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Brit Mandelo

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Fiction and Excerpts [4]
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Fiction and Excerpts [4]

Letters to Tiptree

Wed Aug 12, 2015 11:00am
|| Science fiction and fantasy writers, editors, critics and fans celebrate Alice Sheldon's 100th birthday in a series of letters, recognising her work and trying to finish conversations set aside nearly thirty years ago.

Short Fiction Spotlight: The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015 edited by John Joseph Adams and Joe Hill (Part 2)

Tue Dec 29, 2015 12:00pm Post a comment

Welcome back to the Short Fiction Spotlight, a space for conversation about recent and not-so-recent short stories. Last time around we looked at the first half of the intriguing new Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy collection, helmed by John Joseph Adams as series editor and Joe Hill as guest editor—and this week, I’d like to round that out with the last ten stories in the 2015 edition.

Three of these last ten pieces are from mainstream publications (two from The New Yorker and one from McSweeney’s), while the rest are from various anthologies and magazines published in-genre. The Kelly Link story also appeared in her recent collection, Get in Trouble; I had read it first there. None of them had I previously written about in this column, unlike a couple in the first half of the collection.

[Onward.]

Series: Short Fiction Spotlight

Short Fiction Spotlight: The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015 edited by John Joseph Adams and Joe Hill (Part 1)

Tue Dec 22, 2015 2:00pm Post a comment

Welcome back to the Short Fiction Spotlight, a space for conversation about recent and not-so-recent short stories. Last time around we discussed Nalo Hopkinson’s new collection, Falling in Love with Hominids. Now, I’d like to spend a couple of columns on a fresh new best-of annual: The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015, first installment from series editor John Joseph Adams with guest editor Joe Hill. The Best-American series uses a particular blind reading model that I’ve always found intriguing—the series editor gathers a large group of stories and the guest editor reads them all blind to pick the top twenty—and here, it definitely produces interesting results in terms of the “year’s best” sf.

The thing I found pleasing in specific about this collection of stories published in 2014 is that, despite the blind-read aspect, it’s still—no surprise—rather diverse. There are writers of all stripes, both fresh faces and familiar; while the obvious caveat is that one will recognize some of these stories with names-off (the Gaiman, for instance), the end result is one of the most balanced and consistently intriguing best-ofs I’ve read in some time. I don’t love it all, but it all makes sense together.

[Onward.]

Series: Short Fiction Spotlight

Short Fiction Spotlight: Falling in Love with Hominids by Nalo Hopkinson

Tue Dec 1, 2015 4:00pm 1 comment

Welcome back to the Short Fiction Spotlight, a space for conversation about recent and not-so-recent short stories. While we’ve had a bit of a hiatus, I’m glad to be back—and discussing a recent short story collection by a writer whose work I usually very much enjoy, Nalo Hopkinson. Falling in Love with Hominids contains one original story, “Flying Lessons,” and seventeen reprints spanning the past fifteen or so years. It’s a wide-ranging book, though as Hopkinson’s introduction argues, it is possible to trace the development of the writer’s appreciation for our human species throughout.

This, for me, was also a fascinating look back at reading I’ve done over the past several years. Five of the stories I’ve discussed here previously (“Left Foot, Right” from Monstrous Affections; “Old Habits” from Eclipse 4; and “Ours is the Prettiest” from Welcome to Bordertown; “Shift” and “Message in a Bottle” from Report From Planet Midnight). However, I’d previously read at least half in previous publication—more than usual for most collections.

[Onward.]

Series: Short Fiction Spotlight

A Fond Farewell to Iskryne: An Apprentice to Elves by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette

Fri Oct 30, 2015 2:00pm Post a comment

The final book in Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear’s Iskryne Saga, An Apprentice to Elves, wraps up a series that began with a splash in A Companion to Wolves (2007). This time the reader is primarily following Isolfr’s daughter Alfgyfa, apprenticed to the alfar, as well as other characters who were secondary in the previous two books. The first novel was a fresh, engaging, and often-grim take on companion animal fantasy while the second explored the aftermath of a war—but this third and final volume approaches issues of cultural conflict and the battle that has finally come to bear against Rhean conquest and colonization.

It’s been interesting to watch this series develop, for two reasons. One is the spectacular, absorbing, densely-researched world of the Iskryne; honestly, I’m a bit heartbroken to see it finished with. The other is that, over the past eight years, these writers have each—and have as a pair—developed a great deal in terms of their delicacy and skill of craft. The end result is a series where each installment truly stands out and stands its individual ground as a wildly different sort of text, without ever losing the coherence and engagement of the project as a whole.

