I do, actually, get online threats of actual violence. This isn't unusual for bloggers, especially ones who belong to oppressed groups. I tend to get mine because I'm a woman, a feminist and a Jew. If someone receives rape and/or death threats -- and people do, far too often, especially if they belong to marginalized groups -- I find that horrifying.
However, I also find it clearly distinct from criticism.
Criticism (especially in a social justice context) is often described as assault, a witch hunt, a lynch mob, or a crucifixion. (There are a couple other go-to metaphors, but those are the major ones.) Of these, "witch hunt" and "lynch mob" are the most upsetting. However, they are all attempts to silence criticism by comparing it to a violent, unacceptable act. It is unacceptable to assault someone, ever; therefore, it's implied, that the criticism is likewise by its very nature unacceptable.
The use of the terms witch hunts and lynch mobs (or mobs in general) also implies that the criticism is not being offered in good faith, and certainly not with thoughtfulness, deliberation or sincerity. Instead, it implies that the criticism is the result of a mass delusion. It implies that there is nothing to criticize at all--that the very nature of what is being criticized is superstition--since witches don't exist and lynched victims are innocent. It implies that the only goal of criticism is bloodletting, that it will only be satisfied by burning stakes, pressing stones, or hung corpses.
Now, I do not mean to imply that no one who offers criticism is ever an asshole. People are totally assholes. You can easily show me examples of someone criticizing someone else, even taking a position I broadly agree with, and acting like a flaming asshole. And I will look at that and say, "Wow, that person is acting like a flaming asshole." This happens--it is, in fact, inevitable. Groups of people contain assholes.
I'm down with criticizing assholes for being assholes. But the terms "witch hunt" etc assume that the grounds for criticism are vaporous. When applied to groups, it also implies that no one (or almost no one) in the group is offering good faith or meritorious arguments.
It is sometimes true that a person is, in fact, offering a critique that stems from delusional, bad faith bloodthirstiness. It is sometimes true that groups are doing the same. When a group of people bullies a trans person until they commit suicide, I am comfortable saying that this is the result of delusion (transphobia is based on delusional principles), bad faith (transphobia itself may be something an individual feels in good faith; bullying is not an activity pursued in good faith), and bloodthirstiness (as it ends in death). Bullying exists at an intersection where words can become assault. That intersection *does* exist.
But people are very free with the comparisons of criticism to violence. And I would counsel being, instead, very strict with them.
Be aware of (among other things):
*The stakes. Is physical safety actually on the line? With a bullied gay teenager, it may be. With an adult blogger being criticized by anti-racist bloggers, it's probably not.
*Whose history you are invoking. Are you defending a person who is (in this argument) privileged by comparing their situation to violence or death that was explicitly directed toward people who were (in the salient situations) oppressed? Are you comparing a person whose speech is being criticized for being racist to someone who was killed by a lynch mob?
*(As a complicating factor to the above, are you using the history of the oppressed group against them? Are you using the real, historical deaths of people of color to suggest that criticism from people of color is like murder?)
*Are you legitimately comfortable saying that the people you're accusing of participating in a witch hunt would like to see their victims subjected to physical violence? Or, instead, when you fill in the abstraction of "people criticizing this person I'd like to defend" with "Blogger X," does the metaphor start to make you uncomfortable? When you fill in the actual implications of the metaphor by defamiliarizing the language (instead of "this person is engaged in a witch hunt," something like "this person experiencing a mass delusion that makes them want to see people die"), does that make the comparison seem apt or appalling?
Just because speech is being criticized doesn't mean that the criticism is legitimate. People can offer good faith criticisms, even criticisms that are theoretically rooted in correct ideas such as anti-racism, that are still totally wrong. People can be unreasonable assholes, and groups can pursue unreasonable, assholish arguments. As noted, sometimes speech does actually rise to the level of actual assault when violence is involved, either directly (as in threats) or implicitly (as in bullying). But most of the time, even the people who are being unreasonable jerks aren't actually arguing in bad faith or lusting for blood. They are arguing stupid points and doing it stupidly. Rather than attempting to shut them down by calling their criticism assault (unacceptable in any circumstances) as if it's the fact of *criticism itself* that is the problem, the best response is usually to explain why their *particular* criticism sucks. Unless their criticism *really is* assault, in which case, please do call it out. Explain why. Be savvy and aware. But don't just use these terms as short-hand or rhetorical flourish when they're not really what you mean. They're silencing, inacccurate, and in some cases offensive.
