snurri | Entries tagged with short stories

Books 1-10.
Books 11-20.
21. The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin.
22. Rebellion at Christiana by Margaret Hope Bacon.
23. American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang.
24. This Sweet Sickness by Patricia Highsmith.
25. Sandstorm: A Forgotten Realms Novel by Christopher Rowe.
26. The St. Paul Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald, edited by Patricia Hampl and Dave Page.
27. Thor: The Mighty Avenger Volume 2 by Roger Langridge, Chris Samnee, and Matt Wilson.
28. A Brood of Foxes by Kristin Livdahl.
29. The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin.

30. The Collected Jorkens, Volume Two by Lord Dunsany. I swear that I wrote about the first volume of these stories on here somewhere, but I can't find the entry; bad tagging on my part, I guess. Anyway, I really like the way that Nightshade did these collections; the bindings and the paper are beautiful. The stories themselves are for the most part quite different from Dunsany's The King of Elfland's Daughter and The Charwoman's Shadow. These are club stories, a tad more cynical in tone and significantly moreso in context; namely, in that it's never quite clear whether Jorkens is an outrageous liar or not. The structure of them can feel a bit dated, since many of them are twist or punch-line stories in the O. Henry vein. It does get repetitive at times, and some of the stories are pretty forgettable, but I suspect that it's still better to read them in a collection; on their own I don't know that they would have much impact, whereas the character of Jorkens really comes through in the concatenation of tales. Some of my fave stories here are: "The Neapolitan Ice," "The Lion and the Unicorn," and "The Sultan, the Monkey, and the Banana."

Books 1-10.
Books 11-20.
Books 21-30.
Books 31-40.
Books 41-50.
Books 51-60.
Books 61-70.
Books 71-80.
Books 81-90.
91. Over the Earth I Come: The Great Sioux Uprising of 1862 by Duane Schultz.
92. Ripley Under Ground by Patricia Highsmith.
93. The Ant King and Other Stories by Benjamin Rosenbaum.
94. The Wind's Twelve Quarters by Ursula K. Le Guin.
95. Ripley's Game by Patricia Highsmith.

96. A Fisherman of the Inland Sea: Stories by Ursula K. Le Guin. More stories, mostly quite good, a few good but not too memorable. Standouts, for me, were "Newton's Sleep," "The Rock That Changed Things," and "The Shobies' Story," the last of which is seriously unsettling. I think I would prefer not to mess with churten travel, thanks. The title story starts out feeling sort of like just reading someone's slightly rambly life story and then suddenly turns into something much more boggling; in retrospect it seems clear that it was structured that way for a reason, and it's an interesting, risky choice. It worked for me, ultimately, but I could see where it might not for another reader.

Books 1-10.
Books 11-20.
Books 21-30.
Books 31-40.
Books 41-50.
Books 51-60.
Books 61-70.
Books 71-80.
Books 81-90.
91. Over the Earth I Come: The Great Sioux Uprising of 1862 by Duane Schultz.
92. Ripley Under Ground by Patricia Highsmith.
93. The Ant King and Other Stories by Benjamin Rosenbaum.

94. The Wind's Twelve Quarters by Ursula K. Le Guin. This was Le Guin's first collection. As such, there are a couple of stories that are less then impressive; on the other hand, there are stories like "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas," which is one of the best stories I've ever read by anyone. Let me repeat that: "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" is not just one of the best Le Guin stories I've read, it is among the best stories I have read by anyone in my lifetime. (Just wanted to get that point across.) I also particularly liked "The Day Before the Revolution," a sort of prequel/denouement to The Dispossessed, "Darkness Box," and the proto-Earthsea stories "The Word of Unbinding" and "The Rule of Names."

Books 1-10.
Books 11-20.
Books 21-30.
Books 31-40.
Books 41-50.
Books 51-60.
Books 61-70.
Books 71-80.
Books 81-90.
91. Over the Earth I Come: The Great Sioux Uprising of 1862 by Duane Schultz.
92. Ripley Under Ground by Patricia Highsmith.

