(no subject)

[andyhat]

So, I've actually been getting quite a bit of reading done the past two weeks. I'm almost done with the ridiculously long list of short stories. Surprisingly, everything on the list was at least worth reading. So, even without any amazingly great standouts (which, to be honest, there rarely are at short story length), it really was a remarkably good year for the speculative fiction short story.

The reading list for the last two weeks is rather long, so it's behind an lj-cut.

Two weeks' reading (all short stories, except as noted):

• Excellent
  
  • Glass, Alexander. "Lucid". Interzone 1/02.
    
  • Green, Dominic. "News from Hilaria". Interzone 5/02. Novelette.
    
  • Park, Paul. "If Lions Could Speak: Imagining the Alien". Interzone 3/02.
    
• Very Good
  
  • Ford, Jeffrey. "What's Sure to Come". Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet #10.
    
  • Gaiman, Neil. "October in the Chair". Conjunctions 39.
    
  • Kang, Minsoo. "Three Stories". Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet #11.
    
  • King, T. Jackson. "A Lesser Michelangelo". The Silver Web #15.
    
  • Klein, Sean. "Mr. Muerte and the Eyeball Kid". Strange Horizons 8/02.
    
  • McDowell, Ian. "In the Murrins". Weird Tales Fall 2002.
    
  • McHugh, Maureen. "Laika Comes Back Safe". Polyphony 1.
    
  • Monette, Sarah. "Three Letters from the Queen of Elfland". Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet #11.
    
  • Morrow, James. "The War of the Worldviews". Mars Probes.
    
  • Onopa, Robert. "Geropods". F&SF 7/02.
    
  • Parks, Richard. "Punishment". 3SF #1.
    
  • Reed, Robert. "She Sees My Monsters Now". Asimov's 6/02.
    
  • Schweitzer, Darrell. "How It Ended". Realms of Fantasy 8/02.
    
  • Shunn, William. "The Veil Beyond the Veil". Realms of Fantasy 4/02.
    
  • Singh, Vandana. "The Room on the Roof". Polyphony 1.
    
  • Singleton, Sarah. "The White Devil". Spectrum SF #9.
    
  • Sparks, Cat. "Arthur Nolan's Twilight". Aurealis #30.
    
  • Stanger, Vaughan. "Slices of Life". 3SF #2.
    
  • Sterling, Bruce. "In Paradise". F&SF 9/02.
    
  • Stoddard, James. "The Star Watch". F&SF 1/02.
    
  • Swanwick, Michael. "Five British Dinosaurs". Interzone3/02.
    
  • Swanwick, Michael. "Dirty Little War". In the Shadow of the Wall.
    
  • Swanwick, Michael. "'Hello', Said the Stick". Analog 3/02.
    
  • Swanwick, Micahel. "The Little Cat Laughed to See Such Sport". Asimov's 10-11/02.
    
  • Webb, Don. "Our Novel". F&SF 5/02.
    
  • West, Julian. "Vita Brevis Ars Longis". Interzone 10-11/02.
    
  • Wexler, Robert. "Tales of the Golden Legend". The Third Alternative Spring 2002.
    
• Good
  
  • Beckett, Chris. "To Become a Warrior". Interzone 6-7/02.
    
  • Dowling, Terry. "Stitch". Eidolon.net 12/02.
    
  • Finch, Sheila. "Miles to Go". F&SF 6/02.
    
  • Glass, Alexander. "Elysian Dream". Interzone 2/02.
    
  • Goss, Theodora. "The Tile Merchant's Garden". Science Fiction Writers of Earth.
    
  • Goss, Theodora. "The Rose in Twelve Parts". Realms of Fantasy 4/02.
    
  • Hendrix, Howard V. "Incandescent Bliss". Asimov's 6/02.
    
  • Irvine, Alex. "Agent Provocateur". Strange Horizons 4/02.
    
  • Jackson-Adams, Tracina. "Uninvited Guests". Weird Tales Fall 2002.
    
  • Jamieson, Trent. "Wind Down". Aurealis #30.
    
  • Kelly, James Patrick. "Candy Art". Asimov's 12/02.
    
  • Kelly, James Patrick. "The Pyramid of Amirah". F&SF 3/02.
    
  • Kessel, John. "The Invisible Empire". Conjunctions 39.
    
  • Klages, Ellen. "A Taste of Summer". Black Gate Winter 2002.
    
  • Lake, Jay. "Jack's House". Strange Horizons 12/02.
    
  • Landis, Geoffrey. "Falling Onto Mars". Analog 7-8/02.
    
  • Landis, Geoffrey. "The Long Chase". Asimov's 2/02.
    
  • Le Guin, Ursula K. "The Seasons of the Ansarac". Infinite Matrix 6/02.
    
  • Maguire, Gregory. "Fee, Fie, Foe, et Cetera". The Green Man.
    
  • Maloney, Geoffrey. "Elecktra Dreams". Redsine #8.
    
  • McCarthy, Wil. "Dinner with Gtoim". The Journal of Pulse-Pounding Narratives.
    
  • McKillip, Patricia A. "Hunter's Moon". The Green Man.
    
  • McMahon, Chris. "Within Twilight". Redsine #8.
    
  • Miéville, China. "Familiar". Conjunctions 39.
    
  • Orlock, Carol. "Ye Olde Ephemera Shoppe". The Silver Web #15.
    
  • O'Leary, Patrick. "The Me After the Rock". Mars Probes
    
  • O'Leary, Patrick. "What Mattered Was Sleep". Sci Fiction 8/02.
    
  • Reed, Robert. "Melodies Played Upon Cold, Dark Worlds". Sci Fiction 8/02.
    
