An SF&F report and book list

from Readercon 19 and elsewhere

Preamble

I attended Readercon 19 at the Burlington Marriott from July 17 through July 20.  Readercon is an Science Fiction and Fantasy convention focused on (errrrrrrr) reading rather than, say, dressing up as Klingons.  You can see more details, including a full program, at www.readercon.org.

Jonathan Lethem was one of the guests of honor.  Apparently he writes both SF&F and more general fiction.  I heard him on several panels, and he's quite smart.  I need to keep track of his books and stories more closely.  The other person who struck me as extraordinarily smart was Andrea Hairston (andreahairston.com).  Her latest book is Mindscape, but she also does theater.  She also has a story in Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora, edited by Sheree R. Thomas.

Over the past handfuls of years, my SF&F reading has drifted away from fantasy, focusing on fairly conventional science fiction, such as space opera.  Also, I hadn't been reading many short stories, other than those in the easily recognizable door stop, Gardner Dozois' The Year's Best Science Fiction.  One of my goals at Readercon was to broaden my reading, or contrariwise, to reinforce my prejudices that fantasy was nothing more than elves, dragons, magic and chain mail, in various combinations.

Unless I say so, everything mentioned here is at least somewhat recommended, even if I can't recover the reason from my notes.

Books from the Readercon Reading List

Dust by Elizabeth Bear.  Good but not wonderful space opera about a generation ship marooned for (errrrr) generations around a dying star.  It's chock full of AIs, nanotech, and just about everything else.  The worldbulding was great but the narrative didn't make it to the end of the book.  On the other hand,  I was completely swept away by Bear's New Amsterdam, a vampire novel more or less made up of separate stories.  (Bear calls it a mosaic, but I'd just call it episodic.)

The Philosopher's Apprentice by James Morrow.  No Leica.  This is apparently a satire, but if so, I just didn't get the joke.

Debatable Space by Philip Palmer.  A wild and crazy space opera about space pirates.  I'm not sure it's substantial enough to be recommended.  Perhaps you could read it at the beach, if you go to the beach?

The Shadow Year by Jeffrey Ford.  I loved this book when I read it, and I was totally blown away when I heard Ford talk about the book.  It's a fictionalized account of a year in Ford's life growing up on Long Island, with just enough of a sprinkling of fantasy to make it quite wonderful.  Highly recommended.

Other books I've read recently

Realms, the best short stories from the first year of the online Clarkesworld Magazine (clarkesworldmagazine.com).  I really liked the stories until I read "Orm the Beautiful", a dragon story by Elizabeth Bear, which blew me away.  I haven't finished the book yet, but it's highly recommended.

Unwelcome Bodies, by Jennifer Pelland.  Blurb:  "11 stores of dark, sensory exploration".  I didn't find it at all horrifying, but apparently some people have.  The stories ARE focused on people doing weird things to their bodies.  I loved it, and it's highly recommended, but don't say you haven't been warned.  Her story "Captive Girl" has been nominated for the Hugo, and is available online, along with other stories, via the bibliography at jenniferpelland.com.

Year's Best SF 12, edited by David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer.  This is a great alternative to Dozois' doorstop if only because it's smaller, cheaper and a whole lot less intimidating.  I liked a lot of these stories.  Recommended.

The Starry Rift, an anthology edited by Jonathan Strahan.  Highly recommended.

Eifelheim, by Michael Flynn.  I started reading this some time ago as a PDF.  It's a dual narrative in the present and an alternative 1349 when a German village is visited by aliens.  I haven't finished it, but it's highly recommended.  It's still available online.

Black Ships, by Jo Graham.  A retelling of the Aneid up to the founding of Rome.  I loved the way Graham maintained the mythic power of the original while illuminating it with a modern sensibility.  I thought it was perfect, although someone at the con criticized it as resolving into an ordinary romance.  Highly recommended.  Lavinia, by Ursula K. Le Guin, was recommended durng the con.  It takes the story more or less from where Graham leaves off.

Books recommended after a reading

I went to a speed reading of eight books by women authors from Broad Universe, www.broaduniverse.org.  These are the best of the eight.

Jemma 7729, by Phoebe Wray.  Post-apocalypse novel with a strong female heroine.  I bought this at Readercon.

Awake Chimera, by Justine Graykin (justingraykin.com).  Space opera with aliens.  I bought this at Readercon.

Firethorn and Wildfire, the first two of a trilogy by Sarah Micklem.  She was on a number of panels and was very smart.  Micklem read an excerpt from Wildfire, which is coming out later this year, about a girl who is struck by lightning and, ending up with limited speech, is treated as holy by the rest of the village.  Marvellous stuff.  Unfortunately, none of the booksellers at Readercon had the books.

