Whilst he wrote novels, too, I always consider Fredric as one of the grand masters of the short - sometimes very short - story, frequently with an surprising twist to it that can turn an entire story on its head and forces the reader to start again. This is not one of those, but the twist is a classic.
For those not familiar with the term, Wikipedia provides the following definition for Solipsism:
from Latin solus, meaning 'alone', and ipse, meaning 'self', is the philosophical idea that only one's own mind is sure to exist. As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one's own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist outside the mind. As a metaphysical position, solipsism goes further to the conclusion that the world and other minds do not exist.
Once in a while a book comes your way which transcends boundaries - sometimes because the author is rooted or interested in several things, sometimes because the book, the story, the characters ran away with the it and created something bigger and more complex in the process; and sometimes because, like with An Android Awakes, the originators (Mike French, and illustrator Karl Brown in this case) set out to do so - successfully, in this case. An Android Awakes is a hybrid novel, part classic SF book, part graphic novel, with both parts interlinked and feeding off each other. It’s an interesting concept, going way beyond the classic ‘illustrated story’ approach, whilst adding the depth of story and character which pure graphic novels frequently struggle to bring to the table from the text portions. The closest I can compare it to, in format and interaction at least, is Ian Sinclair’s Slow Chocolate Autopsy, although that is a completely different monster of a book.
The book is set in a future where all or nearly all fiction, as well as other creative tasks, are done by androids, and not humans anymore - so much for there being areas where robots will never be able to replace humans!
But in the end this is simply a consequent extrapolation of where we’re going already: “In the future some of you will become great writers, renowned artists, visionary filmmaker and talented photographers. Most of you though will just have more sex. Go forward a few more generations and none of you are creative save that of your procreation. Your culture is shaped by machines.”
Metaphorosis describes itself as an online speculative fiction magazine which publishes an original story every week, plus book reviews and other content related to the topic. It has been going for two years now, and has published 'Best of' collections for both of those, plus other books and collections available in print format, too.
Metaphorosis: Best of 2017 contains a Baker's Dozen (that is to say 13) stories selected by the magazine's editor, B. Morris Allen, plus a group of volunteer 'trusted readers'. These cover, as you would expect, a substantial range of approaches, topics, and writing styles. I felt that there was a bias (and no, not in a problematic way at all) towards societal, human-centred, non-technology, 'feely' stories. “Sad” seems to be the most frequent adjective I took down when taking notes from the stories – not in a bad, or tear-jerking way, but just in the outlook of a number of stories. A good number are classic SF tropes, others are Fantasy, or in some cases rather Myths, new or re-imagined ones (and yes, this boundary if very fluid, both into SF and Fantasy).
Below I will provide capsule reviews of the individual entries, which by its very nature will spoil some of the content – if this is a problem for you then stop here, with my recommendation that this is a great, varied, and fascinating collection, which you should seek out and enjoy yourself!
Oh, the name of the magazine, Metaphorosis, is a clever mis-spelling of Metamorphosis (the Kafka kind) – and whilst I had actually been hoping for something even clever-er I think that it's cool and evocative as it is.
This is Jo Walton’s first short story collection, containing “two short stories I wrote after I knew what I was doing, two I wrote before I knew what I was doing, some exercises, some extended jokes, some first chapters of books I didn’t write, some poems with the line breaks taken out, a play, and some poems with the line breaks left in”. Her words… Jo Walton is a Welsh-born writer living in Canada. She has won a wide range of awards for her writing, including but not limited to the John W. Campbell, Prometheus, World Fantasy, Nebula, and Hugo Awards. I used to think of her as an SF Poet, but looking at the list of her publications (and awards for them!) I very much stand corrected. Still, per her statement above, the one thing she struggled with were short stories, which is rather different to how many (most?) other SF writers hone their craft, and move into the field of published authors. But, as they say, different strokes for different people. And here we have, within her own definition per the above quote, her first collection of short fiction.
Starlings starts with a poem on the topics of the birth of new stars - thus the title of the poem, and of the collection overall. It’s a lovely poem, too. And ways too clever for me… This is followed by an introduction, by the author, on the topic of herself, and her approach to writing short stories. I guess I can safely summarise this as not her forte, but she’s better at it than she used to be.
