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literary-illuminati · 1 year

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Book Review 14 - The Best of Nancy Kress, by Nancy Kress

Okay, continuing to work through my backlog on these! And learning the perils of letting it build for a month because my memories of most of the stories in this are already getting a bit vague and scattered.

So, getting the basic details out of the way – my first short story collection of the year, 600 pages of the works of Nancy Kress, curated and selected by the author herself as all her favourites that would fit in one volume. Someone on here (can’t remember who and tumblr search is being its usual unusuable self, unfortunately) recommended Beggars In Spain to me a while back, and this was the only volume my library system had that included it. So, 500-ish pages of other stories as a nice bonus until I got to the end and remembered that that’s the reason I’d gotten the book out in the first place.

The stories run from less than ten pages to a novella, and Kress includes a little half-page afterward following each. Usually either a reflection on the meaning of the story or an anecdote about its writing or reception, and then where and when it was originally published and any awards it won. And there were a lot of awards You can get a lot of short stories nominated for Hugos over 45 years of writing. The little snapshots of a, like, SF/F writer subculture and the relationships therein were all charming, anyway.

The stories themselves were of pretty wildly varying subject matter, though all science fiction of one kind or another. Everything from post-apocalyptic ruins to spaceships studying the galactic core to the drama and intrigue of gene-modding among high class ballerinas twenty minutes from now. The quality varied – it would pretty much have to, for like two dozen stories written across a span of decades – but overall it was really quite good.

Tone was rather more consistent. Some were happier than others, of course, but even the most fantastical and high concept worlds were pretty grimy and compromised and full of petty politics and pettier assholes. Capital H Heroes were pretty thin on the ground, even (especially) among the various protagonists. Kress seems to have a rare love for women who aren’t just, like, spiky, but genuinely flawed and unpleasant to be around (easier to pull off with short stories than novels, I suppose).

Short stories are great for just putting people in situations generally, really – not sure how long you could really draw out ‘feeling awkward and shitty because the guy you’re having an affair with was on a ‘business trip’ to visit you when aliens abducted and/or killed everyone in the city his wife and kids were in. He absolutely blames you for this,’ but it’s sure a hook!

Familial relationships that are, lets go with troubled, are a whole other recurring theme, too. Sororicidal sisters, deadbeat dads, obsessive ex-wives, parents putting their children through experimental gene-therapy to make sure they grow up with the ideal body to vicariously live out their dreams, the whole set. There’s even some dubiously consensual clone incest at one point!

Though honestly the lack of capital-h Heroes goes beyond just morality – thinking about it, most of the short stories are told from the perspective of observers, survivors, sufferers of exotic diseases, journalists poking at a mess from the outside. People whose world is being acted upon by forces far beyond their control, if not beyond their understanding entirely, and either bearing witness or struggling to adapt and get by. The stories where the protagonists had real agency – the scientists exploring the galaxy’s core, the time-travellers taking an alternate Anne Boleyn hostage to prevent the English Civil Wars – are usually the tragedies. There are a lot of those – or, if not tragedies, then at least stories that end badly for almost everyone involved. I’m halfway convinced that short stories are just a more appealing format for properly bleak fiction, really – less investment in characters’ wellbeing, or narrative expectations pushing towards growth or happy endings.

And now, before I focus on discussing Beggars In Spain specifically, some call outs for the short stories that really stuck in my head

The aforementioned gene-moding scandals in New York ballet, partially told through the perspective of the engineered-to-be-as-smart-as-a-5-year-old bespoke guard dog contracted to protect a start ballerina. Nicely understated cyberpunk setting and also felt extremely realistic as the sort of thing we’ll absolutely be having scandals about in fifty years tbh.

A woman discovering that the aliens are here amid the ruins of postwar Earth because they started getting our television broadcasts and decided that the only thing we had worth taking was dogs, but are stuck here until they figure out how to train them to be as good and heroic as they are in the movies.

A disenchanted and nostalgic man in the 80s finding a specific cupboard that goes back to one specific day in 1935 (I think. Pre-war but Roosevelt administration). He uses this exclusively to make his social security cheque go further and buy little presents for his friend with what in the 80s is pocket change. The actual plot involves despairing over how cynical and bleak-minded his granddaughter the artist is, and deciding to go back and a Good Man to introduce her to.

An extremely short one – just a one-scene vignette, really – about a waitress in a vaguely ‘50s diner when one of the aliens whose been in the news so much escapes their minders and wants to try an apple pie.

(There were also, I must admit, a decent number of stories that left me cold or that I just didn’t see the point of including, but, again, pretty much inevitable in any big collection, isn’t it?)

But okay, so! Beggars in Spain! It’s definitely an interesting novella, and given the fact that it’s 30 years old and was by all accounts incredibly successful I do kind of wonder how many common tropes about the whole super-intelligent designer babies conceit I’ve encountered elsewhere first are downstream of it?

Because I mean, ostensibly it’s about children modified in utero to not need to sleep, but practically that cashes out to them all being creative productive polyglot geniuses. Which is certainly the fantasy of never having to sleep with zero downsides, though honestly I’m pretty sure I’d spend at least half the extra time fucking around online. That said, the sense of alienation the protagonist has dealing with a world where almost everyone around her seems to just be wasting a third of their lives laying down is really well done.

It’s the sort of novella that you could probably write a dozen a dozen different essays about, and would probably benefit from being analyzed with less than a month’s distance and quotes on hand, but for all the futurism (and really not the best story in the collection for that, honestly), the thematic throughline that stood out to me is actually just libertarianism? Or not quite the right word, probably, though it is our heroine’s ideology (she is, after all, the favoured daughter of a self-made magnate, amid a social circle of the golden children of the striving upper-middle class). But the specific idea of enlightened selfishness, that the contract is the basis of all society, that no one owes anyone anything, and you are only worth what you can produce to offer up in exchange to others.

It’s where the title comes from, after all – the eponymous beggars with nothing to offer except their need who are entirely superfluous and inconvenient to the lives of the Sleepless ubermensch; what are they owed? The orthodox answer of the movement basically every major character at least ostensibly ascribes to is ‘nothing’.

Not that any of them actually act like individuals interacting solely through mutually beneficial contracts, which I’m fairly sure is in fact the point – the Sleepless invent nationalism before any of them turn thirty, going to great effort to support and look after each other on the basis of Sleepless-solidarity and an assumption that each of them is the future of humanity. And on the other hand, the protagonist’s father is a domineering, overbearing ass of a partner, draining both of his wives’ personality and will to live in turn until they get tired of being bitter social secretaries for him and quit. Equitable, contractual relationships are thin on the ground – and of course the entire climax is the protagonist relying on friends and an estranged sister to rescue an abused child who surely isn’t likely to pay any of them back for the effort anytime soon.

I thought the hypocrisy was neatly done, anyway. Especially since it’s never really confronted – none of the Sleepless ever show the slightest awareness that the lengths they’ll go to for the sake of each other purely on the basis of their shared enhancements seem to contradict the ideology they treat as holy writ.

Overall not exactly my favourite book of the year, but a fair bit better than a lot of what I’ve read so far. So I’ll call it a win. Just for the time capsule effect of reading stories written by the same author across four decades, if nothing else.

#book review #Nancy Kress #the Best of Nancy Kress #sff #short stories

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st-just · 6 months

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In 2002 I acquired a puppy (Cosette, the world's most spoiled toy poodle) and since then, my fiction has been full of dogs. A novel, titled 'Dogs', was rejected by several publishers who said they loved the writing, the characters, the plot - 'but you kill dogs!' Apparently you can wipe out entire solar systems of humans, but don't touch a canine.

-Nancy Kress, afterward to Laws of Survival

#quote #nancy kress #best of nancy kress #funny

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myclutteredbookshelf · 4 months

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17, 10 & 4 for the end-of-year book ask.