  • Rogers, Bruce Holland. "The Djinn Who Lives between Night and Day". Realms of Fantasy 4/02.
    
  • Rosenbaum, Benjamin. "The Cities of Myrkhyr". Strange Horizons 7/02.
    
  • Sheckley, Robert. "Shoes". F&SF 2/02.
    
  • Sparks, Cat. "Fuchsia Spins by Moonlight". Redsine #7.
    
  • Stableford, Brian. "Nobody Else to Blame". Redsine #7.
    
  • Stableford, Brian. "Oh Goat-Foot God of Arcady". The Silver Web #15.
    
  • Thomas, Scott. "The Swan of Prudence Street". Leviathan 3.
    
  • Tourtellotte, Shane. "Spoilers". Analog 7-8/02.
    
  • Van Pelt, James. "Its Hour Come Round". Talebones Spring 2002.
    
  • Vaz, Katherine. "A World Painted by Birds". The Green Man
    
  • Vukcevich, Ray. "Love Story". Polyphony 1
    
  • Vukcevich, Ray. "Some Other Time". Sci Fiction 7/02.
    
  • Webb, Don. "The Yellow Flower". Interzone 1/02.
    
  • Westwood, Kim. "The Oracle". Redsine #9.
    
  • Wharton, Ken. "Flight Correction". Analog 3/02.
    
  • What, Leslie. "Blind Date with the Invisible Man". Polyphony 1.
    
  • White, Lori Ann. "Target Audience". Asimov's 7/02.
    
  • Williams, Liz. "The Banquet of the Lords of Night". Asimov's 6/02.
    
  • Williams, Liz. "Honeydark". Realms of Fantasy 10/02.
    
  • Williams, Walter Jon. "The Millennium Party". Infinite Matrix 8/02.
    
• Average
  
  • Cady, Jack. "Weird Row". F&SF 9/02.
    
  • Gallagher, Stephen. "Little Dead Girl Singing". Weird Tales Spring 2002.
    
  • Harrison, M. John. "Entertaining Angels Unaware". Conjunctions 39.
    
  • Le Guin, Ursula K. "Social Dreaming of the Frin". F&SF 10-11/02.
    
  • Richards, Tony. "The Cat, the Ladder, and the Man Mo Shrine". Weird Tales Spring 2002.
    
  • Sheffield, Charles. "The Diamond Drill". Analog 4/02.
    
  • Tilton, Lois. "Moira". Realms of Fantasy 12/02.
    
  • Utley, Steven. "Foodstuff". F&SF 2/02.
    
  • Utley, Steven. "Treading the Maze". Asimov's 2/02.
    
  • Utley, Steven. "Walking in Circles". Asimov's 1/02.
    
  • Vukcevich, Ray. "Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Boy". Strange Horizons 5/02.
    
  • What, Leslie. "Grease and Sex at the King of Chicken". The Journal of Pulse-Pounding Narratives.
    
  • Wolfe, Gene. "The Dog of the Drops". 3SF #2.
    
  
  

Comments

[wonderclown.livejournal.com]

I guess I should read some of these. But damn, there's no way I could read them all. You're just insane.

my dad says

[megannnn.livejournal.com]

my dad says the hardest thing to write is a short story. He was an english lit major so I guess that makes it true. I do tend to enjoy reading the short story myself, but I suck at writing fiction so I can't approach it from a BTDT angle. What do you think andyhat, is the short story the hardest thing to write? You ever written one?

Re: my dad says

[wonderclown.livejournal.com]

What's "BTDT"?

Well, you didn't ask me, but I've never let that stop me from talking. I think that in the speculative fiction (aka "science fiction") the true short story is indeed the hardest form. Note that I'm talking a real short story here (<7500 words), not a novellette or novella. That's because so much of the speculative fiction genre is based on a clever or interesting setting and character development within that setting. In a short story, the setting is pretty much irrelevant and you don't have time for character development -- it's all about a very clever, but short, plot with a killer punchline. In other words, you have to be much more original and clever to really pull it off. You can't just get an idea for a cool setting and cool characters and go with it; it's all about the story itself. Poe's stories are the classic example here; each one of them had a really ingenious plot device with a surprising outcome.

More mainstream fiction has a similar problem with short stories, tho the setting usually matters less in that genre anyway; but then, character development is probably even more important.

And in both genres, even after you've got that really killer story, there's the problem of telling it. You can't be leisurely about it (a la Tolkien); being concise is critical. (As you can tell from the length of this reply, I'm no good at that.) As Poe said, every word should contribute to moving the story along to the end. You can't spare even a single superfluous word. (Of course, that's a bit of an exaggeration, since words like "the" and "an" are necessary, but hardly directly contribute to the story.)

I started writing a short story recently, but it looks like it'll be closer to 50,000 words by the time I'm done with it (like that'll even happen), which puts it right on the border between novella and novel.

Re: my dad says

[megannnn.livejournal.com]

Been There Done That.

-megan

[andyhat.livejournal.com]

Yes, I would definitely concur that it's hard to write a truly great short story. That's why every year I start with the short stories. Once I get used to the greater depth of characterization and richer plots of the noveletttes and novellas, it's hard to fairly judge the short stories, which are generally much more limited in what they can do.

On the other hand, I love short stories, because you get to read about so many different ideas and stories without committing a lot of time to each. Which is why Michael Swanwick has become one of my favorite authors. Somehow he manages to churn out bunches of really good short stories every year.

And, no, I haven't attempted to write any fiction since high school English class assignments.

[wonderclown.livejournal.com]

You're a fiction.