93. The Ant King and Other Stories by Benjamin Rosenbaum. Full disclosure: Ben is a friend. As it turns out, nearly all of this collection was a re-read for me, but reading a collection is a different experience. (And hell, I could probably read "The Orange" every day without it ever getting old.) For instance, I never noticed how many of Ben's stories had an undercurrent of yearning for a closer relationship with a god/parent. There's "The Orange" of course, but also "The Valley of Giants," "Start the Clock" (in which it's most noticeable for its omission/denial), "Embracing-the-New" and "The House Beyond Your Sky." Also, I tend to think of Ben as coming more from the "ideas" end of genre fiction, and yet his love of pulp/adventure elements comes through more clearly in bulk--the epic fantasy of "A Siege of Cranes," the vampire story of "The Book of Jashar," and the baroque air-pirates-meet-Sabatini giddiness of "Biographical Notes to 'A Discourse on the Nature of Causality, with Air-Planes,' by Benjamin Rosenbaum." The point is, you should read this.

Books 1-10.
Books 11-20.
Books 21-30.
Books 31-40.
Books 41-50.
Books 51-60.
Books 61-70.
Books 71-80.
81. The Dakota Indian Internment at Fort Snelling, 1862-1864 by Corinne L. Monjeau-Marz.
82. A Life on Paper: Selected Stories by Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud, translated by Edward Gauvin.
83. The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith.
84. Best American Fantasy, edited by Ann Vandermeer, Jeff Vandermeer, and Matthew Cheney.
85. It Walks in Beauty: Selected Prose of Chandler Davis, Edited and with an Introduction by Josh Lukin.
86. All Flesh Is Grass by Clifford D. Simak.
87. The Word for World Is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin.
88. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou.
89. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie.

90. The Poison Eaters and Other Stories by Holly Black. I like Holly's novels, but after reading this I wonder if I might like her short stories even more. One of the stories here, "The Land of Heart's Desire," features characters from her Modern Faerie books; it's a strong entry, but my favorite story is "The Coat of Stars," about a grown-up costume designer's uncomfortable (at first) trip home, and the unfinished business he ends up taking care of there. The story's strength, and that of the best stories here, is in how the fantastic serves as an accompaniment to the emotional trials of the character, instead of drowning them out. A really solid and enjoyable collection.

Books 1-10.
Books 11-20.
Books 21-30.
Books 31-40.
Books 41-50.
Books 51-60.
Books 61-70.
Books 71-80.
81. The Dakota Indian Internment at Fort Snelling, 1862-1864 by Corinne L. Monjeau-Marz.
82. A Life on Paper: Selected Stories by Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud, translated by Edward Gauvin.
83. The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith.

84. Best American Fantasy, edited by Ann Vandermeer, Jeff Vandermeer, and Matthew Cheney. I had a hard time with this anthology; some of the stories were great, and some of them bored me, struck me as unambitious, or actively irritated me. (My reaction seems to be similar to that of Gwyneth Jones's, although the specific stories that bothered me vary from hers somewhat.) Kelly Link has a story here, and Meghan McCarron, and those are of course wonderful, but I had read them both before; all but one of the other stories were new to me. Many of them--more, probably, than in any genre "Best" I've read before--come from various literary journals. This is good in that I should read more from the literary journals than I do, but it's bad in that most of the stories from the literary journals made me less inclined to do so. Standout stories included those by Kevin Brockmeier, Daniel Alarcón, Julia Elliott, and Nicole Kornher-Stace. Only a couple of the remaining stories struck me as actively bad, but several of them struck me as playful in the wrong way--to me fantasy should be playful in the way that children are playful, and children are playful in a very serious way. Some of the selections here are playful in a more academic way, and came across as simultaneously less serious and more joyless than I prefer my fantasy--really, my fiction in general--to be. It's possible I'm just rationalizing a prejudice here, since the stories I did like seem to come mostly from the more genre-centric publications and writers. One thing that a reading experience like this does is to help me calibrate my tastes, and sometimes I'm surprised at how conventional they can be.

