The Sword and Laser discussion

Since there is already a thread devoted to discussing potential Hugo nominations for best novel, does anyone have suggested reading for the shorter fiction - such as short story, novelette, novella - published this year that stood out to them? There are so many venues and so many stories published online now that sometimes it feels like it'll be impossible to find the really good ones.

For my part, I've been going through the stories on Tor.com recently, and one that stood out to me was Marie Brennan's Mad Maudlin -- I thought it had an interesting mix of psychology and folk tale and was creepy to boot.

I'm not across the shorter fiction as much as the novels, but I would be surprised if The Litany of Earth by Ruthanna Emrys didn't get up. (You can read it on tor.com here.)

I also thought that Seanan McGuire's story in Lightspeed Magazine Each to Each was very good as well.

And I'll make a no-brainer prediction right now that tor.com will have the lion's share of nominations in the short fiction categories. That site is on fire right now.

I read Mad Maudlin: A Tor.Com Original recently, and I found it very good. Darker and more compelling that Brennan's other work, which I love, but this short story has an extra edge. I would love to see it, and Brennan nominated for a Hugo. I've followed her work almost since her debut and it has been very gratifying to follow how she has grown and improved as an author.

Just read "Mad Maudline" - I laughed and cheered out loud when Paul literally leapt into the fantastic, which earned me a funny look from my partner since we were at a cafe. :p

I got Litany of Earth and the Lightspeed Magazine, June 2014: Women Destroy Science Fiction issue (that has the McGuire story Lindsay mentioned and sounds interesting anyways) queued up on my ereader now. That issue of Lightspeed Magazine looks pretty hefty.

Anyways it's nice to have a palette cleanser between novels.

I really like that there's so much interesting going on in SSf short stories. There are some vert good authors who work very feel in the short format.
I'm a big fan of Elizabeth Bear and Catherynne Valente, who both write excellent novellas and short stories. Aliette de Bodard, Kij Johnson, Holly Phillips, Elizabeth Hand, Theodora Goss and Jeffrey Ford are other authors who write excellent short stories.
I really have to get myself an e-reader since so many new short stories and novellas only are published in e-format these days.

I read Litany of the Earth when it went up on Tor.com and I immediately thought it'd be a candidate for various award nominations. It's so atmospheric and has well considered things to say.

I'm also a fan of Valente. Does she have any short stories/novelette/novella published this year? I poked around her website a bit and it doesn't look like it. Goodreads thinks that she has a novel called The Ice Puzzle coming out this year, but I'm not sure I believe it.

It doesn't really look like has any short work published this year, and the Ice Puzzle has apparently been slated for publication for years without anything happening, so I'm not holding my breath even though I would love to read her take on H.C. Andersen's "Snow Queen".

It looks like she has a novel, Radiance, slated for publication this year.

I love her Prester John series, but since she terminated her contract with Night Shade Books, the third volume of the series has been up in the air. I hope it will be published at some point in the future.

Well Goodreads says Radiance is going to be published next year. And she has another Fairyland book being published next year (I was at her reading of the first chapter of it at LonCon, I need to go back and read the rest.) But I guess pretty much nothing this year from Valente.

Anyways: I just finished McGuire's Each to Each last night, I was pretty disappointed. There was a cool post-human story in there somewhere, but it was mostly a infodump. I actually don't mind infodumps normally so I think I just didn't buy the near-future being created. Some sort of weird patriarchy that uses all woman units for contrived reasons.

Ah, my mistake. I guess I was just very exited about something new from Valente. I'm looking forward to the new Fairlyland book (I believe that it is to be a 5 book series).

I'm really curious about what Radiance is about. My guess is sci-fi.

Radiance is based on a short story I published in Clarkesworld back in 2009: "The Radiant Car Thy Sparrows Drew." http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/valen...

If all goes according to plan, I'll have another story from her soon, but it may not see publication until January.

Hi Neil, are there any Clarkesworld stories that you think will be up for Hugo nomination this year?

How about elsewhere?

