Medical marijuana as anger management tool

I guess this is another trend which science fiction totally failed to predict: medical marijuana as an anger management tool. The jaw dropping information comes at the end of an Associated Press report on vending machines in L.A. now dispensing medical marijuana.

A man who said he has been authorized to use medical marijuana as part of his anger management therapy said the vending machine's security measures would at least protect against illicit use of the drug. "You have kids that want to get high and that's not what marijuana is for," Robert Miko said. "It's to medicate."

Fiction rarely tops the weirdness and mysteries of real life.

Sci Phi: The Journal of Science Fiction and Philosophy

A new magazine caught my eye the other day--Sci Phi: The Journal of Science Fiction and Philosophy. Edited by Jason Rennie, Sci Phi focuses on fiction combining the ideas of science fiction and philosophy. According to Rennie, he first encountered the term Sci Phi in Mark Rowland's book The Philosopher at the End of the Universe. Rennie also states that philosophical ideas have long been discussed in the medium of story telling. "From Plato’s conversations questioning the basis of morality in his Euthyphro dialogues, through Thomas More’s exploration of Utopia and down to Nietzsche’s stories about the mad man proclaiming the death of god and its consequences. It should be no great surprise that the modern story telling art of science fiction would likewise provide such a vehicle."

Stanley Schmidt and his well-deserved Hugo

Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Canadian science-fiction writer Robert J. Sawyer stirred up some controversy recently by calling for Analog Science Fiction and Fact editor Stanley Schmidt to win the Hugo Award for Best Editor. Schmidt has been nominated for the award many times, but has never won. Sawyer's call was taken up on the readers forums of both Analog and Asimov's. While a number of people supported Sawyer's call, others said that this wasn't a strong year for Analog and that the award should not be given for mercy or pity reasons.

Personally, I take exception to the idea that giving Schmidt a Hugo would be an act of mercy or pity or that this wasn't a strong year for his magazine. Analog remains the best-selling science fiction magazine in the U.S. and a number of the magazine's stories from the last year have been honored. Richard Horton picked two Analog stories--"Vectoring" by Geoffrey Landis and "Virus Changes Skin" by Ekaterina Sedia--for his upcoming best of the year anthology, while "Things That Aren't" by Michael A. Burstein and Robert Greenberger made the Nebula preliminary ballot. To those 2007 stories I would add several other strong tales, especially "Icarus Beach" by C. W. Johnson and "Some Distant Shore" by Dave Creek. And to top all that off, I absolutely loved the serialization of Karl Schroeder's Queen of Candesce. Without Analog I'd never have started Schroeder's Virga sequence, which for my money is the best hard science fiction series in many years.

And that's just from 2007. This year is also shaping up to be a great one for Analog, with the first three 2008 issues having some amazing stories (especially the serial Marsbound by Joe Halderman).

So would it be an act of mercy to give Schmidt a Hugo for all that? Absolutely not. Instead, the award would be well deserved.

Matthew Cheney on muses and ghosts

Matthew Cheney has returned to blogging after taking a break following the sudden death of his father (I offer my sincere sympathy to him on his loss). Cheney's new column for Strange Horizons deals with both his father's death and their mutual love of movies. The essay is extremely moving and observant, especially as Matthew notes how movies were one of the few things in life which brought the two of them together. The essay's ending will leave you with a massive lump in your throat and an overwhelming desire to immediately call your own father.

Books that make you dumber than Virgil's whole analysis

Via the always great SF Signal comes books that make you dumb. Created by Virgil Griffth, the analysis cross references the 10 most popular books at different colleges with that college's average SAT score. This, according to Virgil, shows the correlation between the type of books being read and how dumb or smart someone is.

There are way too many issues with this analysis to take it seriously, starting with the fact that having read Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita is not a signature mark of intelligence these days. Ironically, Virgil originally labeled Lolita as "Erotica" instead of "Classics." After being mobbed by literature majors, Virgil changed this while snarking that his complainers "lack any sense of humor."

Anyway, I'm sure this analysis will provoke tons of outrage and indignation, all while missing the larger points that a) the analysis is based only on Facebook data, and b) any analysis which claims people who don't read at all are smarter than those who read Fahrenheit 451 or the Bible can only be laughed at.

Submissions as a screen for bad writers

(Note: This rant was previously published in storySouth.)

Consider this a dose of harsh medicine for wannabe writers. Consider this insight into how to become a professional writer and, alternately, how to eternally doom your stories to editorial limbo.

For six years now I've been editing storySouth, a literary journal focusing on Southern writers. I initially edited the fiction and nonfiction while my co-editor Jake Adam York edited the poetry. Whatever we were doing must have worked because storySouth grew to the point where we needed other editors to assist us. Now Scott Yarbrough edits storySouth's fiction, Dan Albergotti the poetry, while Jake and I continue on as overall editors and I still edit the nonfiction. If you read our guidelines or masthead, these facts are laid out for the world to see.

