling of the Adam and Eve story – I do love me some Bible fanfic, but Black Fire just isn’t strong enough.

The narrative is composed of police interviews with ordinary citizens. With this type of structure, a lot hinges on the voices being convincing. Here, the citizens sound realistic, but also slightly boring.

Special groanworthy quote: “My last thought is, I confess, is this really then what is meant by Science Fiction?“

iTime by Ferrett Steinmetz (an American man)

from the September 2011 issue of Redstone Science Fiction

A highly readable time travel story with two shortcomings. First, one of the characters is such a stereotyped vacuous bimbo that I found the first half of the story hard to read, I kept on cringing. Sure, the protagonist is a hacker girl, but as the story is based around their interactions,  the difference between these two women only emphasizes that the author tried to build on lazy stereotypes. The complete opposite of a caricature is also a caricature.

The second shortcoming is worldbuilding-related: there is zero social context. Minor characters are completely oblivious to the time-travel technology, even though a resale market has sprung up already: “Daddy paid four hundred thousand on eBay for an unbonded four-hour model,” she said, puffing out her chest. Still, no one understands that Miss Vacuous Bimbo is using a time-travel gizmo!

Also, the device must have a really horrendous user interface if  (spoiler!) Bimbo manages to use it without ever being exposed to any warnings. Even my Nintendo Wii keeps on telling me to please wear the controller strap, and that’s really minor in comparison. As the name strongly hints at the fictional gizmo being produced by Apple, a company whose strong suit is providing a smooth user experience, this is even more puzzling.

It’s a shame – the temptation aspect is very well-executed, and I liked  that different characters experienced similar temptation for different reasons. There is also a “learning social interactions” theme to the story that will probably resonate with many readers.

Today we have two stories about human-alien interaction! To be honest I prefer the term “extraterrestrial”, it’s less value-laden… but that’s probably only me.

Join by Liz Coleman (an American woman) – I don’t have a link for her personal website

from the September 2011 issue of Lightspeed

A story about a human man who becomes a surrogate father to an alien joined to his body – for the time being, at least. A topic I personally find fascinating, and the characterization of the protagonist is decent.

I’m surprised SFnal body modification usually does not relate to the real-life body modification subculture in any shape or form, it’s like the authors do not even know (or have trouble contemplating?) that such a thing exists. This story is an exception! Unfortunately that alone does not really carry it through to the conclusion.

The protagonist visits his family on Earth and a strained coming-out scene ensues. It made me groan – the whole story looks like an extended metaphor for gay adoption even if that was not the author’s intent. It really comes across as  “look, I’m writing a story about a current issue, JUST IN SPAAACE“. Aliens are used as stand-ins for minority groups all too often and this is a trend I strongly dislike. If people want to write about minority groups, they should write about minority groups. If people want to write about aliens, they should write about aliens. Mixing the two has very unfortunate implications even if, I repeat, that was not the author’s original intent.

Also, I think the mother’s reaction was completely unrealistic (spoiler cut): the mother goes from “I’d never seen her like this. She looked like a wilted flower, her hand draped limply over her knee, her big onyx ring dangling from her grasp. She looked at me with empty eyes.” to “But she slowly smiled as she looked at the photo, and then at Ngoraich’s battered casing, and asked: “What’s her name?”” People don’t change that much in the course of a single conversation. I guess the author wanted a happy ending, but this is a huge oversimplification of coming out (related to any topic), and thus potentially harmful to people who’ve had to go through a coming-out talk themselves.

One more spoilery note: I’m not saying coming-out stories should always have bad endings, G-d forbid! But if the author wanted to end the story on a positive note, she shouldn’t have set up the story this way, with people starting off from an extremely negative position.

Making My Entrance Again with My Usual Flair by Ken Scholes (an American man)

from Tor.com Originals (Jan 12 2011)

This is a lighthearted story about a clown and a monkey… There are a few moments of brilliance here and there, but by and large the story is not very deep. Terry Bisson has proven that one can write humorous stories which are also very profound, and that really influences my expectations. If something is not very deep, it should at least be unique and memorable, and this story is neither.

It’s an okay read, but definitely not award-winning material. I find it hard enough to say much about it, but fortunately I ranted all too long about the first story, so there’s enough for you to read

Mama, we are Zhenya, Your Son by Tom Crosshill (a Latvian-American man who is also an immigrant)

from the April 2011 issue of Lightspeed

Definitely one of the more memorable stories from this year’s Lightspeed. I’m also very happy to see fellow Eastern Europeans gain more exposure

At first I thought this would be a story set inside a computer running Linux: “The gnomes live in the cellar. They’re short and green and wear big fluffy hats with their names on them, like GUI 1, GUI 2, GUI 3″. Which isn’t really a novel idea, save for maybe the Linux part. But the story is about something completely different and ends up being much more ingenuous than just another virtual-reality tale, so keep on reading! Without giving away much, neuroplasticity is a keyword.

Be sure to read the author interview as well once you’re finished. All magazines should have similar extra features!

To be honest I disagree with him (spoiler cut):

“What if you took a very young human brain and placed it in a complex simulated quantum-like environment? Might it learn to adapt to this environment and predict its behavior in real time as accurately as we predict the behavior of the real world (for a quantum-mechanical, probabilistic meaning of “predict”)? If it did, that would be a very strong indication that the human brain does indeed rely on quantum phenomena to make sense of the world”

I think the human mind can model environments whose behavior has no real-world analog; there are some really far-out ideas in experimental gameplay etc. that IMO seem to show this… but I don’t know if this issue has ever been rigorously investigated. Anyway, the story is great

The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu (a Chinese-American man)

from the Mar/Apr 2011 issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction (available as a free story from Del Rey’s website and as an audiobook from Podcastle)

This is a realy, really sad and beautiful story. Definitely one of the best in 2011 – if this keeps up, the hard problem will be deciding which Ken Liu story to nominate for the Hugos!

Also, finally a story that deals with immigration. Even people who belong to a non-WASP ethnic group tend to write about “the sourceland” as Deepa D put it, and not the immigrant or the ethnic-minority experience… at least in spec fic. (The trend is probably reversed when it comes to contemporary non-genre literature!)

Some of it reminded me of the scene in Michael Ende’s Momo where the kids play with the new toys. Also very melancholy.

You can say The Paper Menagerie is fantasy, or you can say it’s magical realism, it’s going to find its home anywhere. Go read it now.

_________

Note: a big thank you to España Sheriff who linked the audiobook version on hugo_recommend – I would’ve missed the podcast release altogether if not for this notice.

I have a new story online! I wrote it back in December (I think…) when my friend Dash mentioned Innsmouth Free Press (a Mythos webzine) was looking for submissions to an upcoming multiethnic issue. It straddles the boundary between light horror and urban fantasy… it’s an oddball combination of Hungarian urban myths, Cthulhu Mythos, and my childhood. You can read the issue online or download a nice PDF.

I have to admit I have not written a single story since The Turul Spreads Its Wings (forthcoming in the Roar of the Crowd anthology!). If you’re interested in the chronology, Bottomless Lake Bus Stop came earlier.

I will have to spend a sizable portion of the summer writing – besides fiction, I also have several scientific articles to finish and submit! (See my previous entry.)