Real people really died as a result of lynch mobs. It's particularly insensitive for white Americans to use that as a metaphor for someone being criticized. As a Jew who lost a lot of relatives in the Holocaust, I would be upset if the go-to metaphor was to imply that criticism was like pushing people onto trains that would take them to gas chambers. That's taking the deaths of my relatives experienced and making them something trivial.
If you find yourself wanting to argue that I'm taking metaphorical language too seriously, then I ask you to really stop and think about the things you care most about, the ones that pinch and hurt, and imagine them being used this way. Try to take it out of the abstract for yourself. Find the places where you are tender. Now really, and in good faith, imagine that everyone presses on those tender places all the time, that they see them as fodder for winning internet arguments, and not actual, painful things. If you've done that and you still feel that you want to argue abstractions about language, then all right. I won't agree with you, but I'll believe you've tried to take my position into account. But please, first go to the place that hurts, and then imagine that being used against you as a way to stop you from arguing the positions you are passionate about.
To begin the entry, I'm going to list, without reviews, the novellas that are on my ballot, followed by those I recommend. Below, I will post the reviews.
Ballot
"After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall" by Nancy Kress (Tachyon)
"African Sunrise" by Nnedi Okorafor (Subterranean)
"Katabasis" by Robert Reed (Fantasy & Science Fiction)
"Murder Born" (excerpt) by Robert Reed (Asimovs)
"The Emperor's Soul" by Brandon Sanderson (Tachyon)
Recomended
"All the Flavors" by Ken Liu (Giganotosaurus)
"A Seed in the Wind" by Cat Rambo (ebook)
REVIEWS:
Ballot
"After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall" by Nancy Kress (Tachyon) - The earth is destroyed by an apocalype--the fall. This novella follows two timelines simultaneously: one after the fall and the other before. They intersect during the fall, as one might expect from the title. The story follows two perspectives. The first is a boy born after the fall to one of the few survivors, his body severely impaired from radiation damage. The aliens who saved the few survivors from the disaster (it's unclear whether or not they caused it) have provided a time travel portal for him and the other members of his generation to go back in time to before the fall for short periods of time so that they can bring back resources and babies that they will be able to raise to strengthen their population. The other main character, who is a professor who lives in the before, notices a mathematical pattern to kidnappings and store robberies, the footprint of the time travel. The two characters finally meet when the boy travels back in time to a moment during the apocalypse, to where the professor is waiting for him. I really, really liked this novella, especially the bits set after the apocalypse. Kress is always a fine writer, but she's pulled out some extremely good characterization here. Many of the characters are sharply characterized, but especially two in the after--one, the boy's mentor who he is in unrequited love with, and two, the boy himself, who is a vivid portrait of an adolescent in troubled circumstances, his emotions volatile, his desires unquenchable, his beliefs and needs and wants shaped by his post-apocalyptic childhood. The thing I disliked about this novella is that there's a strong hint at the end that the story is meant to be read as an "the earth will get you" magic environmentalism thing, and that really doesn't work for me, because it's just sort of random and it's such an obvious fantasy element in a story that's otherwise science fiction... meh. But "hard" SF writers sometimes pull that sort of weirdness, and I just kind of have a "ignoring that bit; it's fairly minor anyway" receptacle in my brain, and the story is absolutely worth it for its many sterling elements.
"African Sunrise" by Nnedi Okorafor (Subterranean) - This novella expands on Nnedi Okorafor's short story "The Book of Phoenix" that appeared in Clarkesworld in 2011. A genetically altered girl has been confined to a corporate building for all of her life, along with others who have been experimented on. After one of her friends dies, she decides to escape and discovers that she possesses phoenix-like powers of fire and regeneration. The life-giving energy that radiates from her body produces a fantastic growth of plantlife that crumbles the building where she was raised and reaches out to sprawl across the city center. The main character flies away, following her instincts, knowing that she has the ability to greatly improve the world if she can find her way. As always, it's nice to see smart and well-written Africa-centered fantasy/science fiction of the sort that Okorafor so ably writes. There's a sense of magic and hope in this story that doesn't feel sentimental, but instead seems to suggest a radical re-imagining of the world. The detail of the character's life and her interactions were more interesting to me than the fantasy plot itself; in particular, there was a lovely scene in an Ethiopian restaurant early on that's stuck with me.
