248 posts tagged with sff.
Displaying 1 through 50 of 248. Subscribe:
"Animals speak their own language... it’s a lot simpler to figure out."
When I think of genre awards
10 Major Awards for Fantasy Literature (2018) hits the SFF high points. There is, however, a long list of contenders for awards of varying sizes (2019). Another perspective (2016), from around the time of the last major Hugos fracas. If you haven't heard of them, maybe check out the Ignyte Awards, the Lambda Literary Award for Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror (or see the overall database of Lambda winners), or the Prix Jacques Brossard. For more information, visit the Science Fiction Awards Database. [more inside]
Finalists for the 59th Nebula Awards
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association has announced the finalists for the Nebula Awards. [more inside]
The Lost Universe: NASA's First TTRPG Adventure
The Lost Universe (science.nasa.gov, 03/04/2024): "A dark mystery has settled over the city of Aldastron on the rogue planet of Exlaris. Researchers dedicated to studying the cosmos have disappeared, and the Hubble Space Telescope has vanished from Earth's timeline. Only an ambitious crew of adventurers can uncover what was lost. Are you up to the challenge? This adventure is designed for a party of 4-7 level 7-10 characters and is easily adaptable for your preferred tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) system." Adventure design by Christina Mitchell. Graphic design by Michelle Belleville.
Ten there were, dusty chronicles of forgotten lore…
"I wake up later and I can’t pretend anymore."
Maureen F. McHugh (previously) wrote two short scifi stories recently in which folks navigate modern uncertainty with a fantastical twist. In "The Goldfish Man" (2022), "Before everything went to hell I was making double vases." In "Liminal Spaces" (2024) (which feels in conversation with Ursula K. Le Guin's Changing Planes), "There was a broad corridor going off to the left that she definitely didn’t remember. It shook her out of her ruminations." [more inside]
A genre of swords and soulmates
"Romantasy 'allows women to have it all', says Christina Clark-Brown, who shares book recommendations on the Instagram page ninas_nook. 'There is no damsel who needs saving but rather women are allowed to be powerful, go on epic quests, and find love with a partner who is an equal to them in every way.'" The Guardian has some exciting news for you [Archive] about romantasy. Is what's described, though, a never-before-seen phenomenon? (Of course not.) [more inside]
Howard Waldrop 1946-2024
Howard Waldrop, award winning speculative fiction author of stories such as The Ugly Chickens and Night of the Cooters died on 14 January age 77.
Waldrop was a true original and wrote many short stories that often played with alternative history or remixes of other SF and fantasy stories by drawing on a large and eclectic knowledge of history and genre. He never achieved wide popularity but he was well known and appreciated within the SFF community. [more inside]
Terry Bisson 1942-2024
Terry Bisson, award winning SFF author of short stories such as Bears Discover Fire and They're Made Out of Meat (video) has passed away. [more inside]
Can you copyright Sun Powers?
Since I know you expect to be updated on the latest SFF YA writer drama, here you go:
…
since the infamous Lauren is trying to delete her racist tweets while simultaneously still harassing BIPOC authors, I guess we're doing this instead.
"I found it interesting and rewarding"
Jim Ray riffs on the satirical 2021 tweet about "Don't Create The Torment Nexus" with a short fiction story told as a thread on Mastodon starting: "Like seemingly everyone on this app I have plenty of opinions about the launch of The Torment Nexus, the opening of the Xthonic Gateway, and release of the arch-demon Tzaunh MAY HIS REIGN BE DARK AND ETERNAL, who has begun his foretold 10,000 years of suffering and torment. I figure now is a good time to open up a bit about my experience at the company." The skewerings in the 17 following posts call to my mind The Bug by Ellen Ullman or the Knives Out films. Ray noted, "The Call of PMthulu writes itself". [more inside]
“What did you mean, ‘Not again?’”
