Aaron's Hugo Recommendations :: Novelette

FIVE FAVORITE NOVELETTES OF 2007:
John Barnes, “Rod Rapid and His Electric Chair” (Helix, Winter ’07)
Ted Chiang, “The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate” (F&SF, Sept. ’07)
Greg Egan, “Glory” (The New Space Opera)
Mike Resnick & Nancy Kress, “Solomon's Choice” (Fast Forward 1)
Rachel Swirsky, “The Debt of the Innocent” (Glorifying Terrorism)

OTHER VERY GOOD NOVELETTES FROM 2007:
Daniel Abraham, “The Cambist and Lord Iron: A Fairy Tale of Economics” (Logorrhea)
Keith Brooke, “The Accord” (The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction)
Paul Di Filippo, “Wikiworld” (Fast Forward 1)
Hal Duncan, “The Whenever at the City's Heart” (Interzone, April ’07)
Jeffrey Thomas, “In His Sights” (The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction)
Harry Turtledove, “News from the Front” (Asimov's, June ’07)
Robert Charles Wilson, “YFL-500” (Fast Forward 1)

NOTES:
As with the short stories, I will update this if I encounter other worthy pieces this month, and I welcome other suggestions.

Unlike the novella and short story categories, there was no single novelette that was a clear favorite for me. Forced to pick one, I would probably go with “Glory” by Greg Egan, far-future SF as only Egan can do it, combining interesting hard science speculations (including a method of interstellar travel I’ve never seen before in the first two pages) with thought-provoking human issues. I have always been a big Greg Egan fan, and of the three stories of his I read last year (I never saw a fourth, from the magazine Foundation), this was my favorite.

Incidentally, anthologies generally don’t identify whether a piece is a short story, novelette, or novella, and it’s not always easy to tell. Apologies if I mislabeled any of these.

Aaron's Hugo Recommendations:: Short Story

FIVE FAVORITE SHORT STORIES OF 2007:
Susan Palwick, “Sorrel’s Heart” (The Fate of Mice)
Robert Reed, “The Hoplite” (Helix, Spring ’07)
Adam Roberts, “A Distillation of Grace” (The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction)
Lavie Tidhar, “Daydreams” (Apex #10)
James A. Trimarco, “The Sundial Brigade” (Glorifying Terrorism)

OTHER VERY GOOD SHORT STORIES FROM 2007:
Stephen Baxter, “No More Stories” (Fast Forward 1)
Elizabeth Bear, “The Something-Dreaming Game” (Fast Forward 1)
Paul Di Filippo, “Personal Jesus” (The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction)
Greg Egan, “Steve Fever” (MIT Technology Review, Nov.-Dec. ’07)
James Patrick Kelly, “Don’t Stop” (Asimov’s, June ’07)
Ben Payne, “Inside” (Ticonderoga Online, Autumn ’07)
Elizabeth Sourbut, “‘How I Took Care of My Pals’” (Glorifying Terrorism)

NOTES:
The first list shows the stories I would nominate for the short story Hugo Award as of today, while the second list contains my near misses. (Both lists are in alphabetical order by author.) There is still a month left before the nominations deadline, so I will update this if I run across anything else exceptional in that time. Suggestions of stories I may have missed are welcome.

My single favorite short story of 2007 is “Sorrel’s Heart” by Susan Palwick. “Sorrel’s Heart” is a love story between a girl who literally carries her heart on the outside of her chest, and a sadistic yet oddly noble young man. It is a powerful, beautifully written piece, and I believe it would have a very good shot at the Hugo if only enough people read it. So do yourself a favor and go track down a copy of Palwick’s collection The Fate of Mice. That goes double if you are one of those folks complaining that not enough women have appeared on the Hugo shortlist in recent years.

There has been a significant shift in the past couple years as to where one can expect to find strong SF/F short fiction. Until very recently, the best short fiction was largely confined to the major print magazines, notably Asimov’s, F&SF, Analog, and Interzone. While those magazines remain very good, much more excellent short fiction is now appearing in original anthologies and on-line. Six of the stories listed above are from original anthologies and three from on-line publications. Five years ago, the only on-line site that compared to the major print mags was Ellen Datlow’s SciFiction. Today, there is a great deal of short fiction on-line at Helix, Clarkesworld, Subterranean, Strange Horizons, Lone Star Stories, Baen’s Universe, and others that is well up to the standards of the major print magazines.

If you are a member of Denvention 3 or were a member of Nippon 2007, and you read anything from 2007 that you thought was very good, PLEASE NOMINATE. Do not feel that you need to have read everything published in 2007 to be qualified to nominate, because no one has.

Aaron's Magazine of the Week :: Amazing Stories August 1941

The Magazine of the Week is the August 1941 issue of Amazing Stories, with an Edgar Rice Burroughs cover story and great BEM cover art by J. Allen St. John.

