Tag: science fiction

Quantum Shorts voting period extended to January 31st

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As I’ve probably already mentioned a few times, my story “How to Configure your Quantum Disambiguator” is on the short-list for the Quantum Shorts flash fiction competition.

The “people’s choice” voting for the contest has been extended to the end of the month, so if you haven’t checked it out and voted yet, go give it a look! There are a lot of strong stories in the top ten, and still a whole 11 days to read ’em.

Also, don’t forget the youth division: http://shorts2015.quantumlah.org/shortlisted-stories

Reported Final Words of God-Empress Min-Jo (Last Words Series)

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There are many genres of Science Fiction, and I enjoy pretty much all of them.

But perhaps my favourite is space opera. I love the breadth of the stories, the vast sweep of space, the clashes and conflicts of different factions of humanity (and/or aliens). And of course the larger-than-life heroes and villains with their dramatic plots, counter-plots, betrayals, and high-stakes winner-takes-all victories (or losses).

All of which is a roundabout way of saying that this week’s ‘Last Words’ story is space opera.

Reported Final Words of Immortal God-Empress Minre Jo, Conqueror of Half the Known Universe and Destroyer of the Rest, upon Being Asked by Her Assassin if She Repented any of Her Crimes.

by Stewart C Baker

Only forging you, my love . . .

Unlike last week’s piece about Baron Munchhausen, the influences in this one are much more modern.

Asimov’s Foundation series is probably the first space opera I remember reading, long before I knew the term. My mother had copies of them on our bookshelf, which I think I have now. And in high school, I read Iain M. Banks’ Culture novels (of which, Player of Games is my favourite). Dan Simmons’ Hyperion Cantos followed five or six years later. (I’m sure there were more in between, but I have a poor memory for titles.)

Most recently, though, and serving as more-or-less direct inspiration for this little story, I’ve devoured Ann Leckie’s Imperial Radch trilogy, about a rogue ship-based A.I.

And most recently of all, A. Merc Rustad‘s utterly fantastic “Tomorrow When We See the Sun”, which you can read in Lightspeed for free. And should read. Right now. If you haven’t already. And even if you have, to be honest.

I think there might be the tiniest amount of Steven Brust’s Phoenix Guards in there, as well, even though that’s fantasy.

(Point of interest: This story was actually the first of these five-word stories I wrote, after an off-hand comment to the editors of Liminal Stories that I was going to send them a one-word story because they didn’t have a minimum wordcount.)

My published original fiction from 2015 – in review (the dreaded “awards eligibility post”)

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For SFF writers, there are two year-end traditions.

One is to post a list of your published fiction for the year so people who read for award nominations can be reminded it exists.

The second is to exhibit sufficient hand-wringing while you do it, so as to appear self-effacing, awkward, and not a giant bag of dicks.

So:

Hand-wringing?

Er, hang on a bit. Let me try that again.

Hand-wringing?!

Eh, good enough.

Anyway. now that that’s out of the way, here is a curated selection of my stories that saw first publication (or were first podcast) this year.

Just to be as clear as crystal, I am not expecting to end up on anyone’s awards list. But I hope you find something you like in the stories below, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Original Short Stories

“Configuring Your Quantum Disambiguator” – Nature, February 4, 2015
Having trouble calibrating your universe-defining machine? Don’t lose your head. Just refer to these simple instructions… (meta-fiction; humour)
(Also currently shortlisted in the “Quantum Shorts” contest.)

“Masks” – SFComet, March 2015 (Also in Chinese)
Min’s double life as an investigator and a spy aboard a generation ship is about to come crashing down… Unless she can out-think the man in the lizard mask.
(sci-fi)

“Love and Relativity” – Nature Physics, September 1, 2015
When Adhi disappears on an experimental spacecraft, Indira tirelessly searches for answers. But life can’t stand still forever, and history has a funny way of repeating itself.
(sci-fi; meta-fiction)

“Fugue in a Minor Key” – Galaxy’s Edge, November 2015 (note: available through 12/31)
The most important things in Katja’s life are her daughter, her husband, and her internationally acclaimed career as a concert pianist—but the two university techs before her insist they were all a simulation.
(sci-fi)