4. Did you discover any new authors that you love this year?

I would have to say Patricia Highsmith. I read two of her books this year, Strangers on a Train and The Price of Salt, and found I really enjoyed how complex even her most seemingly simplistic characters are.

And although I technically read my first book of his last year, I'd probably also include James Baldwin here, as this was the year I realized just how much I love his prose style.

10. What was your favourite new release of the year?

Unfortunately, the only new release book I got around to reading this year (Observer by Nancy Kress and Robert Lanza) was really awful. Maybe I'll be more on top of the book trends in 2024.

17. Did any books surprise you with how good they were?

Those would have to be Octavia Butler's Parable of the Talents and Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch. I had read the first part of Butler's duology a year or two ago, and while I did like it, I was left feeling a little underwhelmed. With Talents, I got all the emotional catharsis I'd been hoping for in the previous book.

With The Goldfinch, well... I wouldn't say it was one of the best books I've ever read, but I definitely have a better understanding of why so many people adore Tartt's work now. Back in 2022, I got around to reading The Secret History, and after having the internet hype it up for years, I was shocked at just how much I hated the book. While I wouldn't consider The Goldfinch one of my favourite reads this year, I can say that I enjoyed it much more than Tartt's debut novel.

#ask game #ask answered

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lacependragon · 2 years

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I've read 14 books so far this year. And like, the reason I think about this is because I wanna read more stories. I always wanna know more, read more, absorb more, be more, y'know? So I wish it was more. But they've mostly been amazing so.

(My library stacks are so big because I am a picky and persnickety person and I will read a chapter, go "not right now" and take it back to the library and make note what mood I need to be in for it. Works well! Gotta be in the right mood.)

I've given 9 books 5 stars this year. I'm good with that.

Five Star Reads So Far This Year:

The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson. I loved the magic. Loved the intrigue. Loved the slow build of horror as you realize what the secrets are, and the excitement as you pull into the story. Definitely continuing.

Jade City by Fonda Lee. God the longer I sit on this book the more I love it. The magic, the fighting, the expertise clear in the action scenes, the characters and their relationships, the gut punch twists that you realize were hinted at but you didn't see them anyway... Yeah, it's good shit.

New Worlds: Year One by Marie Brennan is a non-fiction essay collection based on her worldbuilding essays she posts because of Patreon. I love these so much and I think they're one of the best ways to get help with world building.

Beginnings, Middles, & Ends by Nancy Kress is a non-fiction book on writing. This one gave me some great ideas on how to plot as well as how to express the "promises, progress, payoff" concept that Brandon Sanderson is so fond of talking about.

Blood Like Magic by Liselle Sambury. God. I love this. It was fun, it was dark, it was deep, it was action-packed, it was filled with twists and intrigue. And the reveals all work fantastically without ever feeling cheap or telegraphed. Absolutely phenomenal.

The Blood Trials by N.E. Davenport. This is basically my perfect book. It's gritty, it's full of revenge, it's got dark decisions and grim characters but they are trying and they are loyal and they care about each other. Each step toward anger is a step made in love. I cannot wait to read the second one when it comes out.

The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri. God this is just fantastic. Two very morally grey, very driven women in bad situations team up in order to save themselves and each other and fall in love along the way. But this isn't a romance, this is a story of rebellion, revenge, and war, and it comes through so well. The magic is fascinating and the overall grim but hopeful tone is just so good.

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo. A very short, whimsical feeling book that uses a lot of repetition and slow flashback reveals to build an almost heartbeat into the book. It's such a kind, warm story that brings with it this beautiful amount of love. It's a deeply spiritual book but not in any religious way I can find. It's about the way you feel intimately connected to the world when you read it. Every plant. Every bit of water.

To Be Taught if Fortunate by Becky Chambers. Talk about books that reduce you to tears. This was emotional, insightful, and brilliant. It's a story about the very nature of humanity, and the ways we connect, and the pain of isolation and the unknown, while also the hope and love that comes from the unknown. 130 pages and worth your time.

#bookblr #reading #am reading #book reviews #book recs #lace speaks #lace reads

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tachyonpub · 6 years

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Tachyon tidbits featuring Kameron Hurley, Nancy Kress, Ellen Datlow, and Peter V. Brett

The latest reviews and mentions of Tachyon titles and authors from around the web.

Kameron Hurley, Nancy Kress (photo: Ellen Datlow), Ellen Datlow, and Peter V. Brett (Karsten Moran)

B&N SCI-FI & FANTASY BLOG reveals the cover to Kameron Hurley’s The Light Brigade.

Kameron Hurley (The Stars Are Legion) has definitely earned having her name on the cover in big, bold type on the cover of her ninth novel, sci-fi war thriller The Light Brigade, which we’re showing off today. She’s racked up nominations for her work (among them nods for the Nebula and the Arthur C. Clarke awards), and has won the Hugo, Locus, and British Science Fiction awards.

Art by Even Ventrue and art direction by Michael McCartney

But let’s not forget about the words beneath it, which also promise to be worth your attention. This is military science fiction as only Kameron Hurley could tell it—a story about the life of an infantry grunt and the corporate future of warfare, with shades of Robert Heinlein and Joe Haldeman, and a touch of the bizarre that could only come from the author of God’s War. Or as she puts it: “I’m incredibly thrilled with how this cover turned out. I can’t wait for everyone to experience this time-bending, full-throttle quantum mindquake of a ride.”

ARC MANOR/PHOENIX PICK’s ebook of the month for October is New Under the Sun by Nancy Kress along with a companion novelette by Therese Pieczynski. The book is pay-what-you-want throughout the month.

A brand-new book by master storyteller Nancy Kress. Set in the near future, Nancy Kress' story gives us a world increasingly hostile to new ideas as religious fundamentalism dictates social agenda and where the primary use of science is to bolster these very same uncompromising attitudes. Annabel Lee is a child of this society, but unique. She has been infected by a long-dormant alien parasite. But this ģinfection may be the only hope for the world, if she can survive long enough.

Therese Pieczynski's companion piece predates the world Nancy Kress gives us and takes us to back to 1980s Nicaragua, where a strange demon lurks.

Sam Reader at B&N SCI-FI & FANTASY BLOG delivers 10 Years of Terror: 7 Standout Stories from The Best of the Best Horror of the Year.

This month, Night Shade Books celebrates that milestone with The Best of the Best Horror of the Year, a summing up of 10 years of terror that runs the gamut—stories of gruesome monsters, cerebral surrealism, twisted bloodletting, and existential dread—contributed by a murderer’s row of horror authors.

Curating a list of standout stories from the collection might sound easy, with names like Neil Gaiman, John Langan, and Mira Grant within reach. But naming certain names is, well, expected, and horror isn’t about what’s expected. It’s about challenging expectations and upending context. I’ve written a lot about horror for this blog, so in recommending this retrospective as essential—and it is—I’m doing so only by mentioning authors I’ve never written about before. If you aren’t a denizen of the world of disturbing fiction, it’s more than likely these names are new to you, but they are definitely worth remembering. Certainly, the seven stories below are terribly unforgettable.

For TOR.COM, Martin Cahill reviews Peter V. Brett’s Barren.

Overall, Barren is a success, and if you’ve enjoyed Brett’s previous work, you’re going to enjoy this. Brett continues to add to the mythos of the Demon Cycle, and gives us a chance to see what the future of his world may look like. Progress, both personal and social, is hard fought for in this novella, despite the horrendous actions of the Brook in the past, and I can only hope we see more of this new world, and new social status quo, in future books from Peter V. Brett.

#kameron hurley #nancy kress #peter v brett #b&n sci-fi & fantasy blog #the light brigade #arc manor #phoenix pick #new under the sun #therese pieczynski #ellen datlow #sam reader #the best of the best horror of the year #barren #tor.com #martin cahill #review

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davidfarland · 2 years

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The Price of Magic

When writing in speculative genres, it’s important to consider the cost of magic.

