This weekend brings us two stories inspired by a previous post I made. I had suggested that people read stories from a generation different from the one they belonged to. To that end, we have:
“The First Commandment” by Gregory Benford
“The Sky is Large and the Earth is Small” by Chris Roberson
Gregory Benford sold his first piece of fiction, “Stand In” to the Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1965 as part of an amateur writing contest. He has written more than 25 novels and dozens of short stories. Benford’s writing has been nominated for four Hugo Awards and 12 Nebula Awards, winning the Nebula Award twice. He is also, obviously, the creator of Benford’s “Law of Controversy” which states: “Passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real information available.”
Chris Roberson began publishing as part of the Clockwork Storybook in the late 1990s. His short stories have appeared in venues such as Asimov’s, Interzone, and Postscripts. He has published at least a half-dozen novels with more to come. Roberson founded Monkeybrain Books with his wife and has been nominated for a World Fantasy Award for his publishing and editorial work. Roberson’s writing has also received a nomination for the World Fantasy Award, and won the Sidewise Award for Best Alternate History Short Form in 2004 for his story “O One.”
A quick note: The Benford piece is part of the archives of Sci Fiction. It takes a long time for the story to load, but it eventually does.
[image from Flickr user pshutterbug, CC licensed for commercial use]