A new wrinkle on the old story of three wishes, set after the end of the world. "As Good As New", by Charlie Jane Anders, published on Tor.com in 2014. "The door to the panic room wouldn’t actually open when Marisol finally decided it had been a couple months since the last quake and it was time to go the hell out there. She had to kick the door a few dozen times, until she dislodged enough of the debris blocking it to stagger out into the wasteland." A short fantasy story with no villain, where two people work together to make stuff. It’s a hopeful story -- with creativity and love and working together and systematic thought, we can turn things around.
"You, my friends, are not boring or lame."
Brandon Sanderson (Reddit, 03/23/2023), "On the Wired Article": "Honestly, I'm a guy who enjoys his job, loves his family, and is a little obsessive about his stories ... I can see how it is difficult to write an article about me." Additional context by Janet Manley (LitHub, 03/24/2023), "Read the meanest literary profile of the year (so far) ... and the subject's response": "Does Kehe insult Sanderson’s writing, or Sanderson, or Sanderson's Mormonism? Yes. All of those things." The Wired article by Jason Kehe (03/23/2023), "Brandon Sanderson Is Your God": "I realize, in a panic, that I now have a problem. Sanderson is excited to talk about his reputation. He's excited, really, to talk about anything. But none of his self-analysis is, for my purposes, exciting" (Wayback Machine).
Five (SFF) Authors We Wish Had Written More
In the wake of Cameron Reed's announcement that she is working on a new book and that Locus-nominated The Fortunate Fall is being republished next year, James Davis Nicoll points us at five other science fiction and fantasy authors whose careers ended too soon, for various reasons. [more inside]
rescue, bandages, and smoke
A few very different wish-fulfillment pieces of speculative fiction. Stories by lyricwritesprose and by dalekteaservice give us alien points of view on what humans could offer to a troubled universe. And in "Burning Men" by Maria Farrell, certain people start spontaneously combusting. (Author's commentary: it's "about a world where the cost of sexual violence is born by the perpetrators and how that changes everything" as well as "the mood music of brexit and covid.") [more inside]
The final act of Worf, the Star Trek legend who deserved one most of all
What Worf Really Meant to Star Trek Legend Michael Dorn [Polygon]
““They really didn’t have a bible for Worf at all,” says Dorn of those early episodes. “In fact, one of the first things I did was, I asked the producers, ‘What do you want from this guy? You’ve just handed me a piece of paper that says Worf on it.’” With Roddenberry’s blessing, Dorn set out making the character his own, giving Worf the kind of personal investment and attachment that only an actor can provide. “I decided to make the guy the opposite of everybody else on the show. You know, everyone else, their attitudes were great, and they’re out there in space, relationships are forming. And after every mission they were like, Wasn’t that fantastic? I didn’t say anything to anybody, I just made him this gruff and surly character on the bridge. No smiles, no joking around.””Dorn has swapped his mek’leth for a kur’leth and glued on his bumpy prosthetic forehead once more to reprise the role of Worf in the final season of Star Trek: Picard, which reunites the Next Gen cast for one last adventure. It’s the chance to give one of sci-fi’s most beloved supporting characters something that’s usually reserved only for Captains and Admirals: a glorious third act.
a funnel, the tinsel, sifting, forgetting, remembering
Here, have 2 heartwrenching short speculative fiction stories where parents, trying their best, say or do terrible yet ordinary things; their children eventually find imperfect ways to cope or heal. "Coming Through in Waves" by Samantha Murray -- content notes at the top -- "[My mother's] sentences all sound … reasonable on the surface. She’s pulling any immediate clues from the environment, from my expression, from words that knit well together, to cover the gaping wound which is her mind.". Summary of "Sand" by Jasmin Kirkbride: When Suzy was born, her parents filled her mouth with sand. But this is normal and natural and the way things are always done. And if she finds it uncomfortable to keep it there, to eat with it there, to talk with it there, she’s just going to have to learn to live with it.