"Katabasis" by Robert Reed (Fantasy & Science Fiction) - This is one of Robert Reed's Great Ship stories which I admit to being a total sucker for. They take place on an enormous ship that's on an interminable mission through space. Passage is expensive; its inhabitants are nearly immortal. Humans run the place, but it's full of life that is variously alien and artificially intelligent. Basically, this story has all the "ooooooo, awesome" of space opera without the boring bits; Reed successfully portrays an immersive setting that feels alien and unknown. In this story, there is a small planet-like habitat deep in the great ship, built by long-gone aliens to simulate their world. It has immensely high gravity, and it's become a challenge for humans (and others who are not adapted to the high gravity) to take on trying to hike the "planet" without enhancements, as a test of mettle. They take along a single high-gravity-adapted porter. The story is about one such porter and the contingent that she ends up traveling with. The story of their journey is interwoven with the story of how she came to the ship. Alien weirdness abounds--if you like that sort of thing, it'll probably scratch all the right itches, or at least it does mine.
"Murder Born" (excerpt) by Robert Reed (Asimovs) -- Yes, Reed again. This is an Idea story of his which are hit-or-miss for me. I like this one less than his great ship stories, but it still worked for me. A new technique for execution is invented and, to everyone's surprise including the inventor's, it does something totally bizarre (and totally not actually science fiction at all, but rather a thought experiment in the vein of It Just Works, Shut Up And Let's Go With It, which is fine with me, really)--when the murderer disappears into it, it brings back all the people he's killed. The conceit isn't totally logically consistent about what counts as killed and some other science things, but whatever, it's a Thought Experiment, Just Go With It. The thought experiment bit is interesting. There's also a kind of stitched on adventure plot that was readable but ordinary. It's now been a year since I read the story so my memory of it has faded significantly; it's marked with a quite high rating in my database, but mostly what I remember now is talking about its flaws with people, so that's what's stuck in my mind. I think what I liked about it was the way in which it examined a number of different situations within the thought experiment. I'm happy to engage with thought experiments on a purely intellectual level from time to time; it's a long tradition; you don't read Candide for the characters.
"The Emperor's Soul" by Brandon Sanderson (Tachyon) - In a world where it is illegal to do so, a woman wields the magic of forgery, able to produce soulstamps that will change the substance and history of an object, allowing it to become something other than what it is. An ordinary urn can be stamped with the essence of an ancient vase and become one, although the stamp will remain and, if it is removed, the urn will become ordinary again. After committing a series of forgeries of important artifacts, the main character is jailed, and offered her freedom and her life only if she will help the emperor's advisers to achieve a dangerous, illegal, and excruciatingly difficult task -- to endow the braindead emperor with a soulstamp that so closely approximates his own mind that his personality will be indistinguishable from the original. This is a fun and clever, straightforward fantasy, with all the pleasures of a rougish main character who is constantly trying to stay one step ahead of people who will kill her. The process of the magic is described in reasonable detail which I grooved on; it's a fun magic system. It's even better when Sanderson describes the process of simulating the emperor's soul, merging the described magic with ruminations on memory and personality. Several of the main characters take on good dimensionality, including the emperor, who is only marginally on the page.
Recomended
"All the Flavors" by Ken Liu (Giganotosaurus)
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To begin the entry, I'm going to list, without reviews, the novelettes that are definitely on my ballot, those which I'm considering for my ballot, and those which I highly recommend. Reviews will follow, along with shorter reviews of recommended novelettes. At the end of the post, I'll list other novelettes I found notable.
As always, there are many more novelettes that I read and enjoyed, and that deserve recognition, than I can list.