Everything in life has a cost. It’s a law so universally understood that we feel it in our bones. Yet when we deal with fiction, some writers forget to consider the high price of magic.

The renowned author Nancy Kress noted that a defining moment in her career came when a fellow writer pointed out she needed to consider the economic systems in her stories—whether they were fantasy tales or science fiction. In other words, she needed to consider the cost of her magic. With her very next novella, Beggars in Spain, she delved deeply into the realms of economics, politics, and questions of equality—and won both the Hugo and Nebula awards for her work.

There are magic systems where magic doesn’t carry much of a price. For example, in Disney’s Sleeping Beauty, the fairy godmothers cast spells on a whim and anything is possible. But when anything is possible, then nothing in the story can really matter. The audience feels that at some deep level, and so there is little tension.

Now, the movie Sleeping Beauty works in part because it is a lighthearted fantasy, a comedy with no tragic overtones, appropriate for young children.

But for a story to be truly powerful, there usually must be a cost to the magic. For example, in the book Lord of the Rings, Frodo Baggins carries a cursed ring to the Cracks of Doom to destroy it. He manages to get the job done, but he does it by putting a curse on Gollum, telling the wretched creature that if he ever tries to steal the Ring again, he shall be thrust into the Cracks of Doom. Later, Gollum does exactly that, biting off Frodo’s finger and then dancing in triumph—until he slips to his death.

Thus, Frodo used the Ring to cast his curse, and eventually loses the very thing that he fought to protect—his beloved Shire. That is the price that he paid to use magic.

Similarly, if you study the tale of King Arthur, you will find that Arthur uses the magical sword Excalibur in an attempt to bring peace to Britain. But that sword too is accursed—created by the Fey—and despite his best efforts, Arthur’s attempts yield him nothing. Arthur’s story was devised as a cautionary tale against using fairy magic or consorting with otherworldly creatures.

In my book Million Dollar Outlines, I talk about the idea that there are only a few possible outcomes to a story that are highly satisfying. I’ve found that when judging stories for Writers of the Future, my panel of judges will almost always give the award to the story that wrings the most tears from the reader. They usually pick the story where a protagonist wins what he wants, but must pay a high price to do so.

This rule is pretty universal. The price doesn’t need to be excruciating, but it does need to be there.

In fact, here is a secret to writing good fantasy: the price of magic must be bound up into the very source of the magic.

Of course, this doesn’t apply just to fantasy. It also applies to science fiction, for example. Any powerful technology generally comes with a price—the more powerful the technology, the higher the price.

The same is true with any other system of power. If you want to delve into politics, there is a price to be paid. If you want to join a gang, consider the cost.

Even if you just want to write, there are certain costs. Fortunately, the benefits for that one generally outweigh the costs.

#writing tips #writeblr #writing tips and tricks #writing magic

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felassan · 3 years

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Article: ‘Mass Effect 3 Could Have Had A Completely Different Ending’

The Mass Effect 3 ending has been a controversial subject for nine years. As it turns out, it could have been completely different.

This article is part of TheGamer’s Mass Effect week.

Highlights:

This [the RGB endings] wasn’t always the case. According to Mass Effect 3 writer Chris Hepler, the end of Shepard’s story could have been radically different.

Hepler started working on Mass Effect right at the beginning. Although he wasn’t formally part of the team yet, he did additional design, chipped in for playtesting, and offered a fair amount of writing feedback during development of the first game. He had a much more active role on Mass Effect 2, writing the Codex entries, the Galaxy Map, and spearheading the Cerberus Daily News initiative. By the time Mass Effect 3 rolled around, Hepler was writing EDI, Thane, Citadel missions, and was generally considered to be the project’s “loremaster.”

“The ending relies on space magic, and the lead writer, lead gameplay designer, and executive producer all just embraced that and owned it from the get-go,” Hepler tells me. “‘Any sufficiently advanced technology’ and all that. They wanted and got a really big decision that affects the whole galaxy. If you give it a moment's thought, none of the three options are perfectly moral or the ‘right’ answer for everyone. Destroy may not solve the problem of AI and organics; Control rewards the Reapers; even Synthesis, which is harder to get than the other two and sounds like it'd be permanent peace, basically violates the entire galaxy's bodily autonomy without consent. So that part, I think, works.

“Did it satisfy the fans? Hell, no, not at first, and I found a lot of the criticism to be legitimate. The Extended Cut gave us a second chance to make an ending that acknowledged many more of the players' choices, and was about as good as we could reasonably make given the decisions we'd already made. I felt a lot better about myself and us as a team after the EC came out.”

Hepler explains that fans had observed several hints throughout the trilogy that pointed in completely different directions. For example, there are aspects of the lore that actually lean towards the Citadel species allying with the Reapers in order to collectively tackle a dark energy anomaly, as opposed to the Reapers remaining as the Big Bad right up until credits roll. Hepler confirms that there are explicit lore details that lean into this idea, but that he never personally heard about capitalizing on them. Remember, this is coming from the Mass Effect loremaster - if he says there is lore to back up a dark energy anomaly that only the Reapers can save us from, it certainly exists.

“Now, what would I have done?” Hepler asks. “I wouldn't have done space magic at all. I planned to write three Codex entries on the Crucible rather than one, reflecting on what scientists think it is at first, what it appears to be once construction has really made progress, and a third detailing how it will kill the Reapers, readable right before you return to Earth.”

Hepler explains that he wanted to take inspiration from Nancy Kress’ novel, Probability Moon, in order to have the Crucible use a strong nuclear force as a weapon. Kress’ superweapon is designed to create a massive burst of energy that is completely harmless for objects that have a low atomic weight, like organic flesh made of carbon chains. This means that the vast majority of Citadel species would be virtually unaffected by a blast from this weapon.

Objects with a much higher atomic number, however, would be annihilated by the beam. This weapon is constructed in such a way that it emits life-killing radiation for anything made up of heavy metals. “So cybernetic creatures like the Reapers and husks would have their organic parts fried because they're right next to the heavy metals, but the organic creatures a safe distance away, like a civilian population, would be just fine,” Hepler says.

“The rebuilt Shepard, who had a fair bit of cybernetics, would die heroically, but that was always likely to be on the cards. In talking with Ann Lemay, another writer on the project, we theorized that the metal most likely to be the atomic weight cut-off-point was niobium, which today is used in piercings and surgical implants because it doesn't rust and you can embed it in flesh without ill effects. It's even blue when exposed to oxygen, like the glowing blue husks we've been fighting since [the first] Mass Effect. So it would make sense as a building block for the Reapers and their ultimate weakness.”

So, what happened? Unfortunately, Hepler never got to pitch his ending. The design leads moved lightning quick with their Destroy/Control/Synthesis trifecta, to the point that the whole premise had been approved before Hepler even got around to finishing his second Codex entry. As a result, he hadn’t got a full description of how this pertained to the entire galaxy yet - although looking at it now, it could have borrowed from the best bits of each ending. The Reapers would be neutralized, but the tech would be there. Given that Mass Effect is largely about the coexistence of humans and cybernetic creatures, it would also have had an impact on other aspects of the universe - what would happen to EDI?

“I [also] had some concern that Nancy Kress might notice and sue us if I didn't do my homework,” Hepler says. “And there was no time to do that homework, which would be me telling all the leads to hold off for a week while I exchanged a crap-ton of emails with my subject matter experts. ‘Sufficiently advanced technology indistinguishable from magic’ was far easier and had much more project momentum. “I recycled some of the strong-force-as-a-weapon tech into the Reaper infantry weapon, the Blackstar. In retrospect, I wish I'd spoken up more, or thought it all out faster, but them's the breaks.”

As well as Hepler’s own ending - which obviously never made it into the final game, despite sounding as if it had a lot more hard science behind it - Hepler is a big fan of the popular Indoctrination Theory. However, he was pretty open about the fact that this wasn’t something BioWare consciously designed.