The Lathe of Heaven
Kelly Link in Praise of Ursula K. Le Guin's Genuine Magic - "It is also, notably, Le Guin's deliberate foray into Philip K. Dick's territory, with its hallucinatory beginning, its drug-using protagonist, and its surreal, literally world-melting alternate realities. Dick and Le Guin were admirers of each other's work and occasional correspondents." [more inside]
Collaboration?
To stop comparing myself to her. I can't help but envy the lives of those pairs who are perfect complements. One acts, the other manages. One writes, the other edits. The model inspiring the artist. The muse amusing her echo. Or even both doing the exact same job, wearing the same clothes, favoring the same perfumes, marrying the same man-nɒm. How lovely that must be, to be at ease with your reflection, to never be alone, to always have a partner. [more inside]
"These are futures where we might turn from despair."
How to Survive in Broken Worlds (Jesmyn Ward on Octavia Butler)
Westeros and Essos and Valentino
Game of Thrones / A Song of Ice and Fire, love(d) them or hate(d) them, the clothes are fabulous! A Game of Clothes is a tumblr blog that deliciously, obsessively, meticulously records the real life styles the vast cast of characters would wear, and where they would wear them, and why, and who they are, and where they are from. Pretty much all the W questions, but most particularly, what would [ASoIaF Person] wear, or maybe who would wear [Famous Designer]? Basically a "Westeros Wear Daily." [more inside]
The 2022 Hugo Awards
The 2022 Hugo Awards ceremony happened last night! The ceremony, hosted by Charlie Jane Anders and Annalee Newitz, can be viewed on Youtube. You can also check out the full list of winners and the full voting statistics. [more inside]
"I don’t personally vet every prophecy that comes through these halls"
Catelyn Winona (Caffeine and Magix) has published several short stories or vignettes recently that subvert epic fantasy or superhero tropes. Here are three: "No Heroes Here" ("Daz was raised by a hero. That’s probably why she isn’t one."); a piece in which the Chosen One immediately takes up the Dark Lord's offer to join their cause; and "Wizards Stole My Brother" ("Being the Chosen One fucking sucks. That’s why Erika is furious when she finds out her brother got picked.").
The 2022 Ignyte Awards Shortlist
"The Ignyte Awards Committee Is thrilled to announce the finalists for the 2022 Igynte Awards. The Awards seek to celebrate the vibrancy and diversity of the current and future landscape of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror by recognizing incredible feats in storytelling and outstanding efforts towards inclusivity within the genre. To that effect, the committee feels that these creators, creations, entities and perspectives from 2021 present the brightest lights in speculative fiction’s future." 19 of the shortlisted works are readable for free online, including many short stories and novelettes. Voting is open now (anyone can vote) and closes June 10th.
"is there a loathly lady in the tale? well SORT OF"
"The Seven Daughters Of The Cailleach Foraoise" by Dyce (Sarah Blackwell) is tagged "new fairy tales / going old school with this one / threes and sevens and animals in danger and trick questions / the lot / enjoy": "Being kind of heart, he wrapped his hands in his cloak to protect them, and freed the young fox despite its attempts to bite him." Thematically related: Kate Clayborn writes a Twitter thread on the Canterbury Tales, the loathly lady, and 'a quest to find a true answer to the question "what do women most desire"' (nitter view, Threadreader view): "i really need to say a word on behalf of my old friend the wife of bath" [Content note for mention of rape in Twitter thread.]
Hugo Award finalists include a story in tweeted images
The 2022 ballot for the Hugo, Astounding, and Lodestar Awards, awards for achievement in science fiction and fantasy, has been announced. Worldcon members submitted 1368 valid nominating ballots (up from 1249 last year and down from the heights of the 2010s); voting will open in May and the final results will be announced on September 4. Notably, "Unknown Number" by Blue Neustifter a.k.a. Azure Husky (previously) is a story that was originally published as a Twitter thread containing a series of simulated text messages. [more inside]
"reform all the tawdry inefficiencies"
"Running Walden Three is not a feel-good exercise. It is a job, and it is a difficult one. We can make an executive love Walden Three, but we can’t make a fool into an executive." "Tomorrow’s Dictator" is a short, dark scifi story by Rahul Kanakia, published in 2012, in which it's hard to hire good brainwashers, er, community managers.