The problem is that far too many writers are not reading our guidelines, let alone our magazine. I know this because in the last week I've received nine fiction submissions snail mailed to my house. Our guidelines specifically state to e-mail submissions to the editors. Anyone who reads our ONLINE journal couldn't fail to note that gee, storySouth is an ONLINE journal! Perhaps they accept electronic submissions. Let me look at the guidelines. The answer: YES! And who edits the fiction? Why its a nice chap named Scott Yarbrough.

Obviously the writers who mailed these fiction submissions to me never even read our guidelines, let alone storySouth. They pulled up our listing in some print or online submission database and let loose their submissions. Several of them didn't even include SASEs for a response. Two asked that their stories be considered for storySouth's Million Writers Award, which is for PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED fiction (another fact these writers could have learned by doing even the most basic of homework).

Now comes the clincher. After looking through all these short stories mailed to the wrong editor without looking at our journal or guidelines, some without a SASE, all without a clue, one pattern becomes clear--they all stink. Not one of them is readable past the first paragraph. And that brings us to this simple truth about publishing: Good writers do their homework. Bad writers do not. If a writer can't be bothered to do even a bit of reading about the magazine or journal they are submitting to, know that the editor will see this. And editors know that the truth behind a lack of preparation on the part of a writer is that their story is likely bad, bad, bad.

Science fiction as philosophical writing

The title of a new article in Wired Magazine says it all:  "Clive Thompson on Why Sci-Fi Is the Last Bastion of Philosophical Writing." The reason I read so much science fiction is because these days most other literary genres--both nonfiction and fiction--require little thinking on the part of a reader. As Thompson adds, that might be why so many literary writers are now trying their hand at science fiction.

What's the difference between a new and old writer?

SF/F and horror writer James Van Pelt ponders the difference between being a new and old writer on his blog. As Pelt notes, despite being first published in 1990, some people still call him a new writer. This prompted him to explore the differences he's noted between being a new and more established writer. One big benefit: his confidence is higher. Ironically, this creates a new concerns--that an editor will give him the "literary equivalent of a mercy kiss, which is a girl kissing a totally inappropriate guy goodnight at the end of a date only because he was so needy, but she never plans on kissing him again." As Pelt says, there is some deep neurosis at work in that statement.

Probably the best part of Pelt's rumination is when he says "Being an old writer means that I feel more like a Walmart greeter at the writers' gate of literature rather than someone in the parking lot hoping to get in."

Classic!

Michael Chabon teeters on the brink of genrecide

Michael Chabon, acclaimed literary writer and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for such wonderful novels as The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, appears to be killing his literary reputation with a form of seppuku known as genrecide. At least, that's the only way I can understand his decision to become an active member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (according to the fall 2007 issue of the SFWA Bulletin). I bet his literary peers and acolytes will choke on that news.

Seriously, Chabon is one of the few literary heavyweights in the U.S. who gives full credit to genre writers and works. While I disagreed with him on a minor point regarding his essay last year on Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic novel The Road, we can only wish that more members of the literary elite were as open minded and talented as him.

Cloverfield review

My wife and I saw Cloverfield last night and it was an enjoyable throwback to old Hollywood spectacles like King Kong, where the film takes the audience to places we'd prefer not to see in real life (but are perfectly happy to watch on the big screen). Overall, the film does a masterful job of creating a realistic yet sensawunda story about a monster attacking New York City. The movie also strikes me as very 21st century, with scenes that people will be playing over and over on their iPods and DVD players as they attempt to figure out more of the story. Big hint: That last scene at Coney Island isn't simply a flashback to happier times in the main characters's lives. Check out what's making a splash in the ocean.

My one criticism is that the jerking and shaking of the handheld camera quickly grows old. When the Blair Witch Project came out, technology was such that the only way to hold a camcorder steady was to use a tripod. Now most camcorders come with built in image stabilizers. Would it have really taxed the directors' imaginations for their characters to have a Canon GL2? I know the audience would have thanked them.

Shirley Jackson Award for suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic

By way of Ellen Datlow's blog comes news of the Shirley Jackson Award for "outstanding achievementin the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic." There's not a lot of info up on the award website yet, but evidently the award "will be voted upon by a jury of professional writers, editors, critics, and academics, with input from a Board of Advisors. The awards will be given for the best work published in the preceding calendar year in the following categories: Novel, Novella, Novelette, Short Story, Single-Author Collection, and Edited Anthology." Information on deadlines and how to submit works will be forthcoming.

Clarkesworld earns SFWA seal of approval

Nick Mamatas has the details on Clarkesworld becoming a qualifying market for the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. As usual, Nick provides a hilarious account of the bureaucratic SFWA process for deciding that Clarkesworld was worthy of their blessing. Now if only the SFWA would fix one of their biggest mistakes of recent years--declaring that Interzone, one of the best science fiction and fantasy magazines in the world, doesn't meet their definition of a professional market.