Definitely on Ballot
"Mating Habits of the Late Cretaceous" (excerpt) by Dale Bailey (Asimovs)
"Fade to White" by Cathrynne M. Valente (Clarkesworld)
Possibly on Ballot
"Swift, Brutal Retalliation" by Meghan McCarron (Tor.com)
"The Finite Canvas" by Brit Mandelo (Tor.com)
"Aftermath" by Joy Kennedy O'Neill (Strange Horizons)
"Hold a Candle to the Devil" by Nicole M. Taylor (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
Highly Recommended
"The Ghosts of Christmas" by Paul Cornell (Tor.com)
"Firebugs" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman (Eclipse Online)
"The Indifference Engine" by Project Itoh (THE FUTURE IS JAPANESE)
"Tattooed Love Boys" by Alex Jeffers (Giganotosaurus)
"Unsilenced" by Karalynn Lee (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
"The Waves" by Ken Liu (Asimovs)
"Golden Bread" by Issui Ogawa (THE FUTURE IS JAPANESE)
"Scry" by Anne Ivy (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
"Small Towns" by Felicity Shoulders (Fantasy & Science Fiction)
"Static, and Sometimes Music" by David Schwartz (Unstuck #2)
"Woman of the Sun, Woman of the Moon" by Benjanun Sriduangkaew (Giganotosaurus)
"Astrophilia" by Carrie Vaughn (Clarkesworld)
REVIEWS:
Definitely on Ballot
"Mating Habits of the Late Cretaceous" (excerpt) by Dale Bailey (Asimovs) - I hadn't heard of Dale Bailey before reading this story; when I was finished, I immediately looked him up and wrote him a fan letter. I read this very late at night when I had insomnia and it took me in completely and was unexpectedly intense and wrenching. In this story, a couple with a troubled marriage spend more money than they can afford to go to a resort in the Cretaceous. They are supposed to see the dinosaurs together, but the husband displays little interest, and the wife disconnects from him, finding more passion in the ancient sights. I found the characters and emotional journey extremely vivid and well-wrought. The science fictional backdrop intensified the emotional story. It's not an original emotional journey--especially in lit-fic--but it was a very good treatment. This story doesn't seem to have gotten a lot of review love, perhaps because reviewers weren't interested in the kind of emotional journey that is classically the domain of literary fiction. But I loved it. (Tolbert's "The Yeti Behind You" which I published in PodCastle explores a similar thematic link between extinction and emotion, although from a less character-intense space.)
"Fade to White" by Cathrynne M. Valente (Clarkesworld) - Like Valentine, I think Valente is having an amazing year. This story just dropped me flat. It was probably my favorite piece of fiction published this year. Read it. Read it. Read it. In this novelette, Valente creates a dystopian world that might have occurred if the world had ended in the 1950s. Its retro feel--enhanced not only by the character development and setting, but by cleverly placed interludes that contain scripts from commercials--allows Valente to comment on the cultural heritage of the 1950s, both in our everyday lives and, particularly, in science fiction. By looking at the breakdown of that world--as so much classic SF does--from a modern perspective, she deconstructs the assumptions of the era and of its stories in an intelligent, striking way. The story isn't easily reducible to its politics, though; Valente clearly establishes the characters within her world and follows their unsettling stories with a relentlessly clear eye.
Possibly on Ballot
"Swift, Brutal Retalliation" by Meghan McCarron (Tor.com) - This exquisitely well-written story is about two little girls whose brother has just died of cancer. His ghost appears when they play pranks on each other. Like many of the other novelettes I'm passionate about this year, this story thrives on its intricate characterization and the way in which its speculative content highlights the characters and emotions. The family in this story is described intensely and unflinchingly with finely woven POV shifts and sharply observed family dynamics. It's a chilling, bitter story in many ways, and reminds me of the work by an MFA classmate of mine, Jenny Zhang, who created obsessive, clear-eyed family portraits through fragmented POVs. It also has shades of Klages's clear, non-nostalgic eye for the good and bad of childhood, as well as shades of Kelly Link's use of mystery in the voice.
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I may continue to do some reading, especially of anthologies, for the next few weeks. If I find anything remarkable, I will post about it then.
I'm trying to find the best format for these posts. I'm going to try listing, without reviews, my favorite fourteen stories of the year, for easy reference (these will include stories that are on my ballot, stories I'm considering for my ballot, and highly recommended stories). Reviews will be below, along with shorter reviews of recommended stories. At the end of the post, I will list some of the other stories I found notable this year.