As discussed in an earlier BOTW (seen here), Amazing Stories was the first of the science fiction pulp magazines. This issue's cover story, "Yellow Men of Mars," is by Edgar Rice Burroughs, probably the most successful of all the pulp writers. Burroughs is best known outside science fiction circles as the creator of Tarzan of the Apes, but most fondly remembered among SF fans for his tales of John Carter of Mars. "Yellow Men of Mars" is a John Carter story, later incorporated into the novel Llana of Gathol, tenth in the John Carter series.

The St. John illustration on the Magazine of the Week is one of my favorite examples of pulp era BEM cover art. Like any specialized community, science fiction fandom has its own peculiar jargon. (You are an SF geek, for example, if you can translate the statement, "I can't decide whether to go check out the filk or just gafiate.") Any serious SF fan will instantly recognize the creature on the cover of the Magazine of the Week as a traditional skiffy BEM, or "bug-eyed monster."

Aaron's Book of the Week :: The Thing That Made Love by David V. Reed

A first edition may be especially collectible because the book become a classic or because the author went on to have a distinguished career. And then there are the books that are collectors' items simply because they are too outrageous and absurd for any collector to resist. In the latter category, the Book of the Week is The Thing That Made Love by David V. Reed.

This is a first printing, paperback original, published in digest format by Uni-Book in 1951. The novel had previously appeared in the pulp magazine Mammoth Detective, but under the dull title The Metal Monster Murders. Uni-Book changed the title, added cover art of a woman in a torn shirt and lacy bra, all under the tag line "No woman could survive such harrowing ecstasy!", creating perhaps the single most exploitative edition of a science fiction mystery ever published.

David V. Reed was the pen-name of David Vern (born David Levine, but no relation to the David Levine featured in our August 31, 2006 Magazine of the Week ). He started out as a minor author for the science fiction pulps before going on to a bit more success in comic books, authoring a number of Batman comics. By coincidence, a David V. Reed story appears in one of my personal favorite pulp magazines, also with an outrageous cover, illustrating a story by the most successful pulp writer ever. You will see that magazine, and learn what a "BEM" is, next week.

Aaron's Book of the Week :: 20 Million Miles to Earth by Henry Slesar

The Book of the Week is 20 Million Miles to Earth by prolific pulp and screenwriter Henry Slesar, published in 1957 by Amazing Stories. This was the first and only digest novel Amazing Stories issued, and it is the digest-format book most prized by collectors today.

20 Million Miles to Earth is a novelization of the 1957 film of the same title, featuring a rampaging monster created by special effects legend Ray Harryhausen. A great part of the book's appeal to collectors is its campy cover image of the salivating monster. We'll have another digest book that is collectible for its outrageous cover art (and title) next week.

(Oddly enough, after writing this week's BOTW posting, I discovered that the film version of 20 Million Miles to Earth is on television this weekend -- on Saturday, January 12th at 4:30 p.m. Mountain time on Turner Classic Movies (TCM). Check it out for some campy fun, even if you may notice a slight difference in production values between it and the film that follows it on TCM, also made in 1957, The Bridge on the River Kwai.)

Amy's Bookshelf :: Fantasy & Science Fiction December 2007

The December 2007 issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction contains a good selection of well-written stories. There are six stories - two novelettes and four short stories. Two of which are set in the future off Earth, one is set in the past, and the remaining stories are set in the present day, or something near to it.

The cover story is the novelette "Finisterra" by David Moles, with cover art by Cory and Catska Ench. In "Finisterra" an aeronautical engineer takes a job on a world featuring island-sized floating creatures called zaratán. Her employer and his alien associates are poachers. They are killing the zaratanes, a protected species, for profit.

The other novelette is "The Bone Man" by Frederic S. Durbin, in which a creepy man is sidetracked to a small town on what happens to be the day of the Hallowe’en Parade. The star of the parade is the Bone Man, a dancing skeleton.

In the short story "Osama Phone Home” by David Marusek, there is a secret American organization dedicated to bringing Osama bin Laden to justice. Their plan uses spooky, futuristic, but not impossible sounding, technologies.

"Don't Ask" by M. Rickert has mothers trying to cope with having their boys stolen to run with the wolves, and having them return home not only older but different.

In "Who Brought Tulips to the Moon?" by S.L. Gilbow a healthy old man, his impatient daughter, and her husband go to the moon to Smooth Passing, a mortuary-like company that helps you pass away.

"Stray" by Benjamin Rosenbaum and David Ackert features a worn out immortal trying to fit into an African American community in the 1930s.

The stories in this issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine were, at times, thought provoking. Each had some sort of emotional conflict or tension. My least favorite story was "The Bone Man" because of its thug of a protagonist. There weren't any stories that I would shout about from a mountaintop, but overall a good magazine to read.