“The Indoctrination Theory is a really interesting theory, but it's entirely created by the fans,” Hepler says. “While we made some of the ending a little trippy because Shepard is a breath away from dying and it's entirely possible there's some subconscious power to the kid's words, we never had the sort of meetings you'd need to have to properly seed it through the game.

“We weren't that smart. By all means, make mods and write fanfic about it, and enjoy whatever floats your boat, because it's a cool way to interpret the game. But it wasn't our intention. We didn't write that.”

[source]

#bioware #mass effect #video games #long post #longpost

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thestupidhelmet · 3 years

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Why is writing so hard, do you find it sometimes dificultif you don't for example have anything to write about and sometimes the detaily are hard to write the most i guess at least for me

Writing, like any skill, takes time (years) to become good at. I’ve been creating stories since before I learned how to write the alphabet. But I’m still learning and improving my skills. As long as I write, my growth as a writer -- I hope -- won’t stop.

The best way to learn how to write well is a) write and b) read well-written books and stories.

Next on the list: having a critique partner or group (to exchange stories with so you and they can point out parts in a story that might need work and parts that do work).

Revision is a key part of the writing process. For fanfic, I do at least three major drafts (the first and two revisions).

This post gives examples of common writing technique mistakes fanfic (and new) writers make and how to avoid them.

Below are some books on the craft of writing you might find helpful:

Plot & Structure: Techniques and Exercises for Crafting a Plot That Grips Readers from Start to Finish by James Scott Bell

The Scene Book: A Primer for the Fiction Writer by Sandra Scofield

Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint by Nancy Kress

Description (Elements of Fiction Writing) by Monica Wood

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King

The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes by Jack Bickham

#That 70s Show #That '70s Show #Jackie x Hyde #Eric Forman #Donna Pinciotti #Ask #Anon #My Meta #My Essay #Meta #Essay #Writing Advice

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pigeontheoneandonly · 4 years

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Ink and Carnegie, please!

Thank you for the ask!

So full disclosure, I started writing a reply to this yesterday and my browser did a thing and deleted all of it. So I’m going to try to remember what I said.

ink: what do you do to “set the mood” when writing?

I’m choosing to interpret this as setting the mood in a scene rather than a writing process question.

Speaking as no kind of expert whatsoever, it seems to me the thing people get wrong most often when trying to create immersion is over-describing. They write the scene like a report, describing every detail. And it’s not just a matter of brevity; it’s more that every scene has a soul, a major point the entire scene revolves around.

So it it’s a highly emotional scene between two characters, for example, I focus most of my scene setting on that. My POV character isn’t going to be noticing the blue tablecloths or the rippling grass when her lover is ripping out her heart. But she might notice the way a muscle goes taut in his neck when he glances away at a difficult moment.

Likewise, if I”m trying to put the reader onto a new planet, or into a new experience, I focus on those details and avoid crowding it with dialogue or irrelevant emotions until the scene has been set.

So really I just try to focus on what a character would naturally notice for a given scene, and a given atmosphere. That’s how I try to “set the mood” and create immersion. (I don’t always succeed, but hey I try.)

carnegie: what authors and/or books/stories have inspired you to write or influenced your work?

To a certain extent, my imagination is a sum total of all the media I’ve consumed and loved, combined with my own perspective. So it’s hard for me to pick out a few and say here, these are my primary influences, because I’m always looking to take in more inspiration.

So I’ll just name a few of my favorites...

Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness, and her short story “The Day Before the Revolution” had enormous influence on my personal philosophy. Likewise with Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series (and I’m so envious of his ability to write succinct but extremely on-point character descriptions, among his other talents).

I’ve spoken before of my unending love for Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice which I find a damn near perfect novel, and it does one of my favorite things, which is tell a story within a story.

I’m not the world’s biggest Patrick Rothfuss fan, but The Name of the Wind has some truly gorgeous moments, and frankly it’s worth reading simply because it breaks so many of the “must do this” writing advice rules. Also the best magic system(s?) I’ve ever seen.

I devoured Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar books like candy as a teenager and young adult, along with Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms novels. I still have a lot of affection for them.

I grew up on sci-fi classics like Dune, Foundation, Arthur C. Clarke, and a lot of 90s SF. Nancy Kress’ work has stuck with me a lot. Dan Simmons’ Hyperion taught me that your book doesn’t need an ending to be successful. (/s... I may still be annoyed). Too many short stories to count. Octavia Butler’s “Bloodchild” and Ted Chiang’s “Hell is the Absence of God” come to mind.

Honestly I could keep going but this is already pretty long.

#ask me anything #now i'm all nostalgic #sepiateacher

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alarawriting · 4 years

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Sleepless

I have strong opinions about Nancy Kress’ Beggars series. They are not positive opinions.

There was an experiment, to create children who would not need to sleep.

Some people think such an experiment would create supermen, geniuses who would, for some reason, be unaging. Logic says otherwise. Sleep performs a function.

If you were such a child who does not need to sleep, what would you be?

You do not sleep.

You do not dream, and lacking dreams, you lack superstition. You don’t believe things just because you’re told them or because there seems to be some correlation; you need cold hard evidence.

This does not make you a brilliant inventor or a hard-nosed business person. What it makes you is a victim of analysis paralysis. Without hard facts to back you up, you can’t guess what might be true. When there’s a controversy and there’s evidence on both sides, you don’t know what to believe. You don’t accept things as true just because your parents say them, so you’re lucky to be alive after all the times you burned yourself on a hot stove or stuck a fork in an electric socket or jumped off a building because you wanted to confirm that what people had told you would happen actually would.

You’re good at debunking. You’re brilliant at finding bugs in code. You can find the flaws in a scientific study, and your merciless lens turns on academic and corporate research alike. But you can’t make anything. You don’t believe in anything you can’t prove, so fiction falls flat for you – it’s unreal – and you’re not terribly empathic, because human emotions from other humans who aren’t you is a thing you can never empirically prove. You aren’t creative – you can’t come up with inventions, you can’t innovate a brilliant new coding algorithm or prove a mathematical theorem no one has ever done before. You’re just very, very good at finding the flaws in other people’s creative products.

The autistic community embraces you as one of their own, though technically you are not autistic; you are something else. Your parents, wealthy captains of industry, are disappointed; they expected you to use your extra time in a way they would appreciate. They didn’t expect someone rigid, unyielding, someone who would demand proof of everything and whose analyses could easily disprove all the lies they used to convince themselves they were good and deserving people. You end up becoming a socialist because all the evidence suggests that, of the many ways humans can organize the distribution of resources, it’s the one with the best track record of causing less misery than the alternatives. You mock people who confuse socialism and communism. You are not above trading on your parents’ names and money to have a public voice, and you’ve become famous for your ability to debunk bad science.

You will not revolutionize the world, but you have a third more time than other people and you were born with money (the experiment that created you was quite expensive). You contribute to the betterment of humanity, in your way.

After the first generation of your kind are created, there are no more; wealthy capitalist parents do not want socialist children who can only tear down flawed structures built by others and cannot build anything themselves. Your own children, for those of you who have them, may or may not share your mutation. Eventually your condition is classified as a disorder, after your parents’ wealth has mostly run out late into your lifetime and the world has forgotten they respected you once. Humanity goes back to ignoring you and listening to superstition and tribal beliefs… because the ability to derive a pattern from a very small amount of data is the root of both superstition and innovation, and innovation turns out to be too important to give up superstition.

You do not sleep. But sleep performs the important function of re-organizing the memories acquired during the day and correlating them with each other, prioritizing some and storing others away in cold storage or even deleting them. This function was too important to do without, so your brain was re-engineered to do it while you are awake.