As always, there are many more stories that I read and enjoyed, and that deserve recognition, than I will actually be listing. This year, since I did my reading spread out over a large chunk of time, I'm also contending with my fading memory--stories that I read early on may be less likely to make the list because I've forgotten their emotional impact. While the overall quality of stories that I read this year was lower than in previous years (because in previous years, I relied on recommendations to sift out the best stories for me), as always I enjoyed doing the reading, and I look forward to talking about stories and authors.
Definitely on my ballot
"Immersion" by Aliette deBodard (Clarkesworld)
"Mono no Aware" by Ken Liu (THE FUTURE IS JAPANESE, Haikasoru)
Possibly on my ballot
"Mantis Wives" by Kij Johnson (Clarkesworld)
"Education of a Witch" by Ellen Klages (UNDER MY HAT)
"Searching for Slave Leia" by Sandra McDonald (Lightspeed)
"The Great Loneliness" by Maria Romasco-Moore (Unstuck #2)
"The Segment" by Genevieve Valentine (AFTER)
Highly Recommended
"Wild Things" by Alyx Dellamonica (Tor.com)
"Beautiful Boys" by Theodora Goss (Asimovs)
"Valedictorian" by N. K. Jemisin (AFTER)
"Afterlife" by Sarah Langan (Nightmare)
"One Breath, One Stroke" by Cat Valente (THE FUTURE IS JAPANESE)
"Armless Maidens of the American West" by Genevieve Valentine (Apex)
REVIEWS:
Definitely on my ballot
"Immersion" by Aliette deBodard (Clarkesworld) - Somewhere on social media, Aliette described this as a story that happened because she was angry. Apparently, Aliette being angry is a beautiful thing. Not only is this story intense and interesting and all that other good fiction stuff, but it's one of the smartest political pieces I've read in a while, a savvy and complex investigation of dual consciousness and the way that colonialism occupies minds as well as external spaces. I'm really glad this one is on Clarkesworld so that everyone can access it. I'd love to see it incorporated into curricula.
"Mono no Aware" by Ken Liu (THE FUTURE IS JAPANESE, Haikasoru) - I really love the concept of the anthology in which this appeared; there are both stories by Japanese authors and stories by non-Japanese authors about Japan. Full disclosure--I am in the anthology--but my work aside, it still featured some of the best work of the year. I highly recommend picking it up, not least for this story by Ken Liu of the last Japanese man's experiences on a generation ship after the earth is destroyed. If you'll forgive me for turning to Wikipedia, it defines mono no aware as "an awareness of the transience of things, and a gentle sadness (or wistfulness) at their passing" which is one of those beautiful concepts that has no direct English equivalent. Liu evokes the emotion beautifully in this piece.
Possibly on my ballot
"Mantis Wives" by Kij Johnson (Clarkesworld) - Kij is one of my favorite short story writers, and I admit that for me, none of her work has transcended "The Evolution of Trickster Stories Among the Dogs of North Park after the Change." (I also admit that I will link to that story at every opportunity.) In the last few years, Kij has been writing very intense, emotionally charged, brief punch-in-the-jaw stories that operate as metaphors for human relationships. Spar, about the ways in which sex is adversarial; Ponies, about the pruning of self that's required of girls in adolescence; and "Story Kit" (Eclipse 4) which, alas, is not available online. These stories are almost like poetry in their condensed ability to evoke emotion through metaphor in a very, very small space. All of them are brilliant in their own ways ("Ponies" made me sick with recognition as I read it), but "Mantis Wives" is my favorite so far, about the viciousness of love gone wrong, described intensely and evocatively through a metaphor about the imagined culture of praying mantises.
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My actual list will include, in addition to reviews, a much longer list of stories that I'm enthusiastic about instead of just my top few selections.