Mortal Touch, by Inanna Arthen.  A vampire novel worth getting from the library.

Deviations: Covenant by Elissa Malcolm.  Literal and symbolic cannablism; worth getting from the library.

Kelly Link / Gavin Grant

Gavin Grant is an English guy who runs Small Beer Press, which publishes Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet (both at lcrw.net), an irregular magazine and various chapbooks and special editions.  Kelly Link writes and edits, and was mentioned many times during Readercon as an influence on other writers..  Together they help to edit LCRW and form a local SF&F power couple (they live in Northhampton, MA, I think). 

I subscribed to LCRW at Readercon, and got issue 22 (June 2008) on the spot.

I bought Magic for Beginners, nine stories by Kelly Link, Trampoline, an anthology edited by Kelly Link, and The Best of Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, edited by Link and Grant.  Link's next book is Pretty Monsters, a YA anthology out later this year.

I more or less won an ARC (advance reader's copy, an advance uncorrected proof) of The Ant King and Other Stories, by Benjamin Rosenbaum, published by Small Beer Press.  I've already read several of these stories --many are available online at www.benjaminrosenbaum.com -- so I'm looking forward to reading the whole thing.  Highly recommended.

Other small presses

The other small press I need to keep track of is Apex, apexbookcompany.com.  They published Jennifer Pelland's stupendous Unwelcome Bodies (discussed below) and they regularly publishes stories and other articles online as Apex Digest.

There's also an online-only magazine at reflectionsedge.com that was mentioned approvingly.

Other books I bought at Readercon

Readercon had a vendor room that was almost completely books and booksellers, so it was impossible not to buy too many books.  As I mentioned in the preamble, one of my goals for Readercon was to look at some more short fiction, so there's a lot of that on this list.  You can see from the size of this list that I'm not going to be getting to all of the books any time soon, so if you'd like to borrow one, please let Michele or me know.

Fantasy:  The Best of the Year.  I bought the 2006, 2007 and 2008 editions, based more or less on recognizing some of the authors.

Interfictions, an Anthology of Insterstitial Writing, edited by Delia Sherman and Theodora Goss.  This was mentioned about a dozen times, and I also heard Sherman and Goss talk about the book on a panel.  So, this appears to be the "if you read just one book on interstitial writing, read this one" book.  Interstitial writing is writing that doesn't fit neatly into a single genre.  For more interstitial writing see Lisa Goldstein, Pat Murphy, and Michaela Roessner at brazenhussies.net.

New Genre, issue five, Spring 2007.  Perfect bound, with five stories and an essay over a hundred pages.

Worse Than Myself, stories by Adam Golaski.  Front cover blurb:  "insidiously weird", but Adam assured me that this was not too much horror.

Text:UR, The New Book of Masks, edited by Forrest Aguirre.  Includes a story by Ekaterina Sedia.

Best Fantastic Erotica.  Short stories edited by Cecilia Tan, Circlet Press (www.circlet.com).

Books recommended because the author talked intelligently during panels, or had an endearing Russian accent

Ekatarina Sedia (pronounced Sed-ya, not Sed-ee-ah).  Her first book was The Secret Life of Moscow.  At Readercon, she talked about The Alchemy of Stone, about a female alchemist robot who helps (living) gargoyles.  It sounded great, and it's very high on my to-read list.  Sample witticism (you have to imagine this in a Russian accent):  "All my cities are based on Moscow.  Sometimes I add some extra turrets."  Highly recommended.

Gregory Frost.  I saw him on a number of panels and he comes across as very smart.  That doesn't mean his books are any good, but he's just released Lord Tophet, the sequel to Shadowbridge.  SciFi Weekly says "Lord Tophet, the second and concluding volume of the series, does not quite reach the heights (or even the length) of its predecessor, but it is still a notable accomplishment."  They say you should definitely read them as one book.

Geoff Ryman.  His last novel was Air.

James Patrick Kelly.  He writes almost exclusively short stories.  He has a collection, The Wreck of the Godspeed and Other Stories, coming in August, 2008.  Highly recommended.

Kay Kenyon.  Her latest books are Bright of the Sky and A World Too Near, the first two books in The Entire and The Rose series.

Books recommended by other people

This isn't much more than a list of things I scribbled down during various panels.

Farthing, Ha'penny and Half a Crown, an alternate history series by Jo Walton.  Ha'Penny just won (or technically, shared) the Prometheus Award.  I'm not too excited by alternate history, so I'm not sure whether I should read this -- on the theory that if I'm going to like any of it, this will be the one -- or whether I should read something else of hers, such as Tooth and Claw, a book about a world of dragons from the dragon-native point of view.  During a panel, David Hartwell recommended Len Deighton's SSGB as great alternative history.