I'm so close to the stories that I often have trouble guessing which will attract that kind of attention. For the most part, I just sit back and watch. :)

Some people have suggested to me that:

"Passage of Earth" by Michael Swanwick
http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/swanw...
"Autodidact" by Benjanun Sriduangkaew
http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/sridu...
"The Meeker and the All-Seeing Eye" by Matthew Kressel
http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/kress...

were some of the better stories we've published so far this year. I've also received a lot of positive feedback for "Tongtong's Summer" by Xia Jia (translated by Ken Liu) from my anthology, UPGRADED.

Neil wrote: "Radiance is based on a short story I published in Clarkesworld back in 2009: "The Radiant Car Thy Sparrows Drew." http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/valen...

If all goes according to plan, I'll..."

Thanks Neil. Now I'm just so excited. I've read that short story several times, and I just love both the style of the piece but also the sort of retro-futuristic world she built up in that piece.
I can't wait to see what she does with it in Radiance.

Neil wrote: "I'm so close to the stories that I often have trouble guessing which will attract that kind of attention. For the most part, I just sit back and watch. :)"

I imagine it's a little like being asked which of your kids is your favorite :)

Thanks for the recommendations, I will read up.

Lindsay wrote: "I imagine it's a little like being asked which of your kids is your favorite :)"

Exactly!

Forgot we were also including novellas. Have to add "The Regular" by Ken Liu also from UPGRADED. He really knocked it out of the park with this one. (Makes me wish I could publish more novellas.)

I really liked 'Never the Same' at Strange Horizons, by Polenth Blake. Not often I see a sympathetic psychopath.
http://www.strangehorizons.com/2014/20140908/neverthesame-f.shtml

kvon wrote: "I really liked 'Never the Same' at Strange Horizons, by Polenth Blake. Not often I see a sympathetic psychopath.
http://www.strangehorizons.com/2014/2..."

Just read it. That was really good.

Also in Clarkesworld, I really liked The Clockwork Soldier by Ken Liu

I've been saving all these suggestions as html files and importing them into Calibre, converting to MOBI and transfering to my Kindle. Passage of Earth and Autodidact were both great. I'll have to sit down sometime and sort out what I want to nominate, I'll post it here as something of a living document. Would be cool if others would do the same, to implement my anti-coordinated Hugo voting campaign.

Edit: Clockwork Soldier was great

I do wish there was a way for more novellas to be published it is one of the best lengths for SF/fantasy and there are plenty writers who excel at that length just not many markets other than self publishing for those enterprising enough to go down that route.

Passage of Earth was a great story. I have read too few stories published this year to say if I would place it as one of the best but I did enjoy it. Ditto with Tongtongs Summer though I do not think enough people will read it for it to have a real chance which to me highlights a key issue for this type of thread - we can either look at what are the best stories of the year or which stories have a wide enough readership and a broad enough buzz to get on the Hugo ballot.

Short SF is so fragmented into multiple markets and with the
silly 5% rule a story needs to have lots and lots of people read it and vote for it for it to get the 5% of votes in that catagory to make final ballot. Other than the occasional super popular story collection and a couple of writers (Gaiman, Mcguire etc) with such huge fan bases then short of any Sad Puppy type lobbying only Asimovs probably has the voting readership to have a chance over the internet published stories.

My favorite story of the year thus far was a Jeffrey Ford story in Fearful Symmetries - as it is a horror anthology from a fairly small press I dont think it will get enough readers to have a chance (though it is fantasy).

Ben wrote: "Short SF is so fragmented into multiple markets and with the
silly 5% rule a story needs to have lots and lots of people read it and vote for it for it to get the 5% of votes in that catagory to make final ballot. Other than the occasional super popular story collection and a couple of writers (Gaiman, Mcguire etc) with such huge fan bases then short of any Sad Puppy type lobbying only Asimovs probably has the voting readership to have a chance over the internet published stories. "

Agreed, the Internet has given us an embarrassment of riches. Maybe we could just have 20 nominees for short stories or an additional election.

I doubt it will change, and there are good reasons for it to not change. But it would be interesting if they took the nomination away from the WSFC members and gave it to a smaller group, but still had the members vote. The smaller group could be all the previous years nominees, or maybe just the previous years nominated editors. Include a write in option on the final ballot, and it might work.