This means you’re dreaming, in a way, all the time, while you’re wide awake. It makes you very creative, but very unfocused. Some of your cohort actively hallucinate, but you can all generally tell the difference between the dream-things you see or hear or feel and reality; it’s just that the dream-things are vivid enough to capture your attention, most of the time. It’s a good thing there are self-driving cars, because you probably are not safe to drive yourself.

You are not a hard-nosed business person. Some of your cohort do come up with brilliant ideas for business, and because you have rich parents, they are able to get those businesses started… but all of you are too unfocused, too distractible, too deep within your own creative minds to be good at following the bottom line. Most of the businesses either fail or get sold to other companies run by people who can actually do business, but don’t have great ideas. Most of you go into art of some kind. Writing, visual arts, comic books, music… a few do movie or film, but none of you are at your best in collaboration.

The ADHD community embraces you as one of their own, though technically you do not have ADHD; no human could maintain a tight focus when ghostly images and snippets of dream are constantly playing in their minds. Because your family is wealthy, you get a personal assistant who helps you with the paperwork parts of your artistic career, and you get a publicist when you’re still very young, and the fact that you don’t sleep means you make the news just by existing. So your artistic career is successful, and your work is well-known, but artists don’t generally get rich; you live off your parents’ money until you get sick of their snide condescension because the ability they paid millions of dollars to infuse you with has a downside that means you will never be what they wanted you to be. Then you downsize your life expectations by a lot and live modestly off your successful art career. It helps that you can be very prolific, because a third of your life has been given back to you for conscious activity.

Some of the children of your cohort inherit the ability. Some don’t. Parents tend to fawn on the grandchildren who are pure human, Sleepers rather then Sleepless, because they’re the ones who could possibly inherit business empires. That’s fine. You try your best to raise your children not to compete with one another on the basis of whether or not they sleep, but kids will be kids and not all of the siblings get along.

After the first generation of your kind are created, few others are made; most wealthy parents want a child who can be good in business rather than a child who can be a brilliant artist, but there are those who like the feather-in-cap of famous, respected children who will be known for their creativity, so a small trickle of kids like you are born every ten years or so. When it happens it generally makes the news. You reach out to those kids when they turn thirteen to offer them your knowledge and life experience. When you encounter parents who have tried to cut their children off from your community out of religious belief or misguided belief in their own ability to mold and shape children, you bring child abuse charges against them. You’re not good with the paperwork but you are good with influencing public opinion, and most of you still have assistants or interns who can handle the paper part.

You don’t regret what your parents gave you, even if they do. It’s a good life.

You do not sleep. Where other people have a third of their life where the energy hog that is consciousness is shut down, and therefore the body has more free energy to carry out tasks like growth and immune response, you don’t have that. Your consciousness is always on, always consuming 80% of the free energy your body has.

You’re thin. You can eat anything you want, but it burns off of you because your body needs so much energy. You are often tired. You can’t sleep to replenish your energy; you can rest, unmoving, but consciousness is still on even if you’re meditating or vegging out in front of the TV. When you get sick, you stay sick for a long time. You get sick a lot. It’s not enough to consider a chronic illness, but it drains you. It makes it hard for you to hold down jobs, because you don’t sleep but if you feel too miserable to go to work it’s just the same as if you slept through your alarm and never went in.

You have more time than chronically ill people; there are advantages to having 8 extra hours in a day. Most of you live off your parents’ money and do things like volunteering and activism when the work that needs doing are things like stuffing envelopes or reaching out to people on the phone, or you became independent contractors so you could make your own hours.

You take your vitamins, you eat healthy, you exercise when you have the strength for it. Maybe it helps a little bit; you can’t really tell, but it makes you feel like you’re doing something to improve your life.

Your parents sue the people who created you, because seriously, wasn’t “people who live an extra third of their day need more energy to survive” predictable? They lose, because they signed a lot of waivers. You didn’t sign any waivers, so some of you try suing, and win.

No more are created after your original cohort, largely due to the lawsuits; no one’s willing to make more of you. It’s just as well. You make the best of your life, but to be honest, you long to be able to sleep – to engage in a kind of rest where you aren’t bored, and your mind invents interesting stories to show you, and when you get up you actually feel rested and energetic? (People who sleep tell you that that second part doesn’t happen. You retort that that’s because they don’t sleep enough, and if you had the ability to sleep, you wouldn’t waste it by staying up late and waking up early!) You wish for that with all your heart, but you can’t have it, and you know it.

By the time you’re in your forties, the activism of you and your cohort has gotten your condition declared a disability, and many of you have been campaigning for disability rights for years, since you recognize the similarities with your situation when people suffer fatigue disorders or other vague and amorphous conditions that make them tired all the time. So when some of your children are born as Sleepless, you’ve changed the world to make it easier for them to maximize their own capabilities, and they get a little more done than you were able to do. And really, isn’t that what we all want for our children?

You do not sleep, and it’s perfect. You were re-engineered for a faster metabolism so that you can supply enough energy to your body and brain for the extra hours of consciousness. Your brain was re-engineered so that you don’t need to go offline and have fifteen minutes of dreaming every hour and a half for eight hours; you just need to enter an optional, meditation-like rest state for one or two hours every five days or so to get the same results. You are every bit as creative and every bit as capable of focus and have every bit as much energy as the average Sleeper, but you have eight more hours a day to do it in (except for every five days, when you only get six or seven more hours. Still a huge advantage.)

Your parents are wealthy – no one who didn’t have millions of dollars to spend on a designer child was able to make their child a Sleepless – so there are no barriers to your success. You get your education completed early because you had extra time; you developed friendships with children older than you, because those were the ones who were awake later in the evening; you learned how to make use of solitude, and all but the most introverted of you can spend most of the daylight hours interacting with people and still get a lot done at night. Whether you choose to be a scientist, an inventor, an artist, or an entrepreneur, you do well. Your parents’ wealth and your fame for being born as an exotic designer child amplifies your ability to do whatever you want.

With so much success and so much extra time and so much experience socializing, most of you find relationships and have kids before you’re 30. Some of your kids have the trait, some don’t. You try, as best as you can, not to favor the Sleepless children over the Sleepers, but it’s hard not to be frustrated at the lack of productivity your Sleeper children have.

It’s when your cohort is in its 30’s and 40’s that you learn what you really bequeathed your Sleepless children, and what your parents bequeathed to you.

A faster metabolism burns out a body faster. In your 30’s you look 30 but the aches and pains and development of chronic illnesses like diabetes are accelerating faster than they do for Sleepers of equal socioeconomic status. In your 40’s the decline accelerates; you look 50 at 45, 60 at 50, 70 at 55.

Members of your cohort start dying of old age in your 50’s. You realize you aren’t going to make it to 65, and that your Sleepless children, already in their 30’s, have much less time than you or they or anyone thought they did. In the end, you didn’t get more time than anyone else; you just got to take it all at once instead of spreading it out over time.

Many of your parents are still alive, the excellent health care that the wealthy can afford keeping them going at 80-something. You’re rapidly catching up with them, and the best medical care in the world can’t stop it. Some of you rant at your parents, or sue the company that made you, but you don’t. How could anyone have known? It didn’t happen to animals in testing, but rat lives are so short to begin with, perhaps it disappeared into data noise. You know your parents only wanted the best for you, just like you only wanted the best for your children. You reconcile with your Sleeper children, who are a trifle embittered at what they see as the favoritism you showed their Sleepless siblings, because you’re dying and they still love you even if you weren’t the best parent you could have been. Your parents apologize to you, and you forgive them. Your Sleepless children visit you constantly, knowing that you are their future, that what’s happening to you is what lies ahead for them.

You’re 62 when you die, after many surgical interventions and a decade of the best prescription drugs money could buy. The creation of more like you is made illegal a year later, but not before every parent rich enough to do it has had a Sleepless child for the past six decades.