[Onward.]

Rebuilding After War: An Inheritance of Ashes by Leah Bobet

Wed Oct 7, 2015 4:00pm 1 comment

Hallie Hoffmann is sixteen and trying to keep her family farm running with her pregnant sister Marthe—six months after her sister’s husband, Thom, went marched south to fight in the war against a dark god and his irregulars. The war is over, but Thom hasn’t come home and winter is coming. The sisters’ relationship is strained to the breaking point already when a veteran walking up the road hires on through the winter, bringing more with him than just the clothes on his back.

Twisted Things begin appearing on Roadstead Farm again—the creatures of the dark god, thought to be slain in the war by the hero John Balsam—and the politics of families, cities, and armies come crashing together on Hallie and Marthe’s land. At the same time, the sisters are dealing with their own wounds—jagged and unhealed fears left in the wake of their abusive, difficult father—and the strained relationship with the local township that resulted from his behavior in life towards his neighbors. Hallie must look into herself, as well as face down the danger ahead, to save her family and her home.

[A review — contains spoilers.]

Rust Belt American Magic Realism: Wonders of the Invisible World by Christopher Barzak

Mon Sep 21, 2015 2:30pm 1 comment

Wonders of the Invisible World, Christopher Barzak’s third novel following One for Sorrow and The Love We Share Without Knowing, is a young adult book set in rural Ohio dealing with one young man’s discovery of his family’s magic, his own sexuality, and the complex history of the land he lives on. Aidan Lockwood comes to one day, as if he’s been living in a waking sleep, when his childhood best friend arrives in town again and calls out his name in the high school hallway—reminding him of all of the things he’d lost and forgotten, things that had been hidden inside him.

Aidan, with Jarrod’s help, begins to uncover the invisible world surrounding him and a curse that has been haunting his family. A complex web of influence—stories, magic, love—has driven Aidan’s story around him for longer than he knew. Now, he must begin weaving that story if he wants to protect himself and his family.

[A review.]

Spotlight on James Tiptree, Jr. / Alice Sheldon

Wed Aug 26, 2015 11:00am Post a comment

In honor of the 100th anniversary of James Tiptree, Jr./Alice Sheldon’s birth on August 24th, please enjoy this encore post from our Queering SFF column, originally published in 2012 during Pride Month.

The history of James Tiptree, Jr. is fairly well documented in our field. There are biographies, posthumous collections, an award named for her, as well as the long memory of letters, fanzines, and the people still living who knew Tiptree and, later, knew Alice Sheldon, the woman behind him. Tiptree/Sheldon won every major genre award, some more than once; she is now being inducted, as of 2012, into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.

[However, the discussion of Tiptree/Sheldon as a queer writer is often glossed over—]

Where to Start with the Works of James Tiptree, Jr.

Tue Aug 18, 2015 9:00am 16 comments

I’ve talked about James Tiptree Jr. (Alice Sheldon) quite a bit over the past several years. I first encountered their work when I was, I believe, around nineteen years old, in the form of a handful of short stories gleaned from the internet. Folks had recommended them, you see, because when you’re asking for science fiction about gender and sexuality, Tiptree is a requirement for getting acquainted with the kinds of things the field was doing during the New Wave and feminist movements in the late sixties and early seventies.

More importantly, the stories are still excellent. And still disturbingly on-point, with a frequent emphasis on the “disturbing” bit.

[So, where do you start if you want to start reading Tiptree?]

Letters to Tiptree

Wed Aug 12, 2015 11:00am Post a comment

In celebration of the 100th Anniversary of Alice Sheldon’s birth, and in recognition of the enormous influence of both Tiptree and Sheldon on the field, Twelfth Planet Press is publishing a selection of thoughtful letters written by science fiction and fantasy’s writers, editors, critics and fans to celebrate her, to recognise her work, and maybe in some cases to finish conversations set aside nearly thirty years ago.

Letters to Tiptree, edited by Alisa Krasnostein and Alexandra Pierce, is available for pre-order from Twelfth Planet Press and publishes later this month. Below, read an excerpt from the collection—Brit Mandelo’s letter to Tiptree thanks the author for her “compelling stories, sharp critiques, and on a more intimate, personal level, a difficult and complex relationship to gender and the performance of self.”