SHORT STORIES
Definitely on my ballot
"Immersion" by Aliette deBodard (Clarkesworld)
"Mono no Aware" by Ken Liu (THE FUTURE IS JAPANESE, Haikasoru)
Possibly on my ballot
"Mantis Wives" by Kij Johnson (Clarkesworld)
"Education of a Witch" by Ellen Klages (UNDER MY HAT)
"Searching for Slave Leia" by Sandra McDonald (Lightspeed)
"The Great Loneliness" by Maria Romasco-Moore (Unstuck #2)
"The Segment" by Genevieve Valentine (AFTER)
NOVELETTES
Definitely on Ballot
"Mating Habits of the Late Cretaceous" (excerpt) by Dale Bailey (Asimovs)
"Fade to White" by Cathrynne M. Valente (Clarkesworld)
Possibly on Ballot
"Swift, Brutal Retalliation" by Meghan McCarron (Tor.com)
"The Finite Canvas" by Brit Mandelo (Tor.com)
"Aftermath" by Joy Kennedy O'Neill (Strange Horizons)
"Hold a Candle to the Devil" by Nicole M. Taylor (Beneath Ceaseless Skies)
NOVELLAS
Ballot
"After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall" by Nancy Kress (Tachyon)
"African Sunrise" by Nnedi Okorafor (Subterranean)
"Katabasis" by Robert Reed (Fantasy & Science Fiction)
"Murder Born" (excerpt) by Robert Reed (Asimovs)
"The Emperor's Soul" by Brandon Sanderson (Tachyon)
Recomended
"All the Flavors" by Ken Liu (Giganotosaurus)
"A Seed in the Wind" by Cat Rambo (ebook)
I had several short stories out last year, but the ones I liked best were a novelette and a short story. The novelette is a fantasy set in a fictional analog of Renaissance Italy, concerning the broken romance between two painters, one a genius and the other her protege, and how their relationship is overwhelmed by art and magic. It can be read on Tor.com, "Portrait of Lisane da Patagnia"
It was summer when I first came to Lisane’s house. The sun shone brightly, casting rose and gold across squared stone rooftops, glimmering through circular leaded windows, emboldening the trumpet-shaped blooms that peaked out of alleys and window boxes. Women sat at upper-story windows, watching events in the streets, their heads and shoulders forming intriguing triangles. Shadows fell everywhere, rounding curves, crisscrossing cobbles, shading secretive recesses.
That wasn’t how I saw it as I walked to Lisane’s house that morning, holding the hand of the journeywoman who’d met my boat. It was Lisane who would teach me how to dissect the world into shapes and shadows. That day, I was still ignorant, overawed by the chaos and clamor of beautiful, crowded Patagnia.
*
The other was a short story that appeared in Nick Mamatas's THE FUTURE IS JAPANESE. My work aside, I thought this was the strongest anthology of the year with some really lovely work by Ken Liu, Project Itoh, Issui Ogawa, and Cathrynne Valente, among others. The anthology is absolutely worth it for those four stories, not to mention other strong pieces.
The short story of mine that appeared in it is called "The Sea of Trees" and it's a ghost story about the suicide forest, Aokigahara.
The forest grew eight-hundred-and-fifty years ago after an eruption of Mount Fuji. Green things sunk their roots after the lava cooled.
The woods are very quiet. Little lives here except for ghosts and people on their way to joining them. Wind scarcely blows. Mists hang. Overhead, branches and leaves tangle into a roof underneath which the world is timeless and directionless.
Everything is trapped.
Everything is waiting.
A pair of tennis shoes, sitting alone.
Pants, voluminous over leg bones.
A suicide note nailed to a tree: “Nothing good ever happened in my life. Don’t look for me.”
The yurei, watching.
I've been a bit obsessed with ghosts lately, or rather I suppose with death, and its melancholy and incomprehensibility and savageness. With ghosts, there's always a twist of memory, too, and of either reconciling or of becoming stuck, both things I've done, at different times. "The Sea of Trees" is still under exclusivity so I can't publish it online, but if you would like to read it for award consideration, ping me and I'll be happy to provide a copy. (ETA: It's also available to SFWA members on the discussion forums.)
*
I had two other pieces published as well that weren't quite as close to my heart. I've heard from a lot of people who really enjoyed "Decomposition" which can be read in Apex Magazine, and as always, I feel lucky to have received such kind reception. "Decomposition" is the story of a villain who obsesses over the decaying corpses of his kills.
Once outside the city gates, Vare had planned to deposit the girls in some lonely place where wild animals would devour them before they could receive a decent burial. But in the morning, as he bowed beneath their bodies, he found himself unwilling to part with them.
