Single-author collections worth noting

These four single-author collections are among the most interesting and noteworthy collections in the science fiction and fantasy genres to be published in 2012.

At the Mouth of the River of Bees by Kij Johnson is the first collection from an author who has already won a Hugo Award, three Nebula Awards, a World Fantasy Award, and a Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award for her short fiction. The Coode Street Podcast had Kij Johnson as a guest for a recent episode, available here.

Jeffrey Ford has been one of the best short fiction writers in the genre for many years. His fourth and newest collection, Crackpot Palace, continues his tradition of excellence. Two of his prior collections won the World Fantasy Award for best single-author collection of the year.

Another first collection, Angels and You Dogs by Kathleen Ann Goonan, is a first-rate selection of short fiction. Goonan was a guest on the Coode Street Podcast, available here.

The Pottawatomie Giant and Other Stories by Andy Duncan is the author's second collection. Duncan is one of the most highly regarded short fiction authors in the genre. The title story won the World Fantasy Award. His novelette "The Chief Designer," collected here, won the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award.

August book arrivals

Here are some August 2012 book arrivals.

The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer is massive, over 1100 pages, two columns of text per page. The stories are arranged chronologically, representing fiction across the past 100 years or so. It's a remarkable anthology. Michael Moorcock contributes a "Foreweird" and China Mieville an "Afterweird."

Sharps is the latest novel from K. J. Parker. Parker is the author of The Fencer Trilogy, The Engineer Trilogy, The Folding Knife, and The Hammer.

The Fox Woman (2000) was the first novel by Kij Johnson. It won the Crawford Award for best first fantasy novel. After reading her Nebula Award-winning novella, "The Man Who Bridged the Mist" (2011), I decided it was time to catch up with Johnson's novels.

Fudoki (2003) is the second novel by Kij Johnson. It was shortlisted for the World Fantasy Award and the James Tiptree Award. Johnson has a new collection of short fiction due out this month, At the Mouth of the River of Bees.

Bullettime is the newest novel from Nick Mamatas. Mamatas is the author of Sensation, Under My Roof, and Move Under Ground.

Some Remarks: Essays and Other Writing by Neal Stephenson is an odd mix of non-fiction and fiction, essays, interviews, and journalism. It should provide plenty for readers (like me) waiting for Stephenson's next huge novel. Norman Spinrad has a review of Some Remarks, available at Los Angeles Review of Books.

2012 Nebula Award winners announced

The 2012 Nebula Awards for work published in 2011 were presented this past weekend in Arlington, Virginia.

Novel: Among Others by  Jo Walton (Tor)
Novella: "The Man Who Bridged the Mist" by Kij Johnson
      (Asimov’s October/November 2011)
Novelette: "What We Found" by Geoff Ryman (F&SF September/October 2011)
Short Story: "The Paper Menagerie" by Ken Liu (F&SF March/April 2011)
Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy Book:
      The Freedom Maze by Delia Sherman (Big Mouth House)

The previously announced 2011 Grand Master Award was presented to Connie Willis for her lifetime contributions and achievements in the field. John Clute received the Solstice Award. The late Octavia Butler was also named a Solstice Award winner.

Among Others by Jo Walton was an excellent best novel winner. A coming-of-age story set mostly in and around a British boarding school, the story subverts fantasy readers' expectations by allowing major events to happen before the story begins, showing instead the aftermath and consequences of what has gone before. The novel operates several levels, one of which is the formation of a writer's sense of story as our main character, a school girl, reads and reacts to dozens of fantasy and science fiction novels of the 1960s and '70s. (Click to enlarge images.)

"The Man Who Bridged the Mist" by Kij Johnson is a wonderful novella about a man in charge of building a bridge over a mysterious substance known as mist. The story exists somewhere between the genres of fantasy and science fiction. A satisfying choice for the award.

"What We Found" by Geoff Ryman is about sexual identity and science and family. An exceptional story by the under-appreciated Geoff Ryman.

"The Paper Menagerie" by Ken Liu portrays a boy coming of age caught between the differing culture and language of his parents, one from China and one from the United States. 

I haven't read The Freedom Maze by Delia Sherman, although I've heard many good things about it. I hope to read it soon.

Overall, a strong year the Nebula Awards, certainly a better year than last year.

Related posts:
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America announce the 2012 Nebula Awards (for 2011 work)
Rose Fox live blogs the evening of the 2012 Nebula Awards

The 2011 Hugo Awards: Short Story Shortlist

It’s a modest year for the Hugo Awards short story shortlist. There are no major highs or lows on the list this year. Two of the stories are a little disappointing and two are pretty good.