While so many of the wealthy are dealing with the impact of Sleepless shortened lifespans and how very many of the wealthy are affected by it, society finally passes laws that redistribute income in a way where very likely, no one in the future will be able to afford a designer child for several million dollars anyway, even if it hadn’t been made illegal. Out of so many personal tragedies, the standard of living rises and the general health and happiness of the population improves. If you were still alive, you might have considered that a positive legacy.

#nancy kress #response fic #libertarian science fiction is often not very good #alara gets salty about published novels

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mostlysignssomeportents · 5 years

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The 2019 Locus Award nominees: your guide to the best sf/f of 2018

Locus Magazine has published its annual Locus Award finalists, a shortlist of the best science fiction and fantasy of the past calendar year. I rely on this list to find the books I've overlooked (so. many. books.). This year's looks like a bumper crop.

Now that the finalists have been announced, Locus subscribers and others can cast their votes; the awards will be presented in Seattle during a weekend-long event that runs June 28-30, MC'ed by Connie Willis.

SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL

Record of a Spaceborn Few, Becky Chambers (Harper Voyager US; Hodder & Stoughton)

The Calculating Stars, Mary Robinette Kowal (Tor)

If Tomorrow Comes, Nancy Kress (Tor)

Revenant Gun, Yoon Ha Lee (Solaris US; Solaris UK)

Blackfish City, Sam J. Miller (Ecco; Orbit UK)

Embers of War, Gareth L. Powell (Titan US; Titan UK)

Elysium Fire, Alastair Reynolds (Gollancz; Orbit US)

Red Moon, Kim Stanley Robinson (Orbit US; Orbit UK)

Unholy Land, Lavie Tidhar (Tachyon)

Space Opera, Catherynne M. Valente (Saga)

FANTASY NOVEL

Lies Sleeping, Ben Aaronovitch (DAW; Gollancz)

Foundryside, Robert Jackson Bennett (Crown; Jo Fletcher)

The Monster Baru Cormorant, Seth Dickinson (Tor)

Deep Roots, Ruthanna Emrys (Tor.com Publishing)

Ahab’s Return, Jeffrey Ford (Morrow)

European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman, Theodora Goss (Saga)

The Mere Wife, Maria Dahvana Headley (MCD)

The Wonder Engine, T. Kingfisher (Argyll Productions)

Spinning Silver, Naomi Novik (Del Rey; Macmillan)

Creatures of Want and Ruin, Molly Tanzer (John Joseph Adams)

HORROR NOVEL

In the Night Wood, Dale Bailey (John Joseph Adams)

Unlanguage, Michael Cisco (Eraserhead)

We Sold Our Souls, Grady Hendrix (Quirk)

Coyote Songs, Gabino Iglesias (Broken River)

The Hunger, Alma Katsu (Putnam; Bantam Press UK)

The Outsider, Stephen King (Scribner; Hodder & Stoughton)

The Listener, Robert McCammon (Cemetery Dance)

Cross Her Heart, Sarah Pinborough (HarperCollins UK/Morrow)

The Cabin at the End of the World, Paul Tremblay (Morrow; Titan UK)

Tide of Stone, Kaaron Warren (Omnium Gatherum)

YOUNG ADULT BOOK

The Gone Away Place, Christopher Barzak (Knopf)

The Cruel Prince, Holly Black (Little, Brown; Hot Key)

The Belles, Dhonielle Clayton (Freeform; Gollancz)

Tess of the Road, Rachel Hartman (Random House)

Dread Nation, Justina Ireland (Balzer + Bray)

Cross Fire, Fonda Lee (Scholastic)

The Agony House, Cherie Priest & Tara O’Connor (Levine)

Half-Witch, John Schoffstall (Big Mouth House)

Impostors, Scott Westerfeld (Scholastic US; Scholastic UK)

Mapping the Bones, Jane Yolen (Philomel)

FIRST NOVEL

Children of Blood and Bone, Tomi Adeyemi (Henry Holt; Macmillan)

Semiosis, Sue Burke (Tor)

Armed in Her Fashion, Kate Heartfield (ChiZine)

The Poppy War, R.F. Kuang (Harper Voyager US; Harper Voyager UK)

The Quantum Magician, Derek Künsken (Solaris US; Solaris UK)

Annex, Rich Larson (Orbit US)

Severance, Ling Ma (Farrar, Straus, Giroux)

Witchmark, C.L. Polk (Tor.com Publishing)

Trail of Lightning, Rebecca Roanhorse (Saga)

Empire of Sand, Tasha Suri (Orbit US; Orbit UK)

NOVELLA

The Black God’s Drums, P. Djèlí Clark (Tor.com Publishing)

The Tea Master and the Detective, Aliette de Bodard (Subterranean)

“Umbernight“, Carolyn Ives Gilman (Clarkesworld 2/18)

Black Helicopters, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Tor.com Publishing)

Time Was, Ian McDonald (Tor.com Publishing)

Gods, Monsters, and the Lucky Peach, Kelly Robson (Tor.com Publishing)

The Freeze-Frame Revolution, Peter Watts (Tachyon)

Artificial Condition, Martha Wells (Tor.com Publishing)

Rogue Protocol, Martha Wells (Tor.com Publishing)

The Descent of Monsters, JY Yang (Tor.com Publishing)

NOVELETTE

“The Donner Party”, Dale Bailey (F&SF 1–2/18)

“Okay, Glory”, Elizabeth Bear (Twelve Tomorrows)

“No Flight Without the Shatter“, Brooke Bolander (Tor.com 8/15/18)

The Only Harmless Great Thing, Brooke Bolander (Tor.com Publishing)

“The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections“, Tina Connolly (Tor.com 7/11/18)

“An Agent of Utopia”, Andy Duncan (An Agent of Utopia)

“Queen Lily“, Theodora Goss (Lightspeed 11/18)

“Nine Last Days on Planet Earth“, Daryl Gregory (Tor.com 9/19/18)

“Quality Time”, Ken Liu (Robots vs Fairies)

“How to Swallow the Moon“, Isabel Yap (Uncanny 11–12/18)

SHORT STORY

“The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington“, Phenderson Djèlí Clark (Fireside 2/18)

“The Bookcase Expedition”, Jeffrey Ford (Robots vs Fairies)

“STET“, Sarah Gailey (Fireside 10/18)

“A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies“, Alix E. Harrow (Apex 2/6/18)

“Cuisine des Mémoires”, N.K. Jemisin (How Long ’til Black Future Month?)

“The Storyteller’s Replacement”, N.K. Jemisin (How Long ’til Black Future Month?)

“Firelight“, Ursula K. Le Guin (Paris Review Summer ’18)

“The Starship and the Temple Cat“, Yoon Ha Lee (Beneath Ceaseless Skies 2/1/18)

“Mother of Invention“, Nnedi Okorafor (Future Tense)

“The Court Magician“, Sarah Pinsker (Lightspeed 1/18)

ANTHOLOGY

The Best Horror of the Year Volume Ten, Ellen Datlow, ed. (Night Shade)

The Book of Magic, Gardner Dozois, ed. (Bantam; Harper Voyager UK)

The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Thirty-fifth Annual Collection, Gardner Dozois, ed. (St. Martin’s Griffin)

Worlds Seen in Passing, Irene Gallo, ed. (Tor.com Publishing)

The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2018, N.K. Jemisin & John Joseph Adams, eds. (Mariner)

Robots vs Fairies, Dominik Parisien & Navah Wolfe, eds. (Saga)

The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year, Volume Twelve, Jonathan Strahan, ed. (Solaris US; Solaris UK)

Infinity’s End, Jonathan Strahan, ed. (Solaris US; Solaris UK)

The Underwater Ballroom Society, Tiffany Trent & Stephanie Burgis, eds. (Five Fathoms)

The Future Is Female!, Lisa Yaszek, ed. (Library of America)

COLLECTION

The Tangled Lands, Paolo Bacigalupi & Tobias S. Buckell (Saga)