[Read more]

Pulpy and Playful: Daughters of Frankenstein, edited by Steve Berman

Tue Aug 4, 2015 3:00pm 2 comments

With the subheading “Lesbian Mad Scientists!” and a delightful cover that hearkens back to the pulp tradition—two women with frizzy hair bringing an android to life with lightning arcing all over the place—Daughters of Frankenstein is aiming for a very specific tone: fun. Lethe Press, under editor Steve Berman, regularly produces queer sf anthologies that I’ve appreciated, and this one in particular seemed likely to offer an entertaining late-summer read.

(I did, in fact, read it on the porch in the sun. Highly recommended activity.)

[A review.]

Series: Queering SFF

Short Fiction Spotlight: Uncanny Magazine Issue #5

Tue Jul 21, 2015 4:00pm Post a comment
Uncanny #5 Cover Art by Antonio Caparo

Welcome back to the Short Fiction Spotlight, a space for conversation about recent and not-so-recent short stories. Before a brief break, we’d discussed the special “Queers Destroy Science Fiction” issue at Lightspeed; this time around, I’d like to take a gander at the most recent installment of Uncanny Magazine (#5). This issue, for July/August, has six pieces of original fiction, one reprint, and a handful of essays, poems, and interviews.

[For our purposes, let’s discuss the original fiction]

Series: Short Fiction Spotlight

Mo’s Turn: The Annihilation Score by Charles Stross

Mon Jul 6, 2015 3:00pm 3 comments

The Annihilation Score is the sixth installment of Charles Stross’s “Laundry Files” series. And, for a change of pace that I found delightful, the narrator this time around isn’t Bob Howard: this story is Mo’s, and it picks up exactly where The Rhesus Chart left off.

The gist of the problem is that due to the confluence that is the beginning of Case Nightmare Green, regular humans have started cropping up with talents that they perceive to be superpowers. Mo, as a representative of the Laundry, has to find some way of managing this suddenly very public appearance of the paranormal. She’s also dealing with the increasingly unpleasant task of being the holder of the Eric Zahn original violin she calls Lecter—one cause for the separation that means Bob is more or less entirely out of the picture in this book.

[A review.]

Steeped in Myth: Bone Swans by C. S. E. Cooney

Wed Jul 1, 2015 4:00pm 1 comment

Bone Swans by C. S. E. Cooney is the most recent publication from Mythic Delirium Books—run by Mike and Anita Allen, of the similarly named Mythic Delirium magazine—and joins a small slate of other works under their purview, such as the well-received Clockwork Phoenix anthologies. This original collection contains five stories, one of which is published here for the first time (“The Bone Swans of Amandale,” from which the book takes its title). Plus, it has an introduction by none other than Gene Wolfe.

Though in the past I’d say I’ve been most familiar with Cooney’s poetry, we also published a story of hers at Strange Horizons while I was editor that I (obviously) quite liked. So, I was pleased to see a collection of other pieces—none of which I’d had the chance to read before, which is actually fairly rare for me when picking up a single-author short story volume. It’s also interesting to see a book of mostly longer stories; as I said, there are only five here to fill the whole thing, two of which were initially published at Giganotosaurus and one as a chapbook.

[A review.]

Short Fiction Spotlight: Queers Destroy Science Fiction at Lightspeed

Tue Jun 23, 2015 2:00pm 1 comment

Welcome back to the Short Fiction Spotlight, a space for conversation about recent and not-so-recent short stories. A few weeks back, we did a little spring sampler with some magazines I hadn’t look at before; it was good to peruse some fresh voices, too.

However, the special thing this month I’d like to look at is the next Queers Destroy issue at ol’ familiar Lightspeed—and this time the focus is on science fiction, so I was especially intrigued. These special issues are generally a lot of fun for the variety of work that they showcase that fits under the banner “queer,” the same way the previous instantiations showcased women writers in the field.

[Onward.]

Series: Short Fiction Spotlight

A Supernatural Soap Opera: Dead Ice by Laurell K. Hamilton

Fri Jun 5, 2015 12:30pm 4 comments

Dead Ice, the twenty-fourth book in Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake series, opens with a throwback to one of the earliest novels in the series: someone is making zombies with souls still attached, like Dominga Salvador did in The Laughing Corpse, and forcing them to star in porn films.

It’s exceptionally awful, even for Anita; however, she’s also got other problems in her personal life and the power structure of the new American kingdom she and Jean-Claude are heading as king and queen (or co-presidents).

[Onward.]

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