Category: Science Fiction

Best Science Fiction Short Stories 2007

It’s that time of year again, when all the annual best of anthologies start showing up.  This year I’ve come across four so far, one of which I’m reading (Hartwell & Cramer), two of which are winging their way from Amazon (Dozois & Strahan), and a fourth is waiting to be shipped (Horton).  There are probably more of these out there, so let me know.  Here are the titles I know about so far:

What’s truly strange is how little overlap there is, with only 12 stories out of 87 getting in more than one book.  This made me feel good about wanting to buy all four volumes, but on the other hand, I wished there were more obvious stand-out stories.  We know that the Ted Chiang and Karen Joy Fowler stories won Nebula awards this year, and  these stories are nominated for the 2008 Hugo Awards:

  • “Memorare” by Gene Wolfe (novella) (HC)
  • “The Cambist and Lord Iron: A Fairytale of Economics” by Daniel Abraham (novelette) (JS)
  • “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” by Ted Chiang (novelette) (GD, JS) (Nebula winner)
  • “Dark Integers” by Greg Egan (novelette) (RH)
  • “Glory” by Greg Egan (novelette) (GD, JS)
  • “Finisterra” by David Moles (novelette) (GD)
  • “Lost Contact” by Stephen Baxter (short story) (GD, JS)
  • “Tideline” by Elizabeth Bear (short story) (GD)
  • Who’s Afraid of Wolf 359″ by Ken MacLeod (short story) (HC)

Greg Egan and Nancy Kress got in all four best-of-books with multiple stories, and 12 other writers got into more than one volume with one or more stories.

Abraham, Daniel The Cambist and Lord Iron: A Fairy Tale of Economics JS
Asher, Neal Alien Archeology GD
Baker, Kage Plotters and Shooters HC
Baker, Kage Hellfire in Twilight GD
Ballantyne, Tony Aristotle OS HC
Ballantyne, Tony Third Person HC
Barnes, John An Ocean is a Snowflake, Four Billion Miles Away GD, RH
Baxter, Stephen Last Contact GD, JS
Baxter, Stephen No More Stories HC
Beagle, Peter S. The Last and Only, or Mr. Moskowitz Becomes French JS
Bear, Elizabeth Orm the Beautiful JS
Bear, Elizabeth Tideline GD
Benford, Gregory Reasons Not to Publish HC
Benford, Gregory Dark Heaven GD
Bisson, Terry Pirates of the Somali Coast HC
Black, Holly The Coat of Stars JS
Brooke, Keith The Accord GD
Cadigan, Pat Nothing Personal GD
Chiang, Ted The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate GD, JS
Daniel, Tony The Valley of the Garden JS
Di Filippo, Paul Wikiworld RH
Egan, Greg Glory GD, JS
Egan, Greg Induction HC
Egan, Greg Dark Integers RH
Egan, Greg Steve Fever GD
Finlay, Charles Coleman An Eye for an Eye RH
Ford, Jeffrey The Dreaming Wind JS
Fowler, Karen Joy Always HC, RH
Gaiman, Neil The Witch’s Headstone JS
Goonan, Kathleen Ann The Bridge HC
Goss, Theodore Singing of Mount Abora JS
Gregory, Daryl Dead Horse Point JS
Hand, Elizabeth Winter’s Wife JS
Hemry, John As You Know, Bob HC
Hitchcock, Robin They Came From the Future HC
Holm, Palle Juul A Blue and Cloudless Sky HC
Irvine, Alex Wizard’s Six JS
Jablokov, Alexander Brain Raid RH
Jones, Gwyneth The Tomb Wife HC
Jones, Gwyneth Saving Tiamaat GD
Kessel, John The Last American HC
Kosmatka, Ted The Prophet of Flores GD, JS
Kowal, Mary Robinette For Solo Cello RH
Kress, Nancy By Fools Like Me JS
Kress, Nancy End Game HC
Kress, Nancy Art of War RH
Kress, Nancy Laws of Survival GD
Laidlaw, Marc An Evening’s Honest Peril HC
Landis, Geoffrey Vectoring RH
Link, Kelly The Constable of Albal JS
MacLeod, Ken Jesus Christ, Reanimator JS, RH
MacLeod, Ken Who’s Afraid of Wolf 359? HC
MacLeod, Ken Lighting Out GD
McCormack, Una Sea Change GD
McDonald, Ian Sanjeev and Robotwallah GD, HC
McDonald, Ian Verthandi’s Ring GD
McIntosh, Will Perfect Violet RH
Moles, David Finisterra GD
Palwick, Susan Sorrel’s Heart JS
Phillips, Holly Three Days of Rain RH
Pratt, Tim Artifice and Intelligence HC, RH
Purdom, Tom The Mists of Time GD
Reed, Robert Night Calls RH
Reed, Robert Roxie GD
Reynolds, Alastair The Sledge-Maker’s Daughter GD
Rickert, M. Holiday JS
Roberson, Chris The Sky is Large and the Earth is Small GD, JS
Rosenbaum, Benjamin & Ackert David Stray GD
Rusch, Kristine Kathryn Craters GD
Sedia, Ekaterina Virus Changes Skin RH
Shunn, William Objective Impermeability in a Closed System HC
Silverberg, Robert Against the Current GD
Singh, Vandana Of Love and Other Monsters GD
Sinisalo, Johanna Baby Doll HC
Skillingstead, Jack Everyone Bleeds Through RH
Stableford, Brian The Immortals of Atlantis GD
Stanchfield, Justin Beyond the Wall GD
Sterling, Bruce Kiosk GD, JS
Sterling, Bruce The Lustration HC
Sterling, Bruce A Plain Tale From Our Hills RH
Stross, Charles Trunk and Disorderly JS
Swanwick, Michael Urdumheim JS
Swanwick, Michael The Skysailor’s Tale GD, RH
Van Pelt, James How Music Begins HC
Van Pelt, James Of Late I Dreamt of Venus GD
Watts, Peter Repeating the Past HC
Wolfe, Gene Memorare HC