My first audio treatment, in fact. Check it out here.

ETA: Having just listened to it, I need to add in a mention for Elizabeth Green Musselmen's reading. Something about the way she reads the story makes me like it even more than I did before!

Books 1-10.
Books 11-20.
Books 21-30.
Books 31-40.
Books 41-50.
51. Kitty Pryde: Shadow & Flame by Akira Yoshida and Paul Smith.

52. Best Short Novels 2006, Edited by Jonathan Strahan. Really these are novellas, and "best" is of course a subjective term; some of these worked for me and some didn't. Ian McDonald's "The Little Goddess" tries to use godlike technology as a metaphor for divinity, to some success. "Audubon in Atlantis," by Harry Turtledove is sort of a charming alternate history travelogue, but ultimately it doesn't go much of anywhere. Re-reading "Magic for Beginners" was a real pleasure, since it's one of the best stories I've ever read. Steven Erikson's "Fishin' With Grandma Matchie" was the biggest revelation of this volume, for me--a writer whom I don't think I've read before, with a wildly playful approach to language, presenting a gleeful twist on tall tales. And "The Cosmology of the Wider World," by Jeff Ford, is a talking animal story with a tragic ending that's no less impactful for being expected. The other stories in the volume, by Matthew Hughes, Cory Doctorow, Wil McCarthy, and Connie Willis, I gave up on within a few pages; with the exception of McCarthy, these are all authors that I already know I don't care for, so it's possible I'm guilty of not giving them an entirely fair chance. I know, I'm a philistine for not loving Connie Willis, I've heard it before. Life's too short, is all I can say.

Books 1-10.
Books 11-20.
Books 21-30.
Books 31-40.
41. When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World: The Rise and Fall of Islam's Greatest Dynasty by Hugh Kennedy.
42. The Suffrage of Elvira by V.S. Naipaul.
43. The Magicians by Lev Grossman.
44. The Teammates: A Portrait of a Friendship by David Halberstam.
45. Showcase Presents: The Elongated Man by Gardner Fox, John Broome, Carmine Infantino, Sid Greene, et al.

46. Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower. Alan and Kristin have been telling me to read the title story of this collection for over a year, so I finally picked up a copy. Things did not start out auspiciously; I bounced off the first few stories pretty hard. Why, I'm not entirely certain. Part of it was that they reminded me of Anthony Doerr's stories (which I love) but with the tone and characters of a Raymond Carver story (which I loathe). A couple of people who saw me with the book mentioned how much they liked Tower, and how funny he was; I was a bit flummoxed by this, because for the first few stories I wasn't aware that he was even attempting humor. This is the sort of reading experience that makes one wonder if one has become completely tone-deaf. Part of my problem was that Tower's protagonists were of the shallow, macho loser type. This isn't a problem in and of itself, but it seemed like the authorial sympathy was most with them when they were behaving badly. At some point, though, possibly with "Leopard" but definitely with "Door In Your Eye," I started to like what I was reading. Tower does have a gift for description that keeps a reader engaged with his language, and since reading this I've been thinking a lot about how lazy description encourages lazy reading. I was a bit disappointed with "On the Show," which felt like a long way round to an uninteresting sermon about rushing to judgment, but Alan and Kristin were right; "Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned" is a great take on Vikings, bloody, hilarious, squirm-inducing, and with lots of 21st Century ennui. A mixed bag, but overall worthwhile.

Polyphony 7 is happening, just barely, thus making some sort of statement about crowd-sourcing and the power of the small press. I'm not sure what that statement is exactly, but I think it has something to do with scraping and fingernails.

Please pre-order a copy if you haven't yet.

Yay!!