(For more on these stories, and others, visit my blog Short Reviews of SF and fantasy short fiction)

Aaron's Book of the Week :: Inferno! by Vargo Statten

The Book of the Week is Inferno! by Vargo Statten, cover art by Ron Turner.

Vargo Statten was a pseudonym of British science fiction author John Russell Fearn. Even though Fearn was perhaps the most prolific British author of Golden Age science fiction and very popular with British SF readers, most of his work was published under various bizarre pseudonyms, most commonly "Vargo Statten" and "Volsted Gridban." The fact that so much of his work was printed pseudonymously may have contributed to Fearn fading from readers' memories over the years despite his vivid and imaginative stories. (Less charitably, his pedestrian prose may also have something to do with it.)

Inferno! was published in 1950 by Scion, Ltd., one of the most successful of several British publishers printing science fiction and fantasy in a digest format in the early to mid-50's. The digest-sized novel never had a comparable heyday in the United States, although a few smaller publishers experimented with the format. Some of those American digests have since become prized collectors' items. Next week's Book of the Week will be the most sought-after of all American digest novels.

Aaron's Book of the Week :: Odyssey in Space by Vektis Brack

The Book of the Week is Odyssey in Space by Vektis Brack, published in digest format by British publisher Gannet Press in 1953.

Vektis Brack was a Gannet Press "house name," i.e., a pseudonym belonging to the publisher rather than the author, and used by various authors employed by that publisher. The actual author of Odyssey in Space is believed to be Leslie Humphrys, who also wrote science fiction under his own pseudonym of Bruno G. Condray. No word on whether Arthur C. Clarke ever came across Odyssey in Space before writing the similarly titled (but immeasurably superior) 2001: A Space Odyssey. The Book of the Week is rendered more valuable to collectors by the presence of a topless woman in the cover art by Gerald Facey, even if you need a magnifying glass to spot her.

Digest books -- oversized, loosely bound paperback books that look more like digest magazines than typical mass market paperbacks -- were much more popular in England in the 1950's than they ever were in the United States. British publishers commonly used the digest format for their science fiction lines in the 1950's. They were also partial to outrageous pseudonyms for their science fiction writers; other pseudonyms used by Gannet Press included Bengo Mistral and Drax Amper. Even the most prolific British SF writer of the day wrote most of his work under various absurd pen-names, one of which we will see next week.

Aaron's Magazine of the Week :: Famous Fantastic Mysteries February 1949

The Magazine of the Week is the February 1949 issue of Famous Fantastic Mysteries, cover art by Lawrence Sterne Stevens. The cover story is a reprint of the short novel The Scarlet Plague (1912) by Jack London.

Jack London is remembered today as the author of such classics as The Call of the Wild and The Sea-Wolf, but a great deal of his output was what we now call science fiction. The Scarlet Plague, a post-apocalyptic tale set in the year 2072, is a good example. Other Jack London SF includes The Iron Heel (1908), about a future dystopia; Before Adam (1907) and The Star Rover (1915), both of which feature time travel through out-of-body experiences; "The Unparalleled Invasion" and "Goliah" (1910), which describe future warfare involving biological and energy weapons; and "The Red One" (1918), in which an island comes under extraterrestrial control.

Also included in the Magazine of the Week is "Angel Island" by Inez Haynes Gillmore, a reprint of an important early work of feminist fantasy first published in 1914. The premise is that five sailors shipwrecked on a strange island fall in love with five beautiful native women who can fly. The men manage to woo the angelic women and marry them, but soon decide that it would be best to clip off their wives' wings. The story is a rather obvious, but remarkable for 1914, parable for Gillmore's feminist views.

We'll look at some less socially conscious pulp fiction next week.

Aaron's Magazine of the Week :: Famous Fantastic Mysteries June 1953

The Magazine of the Week is one of my recent acquisitions, the June 1953 issue (the final issue) of pulp magazine Famous Fantastic Mysteries, cover art by Lawrence Sterne Stevens. As suggested by the relative sizes of the words on the cover, the emphasis of Famous Fantastic Mysteries was on the fantastic, and the magazine was part of the science fiction and fantasy pulp genre, not the mystery genre.

Recent BOTWs have discussed the unfortunate tendency in the mainstream to be dismissive of anything published in the science fiction and fantasy genre. There is sometimes a corresponding reverse snobbery in the SF/F community toward science fiction penned by mainstream writers. More commonly, however, SF/F readers have welcomed fantastic literature by authors who are not associated with the genre.

Between 1940 and 1953, Famous Fantastic Mysteries found success reprinting older novels and stories in pulp format, and a great many of the stories were written by famous authors not typically thought of as sci-fi writers. (We will have another example next week.) Thus, the cover story of the Magazine of the Week is Anthem by Ayn Rand -- more social science fiction. Also listed on the cover is The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. The issue also contains stories by SF great Ray Bradbury and by Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan the Barbarian, yet somehow this diverse group of authors was able to appear in a single magazine without anyone getting hurt.