Dragons, governance, teaching, inheritance, transformation
"The Divine votaries in the roadside temples become easier to convince as Tishrel goes higher into the foothills, recognising on sight what he is. It’s Tishrel himself who is forgetting now, with words from his past drifting in fragments through his mind. All this is yours, Tishrel. One foot after another. Before the individual, the state." "To Embody a Wildfire Starting" is a fantasy novelette by Iona Datt Sharma (previously), published this year. Their summary: "Now the revolution has come, Tishrel is on his way home to the Eyrie, the socialist dragonish community of his upbringing; it turns out that both he and it have changed." [more inside]
"But enough with the veiled warnings."
"There are a lot more seems-haunted old-house-turned-traveller’s-rest places than most people think, and in my experience most night auditors are hollow-eyed, faintly eldritch, and disinclined to let someone check in just before dawn." "The Late Traveller" by dyce (Sarah Blackwell) is a short fantasy story set at "a little old hotel in the middle of nowhere, with a creaking wooden sign instead of neon".
Matilda Betham's Miniature Portraits: Artistic, Poetic, Biographical
In 1809, Matilda Betham painted miniature portraits of Sara Fricker Coleridge ("Romantic but hardly romantic: Sarah Fricker's life ...") and her daughter Sara Coleridge [PDF] (~30 years later, author of the fantasy novel Phantasmion--"Its supernatural beings have no English originals ... Feydeleen the Flower Spirit ... Oloola the Spirit of the Storm," etc.--which has one copy annotated autobiographically). Betham was a Romantic poet whose Poems / Vignettes addressed Ann Radcliffe, the Ladies of Llangollen ("... who were famous for wanting to be left alone"), M.I., Belinda, and others. Betham also wrote an enormous collective biography [plain HTML] of celebrated women--an alternative to the work by Mary Hays mentioned in her preface and published in the same year as a work in French by Fortunée Briquet (see also Collective Biographies of Women).
,_Portrait_miniature,1809.jpg#/media/File:Mary_Matilda_Betham,_Sara_Coleridge_(Mrs._Samuel_Taylor),_Portrait_miniature,1809.jpg){kind=link}
“A language?” “Sure. Between Japanese and English.”
"You shall not bear a child, but a language.” "Annunciation" by P. Akasaka (a Japanese writer living in the UK), published last month in Strange Horizons, is a short, fantastical story about an unexpected pregnancy.
Family reconciliation near the risen water
"The distance from the Stop & Go to his childhood home is the length of time it took to eat a bag of spicy pork skins and throw the evidence in a neighbor’s garbage can so his mom wouldn’t know he’d been ruining his dinner. But he’d measured it in a teenage boy’s appetite, and the walk seems quicker now. The streets narrower, the telephone poles shorter, the sky closer, everything more squat, and the gritty smell of the marsh clinging on even two blocks up the street." "Babang Luksa" by Nicasio Andres Reed is a short speculative story published last month in Reckoning, a journal of creative writing on environmental justice.
The Whole Forming a Constellation of Horror!!!
Ann Lemoine, publisher (1800 [1st ed.]), New Lights from the World of Darkness; or the Midnight Messenger; with Solemn Signals from the World of Spirits: "The wife of a very eminent bookseller in the city, who died soon after her husband, in 1790, used frequently to appear to a friend of her husband's, near Charles's Square, entirely encircled in a thick blue vapour, and which, upon her disappearing, always left a very strong scent." At The Women's Print History Project (home of a database listing >10k publications), Sara Penn discusses "England's First Female Chapbook Publisher" and "Ann Lemoine's 'Haunted Castle'" [the text]. See also Jonathan Barry's publishing history of supernatural tales [PDF] and Angela Koch's checklist of Gothic bluebooks. Previously: Weird Tales from the 18th Century.