Each ounce of their weight upon his back gave him a thrill of rich, red pleasure, the kind he’d never thought he’d feel again. Ayl’s bony elbows jutted into his shoulder blades. The uneven pressure of Delira’s curves created a jigsaw of pain across his back.
Their deaths had been his life’s obsession; their corpses were his prize.
I also published a story in WHEN THE VILLAIN COMES HOME (eds Gabrielle Harbowy and Ed Greenwood), a small anthology that follows on the heels of an earlier success, WHEN THE HERO COMES HOME. They've got a third anthology planned for this year, too. My story, "Broken Clouds," is about a girl who turns to dark magic to save her sister.
She’d been browsing a perfectly ordinary shelf, filled with rumpled paperbacks, but suddenly, everything was different. Tall, narrow mahogany bookcases formed an endless, twisting maze, their shelves populated by dust and spiders and books far too old to belong in a local library branch. She scanned for a way out, but saw nothing except corridors of books.
She jumped as a crooked man stepped around a corner. He was lean and dark like an evening shadow. He wore an old-fashioned suit with tails, elegantly cut but shabby. Tattered lapels sported desiccated flowers that had withered where they were pinned. Long, pointed fingers poked out of holes in his pockets.
I am, of course, also happy to provide copies of this story to those who are interested.
PROBABLY ON MY BALLOT:
The Drowned Cities by Paolo Bacigalupi
The Diviners by Libba Bray
Vessel by Sarah Beth Durst
Seraphina by Rachel Hartman
POSSIBLY ON MY BALLOT:
Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
Ask the Passengers by A. S. King
Every Day by David Levithan
The Broken Lands by Kate Milford
A Confusion of Princes by Garth Nix
OTHER BOOKS I HAPPILY RECOMMEND:
(a partial list)
Dark Companion by Maria Acosta
Hereville: How Mirka Met a Meteorite by Barry Deutsch
Radiant Days by Elizabeth Hand
And All the Stars by Andrea Host
The Brides of Rollrock Island by Margo Lanagan
Cinder by Melissa Meyer
Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor
This year, I read 40 young adult and middle grade novels that were published in 2012. (That I have a record of; it's possible that I read others during the year and forgot to document them.) I compiled my list through: 1) books that caught my attention during the year, usually because of familiarity with the author or because of recommendations, 2) contacting members of the Norton jury (the Norton award is the award for young adult and middle grade novels that's granted by the Science Fiction Writers of America) toward the end of the year for their recommendations, and 3) contacting young adult and middle grade authors of my acquaintance and asking them which books they'd felt passionate about during 2012.
The nice thing about this method is that it allowed me to skip straight to the really good books. I didn't end up reading the, say, 60 random books that aren't very good which I might have picked up otherwise. It's possible that one of those sixty would have blown me away and that's always a negative of using other people's filtering, but doing it this way meant that half of the books I read rated highly above average for me, thirty that rated above average, and only 6 that I rated below average.
Since I know the distinction isn't clear to everyone, young adult and middle grade novels basically represent two facets of the market for children and teens. Young adult novels tend to be marketed at ages 13-20, have main characters around 16, and feature more romantic content (e.g. the characters may be having sex). In middle grade novels, the characters are more likely to have their first kiss, and be around 12-14, and the novels are marketed at ages 9-14. There are finer distinctions than that, and of course the books vary individually from the broad template, but those are more or less the basics. To put this in movie language, CORALINE is middle grade and TWILIGHT is young adult.
MY BALLOT:
I'm still taking some time to think through what exactly will be on my ballot, so here are some likely candidates (order is alphabetical).
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http://www.tor.com/stories/2012/03/fiel
Woo!
The beginning of the story as possible teaser:
When Dennis died, he found himself in another place. Dead people came at him with party hats and presents. Noise makers bleated. Confetti fell. It felt like the most natural thing in the world.
His family was there. Celebrities were there. People Dennis had never seen before in his life were there. Dennis danced under a disco ball with Cleopatra and great-grandma Flora and some dark-haired chick and cousin Joe and Alexander the Great. When he went to the buffet table for a tiny cocktail wiener in pink sauce, Dennis saw Napoleon trying to grope his Aunt Phyllis. She smacked him in the tri-corner hat with her clutch bag.