Science Fiction in the Last 25 Years

Entertainment Weekly recently published their list of The New Classics: The 100 Best Reads from 1983-2008.  Guess what?  Only one science fiction genre book, Neuromancer (1984) by William Gibson made their list, coming in at #26.  There was some fantasy titles like Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2000) by J. K. Rowling at #2 and His Dark Materials (1995-2000) by Philip Pullman at #40, and even a graphic novel, Sandman (1988-1996) by Neil Gaiman at #46, to represent some other genres that are close to science fiction fan’s hearts, but only one real SF title.

Now squeezing in the best literary, non-fiction, YA, genre books and even graphic novels from the last twenty-five years down to a hundred titles doesn’t leave much room for many titles in each category, but to only have one science fiction title seems harsh at first glance.  But I’m not being too critical, it’s a good list, but I think they should have included one other science fiction novel:  Ender’s Game (1985) by Orson Scott Card.  I say this because so many of my non-science fiction reading bookworm friends loved this story, and even consider it one of their all-time favorite books.  In fact, if EW were to insist on including only one SF title, I’d pick Ender’s Game.

Entertainment Weekly isn’t alone in proclaiming Neuromancer as the only quality SF novel of the last twenty-five years, so did The Daily Telegraph.  Both periodicals also picked Cloud Atlas (2004) by David Mitchell, a literary novel with some story settings in the future.  And the Telegraph also picked The Time-Traveler’s Wife (2003) by Audrey Niffenegger, an excellent science fiction story told in a literary narrative.  Personally, I liked both of these titles better than Neuromancer. 