“Amaryllis” by Carrie Vaughn (Lightspeed, June 2010)
“For Want of a Nail” by Mary Robinette Kowal (Asimov’s, September 2010)
“Ponies” by Kij Johnson (Tor.com, November 17, 2010)
“The Things” by Peter Watts (Clarkesworld, January 2010)

The stories from weakest to strongest: “Ponies” is a very short, very slight story about mean girls and their talking, flying, unicorn ponies. It distantly recalls Shirley Jackson’s well-known short story “The Lottery.” “Ponies” may be an allegory for something (as was much discussed here). It’s too tiny a wisp of a story to bear any weight at all.

“Amaryllis” is set in a resource-scarce future, which is becoming a popular science fiction setting recently, and revolves around a communal family with a fishing boat who make do with limited circumstances. The setting is well done. The characters are bland and the story is uneventful. The only conflict in the story, with a dishonest weight inspector, is too-easily resolved.

“For Want of a Nail” is another resource-scarce future, set aboard a generation starship where high tech items and repair parts are limited to supplies that were anticipated and packed by great-grandparents. A young woman, Rava, attempts to repair a damaged computer AI and discovers that the AI has been corrupted and that it has been covering for an important member of the community. As the extent of the problem is revealed the story is appropriately tense. The characterizations are solid and the story resolves well.

“The Things” is an inverted retelling of the movie “The Thing,” from the viewpoint of the alien creature. There were two movies: John Carpenter’s “The Thing” (1982) and Howard Hawks’ “The Thing from Another World” (1951) were both based on the often-reprinted 1938 story “Who Goes There?” by John W. Campbell, Jr., about the discovery of an alien spacecraft in the ice in Antarctica and the shape-changing alien survivor. The story was retold, again, in the episode “Ice” in the first season of “The X-Files” (1993). I’ve seen or read all of these prior versions, yet even those who have not will have no problem following the story. A simple inversion of viewpoint isn’t enough to make a successful story and the author does more than that. The first-person alien narrator discovers differences in biology between itself and the humans and goes on a rambling rant about it. It was interesting, even if I wasn’t persuaded by the argument.  The story suffers when compared, inevitably, to the prior year’s story “The Island” by the same author, which was quite a bit stronger. “The Island” also featured unusual alien biology. The story went on to win a well-deserved best novelette Hugo Award at Aussiecon 4, held in Melbourne in 2010.

Rankings for the SF Strangelove Hugo Awards ballot for short story:
1. “The Things” by Peter Watts (Clarkesworld, January 2010) (read the story)
2. “For Want of a Nail” by Mary Robinette Kowal (Asimov’s, September 2010) (read the story in PDF format)
3. “Amaryllis” by Carrie Vaughn (Lightspeed, June 2010) (read the story)
4.  “Ponies” by Kij Johnson (Tor.com, November 17, 2010) (read the story)

This category of the ballot isn’t particularly strong this year. Readers looking for better stories will find them in any of the best of the year anthologies that collected the best short fiction of 2010. Here are the four covering science fiction that I rely on:

The Year’s Best Science Fiction: 28th Annual Collection,
edited by Gardner Dozois (St. Martin’s)
The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year:  Volume Four,
edited by Jonathan Strahan (Night Shade Books)
The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy: 2011,
edited by Rich Horton (Prime)
Year’s Best SF 16,
edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer (Harper/Voyager)

The  2011 Hugo Awards will be presented August 20, 2011, at Renovation, the World Science Fiction Convention to be held in Reno, Nevada.

Related links:
A brief review of “The Island” by Peter Watts
2011 Hugo Nominees
Reactions to the 2011 Hugo Nominees (best novella category)

Spar by Kij Johnson

I enjoyed "Spar," although not as much as some others on the internet. One human and one alien share a tiny lifeboat after their ships are destroyed in a collision. Their only communication is sex. The description of their wordless interaction is unsparing. There is little context. The story starts after the collision and ends at the moment of rescue, as the lifeboat is opened from outside. The bulk of the story is interior monologue as the human woman endures within the lifeboat. Since her partner in the lifeboat is alien and all communication is non-verbal, the story is claustrophobic. The non-verbal nature of the story leaves it ambiguous as to whether the alien is sentient. Another reading is that the relationship is pre-verbal and that the story's subtext is that of childhood sexual abuse.

The story fits within Japanese tradition of "tentacle erotica." There's a Wikipedia entry for tentacle erotica.

Related post: The Years Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, Volume Four, table of contents