Is there an aesthetic dominating today's English-language written SF/F?
Elizabeth Sandifer suggests that we are now experiencing a "clear aesthetic shift in how sci-fi works" in observations that started as this Twitter thread. She notes "Diversity as an underlying assumption....A massive dollop of fanfic and romance influence....It’s stylistically a big tent" and suggests the prospective name "Tor Wave." (Followup comments from Sandifer.) A related conversation about the label "squeecore" started with an episode of the Rite Gud podcast (transcript) and has drawn responses from Doris V. Sutherland - "'Squeecore' and the Cartoon Mode in SF/F", Camestros Felapton - "Is there a dominant mode of current science fiction?", Cora Buhlert - "Science Fiction Is Never Evenly Distributed" & "More on the Squeecore Debate", and Simon McNeil - "Notes on Squeecore". [more inside]
Queer fiction for 2022
"Anything out of the ordinary?" Yes, if you'd like, every week!
The short, light fantasy story "Scales and Fire" by Jeff Soesbe features a dragon who needs to track down who tried to poison her. "After I roasted the apothecary, his wife started talking." It's in Abyss and Apex, which you can follow via RSS feed. In fact, while I'm at it.... [more inside]
"a drawing of a horse, an orchid, or in fact any related object"
"Mother, if I see another insipid line drawing of the wonders of Twinklebed Falls, I don't know what will happen, but I know it will be disgraceful." "The Watercolors of Elfland" by Marissa Lingen (previously) is a gentle comedy-of-manners fantasy story involving a party with light refreshments, a botanical discovery, and just-out-of-frame Sidhe. [more inside]
"My sister is not going to be into something so sepulchral"
"I have my own personal banshee. Most mornings, usually during my second bowl of cereal, she lets out a soul-melting wail to give me a heads-up on my impending death that day. I used to get worried, but it’s been going on awhile. And I’m still here." "Keening" by Josh Denslow is a short fantasy story in which it is frustrating and edifying to have a banshee as a constant companion. [more inside]
"It doesn’t feel like a win."
"Some Kind of Blood-Soaked Future" by Carlie St. George is a short story playing with/within the horror genre, involving found family and a sort-of-chosen career protecting others. "Here’s the thing about surviving a slumber party massacre: no one really wants you around anymore. All your friends are dead, and your mom is dead, and you get shuffled off to live with your miserable Aunt Katherine, who blames you for getting her sister killed because she’s an awful human being like that." [more inside]
"You’ve got to get out clean when the mission’s over."
"The lieutenant is not stupid; she is one of the smartest people I’ve ever met, so I’ll have to be extra careful about how I rewire this security door panel so she doesn’t notice I’ve inserted something that shouldn’t be there, a tiny chip that someone from outside can activate to open the door without triggering any of the ship’s notification systems." "How to Defeat Gravity and Achieve Escape Velocity" by Miyuki Jane Pinckard (published this year) is a short science fiction story involving a crush, sabotage, abandoned asteroid miners, and a heist or two nested within a scheme. [more inside]
The Hugo Awards for 2021
2021's Hugo Award winners have been announced. See: Martha Wells's Network Effect on Fanfare; complete voting stats [PDF]; annual "In Memoriam" list; and the complete ceremony (some light moments: Michael Schur's recording at 1:21 and Ursula Vernon's slime mold facts at 1:44 and 2:03). Under section 3.3.19 of the WSFS Constitution [PDF], DisCon III awarded a unique Hugo for Best Video Game. This year's awards were sponsored by Google and Raytheon. The site of Worldcon 2023 has also been selected: Chengdu, despite a special resolution. On Twitter: Jeannette Ng; Michi Trota; James Nicoll (NASFiC defined); Chengdu's bid team / fandom.