“Elements of a Successful Exit Broadcast” – Fantastic Stories of the Imagination, November 2015
The last moments of your life can be among the most important. Spend them wisely; spend them well. Do not waste time on empty regret.
(sci-fi)

“Excerpt from the Diagnostic and Necromantic Manual, 5th Edition Regarding the Departed” – The Sockdolager, Winter 2015
There are various methods of bringing loved ones back from the dead—but things don’t always go exactly as you plan.
(fantasy; meta-fiction)

Podcast Fiction

“Raising Words” – Meduspod, February 2, 2015 (Print story published in Penumbra, July 2013)
When the man known as Yamato Takeru dies and transforms into a massive white spirit-bird, one of his daughters stands apart. She does not celebrate his godly transformation. Instead, she remembers…
(fantasy)

“Behind the First Years” – StarShipSofa, September 16, 2015 (Print story published in COSMOS Online, 2013)
When his predecessor dies just before the ship they live on reaches its final destination, Pete is thrust into the role of archivist. Can he adapt? What waits in store on their new home?
(sci-fi)

These are just some of the stories I published this year (12 in all, 9 of which are original publications). You can see the full list on my bibliography page.

Thanks for your (probably hypothetical!) support during 2015, and I’m looking forward to another year’s worth of writing and publishing stories in 2016.

My story “How to Configure your Quantum Disambiguator” up for people’s choice award at Quantum Shorts

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A few days ago, I received an e-mail from the administrators of the Quantum Shorts contest letting me know that my entry, “How to Configure your Quantum Disambiguator,” was in the short-list of ten entries that will be judged for first and second prize.

So huzzah(!) for that good news about this quirky little humorous flash, which first appeared in Nature‘s Futures column back in February.

My story is also eligible for the people’s choice award, so if you enjoy that particular piece of mine, I’d appreciate your vote on the shortlist page. (Each person can only vote one time, though, so make sure you read the others before you decide! There’s some tough competition.)

My story “Elements of a Successful Exit Broadcast” reviewed

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I’ve spotted a couple of reviews out there on the Interwebs for my story “Elements of a Successful Exit Broadcast” in the November issue of Fantastic Stories of the Imagination. I know you’re not supposed to read the things, but I’m a glutton for self-abnegation and never could resist.

Charles Payseur of Quick Sip Reviews has some kind things to say about the story.

There is a great sense something terrible has happened, and that in some ways it takes being in such a situation to give advice on it. That this list is both a manual for others and its own successful exit broadcast. That it follows its own advice, though it slips a bit, as anyone would. That it keeps the pain just under the surface, slipping only momentarily up to show in the quiver of a lip, the hesitation in a word. It’s a gripping story, a very, very short story, and a fine read.

I’ll drink to that! Or I would, if I drank.

Alas and alack, David Wesley Hill of Tangent Online was less than impressed, and reads the story as being about someone who is “concerned about looking good while dying horribly”—not quite what I had in mind with this story, although I suppose it’s a fairly accurate surface level summary.

David does make a good point about this being an implausible set of instructions, but such is the nature of the piece’s second-person conceit. Somewhat more baffling to me is that he spends the rest of the review talking about the authentic smell of burning and/or rancid meat. As he says, “Details count, particularly in a story of 200 words.” And sure, I’ll agree with that. And sure maybe I should have deleted “rancid.” (I will admit that it’s mostly there for rhythm.) All the same, this aspect of David’s review still seems a little over the top to me.

Ah well. You can’t please everybody, right? I think that’s especially true for such a short piece as this one.

“Elements of a Successful Exit Broadcast” is odd, short, and free to read at Fantastic Stories of the Imagination

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I like flash fiction. I also like space ships (albeit ones without puppies involved).

So it pleases me to combine the two in my latest publication, “Elements of a Successful Exit Broadcast,” which is now live in Fantastic Stories of the Imagination‘s November/December issue.

It’s super short–about 200 words total–and has some pretty spiffy art to go with it. Go give it a read if you have a spare moment or two. And enjoy!

My Dicksian story “Fugue in a Minor Key” free to read at Galaxy’s Edge

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What would you do if everything you thought was real was ripped away, and you were young again? And what would you do if everything you thought you real was what you wanted back again?

