Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

Author: Terry Weyna

Tell My Sorrows to the Stones: A portrait of the writer through stories

Tell My Sorrows to the Stones by Christopher Golden

Christopher Golden says in his introduction to Tell My Sorrows to the Stones (a quotation from Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, perhaps Shakespeare’s cruelest play), “A collection of short stories is like the strange history of a period in a writer’s life[.]” This crystallized my thinking about short story collections, as I become more and more of a reader of short science fiction, fantasy and horror: a collection gives you a picture of a writer,

WWWednesday: October 16, 2013

The Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association has named its 2013 Aurora Award winners. Top honors for best novel go to Tanya Huff for The Silvered.

Neil Gaiman’s novel Neverwhere has been banned by a New Mexico school after a single complaint about its alleged “sexual innuendos and harsh language.” I’ve read the novel, and had no such reaction to it at all. In fact, I’d think that Coraline would be a far more disturbing novel for teens to read.

October 16th, 2013. Terry Weyna | World Wide Wednesday | 4 comments |

Magazine Monday: Interzone, Issue 248

The September/October 2013 issue of Interzone opens with “Ad Astra” by Carole Johnstone. A married couple has been sent together to the explore the solar system, all the way out to Pluto and back. After years of travel together with only each other for company, they barely speak to each other, though they still have sex very frequently — sex that seems more like battle than love. They’ve been steadily absorbing radiation, and the narrator, Lena, carries out monthly medical checks on them, growing increasingly concerned at the exposure levels.

Magazine Monday: Black Static, Issue 36

“No Kill, No Pay” by Jacob A. Boyd gets the September/October issue of Black Static off to a roaring start. Howard is a member of a high-pressure sales firm of some sort (we never get the details) that is ruled by five partners. This year, Howard has been invited to join the five in a hunt they take in the Yukon each year. They give Howard no details except that the hunt ends after the first kill. Howard believes that if he can prove himself in the hunt, he will be made a partner.

Magazine Monday: The Dark, Issue 1

The internet has been a tremendous boon to short fiction readers. Many excellent web-based publications, from Subterranean Magazine to Clarkesworld to Beyond Ceaseless Skies to Lightspeed are thriving. Now there’s a new kid on the block: The Dark. Issue 1, dated October 2013, describes itself this way:

In the pages of The Dark, you will find a different kind of dark fiction. Just that — different. And dark.

Magazine Monday: Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Issue 29

Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet has a distinctive voice and features one type of story, usually of the absurd or gently Weird variety. Usually that works for this occasional publication (roughly twice a year, but you never know; the publishing scheduling is erratic), but this time there is too much sameness in the stories, and they often cross the line from charming and odd into twee.

In the opening story, “Smash,” by Jennifer Linnaea, a girl discovers that she is a sea monster by finding a glass sea monster in the forest — an odd way to discover one’s essential nature.

September 30th, 2013. Terry Weyna | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | no comments |

Magazine Monday: Primeval: A Journal of the Uncanny, Issue One

The first issue of Primeval: A Journal of the Uncanny, wasn’t what I expected. I thought I was getting a magazine featuring horror stories and essays about horror. Primeval’s self-description on its website didn’t lead me to expect anything different, poetically explaining that it is a publication that examines “the convergence of contemporary anxiety and ancient impulse.” Sounds very Lovecraftian, doesn’t it? The website also promises that each issue will feature “fiction and essays exploring horror, the macabre, and that which should not be — yet is.” And yet,

Magazine Monday: Subterranean Magazine, Fall 2013

The Fall 2013 issue of Subterranean Magazine is a delight to read. The stories are challenging and imaginative, full of discovery, provocation and excellent writing.

The issue opens with “Doctor Helios,” a long novella by Lewis Shiner. It’s a Cold War espionage novel, reminiscent more of Ian Fleming than of John le Carré, set in Egypt in 1963 as the Aswan Dam is being built. Our hero is John York, apparently a member of the CIA, who has been tasked with ensuring that the dam does not succeed. President Kennedy may want to develop a new relationship with President Nasser of Egypt after years of tension following Nasser’s overthrow of the monarchy and nationalization of the Suez Canal Company,

Magazine Monday: Clarkesworld, September 2013

Issue 84 of Clarkesworld begins with “Mar Pacifico” by Greg Mellor, which I found to be one of the two best stories in this issue. It’s hard to resist a story that starts, “A pale dawn spread across the Pacific as my dead mother emerged from the waves.” The first person narrator’s mother is formed by a bloom of algeron. Algeron developed from nanotech built by humans “to bring the carbon cycles back into balance and enhance the power of the oceans to absorb more carbon from the polluted air.” But as it evolved,

Magazine Monday: Nightmare, September 2013

Nightmare has made it for a year now: the September issue is the twelfth. Based on the quality of the magazine to date, I hope it manages to at least cube that number.

“Halfway Home” by Linda Nagata is the first original story in this issue. It’s a stunner set in the real world; no supernatural beings or powers are at work here, just human evil. It starts so prosaically that one is lulled into a false sense of security, even boredom. Two women are speaking to one another as their flight leaves from the Philippines for Los Angeles.

Next SFF Author: Ben Aaronovitch

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