Of course The New York Times did their What Is the Best Work of American Fiction of the Last 25 Years? and they didn’t even throw in any token genre books at all.  I’ve only read two of their titles, White Noise (1985) by Don DeLillo and A Confederacy of Dunces (1980) by John Kennedy Toole, and I prefer Ender’s Game, Cloud Atlas and The Time-Traveler’s Wife over both of them, and Neuromancer just a little less.

Does this mean that for the most part science fiction is ignored by the reading world at large, or is it sadly that science fiction books just don’t measure up?  Many of the books listed do have fantastic elements, so I think science fiction and fantasy have made an impact on the modern literary world.  The current Pulitzer Prize winner, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007) by Junot Díaz is on the list and the title character is a Sci-Fi fan and extreme geek.  I wonder if that’s how the literary world at large sees SF fans? 

Junot Díaz weaves in so many Sci-Fi references, totally off-the-cuff and unexplained, that I assume he thinks they are universally part of our culture.  But I have to wonder if most of them don’t just fly right over the average reader’s head.  Just how many outside of our genre know who Dejah Thoris is, and if you are a younger science fiction reader, I’m not sure if even you know.  The literary world often sneers at science fiction and claims science fiction fans are immature social misfits – and Junot only reinforces this idea, but I think he’s really with us and not against us.

I’ve read a lot of science fiction and a lot of books from these lists and in these book Olympics I’ve got to say that most genre books do not have the times to get on the team, but there’s a gimmick that’s not be addressed.  These top culture best-of-lists aim to find the most memorable titles for the most people.  Genre writers crank out gazillions of titles that are very entertaining in the moment but aren’t very memorable in the long scheme of things.  Also, science fiction books aren’t widely read, so how can the be widely remembered?

I think The Time-Traveler’s Wife straddles both the genre and literary world even though it’s widely loved, few of it’s fans want to think it’s a science fiction novel.  I think Gibson’s Neuromancer is on the list because it’s not about traditional science fiction themes, but about computers, and we know how important computers are in our society.  The Time-Traveler’s Wife is about love, and we know how important romance is to our society.  Science fiction books are often about weird things that most people don’t think about, so that’s why SF books get little attention.  Ender’s Game is about children and childhood first, and most people can identify with that.

If science fiction writers want to get their books listed on these pop culture memory lists, they need to write more books with universal appeal that are memorable.  Another exciting military action thriller can be a great reading experience, but they tend to all blend in together.  The reason why Stranger in a Strange Land is so well remembered outside of the genre is because it’s so unique.  It’s one of the few SF titles that the general public remembers from the last 50 years, and even then I doubt 1 person in 300 would list it if Jay Leno asked them to name a famous science fiction book from the last century in one of his Jaywalking segments.

On the other hand, if Jay Leno was asking a long line of people to name a single title from Entertainment Weekly’s list and give them ten chances, how many on average could succeed?  I have no idea, but I’d guess damn few.  If you gave people ten chances to guess one of the movies off their EW’s 100 Best Films from 1983 to 2008, I’d say 95% would succeed.  Books just aren’t mass media like movies and television, or even music.  I’d say it was damn nice of EW to remember Neuromancer at all, and to make that Top 100 list is a very excellent distinction.  William Gibson and his family should be very proud.  And we science fiction fans should be very pleased too.

Jim

The Top 10 Science Fiction Film Game

Over at Jason Sanford’s site, he tags John Scalzi’s little game of improving on the AFI’s Top 10 science fiction films.  I imagine every blogger with any opinion about science fiction at all will want to play, because I know I do.  And it’s not that I disagree terribly with AFI, which I do, I just think a person’s favorite Top 10 SF films are their own Rorschach test of personality.

Here are my favorite Top 10 SF Movies at the moment:

  • The Matrix
  • Gattaca
  • Aliens
  • A.I.
  • Fahrenheit 451
  • Things to Come
  • The Abyss
  • Starship Troopers
  • The Fifth Element
  • Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

They are somewhat in order, but actually fluctuate moment by moment because my choices are not based on intellect, but mood.  Like music, I experience movies as a mood enhancer, and I like my science fiction to turn up the sense of wonder to the max and make me feel intensely philosophical.  However, my philosophical mood changes often, and if I made the list a month from now it might be very different.