These are the two core questions asked in my story “Fugue in a Minor Key,” which is in the November issue of Galaxy’s Edge.

The story puts us in the head of Katja Maczyk, a young university student who has to answer both when two lab technicians tell her that her husband, her daughter, and her career as an internationally-renowned pianist was all part of a simulation. Katja struggles to cope with what she’s told is reality, and with the help of a newly-budding romance with one of the lab techs starts to think she might just be able to do so. That’s when the hallucinations start up . . .

I call the story “Dicksian” because I was very consciously trying for an overall plot that wouldn’t have been amiss in the works of Phillip K. Dick. I’ve always enjoyed the way his stories played with reality, and found the results fascinating.

Here’s a short excerpt of my story which gets across the feel of the thing:

What they do is sit me in a folding chair in a white-walled room with a single fluorescent bulb on the ceiling. Two techs in white (one short and female, one skinny and male) sit there and tell me this is real, that I was never a world-famous concert pianist, never married and never mourned my husband, and never never never had a daughter.

As such, the skinny one says, it is impossible for her to be in any danger.

Is she in danger? I ask.

Ma’am—

But I don’t let him finish. If she’s all right, I say, I’d like to see her.

Ma’am, the skinny one repeats. You can’t see her. She isn’t real.

Are you the police?

No, the short one says. We’ve been through this before.

We are experimental psychologists, the skinny one says, and you have spent the past eight minutes immersed in a holistic simulation designed to test the human mind’s response to stress.

I know dialogue without quotation marks is a big stumbling block for a lot of people, but in this case I would argue that it plays a big role in adding to the actual feel of the story and its what-is-real core. In the snippet above, for example, “We’ve been through this before.” could be either something the psychologist says, OR something from the viewpoint character.

Anyway, I’m really pleased overall with how the story turned out, and am glad it found a good home.

Go give the rest a read! It’s free until January, and after that available only in the print edition.

Come check out my story “How to Configure Your Quantum Disambiguator” in the Quantum Shorts competition

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…which sadly is not a competition involving clothes that have the fly open and closed until you think to check.

But it is a pretty neat flash fiction competition. I’ve entered my story “How to Configure Your Quantum Disambiguator” in the lists, so go give it a (re-)read and a vote if you like it. The story appeared earlier this year (February) in Nature, and is in part an ode to Ren and Stimpy. So if nothing else, that ought to make it worth reading, right?

Story sale! “The Plumes of Enceladus” to Abyss & Apex

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Thrilled to announce that I have sold “The Plumes of Enceladus,” a roughly 7,000-word science fiction story, to Abyss & Apex. It is by far the “hardest” story of mine to see publication to date. Most of my skiffy is much squishier…

This one was originally written for the Baen Memorial contest back in February of 2013(!), and has lived a long and varied submission life since then, including an “almost” from Giganotosaurus and Future Fire’s Accessing the Future anthology. It’s been through a number of revisions for clarity and scientific accuracy, and I’m very pleased with where it ended up.

The story follows two pilots, Andry (who is disabled) and Jim, as they race to Enceladus to harvest water from its cryovolcanic plumes. They start the race as bitter rivals, but distance from Earth and isolation from the rest of humanities can have a surprisingly mollifying effect. You’ll have to read it to find out the rest.

Anyway, the publication date is October of 2016, by which time I will probably have forgotten I sold the thing. All the same, I’ll post a link when it’s out!

Out today: an Interview and an Anthology

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Actually, both of these things were out yesterday. But today is the new yesterday! Or it will be tomorrow. So: close enough.

The first thing is an interview with me in the Polk County Itemizer-Observer (my local newspaper) about my win in Writers of the Future. I was happy that the journalist agreed to interview me by e-mail, as I do not do well speaking extemporaneously, and probably as a result gave him way too much text to fit into an article. Still, it’s neat to see myself in print this way. Or electronic print, at least: http://www.polkio.com/news/2015/sep/30/writer-future/

The second thing is a shiny, hardcover print anthology my story “Behind the First Years” is in. The release date for that was some time between September 28th and yesterday (I got conflicting information), and if you’d like a copy you can order it here: http://amzn.to/1ieyQ5z (If you’d like a taste of the anthology, you can listen to an audio version of my story on StarShipSofa.)