Sunday, May 31, 2015

Roundup of Suggested Short Fiction Brain Bleach to Counteract This Year's Hugo Nominees

With apologies and thanks to File 770 I have pulled together a list of the short fiction recommendations there that were suggested as remedies for the short fiction that is in packet for this year. The idea is that if you find yourself in despair over SF/F or if you have forgotten what high quality fiction is like, you can read some of these suggestions to restore your faith in the universe.

I pulled this list together when I realized that I am never going to remember what and where all of these suggestions were, so again - apologies and thanks to the commentariat at File 770.

This is the comment that kicked it off ...



I’ll catch up on the comments tomorrow, just logging in now because I need my faith in short stories restored. I just finished the last of the “best” short stories for 2015 Hugo Awards.
Could someone point me to really Hugo worthy short stories? I’m willing to pay if I have to, I just need to feel better. Any year I don’t care.





Rebekah Golden: Do novelettes count? Because Ruthanna Emrys’s “The Litany of Earth” on Tor.com last year rocked my world.



Rebekah, I would recommend Women of Wonder, the whole series, Tanith Lee’s Red as Blood, Yoon Ha Lee’s Conservation of Shadows, and Zen Cho’s Spirits Abroad.



I mean the Women of Wonder series edited by Pamela Sargent. Not the unrelated, more recent, book of the same name recently mentioned on tor.com.



Rebekah, if you want an oldie but goodie — Zelazny’s “A Rose for Ecclesiastes” is a favorite, or Asimov’s “Nightfall.”



Rebekah, have some Howard Waldrop. It’s good for what ails you.



Rebekah Golden 
“… Could someone point me to really Hugo worthy short stories? I’m willing to pay if I have to, I just need to feel better. Any year I don’t care. …”
Hie thee to your bookshelf and pull out your copy of Bradbury’s collection The Machineries of Joy, and read the title story



>> Could someone point me to really Hugo worthy short stories? I’m willing to pay if I have to, I just need to feel better. Any year I don’t care.>>
I don’t know whether I’d say Hugo-worthy, exactly, but:
That’s a collection of short stories by Tessa Gratton, Brenna Yovanoff and Maggie Stiefvater, and not only do you get a set of interesting stories, the three of them comment on each other’s stories as well, giving some interesting insights into how and why the stories are shaped.
I’d also recommend:
Many of the stories are delightful, especially “Gastronomicon.”
And in the even you haven’t read it already:
kdb



Rebekah Elizabeth Moon’s A Parrion of Cooking and The Last Lesson both in Deeds of Honor were very good.



Rebekah Golden: Could someone point me to really Hugo worthy short stories? I’m willing to pay if I have to, I just need to feel better.
I’ll second (fifth?) the nomination for Elizabeth Bear’s Covenant.



Rebekah Golden: Could someone point me to really Hugo worthy short stories? I’m willing to pay if I have to, I just need to feel better.
Here’s a list of links to what other people said they liked this year:



Some 2014 short stories I really liked:
Jo Walton – “Sleeper
Matthew Kressel – “The Meeker and the All-Seeing Eye



Liz Williams’ story Banquet of the Lords of Night is free on the Clarkesworld site. I liked it.



Rebekah – Could someone point me to really Hugo worthy short stories?
The Rogues short story collection from last year was quite good and had stories that ranged from all sorts of genres. Abercrombie, Gillian Flynn, Lansdale, Cherie Priest, Scott Lynch, Nix, Willis, Rothfuss, and Martin all have short stories in it.
I was also a fan of the short story collection Letters to Lovecraft that came out last year. There are some weird and middling stories in it but I enjoyed Doc’s Story, Only the Dead and the Moonstruck, and The Trees I really liked a lot. That Place by Gemma Files is a way more interesting variation of the kind of CS Lewis story that Wright was going for.



For those looking for good short stories who also liked Ann Leckie’s novels, here’s a short story set in the same world:



I dunno if it’s properly a short story (or Hugo worth, really. I don’t read enough short fiction to have any sense of the field), but Nicola Griffith’s Cold Wind was pretty good



Rebekah Golden at 8:29 pm:
Just a few short(er) stories available online (fingers crossed that they make it past the spam filter).
The Great Silence Ted Chiang
A Colder War Charles Stross
Sonny Liston Takes a Fall Elizabeth Bear.



A few more:
Toad Words Ursula Vernon.
A Dry, Quiet War Tony Daniel.
Glory Greg Egan.



Did I mention I’m a fan of Stross, Chiang, & Egan?
Lobsters the first part of Charles Stross’ fix-up “Accelerando”, is a tour de force.
What’s Expected of Us is a one-pager by Ted Chiang.
Riding the Crocodile by Greg Egan (who I don’t think gets as much recognition as he deserves.



@Rebekah: I am reading the Nebula nominees for 2015 and they are quite good (some are a little strange). You can find links to them at Free Speculative Fiction Online website. In particular, I liked The Meeker and the All-Seeing Eye which someone mentioned earlier, and When It Ends, He Catches Her by Eugie Foster, which is the best thing I have read in a while. Talk about collateral damage – the Puppies stunt most likely cost Eugie her last chance at a Hugo. Way to go, guys. Every time I think about that I get mad all over again.
(I second the recommendation for When It Ends, He Catches Her by Eugie Foster - that one was amazing.) 



Are people still recommending Hugo-worthy short story collections as palate cleansers? 
I think “Stranger Things Happen” by Kelly Link is remarkably good.



Oneiros: I read The Alchemist’s Gate by Ted Chiang recently and was intrigued. Is there a good place to start with Chiang’s other work?
Chiang’s not the most prolific of authors, he hasn’t published much — but every single story he puts out is a gem. A fair bit of his stuff is available online. There’s a list here, with links



‘So what short stories and short story collections do people enjoy’
Replying to this without reading the rest of the comments , so apologies for duplication: Michael Swanwicks’ The Dog Said Bow Wow. He’s a masterful short story writer, and I think you can find some of this works on Tor.com. Do try him out. Any Howard Waldrop collection. If you like Kelly Link, have you tried Margo Langan’s collection Red Spikes? Slightly similar in tone and style. Her novels are bona-fide brilliant, too. I’m not sure if Gwyneth Jones has a collection in print, but she’s a fantastic writer. Kim Newman’s storie collections are great, usually alternative worlds with horror/fantasy elements combined with pop-culture trash film and tv characters and character types coming to life, a bit like Alan Moore’s League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, only Newman’s Anno Dracula came out first.


Seth Gordon on said:
Amy Griswold’s short story “Little Fox” also has a morally compromised narrator (she has been raised with a clone who acted as her personal slave), and the story is so beautiful that I can’t get it out of my head, which means I guess I’ll be nominating it for a Hugo next year.

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