All of these films are upbeat, even if they are sometimes about people who are beaten down.  I prefer Aliens and The Fifth Element over Alien and The Twelve Monkeys because they feel so much more positive.  I also have a nagging feeling there might be dozens of better movies I should be listing but I just can’t remember them at the moment.  What was that little Australian film that showed Saturn rising up in our sky?  That was a cool film.

I quickly pulled these ten titles from Sci-Fi Lists Top 100 Sci-Fi Films.  If you hop over to Google and search on the phrase “Top Science Fiction Movies” you can find all kinds of lists, and surprisingly, there’s a tremendous overlap.  I guess hundreds of SF films were pretty ho-hum or even ha-ha silly and are quickly forgotten.  And ten or twenty years ago my list would have been very different, but many of my old favorites like Planet of the Apes, 2001, Forbidden Planet, Back to the Future, etc., I’ve watched so many times they fizzle more than they bang.  The above list are the ones that still make my neurons explode with excitement.

Jim

Pulp Fiction

Long ago, before Quentin Tarantino’s great film, before I was born in 1951, before television, there was pulp fiction.  It was called pulp fiction because of the grade of paper the stories were printed on was called pulp, and a whole entertainment industry was built around selling magazines with short stories and serialized novels wrapped in crude color reproductions of what is now called pulp art.

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When I was young I often met older science fiction fans that collected these magazines, but surely, most of the kids of the generation before me, who grew up loving to read pulp fiction, must be very old, if still living, and the pulp fiction generation surely must be dying out.  Yet, over at Fantasy & Science Fiction they are running an article, “The New Nostalgia: The Classic Pulp Story Revival” by Dave Truesdale that chronicles how several small press publishers are keeping the pulp fiction tradition alive with quality hardbound reprints.  This article is well worth reading on many levels because it renews memories of a few old authors and their best stories and informs about the sub-culture of the small press publishing.

Pulp fiction has also been kept alive by the legacy of comic books and their impact on the movies with all the classic super heroes being reinvented every year, and reoccurring pulp action films like the Indiana Jones series or the remake of King Kong.  Comics are the direct descendants of pulp magazines that featured cruder art and stories for the younger readers on the same pulp paper.  Pulp fiction was never literary but a few fine writers like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler came out of the tradition.  Most of the prose was purple and all action, and aimed at the poorly educated, often featuring very politically incorrect attitudes about race, gender, ethnic groups, and foreigners.  Society and the well bred looked down on the lowly pulp fiction fan.

Evidently, old pulp fiction is finding new younger readers through the popularity of action movies, reprints and inherited nostalgia.  When I was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s much of the best pulp fiction, including mysteries, westerns, science fiction, adventure, spy, thrillers and other genres were reprinted as cheap paperbacks for 25 and 35 cents, but now the buy-in price are $40 deluxe volumes.

There was always a tremendous vitality to pulp fiction, which explained why titles included words like astounding, thrilling, amazing, wonder, adventure, fantastic, and that wink-wink keyword, spicy.  Science fiction really is a child of pulp fiction, and I think many readers hated the change that the New Wave brought to the genre during the 1960s, where emerging writers tried to force science fiction out of the gutter and into the classroom where the revolutionaries wanted it to wear literary robes.  Today science fiction is often represented in the minds of the public at large by Star Trek and Star Wars, but those stories owe a lot to two pulp fiction superstars:  E. E. “Doc” Smith and Edward Hamilton.

If you want to sample classic science fiction pulp stories, and not spend too much money, I recommend tracking down copies of two anthologies:  Before the Golden Age edited by Isaac Asimov and Adventures in Time and Space edited by Raymond J. Healy and J. Francis McComas.   These books collect some of the best SF short stories from 1931-1945.  You can find both at ABEBooks.com, but watch out, both fat original hardback anthologies were often reprinted as multi-volume paperback books, and it would be worth your while to use the advance search and specify hardback editions, thus saving you on total costs and postage.  These two books will give you a great education about the foundation of science fiction.

