Month: October 2017

It’s #FridayReads! Here’s what I’ve been reading this week.

Posted on by Stewart

Every week on Twitter, Shimmer Magazine asks people what they’ve been reading. It’s a great way to find new novels and stories that people are excited about–or figure out what might not suit your tastes.

Here, then, are a few things I’ve read this week!

Short Stories

“Hare’s Breath” by Maria Haskins (Shimmer, September 2017)- A beautiful, heart-aching story of loss, love, and midsummer magic of a very Swedish sort. (Note: depictions of abuse.)

“The Lies I’ve Told to Keep You Safe” by Matt Dovey (Daily Science Fiction, October 19th, 2017) – This very short story about an alien takeover of Earth packs a punch that goes far beyond its wordcount.

Novellas/Novels

Acadie by Dave Hutchinson (Tor.com, September 5, 2017) – An unwilling president, an illicit space colony, and genetic alteration–what’s not to love? Mostly: the ending, which read to me like the author just stopped writing the novel he’d started and put on a twist ending a quarter of the way through, and called the result a novella. I was particularly disappointed because the twist (which appeared more or less entirely unforeshadowed on the last two pages of the novella!) seemed to me to rub in my face everything I’d enjoyed about the story to that point. And, okay, I should have figured something was up since the thing’s called Acadie and Arcadia is supposed to be an unattainable paradise that can never be regained. But ugggggh. Very disappointed in this one–if you pick it up, you’ll probably be happier if you just stop when the Bureau ship appears in-system and make up your own ending. (Although the twist ending seems to have worked really well for some people, so what do I know?)

Amberlough by Lara Elena Donnoly (Tor, February 2017) – The elevator pitch for this book is “A double-agent sacrifices all his ideals in order to save his smuggler lover before a government coup takes over their decadent city,” which sounds fantastic to me. I really wanted to love this one, but just couldn’t stick with it past the second chapter. I enjoyed the character interactions in the sections of it I did read, but the style just was not my cup of tea, and it was all a little too lushly written for me to get into. (The slang of the world, in particular, felt too self-consciously faux-1920s for my taste.) Give this one a try if “lushly written” 1920s-style intrigue is your thing, though!

Winter Tide by Ruthanna Emrys (Tor.com, April 2017) – Fantastically clever Lovecraft subversion. Aphra Marsh is a Deep One and a woman–and it’s not always clear which of those things the powerful men who want to stop her find the most distasteful. I enjoyed every word of this one! (And, as a bonus, you can read the first few chapters, as well as a novelette that takes place before the events of the novel, for free online at Tor.com.)

I’ve entered “The Thing about Heisenball” in the 2017 Quantum Shorts contest–go check it out!

Posted on by Stewart

My flash fiction piece “The Thing about Heisenball” has a non-zero number of non-binary characters, and deals with relationship problems, a game a little like squash, and Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, with a dash of many worlds theorem thrown in for good measure. You know, it’s just your average all-the-things story.

The story, which was published in Daily Science Fiction in April of 2017, is now up and awaiting eyeballs at the semi-annual Quantum Shorts fiction contest.

Quantum Shorts is a neat contest. It alternates between a short film and fiction contest, and each year pushes creators to explore concepts of quantum physics with their art. In 2015 my Nature story “How to Configure your Quantum Disambiguator” made it onto the short-list, and I found the short films in last year’s contest fascinating to watch.

This year’s contest has just kicked off, so there isn’t a lot of content yet. But in addition to my story, there’s a very clever little story by fellow Writers of the Future alum (and former librarian!) Stephen P Sottong and several other stories by other writers. (Anything marked as being “by Quantum Shorts” is a winner from a previous year of the contest.) Go check it out, and don’t forget to vote for your favourite!

And if you’re a writer yourself, and want to join in the fun, get to it! The competition deadline is December 1st, and your entry needs to explore some concept of quantum physics and include the sentence “There are only two possibilities: yes or no.” All that in 1000 words or fewer. (If you’re stuck on quantum physics, the site includes a handy reference section, with an A-Z guide on quantum physics, quotes from physicists, and more.)

New co-authored story: “Something on Your Mind” in Kaleidotrope (plus, win a prize!)

Posted on by Stewart

A lot of writers I know have “bingo cards.” Basically, these are things that they want to accomplish in their career, like a story in Lightspeed or a Hugo nomination or something.

While I am far too disorganized to have a bingo card, one of the squares on it if I did would probably be to have been lumped into an “et al.” in a fiction story. (That means “et alia” or “and others” for those of you not used to reading academic journal articles. It’s a way to deal with situations where there are a bunch of authors and listing them all would be too time-and-space-consuming.)

So! It is with pleasure I am able to announce the crossing off of this invisible bingo square, by way of a story I co-authored with not one, not two, not three, not even four, but eight other authors!

“Something on Your Mind” by Gareth D. Jones, Stewart C. Baker, Anatoly Belilovsky, Robert Dawson, Kate Heartfield, Holly Heisey, CL Holland, Laurie Tom, and Deborah Walker (phew) is now available to read in the latest issue of Kaleidotrope. (Okay, they didn’t give me the et al. treatment in the byline, but it is in the link!)

Writing this was an interesting experience! Gareth, as primary author and creator of the Astropolis setting, had us all write a short scene from an ordinary day in someone’s life on the station. He didn’t give us any more information about the story–not how he’d connect the pieces or what the overarching plot would be.

And this is where the prize comes in. Go read the story, then come back here and leave me a comment with which of the various characters you think I’m responsible for. I’ll even give you a hint: the order of names in the byline has no bearing on the order of our sections in the story.

You have until 3pm PST next Friday, October 13th, to make your guesses. At that time, I’ll put all the correct guessers into random.org and select one lucky winner.

What will you win? A shiny copy of the September issue of Galaxy’s Edge, which includes my Lovecraftian humour story “Cut-Rate Couples Weekend at the Witch House Inne and Tavern (9 Reviews)”, as well as tales by Rachelle Harp, TR Napper, Nick DiChario and others.