(NOTE: My story "Bear In Contradicting Landscape" is scheduled to appear in Polyphony 7, but due to economic constraints detailed below the anthology has yet to appear. I'm posting the following at Deborah's request and with my full endorsement)

In 2002, the Polyphony anthology series debuted. Conceived as a short fiction venue for stories that would skate gracefully across the boundaries of science fiction, fantasy, magic realism, and literary fiction, it was quickly recognized as the standard bearer for cross genre work. Since then, the series' six volumes have become a vital, unique collection of voices in literature of the fantastic.

Polyphony has been twice nominated for a World Fantasy Award and the stories therein have been featured in several "Year's Best" anthologies, along with garnering accolades from several award judges and committees. Polyphony authors range from multiple-award-winning seasoned writers to the previously unpublished. The series is truly a melodic interweaving of many voices: old and new, speculative and literary, heralded and unknown. Polyphony has not merely crossed literary boundaries, it has reformed and redefined them.

The harsh economic climate threatens to kill this vital series. Wheatland Press is asking for your help.

The authors have graciously made concessions to make Polyphony 7 a reality. They've agreed to a reduced pay rate to see the volume published. Now we need readers.

In order to publish Polyphony 7, Wheatland Press must receive 225 paid pre-orders via the website by March 1, 2010. If the pre-order quantities cannot be met, Polyphony will cease publication. It's that simple. The preorder link is here.

If the preorder number is met, then Polyphony 7 will be published on or about July 1, 2010.*

We have heard from many in the SF/F literary community that Polyphony is a vital part of landscape. We agree, but we cannot continue without your support. We hope that you will support our fine authors and their art by becoming part of the Polyphony community and pre-ordering a copy of Polyphony 7.

*The fine print: If we do not receive enough orders by March 1, then all preorders will be refunded immediately. Do feel free to buy another Wheatland Press title while you are stopping by the website! Those will, as always, ship immediately.

Yesterday I received my lovely contributor's copies of the Interfictions 2 anthology. That would be the one that made Amazon's List of the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of 2009. Reviews are popping up: Charles A. Tan says nice things about my story "The 121," while Strange Horizons reviewer T.S. Miller can't help wondering if the whole story isn't just a misguided joke. Ah, the schizophrenia of criticism.

The Interstitial Arts Foundation is pulling out all the stops on this one: go to their Annex and you can read free fiction by talented folks like Mark Rich, Kelly Barnhill, F. Brett Cox and Genevieve Valentine. There are auctions running this very minute for art objects based on some of the stories. Interviews with contributors like Jeff Ford and Cecil Castellucci are being posted at the site. And there are (or already have been) group readings by the contributors: you'll have to wait a short while for our local one (January 29th at Magers & Quinn), which will include myself, Alan Deniro, Will Alexander, and the aforementioned Kelly Barnhill. (Details to come as the date approaches.)

What's more, each contributor has been authorized to offer three copies of the anthology FREE to folks who pledge to review it on their blog or webpage. They suggested we come up with a nifty contest, but I'm no good at that kind of thing. If you're interested, leave a comment, and the first three who'd like a copy will get it. Remember that you are entering a contract which requires you to review the book! Interfictional lawyers will chase you down if you don't, and they can slide right through gaps in doors and windows and such.

Don't take my word for it. Interfictions 2 just came out today, and Amazon.com has already picked it as one of the ten best science fiction and fantasy books of 2009.

It's not that I believe I have the golden touch or anything. I mean, yeah, Paper Cities just won the World Fantasy Award, but that doesn't mean that every anthology I have a story in from now on is going to be the best of the year.

Not necessarily, anyway.

Current Mood: goofy

Books 1-10.
Books 11-20.
Books 21-30.
Books 31-40.
Books 41-50.
Books 51-60.
Books 61-70.
Books 71-80.
Books 81-90.
91. The Non-Adventures of Wonderella: Everybody Ever Forever by Justin Pierce.
92. Hide and Seek by Ian Rankin.
93. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach.
94. Strip Jack by Ian Rankin.
95. Wizard of the Crow by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o.
96. Gingerbread by Rachel Cohn.
97. Seize the Time: The Story of the Black Panther Party and Huey P. Newton by Bobby Seale.
98. The Black Book by Ian Rankin.