There's an unbelievably compelling thing that happens when you combine one of your interests (flirting! analyzing human behavior! body language!) with that consistent prickling, nettle that's sometimes irritation and sometimes anger. I know that exploring the cognitive dissonance of horror and fascination has led to some of my more interesting obsessions. Clarisse's book captures that frenetic, obsessive feeling, as well as including a large amount of clear-eyed, sharp analysis.
CONFESSIONS OF A PICK-UP ARTIST CHASER: LONG INTERVIEWS WITH HIDEOUS MEN
Currently $2.99 on Amazon, price to go up on March 17th.
At the goth club, one PUA was too involved in making out with his gorgeous girlfriend to talk to me. I still managed to get his number, though. He was on the scrawny end of slender, and he looked awesome in eyeliner. Five minutes of conversation showed me that he was an expert on feminism and polyamory, and he was an S&M switch just like me. His name was Brian.
A few days after the goth club outing, Brian and I started talking about meeting for drinks. We were both busy, though, and had to reschedule several times before we met. As we sized each other up, I tried to explain what drew me to PUAs like a moth to a flame.
"I don't know," I said, fumbling for words. "It's interesting from a feminist perspective, but it's more than that. It's like…." I looked away from him and thought about where else in my life I felt this intense, sexually-tinged fascination. "It's like a fetish."
He started laughing. "You're a PUA chaser!" he cried, and I had to agree.
Clarisse dissects the pick-up artist movement in a way that's easy and intuitive to read for people who aren't familiar with it, and does a good job of balancing insightful feminist critique with generosity toward her interview subjects. Readers will probably have different reactions to that balance--I fully expect this is a book which some PUAs will call irredeemably vicious and some feminists will find frustrating for its light hand. I come down somewhat more grouchy and skeptical than Clarisse Thorn does in the narrative, but I don't think that's a barrier to reading the text; in fact, I think Clarisse's generosity makes the analysis much more interesting than it would otherwise be since it creates subtle, highly finessed arguments.
Clarisse's analysis is as interesting, easy-to-follow and well-laid out as it is in all of her writing, but the most compelling thing in this book is not the analysis itself (which I was expecting), but the way in which Clarisse uses memoir to supplement her analysis. Clarisse is a brilliant sex writer with what appears to be (on the page, at least) an unflinching ability to reveal personal information. That talent is highlighted here as Clarisse fleshes out scenes that create a parallel emotional and intellectual journey, allowing the reader to travel with her through the insights and frustration of her time on the fringes of the pick-up artist community. Her intelligent writing about S&M and polyamory help establish her presence in the text as someone with a subaltern point of view, and place pick-up artistry within the context of other sexual subcultures so that the book's criticism is grounded in an almost ethnographic framework which works to keep the text from becoming sensationalist or exotifying.
I found a few nitpicks from a social justice perspective as I think is inevitable with this type of book, and I'm sure that others would find different ones. Reading with my writer's eye, I'd suggest that the book could use a 5-10% trim, particularly between the halfway point and the two thirds point. Leaving aside those points, I found this a really interesting read, and I would particularly recommend this book to anyone who has found feminist writing about the pick-up artist movement intriguing in the past.
**
Speaking of writing about sex and relationships, Clarisse Thorn is the Sex + Relationships Section Editor for Role/Reboot, a website devoted to investigating the modern upheaval in gender/sex roles. A few months, she invited me to write something for them which I finally got around to; the result was posted last week.
THE STORY OF LEAH AND VANESSA:
We were all in college together, 19 years old and naïve as hell (call it equal parts ignorant and innocent) when our friend Leah met this girl.
This older girl.
“She’s how old?” we asked.
Presumably, some individual one of us asked, but it’s not worth distinguishing; our incredulity was unanimous.
She fidgeted uncomfortably. “35.”
“Thirty-five? Vanessa is 35? And you made out with her?”
“I thought she was 30!” she protested. “She told me she was 30. Then we made out. Then she admitted she was really 35.”
We narrowed our eyes at Leah and glared. Vanessa lied about her age was not making it seem like Leah’s new love affair was a better idea than we’d previously thought.
The full article is at the link.