Yes, it could be a bit self serving. But most of the writers, and especially the editors, are going to be better read then most of the voters. They could even still leave some categories up for the members to nominate like Novel, Editors, and all of the non-pro categories.

Just an idea.

John wrote: "But most of the writers, and especially the editors, are going to be better read then most of the voters"

Isn't that what the Nebula awards are for?

The fundamentals of short stories obviously make it a lot easier to do voting since its entirely possibly for everyone to read a larger group of short stories. Maybe a preliminary round of nominations would be pretty easy to do.

John wrote: "I doubt it will change, and there are good reasons for it to not change. But it would be interesting if they took the nomination away from the WSFC members and gave it to a smaller group, but stil..."

That's a different award. The whole point of the Hugo's is that is voted on by the Worldcon members. There are plenty of jury voted awards already. This is one for readers.

With Tor.com and Clarkesworld Magazine and recently The Book Smugglers among others making all their stories available online for free short stories have never been more accessible then now.

Ben wrote: "I do wish there was a way for more novellas to be published it is one of the best lengths for SF/fantasy and there are plenty writers who excel at that length just not many markets other than self ..."

Tor.com is currently starting up an imprint that'll focus on novella length fiction as DRM free ebooks (and print on demand books) for just that reason.

thanks Kevin, thats an exciting development - hopefully lots of great stuff will come of it.

It might be too late to start this for this year -- but would anybody interested in a sf/f/horror short story reading club, maybe here on Goodreads?

How I am thinking it could be set up: there would be monthly votes for short stories that caught a reader's eye previous month, and then the group reads the top few and discuss. It isn't perfect, but it'd be an opportunity to read more fiction at the length. As others said, it is difficult to know where to start with so many options now.

There's a new Marie Brennan story on Tor.com, "Daughter of Necessity". http://www.tor.com/stories/2014/10/da...

I haven't read it yet, but I have followed her work from her debut and it has been amazing to see how much she has developed as an author. I'm a big fan of hers. I've mostly read the novels but have begun to dig up som short stories of hers as well.
Her story "Mad Maudlin", also on Tor.com is great as well: http://www.tor.com/stories/2014/02/ma...

There are a lot of interesting recommendations here, so I'm noting them down and looking forward to getting introduced to some new writers.

Stephanie wrote: "It might be too late to start this for this year -- but would anybody interested in a sf/f/horror short story reading club, maybe here on Goodreads?

How I am thinking it could be set up: there wo..."


I would enjoy something like that.

Stephanie wrote: "It might be too late to start this for this year -- but would anybody interested in a sf/f/horror short story reading club, maybe here on Goodreads?"

Make it so!
Actually not sure of the logistics to pull something like that off. Like maybe a subreddit might make sense, then folks could just submit stories and vote on them? Then the moderator could curate every month. A lot of work for the moderator regardless.

A good resource in general is Locus, they do review the current crop of magazines. I actually just got a subscription this month, it's quite expensive. Confusingly the online stuff is a different set of reviews from the magazine reviews. But they do review short fiction online:
http://www.locusmag.com/Reviews/categ...

Trine wrote: "Her story "Mad Maudlin", also on Tor.com is great as well"

This thread has gone full circle. :D Just sent Daughter of Necessity to my Kindle, I look forward to that.

I know this thread has moved past it, but to clear up any misconception, I still was suggesting that the vote should be from the whole convention, but the pruning of the nominees in certain difficult categories be done by a smaller group. And yes other awards do do similar things, but in the case of the Nebulas the actual vote is still done by just authors, not a larger group like the convention.

As I tried to say at the beginning there are good reasons not to go down this path, but the process for nominating short story, novelette, and novella, seem to be the hardest and least popular, so maybe it's time for a change in those specific categories.

Just a thought, please move along with your normally scheduled discussion.

I'm a few weeks late in posting it, but Charlotte Ashley of Apex posted a best of 2014 list for short fiction here: http://www.apex-magazine.com/clavis-a...

She definitely added a few reads to my list before I nominate!

Also, as all good ideas are already done, somebody has already created a short fiction discussion group on goodreads too: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...

For best novelette, everyone should check out Project Itoh's From the Nothing With Love in Phantasm Japan. You'll never watch a James Bond movie the same way again, especially the ones with Q.