The URLs linked to these titles also give you table of contents for the stories which if you are really hoarding your gasoline dollars might find on the web for free.   Now, as you read the stories, consider these issues:

One, are they still fun to read?  Are they as fun as reading Harry Potter or any of your other current favorite writers?  Second, do the ideas seem stupid, in the light of modern knowledge?  Third, do you notice why I call them politically incorrect?  Fourth, can you tell the difference between pulp fiction writing and modern MFA writing (The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao), or even modern genre writing (Charlie Stross and John Scalzi)?  Fifth, are these stories worth preserving?  Sixth, are they worth your reading time over reading newer stories?

All fiction from 1900-1950 is thinning out fast in our collective memories, and few stories from that era get reprinted.  I’m not just talking about pulp fiction.  If you can, find a copy of Best American Short Stories from before 1950 and some original pulp magazines.  Most of the contents from either will never have seen print since the original publications.  The small presses that are reprinting classic pulp fiction stories, are really just rescuing one story in a thousand, maybe one in ten thousand.

Looking at the periods 1800-1850 and 1850-1900, only the rarest of stories are still read by modern readers.  Baby boomers can remember the famous books they read from 1950-2000, but how many of the following generations know about those best selling titles?  My guess is the pulp fiction nostalgia is for the boomers who can remember reading pulp fiction from its first generation of reprints.  I would imagine, out of all the genres only a handful of novels will become classics, like The Maltese Falcon, Tarzan of the Apes, Conan the Barbarian, and Riders of the Purple Sage.  But how many kids under 16 discover these tales?

I occasionally enjoy reading an old pulp story and appreciate these small press publishers bringing back old favorites by Leigh Brackett, C. L. Moore, Robert E. Howard and Jack Williamson that I first discovered in used editions of Ace Doubles.  I think my identity is partly based on pulp fiction, and I feel I help keep these old friends alive by continuing to read them.  I know all of my generation and the stories we loved will soon pass on and be forgotten, but it’s pleasant to think a few of the stories will survive and future generations will enjoy them and wonder about their fans.

Jim

Reading Beyond Science Fiction

Years ago I wrote an essay about what where the classic books of science fiction.  I later made it into an web site called The Classics of Science Fiction.  I always meant to use the same techniques to build a web site that reveals the all-time classic books of general literature, and not just limit the search to one genre.  I finally got that site started at Classic Booklists.  It’s just a baby step, because my friends and I hope to do a lot more with the idea.

Until I was fifty, I mostly read science fiction books.  Sure, I sampled far and wide, but I stuck to the tried and true genre I grew up with, always looking for my new sense-of-wonder fix.  Then I discovered audio books at Audible.com and my reading habits completely changed.  Back then, there just wasn’t that much science fiction offered on audio, and so I had to be open to new kinds of books.  I started listening to classic English novels, best sellers, modern American literary works, works of history, biography, science and philosophy, anything that was promoted as a great book.  I quickly discovered sense-of-wonder doesn’t have to be about rocketships. 

Listening to The Bible, and The Bible is the bedrock of all classic books, is hearing the voices of primitive people, the voices of men and women at the dawn of history.  The Bible is a gateway to the mind of man before there were concepts like science, history, mathematics, astronomy and so on.  Sure, there’s the whole religious angle, but that’s the least interesting take.  Just listen to the stories and always remember to ask:  Who is telling this story and why?  You will experience The Bible as a series of evolutionary stories that do far more to explain our physical world than the metaphysical.  It was all about national politics. The Old Testament is very much like the Koran, in that it explains the psychology of radical fundamentalism, which isn’t about heaven or hell, but here and now.