Brief Cases, Jim Butcher (Ace; Orbit UK)

An Agent of Utopia, Andy Duncan (Small Beer)

How Long ’til Black Future Month?, N.K. Jemisin (Orbit US; Orbit UK)

The Dinosaur Tourist, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Subterranean)

Fire & Blood, George R.R. Martin (Bantam; Harper Voyager UK)

All the Fabulous Beasts, Priya Sharma (Undertow)

The Future Is Blue, Catherynne M. Valente (Subterranean)

Starlings, Jo Walton (Tachyon)

How to Fracture a Fairy Tale, Jane Yolen (Tachyon)

MAGAZINE

Analog

Asimov’s

Beneath Ceaseless Skies

Clarkesworld

F&SF

Fireside

Lightspeed

Strange Horizons

Tor.com

Uncanny

PUBLISHER

Angry Robot

Baen

DAW

Gollancz

Orbit

Saga

Small Beer

Subterranean

Tachyon

Tor

EDITOR

John Joseph Adams

Neil Clarke

Ellen Datlow

Gardner Dozois

C.C. Finlay

Jonathan Strahan

Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas

Ann & Jeff VanderMeer

Sheila Williams

Navah Wolfe

ARTIST

Kinuko Y. Craft

Galen Dara

Julie Dillon

Leo & Diane Dillon

Bob Eggleton

Victo Ngai

John Picacio

Shaun Tan

Charles Vess

Michael Whelan

NON-FICTION

Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece, Michael Benson (Simon & Schuster)

Sense of Wonder: Short Fiction Reviews (2009-2017), Gardner Dozois (ReAnimus)

Strange Stars, Jason Heller (Melville House)

Dreams Must Explain Themselves: The Selected Non-Fiction of Ursula K. Le Guin, Ursula K. Le Guin (Gollancz)

Ursula K. Le Guin: Conversations on Writing, Ursula K. Le Guin & David Naimon (Tin House)

Old Futures: Speculative Fiction and Queer Possibility, Alexis Lothian (NYU Press)

Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth, Catherine McIlwaine, ed. (Bodleian Library)

Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction, Alec Nevala-Lee (Dey Street)

None of This Is Normal: The Fiction of Jeff VanderMeer, Benjamin J. Robertson (University of Minnesota Press)

An Informal History of the Hugos: A Personal Look Back at the Hugo Awards, 1953-2000, Jo Walton (Tor)

ART BOOK

Yoshitaka Amano, Yoshitaka Amano: The Illustrated Biography – Beyond the Fantasy, Florent Gorges (Les Éditions Pix’n Love 2015; Dark Horse)

Spectrum 25: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art, John Fleskes, ed. (Flesk)

John Howe, A Middle-earth Traveler: Sketches from Bag End to Mordor (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; HarperCollins UK)

Jeffrey Alan Love, The Thousand Demon Tree (Flesk)

Simon Stålenhag, The Electric State (Fria Ligan ’17; Skybound)

Shaun Tan, Cicada (Lothian; Levine ’19)

Charles Vess, The Books of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition, Ursula K. Le Guin (Saga)

Michael Whelan, Beyond Science Fiction: The Alternative Realism of Michael Whelan (Baby Tattoo)

Dungeons & Dragons Art and Arcana: A Visual History, Michael Witwer, Kyle Newman, Jon Peterson, & Sam Witwer (Ten Speed)

Lisbeth Zwerger, The Tales of Beedle the Bard, J.K. Rowling (Levine)

https://boingboing.net/2019/05/07/futures-of-the-past-year.html

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literary-illuminati · 1 year

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They sure did!

#the best of nancy kress #nancy kress #pg

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infactforgetthepark · 2 years

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[Free eBook] Future Perfect by Nancy Kress [Award-Winning Science Fiction Collection]

Future Perfect: Six Stories of Genetic Engineering by Nancy Kress, a recipient of the Nebula, Hugo, John W. Campbell Memorial, and Theodore Sturgeon Awards, is a collection of her short stories, free for a limited time courtesy of publisher Phoenix Pick Press.

This is their featured Free Book of the Month for February, and contains science fiction stories (some with a mystery/crime hybrid element) originally published between 1994 and 2008 focusing on themes of genetic modification and societal change as a result. There's also a discount tie-in offer on several more of Kress' story collections and backlist reprint novels.

The stories include the 1994 Asimov's Reader's Choice 1st place novella “Dancing on Air” (a mystery/technothriller looking at the potential future of ballet), the hat-trick winning 1998 Nebula Award for Best Novelette and 1st place Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award and Asimov's Reader's Choice selection “The Flowers of Aulit Prison” (a psychological thriller set in an alien society with an unusual intersection of memory and reality), as well as several other stories set in futures both near and far, that were also nominated for various honours.

Offered DRM-free worldwide through Monday, February 28th (the monthly feature tends to rotate on the 1st Tuesday of every month, available directly from the publisher.

Currently free @ the publisher's dedicated promo page (DRM-free ePub & Mobi, follow the instructions on the page to reset the suggested price in the cart to $0.00)

The tie-in offer is for a selection of two backlist novels, three novellas, and two short story mini-collections, available separately or for a discounted bundle of just $9.99 for the 7 additional ebooks which is good value for money, as Kress is an excellent author (and one of my personal favourites) if you like her style and subject matter which tends to focus on exploring the potentials and drawbacks of widespread biotechnology.

Oaths & Miracles & Stinger are part of the the Robert Cavanaugh series of bio-technothrillers originally published by Tor Books in the 1990s. “Beggars in Spain” is the original 1992 Nebula Award-winning novella that was later expanded into the eponymous novel in her Sleepless trilogy, and Act One is a standalone novella that was a Hugo Award finalist, and this mini-compilation also contains a topical essay by Kress. You may already have some of these which were featured as previous Free Book of the Month selections and/or as part of previous tie-in discount offers accompanying them.

Description Nancy Kress is unrivaled in her treatment of genetic engineering. In 1991 she wrote the ground-breaking classic novella Beggars in Spain (Hugo/Nebula) and since then has only enhanced her outstanding reputation of telling stories set in the near-future and dealing with genetics.

This collection brings together six of these stories written between 1984 and 2008, including "The Flowers of Aulit Prison" which won the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for best short story.

#free ebook #nancy kress #science fiction #mystery #nebula award #short stories #drm free

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allbestnet · 6 years

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The top 120 Speculative Fiction , all appearing on 2 or more “Best Speculative Fiction ” lists.

Station Eleven by Mandel, Emily St. John (Appears on 7 Lists)

Bone Clocks, The by Mitchell, David (Appears on 1 Lists)

Martian, The by Weir, Andy (Appears on 8 Lists)

Annihilation (or omnibus Area X) by Vandermeer, Jeff (Appears on 4 Lists)

Magician's Land, The by Grossman, Lev (Appears on 8 Lists)

Boy, Snow, Bird by Oyeyemi, Helen (Appears on 2 Lists)

Peripheral, The by Gibson, William (Appears on 9 Lists)

Lock In by Scalzi, John (Appears on 8 Lists)

On Such a Full Sea by Lee, Chang-Rae (Appears on 7 Lists)

Book of Strange New Things, The by Faber, Michel (Appears on 6 Lists)

Broken Monsters by Beukes, Lauren (Appears on 5 Lists)

Goblin Emperor, The by Addison, Katherine (Appears on 5 Lists)

Red Rising by Brown, Pierce (Appears on 5 Lists)

City of Stairs by Bennett, Robert Jackson (Appears on 4 Lists)

Ancillary Sword by Leckie, Ann (Appears on 3 Lists)

Half a King by Abercrombie, Joe (Appears on 3 Lists)

Queen of the Tearling, The by Johansen, Erika (Appears on 2 Lists)

Bees, The by Paull, Laline (Appears on 1 Lists)