Someone recommended Future Noir: The making of Blade Runner by Paul M. Sammon as the best ever book on how a movie was made.  Of course, we are talking about science fiction fans here.

The Labryrinth, by Catherine M. Valente.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Juno Diaz.

Galactic Empires, an anthology edited by Gardner Dozois.  From the Science Fiction Book Club, and hence only available used.

Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things, an older (1987) book by George Lakoff, who wrote the popular book, Don't Think of an Elephant, about framing in politics.

"Evaporating Genres. Strategies of Dissoution in the Postmodern Fantastic" by Gary K. Wolfe in Edging into the future: science fiction and contemporary cultural transformation, Univ. of Pennsylvania Press 2002

Howl's Moving Castle.  The YA book by Diana Wynne Jones, not the animation by Miyazaki.

Rhetoric of Fantasy, by Farah Mendlesohn (criticism, not fiction).  This was heavily recommended during the con.

There was a panel at the con on recommended reading, based on the Locus preliminary Recommended Reading List for 2008.  Locus is on the web at locusmag.com, although the 2008 list won't be published until February, 2009.  You CAN find the 2007 list by searching on "Locus recommended reading 2007".

One of the commonalities identified by the panel was a return to old-fashioned SF, including Flood by Stephen Baxter (2009), City at the End of Time by Greg Bear, and Incandescence by Greg Egan.  They also identified a number of novels influenced by Heinlein, including Marsbound by Joe Haldeman, Saturn's Children by Charles Stross, and Rolling Thunder by John Varley (described as a funny Heinlein pastiche).  Whether either or both of these trends is a good thing is in the eye of the beholder, I guess.

Other books mentioned by the panel included The Alchemy of Stone, Half a Crown and Lavinia, all described elsewhere in this note, as well as a book with two different titles (presumably in the UK and US, although stranger things have happened): How to Make Friends with Demons / Memoirs of a Master Forger by Williams Heaney, coming out later this year.

YA books mentioned included The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan, and How to Ditch Your Fairy by Justine Larbalestier.  I'm planning on reading the Larbalestier book soonish.

Graham Sleight, a smart guy from the UK, recommended several books that were not on the Locus list.  They are:  Word of God, by Thomas M. Disch (who just died); Superpowers, by David J. Schwartz; and The Steel Remains, by Richard K. Morgan (not out until January, 2009).

Noted from other sources

These aren't necessarily recommended, just things I saw or saw advertised on the freebies table, or mentioned by their authors or contributors.

Sex in the System, Stories of Erotic Futures, Technological Stimulation, and the Sensual Life of Machines, edited by Cecilia Tan.  This has a stellar list of authors (Joe Haldeman, Nalo Hopkinson, Catherine Asaro, Paul DiFilippo, Sarah Micklem, Bruce Sterling ...), but there's exactly one copy in Massachusetts, at Emerson Library.

White Flames, short stories of erotic SF&F by (as opposed to edited by) Cecilia Tan

Best advertising in the form of a business card:  Wastelands, Stores of the Apocalypse, edited by John Joseph Adams, includes stories by Stephen King, Gene Wolfe and Jonathan Lethem.  It's pretty high on my to-read list.

Best advertising in the form of a book mark:  The Next Fix, twelve stories and a novella from Matt Wallace, two-time parsec Award winner, whatever that is.  Winning tag line:  "Consider these pages a controlled substance".

Best advertising in the form of a door hanger:  Shadowbridge / Lord Tophet, discussed above.  One side says, "Quite Please / I'm Reading" and the other, "Quiet Please / I'm Dreaming".

Mandatory mention of hard science fiction:  Spider Star, by Mike Brotherton, the sequel to Star Dragon ("Readers hungry for the thought-provoking extrapolation and rigorous technical detail of old-fashioned hard SF are sure to enjoy ..." -- Publisher's Weekly).

Self-published book available free at Readercon:  Everyone in Silico, by Jim Munroe (nomediakings.org).

Chapbook available free at Readercon:  The Homeless Moon.  Five stories.  Also available for download at homelessmoon.com, or for $1 shipping.  I accidentally collected two copies, so the spare is free to a good home.

Best explanation of inductive proof that Homer Simpson would understand:  "After 5pm, if you buy one donut, you get a second donut free.  Other quantities the same."  Seen in a rest-stop on the way to the con.

I also collected some old (2006) issues of Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine from the freebie table.

Upcoming Conventions

3Pi-Con, August 22-24, 2008 at the Clarion hotel in West Springfield, MA

Arisia 2009, January 16 -19, 2009 at the Hyatt Regency Cambridge

Vericon IX, January 23-25, 2009 at Harvard.

Boskone 46, February 13-15, 2009 at the Westin Waterfront.

by Graeme Williams
Comments to carryonwilliams@gmail.com