When you read classic books always follow the motivation.  Whether fiction or nonfiction, there’s always a mind at work.  No matter how engrossing a story is, step back and look for the narrator’s slight-of-hand.  There are two narrators to watch for tricks, the one within the words telling story, and the unseen other, the actual writer of the words – and trust neither.  For example, within The Bible, who is telling the story about Moses and Aaron?  The Bible is often referred to as the word of God, but God doesn’t narrate this story.  Did Moses have a PR man cranking out press releases?  Did a BC Billy Graham tell stories about Moses in sermons?  Did the early chamber of commerce for Israel hammer out their tale for national unity?  

Reading Jane Austen will only take you back two hundred years, but she will teach you about the mind of women from any time.  Again, what is Miss Austen’s motivation?  Is Pride and Prejudice a timeless handbook for romance or for gold digging?  Hemingway, Faulkner and Fitzgerald tells us about the origins of the 20th century American mind at the ground level.  Every French, German, Russian, Chinese, Japanese novel opens up a mental beachhead into new culture.  This is all mind bending, and as mind bending as science fiction feels when you discover it at thirteen.  

Each classic is like time traveling to a place and time – for instance Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie takes you to Chicago of the eighteen nineties and shows you a world as far out as any science fictional world.  Compare it to Empire Star by Samuel R. Delany and you will see what I mean.  They are both about rubes from the country, or in the SF case, a backward planet, struggling to survive in the big city.  

American history is really an extension of English history, and reading classic English novels is like working with an Freudian psychologist to explore our hive mind childhood.  When you read far and wide in literature and philosophy, you’ll realize that the history of humanity is like the evolution of one great being. 

We have to accept Isaac Newton when he said, “If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants,” as not just true for scientists, but true for everyone.  How far you see across time and space depends on the pile of books from which you view reality.  Harry Potter novels might be the best of fun, but they won’t help you see very far.  On the other hand, they are great books because they aren’t about magic, but contemporary adolescence.

A classic book, a great book, a masterpiece of literature, will educate its readers about the past, and at the same time they reveal a timeless way of seeing the present.  A classic book begs to be read again and again, because each reading will reveal more secrets.  A classic novel will draw you into history and you will feel like your life is growing in two ways, one forward from your individual birth, and the second, a life that grows backwards, roaming further and further towards our cultural birth.  Reading books from the 1950s lets you grok the 1940s, that make sense of the 1930s – and after awhile it’s the 1790s, or the Italian Renaissance, or 400 BC.  Suddenly, all of history becomes your stomping grounds.

Reading classic books is like assembling a map of reality one jigsaw piece at a time.  In the early part of the 20th century people like Mortimer Adler came up with the educational philosophy of the Great Books, and colleges built liberal arts curriculums around The Great Books of the Western World.  This later evolved into Harold Bloom‘s idea of The Western Canon.  Of course, these lists of great books require a lifetime of study, more than most people ever want to pursue.

That’s when I got the idea of collecting many such booklists of recommended reading of classic books, hoping to find the essential volumes revealed through consensus.  I’m just starting with ClassicBooklists.com.  With the help of my friends Mike and Heather I hope to expand it in many revealing ways.  I’ve started reading books about books, such as, Leave Me Along, I’m Reading by Maureen Corrigan, 1000 Books To Change Your Life by TimeOut.com, The Book That Changed My Life edited by Roxanne J. Coady & Joy Johannessen, and the epic, 1,001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, edited by Peter Boxall.

The more you read about books the more it’s obvious that no one person, or editors or scholars or poll of fans have an idea of what the perfect classic booklist should be.  The Classics of Science Fiction is built from 28 lists, and the resultant list is from any book that shares recommendations from 7 or more lists.  Those 193 books represent quite a consensus.  So far I have 12 lists for the Classic Booklist site.  It will take time to build it up.  I plan to add The Classics of Science Fiction list to it next, so we can compare SF books to recommendations for general literature.

So stay tuned.

Jim