Bad Menagerie (publisher)
Science fiction, anthology
The John W. Campbell award recognizes newly-published SF/fantasy/etc writers. Up and Coming has 1.1 million words of eligible work in it. I presume that it therefore gives some reasonable overview of the state of the field today, at least as regards stuff trawled from the minor leagues.
And what, I hear you asking, is that state? In brief, and to borrow a witticism attributed to Samuel Johnson: This anthology contains much that is tolerable and imaginative. However, the parts that are tolerable are not imaginative, and the parts that are imaginative are not tolerable.
I didn't read all 1.1 million words. At least 10% of them are simply unreadable. A considerably larger fraction, say 30%, are authors doing things that don't interest me; I'm not qualified to comment on those. For the remainder, here are some impressions.
- Depressing is evidently the new black.
- Succeeding at depressing is still better than failing at funny.
- Proofreading is, apparently, just something that happens to other people. PROTIP, representative of many: "grizzly" is not the same as "grisly".
- No conflict, no story. Certain authors who ought to know better have also forgotten this.
Out of the 1.1 million words, I'd single out these as worthy of a second look:
- "Seven Things Cadet Blanchard Learned From the Trade Summit Incident", by Annalee Flower Horne, is somewhat predictable but amusing.
- "Haunted", by Sarah Gailey, is an unusual perspective on the haunted-house story.
- "Rememorations", by Paul B. Kohler, is quite competent.
If you're not a true lover of the genre, don't read this. If you are ... um. Let's say that if you start in on a story and it doesn't grab you, don't bother to stick with it in the hope that it will get better. Alternatively, you could read some better work from a guy who isn't even published yet.
I'm reading this as well, and haven't finished the 1.1 millions words, either. I suspect I won't, but that's ok. I find myself doing what I dislike about reading in general; I read the short ones first, and skip it if it doesn't catch my interest on the first page. There's a lot of content out there, and you have to pick and choose.
ReplyDeleteI have read all of the stories you mentioned.
I enjoyed Cadet Blanchard. My note to myself reads, "story not great, but humor was... you don't have to have a surprise ending, just a humorous one."
Re: Haunted, I enjoyed the perspective, but the story didn't hook me. I didn't finish it.
Re: Rememorations, I just read this yesterday. I thought it was going to be a different story at the beginning. The ending was clever.
A couple from my notes:
Jane: was one I liked the most. It was not new, but had a endearing character.
Spatchcock: was not new either, but a cute telling of a tale we've heard before.
Boomer Hunter: was an interesting anti-hero story.
I'm still only about a third of the way through, so I expect to see a couple more I will enjoy.
Interesting that you're reading it as well! You can, incidentally, feel good about the level of your writing ability by comparison.
DeleteI didn't finish "Jane". Zombies have passed the point of boredom for me.
"Spatchcock": yes, "cute" is the word.
"Boomer Hunter": the voice was good, the idea not without merit. I wouldn't want to read a novel about the character, though.
A couple of the novel excerpts weren't terrible, but it's hard to know how the completed product might read. In general, I think your strategy of reading the short stuff and skipping is a sound one.
Agree on Zombies. The reason I liked it was that there was very little time spent on the apocalypse, and most of the time was spent on the character. The trope was a vehicle for exposing the person. I checked out the author's website. Turns out she is a professional writer for TV. It shows (no pun intended).
ReplyDeleteShe also has a novelette that's explicitly one of her TV episodes ("Bookburners, Episode 5: The Market Arcanum"). Mildly interesting setting, but very conventional overall.
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