"It reminded me of a dandelion seed"
“The Last Ship Out of Exville” by Phoebe Barton is a short sci-fi story that's quick and angry and loud, like a punk rock song. "They call me the Sorceress, because holding together a community like Exville takes a little magic. We’ve got outcasts from Earth and Luna, Martian dustpunks, Venusian hotshots, and Belter wanderers, and all of them with their own ideas of how to live together. It’d be even harder if we didn’t have all those fascists on Callisto growling at our door."
"It isn’t uncommon for this particular demon to be summoned"
Two short fantasy pieces from the points of view of the monsters. In an untitled horror piece by synchronmurmurs, you are the haunted house: "...humans began running away from you just because you’d opened a shutter to let in some light, or when you’d open doors for them to allow passage through your lonely halls." And in this heartstring-pulling Tumblr collaboration among many writers, "An old and homely grandmother accidentally summons a demon. She mistakes him for her gothic-phase teenage grandson and takes care of him. The demon decides to stay at his new home." [more inside]
"threads the ends of her hair in like pouring a sacrament"
"Today one of the minders rolls one Veena Kaur Chan into my hairbay for a shampoo and cut. New client, transferring in from Palliative....I’m programmed to be autonomous, so I can access the public domain base for hair puns—hey, if I get a client who’s responsive, it can cheer them up." "Coiffeur Seven" by Kiran Kaur Saini, published this year, is a short science fiction story in which a piece of technology learns to care better for an Indian woman. [more inside]
"BarrowBoy marked this as a stretch"
"Child transcribed twenty verses, and a twenty-first got added later (and is included here for some unknown reason—I keep writing to the Lyricsplainer mods to get someone to delete it or include it as a separate entry, but nobody responds, and all they’ve done is put brackets around it. Sometimes I hate this site.)" "Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather" by Sarah Pinsker, published this year, is a short fantasy story in the form of a lyrics website page about a folksong, and the accompanying discussion thread. Plus a recording of the song.
"They just . . . don’t seem to hear it."
A dystopian horror story. "The Sound of" by Charles Payseur (published 2017): "Diego packs more insulation into the walls. The work’s itchy as hell and the insulation isn’t enough to cut out the whine of the Sound, not entirely, but he likes to think it helps." Content note for noise torture and police brutality.
"I don't know how long I've been at this now."
Two short fantasy comics: "HSTHETE" by Melanie Gillman is a comic about "our goddess of mishaps" and someone who seeks her. "A Hero" by Madeline Sharafian (also on Twitter) shares glimpses the thrills and lows of an older hero's life.
"the opportunity for interaction her infection has provided"
Magazine archives week concludes! "A Programmatic Approach to Perfect Happiness" by Tim Pratt (audio version) is a snappy and somewhat unsettling science fiction story involving sex, a robot, a family, an infectious disease, and scheming. [more inside]
"None of it was here before, and time is short."
"I load up the interface, drilling straight down to the zygote’s chromosomal level. Hayden’s been a bit careless, like he always is on the rare occasions he actually gets in the wet lab. I get to work, fixing his mistakes." "Best for Baby" by Rivqa Rafael takes us into an unusual workday for a geneticist fixing a mess under time pressure -- and under a pressure she had not expected. [more inside]
"on the inside I was screaming curses to Jupiter"
“And to the Republic” by Rachel Kolar is a fantasy story about an alternate civic religion for the US and one sister frantically trying to persuade another: "I didn’t hurry out the door, since that would raise suspicion. Instead, I stopped at the shrines as I always did, lighting my incense to Mercury for a safe commute and to Washington, Lincoln, and the paters patriae for the health of the Republic, before sliding behind the wheel of my car and punching my sister’s number into my cell phone." [more inside]