99. Skin Folk by Nalo Hopkinson. For those unfamiliar, Nalo Hopkinson was born in Jamaica and grew up there and in Guyana, Trinidad, and Canada, where she lives now; as such her work is steeped in Caribbean folklore and language, as well as matters of race and sexuality. This is her only short story collection to date, so far as I'm aware. I enjoyed her first novel, Brown Girl In the Ring, when I read it about ten years ago, but it's been long enough that I can't compare my reaction to the novel to these stories. My faves in this collection included "A Habit of Waste," "Fisherman," and "Ganger (Ball Lightning)"--the last in part because it made me uncomfortable.

1. I am one of the interviewees in Locus magazine this month. Lest that make you reluctant to pick up a copy, the other interviewee is Connie Willis, so.

2. Paper Cities, the World Fantasy Award-nominated anthology in which my story "The Somnambulist" appears, is now available on the Kindle.

3. Not so much an announcement, but I will be dropping by the Twin Cities Book Festival tomorrow at some point, so if you're going to be there let me know and we can look for each other.

4. This is funny:

The Button - watch more funny videos

Congratulations to everyone who was nominated. But in particular congratulations to Kathy Sedia, Matt Kressel, and my fellow contributors to the Paper Cities anthology (containing my story "The Somnambulist"), which is nominated for Best Anthology. W00t!

Just an FYI: as previously reported in this space, my story "The 121" will be appearing in the Interfictions 2 anthology. The anthology is published by the Interstitial Arts Foundation, a non-profit entity, and one of their fund-raising efforts is going to be an art auction with pieces based on the stories. They are looking for "Artists, Crafters, Jewelers, Musicians and anyone who loves to create"; details here. And, you know, you wouldn't HAVE to create something based on my story*; there are many others to choose from.

*It would be really, really cool if someone did, though.

My novella "Escape to Bird Island" is live over at The King's English. It's sort of a road story about superhero sidekicks, bird calls, dimensional stacking, lions and spiders and agoraphobia. Oh, and they've got a .PDF option over there for easy downloading or printing. Check it out.

Apparently it is now OK to talk about the fact that I sold "The 121" to the Interfictions 2 anthology. Check out that TOC! This should be great stuff.

In other writing news, my story (really, my novella) "Escape to Bird Island" will be showing up at The King's English, soonish. I will toss y'all a link when it goes live.

Did y'all see The Ultimate Guide to Modern Writers of Science Fiction and Fantasy? Avi Abrams over at Dark Roasted Blend put it together, and he's welcoming input on it. I was surprised to find my name included, and when I emailed Abrams to mention a small error he was quick to respond and fix it. Looks like a good resource; check it out.

Have another book report to do, but no time to-day; might be a couple of days.

Mumble Herder

y no se lo trago la tierra

2011 Reading #30: The Collected Jorkens, Volume Two by Lord Dunsany

2010 Reading #96: A Fisherman of the Inland Sea

2010 Reading #94: The Wind's Twelve Quarters

2010 Reading #93: The Ant King and Other Stories

2010 Reading #90: The Poison Eaters by Holly Black

2010 Reading #84: Best American Fantasy

2010 Reading #82: A Life on Paper by Georges-Olivier Châteaureynaud

"The Somnambulist" Live at PodCastle

2010 Reading #52: Best Short Novels 2006, Edited by Jonathan Strahan

2010 Reading #46: Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower

Polyphony 7 Update

A Message from Polyphony Editor/Publisher Deborah Layne

Interstitial Blitz

Anthology Greatness

2009 Reading #99: Skin Folk

Some Things That I Should Have Announced

World Fantasy Award Nominations Are Out

Interfictions 2 Auction Call to Artists

Sunday Evening Read

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April 2011

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