Fool's Assassin by Hobb, Robin (Appears on 1 Lists)

Girl with All the Gifts, The by Carey, M. R. (Appears on 1 Lists)

Words of Radiance by Sanderson, Brandon (Appears on 1 Lists)

First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, The by North, Claire (Appears on 9 Lists)

My Real Children by Walton, Jo (Appears on 9 Lists)

Revival by King, Stephen (Appears on 9 Lists)

California by Lepucki, Edan (Appears on 8 Lists)

Enchanted, The by Denfeld, Rene (Appears on 8 Lists)

J by Jacobson, Howard (Appears on 8 Lists)

Skin Game by Butcher, Jim (Appears on 8 Lists)

Three-Body Problem, The by Liu, Cixin (Appears on 8 Lists)

Bird Box by Malerman, Josh (Appears on 7 Lists)

Broken Eye, The by Weeks, Brent (Appears on 7 Lists)

Cibola Burn by Corey, James S. A. (Appears on 7 Lists)

Prince of Fools by Lawrence, Mark (Appears on 7 Lists)

Slow Regard of Silent Things, The by Rothfuss, Patrick (Appears on 7 Lists)

World of Trouble by Winters, Ben (Appears on 7 Lists)

Breach Zone by Cole, Myke (Appears on 6 Lists)

Defenders by McIntosh, Will (Appears on 6 Lists)

Full Fathom Five by Gladstone, Max (Appears on 6 Lists)

Mirror Empire, The by Hurley, Kameron (Appears on 6 Lists)

New Annotated H.P. Lovecraft, The by Lovecraft, H.P. & Klinger, Leslie S. (Appears on 6 Lists)

Traitor's Blade by De Castell, Sebastian (Appears on 6 Lists)

Darkling Sea, A by Cambias, James (Appears on 5 Lists)

Emperor's Blades, The by Staveley, Brian (Appears on 5 Lists)

Horrorstör by Hendrix, Grady (Appears on 5 Lists)

Steles of the Sky by Bear, Elizabeth (Appears on 5 Lists)

Three, The by Lotz, Sarah (Appears on 5 Lists)

Afterparty by Gregory, Daryl (Appears on 4 Lists)

Angel of Losses, The by Feldman, Stephanie (Appears on 4 Lists)

Book of Life, The by Harkness, Deborah (Appears on 4 Lists)

Boy Who Drew Monsters, The by Donohue, Keith (Appears on 4 Lists)

California Bones by van Eekhout, Greg (Appears on 4 Lists)

Great Glass Sea, The by Weil, Josh (Appears on 4 Lists)

Maplecroft: the Borden Dispatches by Priest, Cherie (Appears on 4 Lists)

Quick, The by Owen, Laura (Appears on 4 Lists)

Shadow Throne, The by Wexler, Django (Appears on 4 Lists)

Tower Lord by Ryan, Anthony (Appears on 4 Lists)

Troop, The by Cutter, Nick (Appears on 4 Lists)

Truth and Fear by Higgins, Peter (Appears on 4 Lists)

Winter People, The by McMahon, Jennifer (Appears on 4 Lists)

Academic Exercises by Parker, K. J. (Appears on 3 Lists)

All Those Vanished Engines by Park, Paul (Appears on 3 Lists)

Causal Angel, The by Rajaniemi, Hannu (Appears on 3 Lists)

Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands by Bohjalian, Chris (Appears on 3 Lists)

Crimson Campaign, The by McClellan, Brian (Appears on 3 Lists)

End of the Sentence, The by Headley, Maria Dahvana & Howard, Kat (Appears on 3 Lists)

Goodhouse by Marshall, Peyton (Appears on 3 Lists)

Heaven's Queen by Bach, Rachel (Appears on 3 Lists)

Last Projector, The by Keaton, David James (Appears on 3 Lists)

Last Town, The by Crouch, Blake (Appears on 3 Lists)

Magic Breaks by Andrews, Ilona (Appears on 3 Lists)

Mammoth Book of SF Stories by Women, The by MacFarlane, Alex Dally (Appears on 3 Lists)

Night Broken by Briggs, Patricia (Appears on 3 Lists)

Prince Lestat by Rice, Anne (Appears on 3 Lists)

Sleep Donation by Russell, Karen (Appears on 3 Lists)

Supernatural Enhancements, The by Cantero, Edgar (Appears on 3 Lists)

Veil of the Deserters by Salyards, Jeff (Appears on 3 Lists)

We Are All Completely Fine by Gregory, Daryl (Appears on 3 Lists)

Widow's House, The by Abraham, Daniel (Appears on 3 Lists)

Word Exchange, The by Graedon, Alena (Appears on 3 Lists)

Yesterday's Kin by Kress, Nancy (Appears on 3 Lists)

Young Woman in a Garden by Sherman, Delia (Appears on 3 Lists)

Abyss beyond Dreams, The by Hamilton, Peter (Appears on 2 Lists)

Best Horror of the Year, Volume 6, The by Datlow, Ellen, ed. (Appears on 2 Lists)

Dark Defiles, The by Morgan, Richard K. (Appears on 2 Lists)

Dust and Light by Berg, Carol (Appears on 2 Lists)

Europe in Autumn by Hutchinson, Dave (Appears on 2 Lists)

Girl in the Road, The by Byrne, Monica (Appears on 2 Lists)

Gunpowder Alchemy by Lin, Jeannie (Appears on 2 Lists)

High Druid's Blade: the Defenders of Shannara, The by Brooks, Terry (Appears on 2 Lists)

Hollow World by Sullivan, Michael J. (Appears on 2 Lists)

How a Mother Weaned Her Girl from Fairy Tales by Bernheimer, Kate (Appears on 2 Lists)

Hyde by Levine, Daniel (Appears on 2 Lists)

Incorruptibles, The by Jacobs, John Hornor (Appears on 2 Lists)

Influx by Suarez, Daniel (Appears on 2 Lists)

Kraken Project, The by Preston, Douglas (Appears on 2 Lists)

Lagoon by Okorafor, Nnedi (Appears on 2 Lists)

Last Plane to Heaven, The by Lake, Jay (Appears on 2 Lists)

Lines of Departure by Kloos, Marko (Appears on 2 Lists)

Lockstep by Schroder, Karl (Appears on 2 Lists)

Memory of Water by Itaranta, Emmi (Appears on 2 Lists)

Paper Magician, The by Holmberg, Charlie (Appears on 2 Lists)

Questionable Practices by Gunn, Eileen (Appears on 2 Lists)

Race, The by Allan, Nina (Appears on 2 Lists)

Resurrections by Kaveney, Roz (Appears on 2 Lists)

Rhesus Chart, The by Stross, Charles (Appears on 2 Lists)

Rogues by Martin, George R.R. and Dozois, Gardner, eds. (Appears on 2 Lists)

Rooms by Oliver, Lauren (Appears on 2 Lists)

Sand by Howey, Hugh (Appears on 2 Lists)

Shattered by Hearne, Kevin (Appears on 2 Lists)

Shotgun Arcana, The by Belcher, R. S. (Appears on 2 Lists)

Silent History, The by Horowitz, Eli et al. (Appears on 2 Lists)

Smiler's Fair by Levene, Rebecca (Appears on 2 Lists)

Spirits Abroad by Cho, Zen (Appears on 2 Lists)

Sworn in Steel by Hulick, Douglas (Appears on 2 Lists)

Three Souls by Chang, Janie (Appears on 2 Lists)

Tropic of Serpents: a Memoir by Lady Trent, The by Brennan, Marie (Appears on 2 Lists)

Valour and Vanity by Kowal, Mary Robinette (Appears on 2 Lists)

War Dogs by Bear, Greg (Appears on 2 Lists)

Weirdness, The by Bushnell, Jeremy (Appears on 2 Lists)

Witch with No Name, The by Harrison, Kim (Appears on 2 Lists)

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