Reading the collection I can confirm that she definitely does just fine with the format, even if she does not think of most of the contents here as ‘short stories’ herself! Most to all of the content has been published before over the years, so unless you are completely new to her oeuvre you will most likely trip over the odd story or poem you’ve seen before - I did, occasionally. I’ll provide short capsule reviews on topics and my impressions for the individual stories below - if you’d rather enjoy this without too many spoilers then you might want to stop here, and go get the book, it’s worth your time and money!
Here's a story set in Aliette de Bodard's 'Dominion of the Fallen' universe:
Children of Thorns, Children of Water is set between two novels - The House of Shattered Wings and The House of Binding Thorns. It was a preorder reward for The House of Binding Thorns, and was then made available for free online in issue 17 of the Uncanny Magazine.
It has now, deservedly in my opinion, been shortlisted for the 2018 Hugo Award.
To whet your appetite for the story, which I strongly recommend you read, I shamelessly nick Aliette's own description of her story:
Dragons, creepy magic, cooking (!).
In a Paris that never was, a city of magicians, alchemists and Fallen angels struggling to recover from a devastating magical war…
Once each year, the House of Hawthorn tests the Houseless: for those chosen, success means the difference between a safe life and the devastation of the streets. However, for Thuan and his friend Kim Cuc, — dragons in human shapes and envoys from the dying underwater kingdom of the Seine — the stakes are entirely different. Charged with infiltrating a House that keeps encroaching on the Seine, if they are caught, they face a painful death.
Worse, mysterious children of thorns stalk the candidates through Hawthorn’s corridors. Will Thuan and Kim Cuc survive and succeed?
Here's a blast from a past, and a great hope for the future, all in one package!
S. P. Somtow (or Somtow Sucharitkul, which he originally published under), the Thai/American polymath famous for both his writing and as a composer, has re-released The Comet that Cried for its Mother, an Inquestor originally published in Amazing Stories and later, in adapted form, included in Utopia Hunters on Wattpad.
So, firstly, go forth and read, and enjoy - I always appreciated the Inquestor stories for their fantastic Space Opera setting, mixed with a High Values/High Honour culture which could just as well be from a classic Fantasy setting, for its inspirational and evocative language and storytelling.
But, also - this is, as he states, part of the path toward a 5th novel in the series; which he plans to publish in Novella-length instalments as a Zine, with ancillary materials, original stories, and hopefully artwork. And me, for one, cannot wait to get my hands on new (or even previously unseen) material set in this universe.
Why, welcome back to my on-going catch-up with one of the most enjoyable series of books I’ve had the pleasure to sit down with (and miss bus/train stops) in a long while. I’m talking about Charles Stross’ Laundry Files series, of course, of which The Nightmare Stacks is the 7th instalment. The 8th novel, The Delirium Brief, came ouit in July, so you could say that I’ve caught up! The Laundry Files follows the fortunes (and, quite frequently, misfortunes) of a number of protagonists working for a secret and secretive Government Agency dealing with what we call the Occult - essentially MI5 for tentacled horrors from other dimensions (I simplify, a lot, as you will see below). Essentially, though - magic is real (it’s a branch of applied mathematics), and so are a lot of the mythological creatures and concepts going round, and someone had to keep a lid both on things which go thump in the night (and might terminally affect humanity, never mind the UK), and on people with a mathematical or programming (closely related in many cases) mindset who might just independently trip over some of the crucial theorems and algorithms (aka invocations…) which might do them, and us, much harm. This is, though, mixed in with a good amount of geeky jokes, irreverent discourses on the horrors of Bureaucracy and Politics, never mind Office Politics and Paperclip Audits; as well as peppered with references to other genres, writing styles, and societal structures. In short - it’s much more fun than simply something which crosses what is essentially Horror with a Secret Service Agent setting.
Charles Stross is a professional writer, now mainly of Science Fiction but previously also of Computer Science and whatever paid the rent for a freelance journalist. He’s a hugely entertaining presence, should you have a chance to see him speak on stage, or in a Bar at a SF Convention. He lives in Scotland, but was born and raised in Leeds, which, telling from the story at hand, he does not have a great relationship with! He has won multiple awards for his stories and books, and shows, thankfully, no sign of slowing down.