Dozois releases selections for Year's Best Science Fiction

Gardner Dozois has released his selections for the next Year's Best Science Fiction, which will hit book stores in June or July. The discussion link above also contains some fascinating insight into his thoughts on science fiction and how he compiles the annual anthology. For example, Dozois states:

I have stuck to my guns with this series and am reprinting only stuff that I consider to be SF (Ted Chiang's "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" is about as far out as I go, and even that has a slight SF rationale, if you squint at it), but I wonder if it isn't eventually going to hurt me that I don't use fantasy as well, as Jonathan Strahan is doing; I get the increasing impression, particularly on the internet (and looking over the Nebula results) that nobody much cares about this distinction anymore, except me.

I also care deeply about this distinction and it is Dozois's focus on science fiction which keeps me purchasing his anthology year after year. Like Dozois, I dislike it when science fiction anthologies are filled with slipstream, fantasy and soft horror. Not that there's anything wrong with these other genres, which I also love and occasionally write in myself. But it sometimes feels as if both writers and the reading public have forgotten how the best science fiction stories easily rank among the most liberating types of fiction out there.

In the discussion Dozois also mentions new writers who popped up on his radar this year. These include Una McCormack, Jennifer Pellard, C.W. Johnson, Sarah K. Castle, Andrea Kail,  Aliette de Boddard, and Beth Bernobich, along with several writers who've been publishing for only a couple or years like Justin Stanchfield, Jason Stoddard, Vandana Singh, Ted Kosmatka, and Lavie Tidhar.

"Dipping Their Toes..." essay now online

My essay "Dipping Their Toes in the Genre Pool: The U.S. Literary Establishment's Need-Hate Relationship with Speculative Fiction" was published in the New York Review of Science Fiction about six months ago and stirred up a minor hornet's nest (for a summary of this angry buzzing, see my original post on the matter).

For those who missed the essay, it has now been reprinted online in Monsters and Critics. I've updated the essay slightly to clarify my earlier points about the U.S. literary establishment. I also added in information about Michael Chabon's essay on Cormac McCarthy's The Road. Chabon's essay had just been published when my own essay was accepted by the NYRSF, so obviously I didn't mention it. But it would be silly not to include such a mention in this reprinting. For those who don't want to wade through the whole essay for one new section, in summary I think Chabon's essay is an excellent examination of McCarthy's book. I also feel it doesn't change my basic argument that the U.S. literary establish has a double standard when it comes to speculative fiction.

My picks from the Nebula Award preliminary ballot

The Nebula Award preliminary ballot has been released. The novels and stories I'd select from the ballot would be:

  • Novels: Ragamuffin by Tobias Buckell, The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon, and Blindsight by Peter Watts
  • Novellas:"Fountain of Age" by Nancy Kress and "Memorare" by Gene Wolfe
  • Novelettes: "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" by Ted Chiang and "Alastair Baffle's Emporium of Wonders" by Mike Resnick.
  • Short Stories: "Always" by Karen Joy Fowler and "Titanium Mike Saves the Day" by David D. Levine.
  • Scripts: Children of Men by Alfonso Cuaron, Timothy J. Sexton, David Arata, Mark Fergus, and Hawk Ostby; and Pan's Labyrinth by Guillermo del Toro

Story of the week: Joe Haldeman's Marsbound

Since I love to live life on the edge, I'm selecting a novel I haven't even finished as my story of the week: Joe Haldeman's Marsbound. The novel is being serialized in three parts in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, with the first installment in the combined Jan./Feb. 2008 issue and the second in the brand-new March issue.

Marsbound focuses on a family colonizing Mars in the near future and is 100% hard science fiction, which means the story features reasonable extrapolations based on science as we understand it today. However, as genre readers know, over the last 15 years a number of Mars colonization books have been published, with Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy being perhaps the most famous. What makes Marsbound such a unique and thrilling read is that the story is told through the point of view of an 18-year-old girl. As with all teenagers teetering on the brink of adulthood, the main character worries about mundane things like college, growing up, and sex, along with life-altering events like whether she'll survive the actual trip to Mars. Add in that the main character sees the universe through youthful eyes, but understands things as an adult, and you have the perfect narrator to describe a space exploration story. (I say this because the core of any exploration narrative is a combination of youthful wonder and adult hard work.)

With Marsbound, Haldeman--best known for his Hugo and Nebula award winning novels like The Forever War--has in many ways written an updated version of a Robert Heinlein juvenile novel. But instead of being aimed at teenage boys of the 1950s, Marsbound is uniquely suited for teenagers of the 21st century. I sincerely hope this is the beginning of a new trend of science fiction novels which appeal to readers of all genders and ages (in this case, from ages 15 and up due to some sexual content). I also look forward to the novel's final installment. If Haldeman finishes the story as well as he began it, Marsbound will no doubt be one of my favorite novels of the year.

UPDATE: For my review of the last installment of Marsbound, go here.

Wanted: Library or fan to support a science fiction legacy

You never know what you'll find on the Analog Science Fiction and Fact forum. A reader named Keith has been contacted by a SF fan's heirs who are selling microfiche sets of Astounding Science Fiction (1930-1984, plus color fiche of all its covers, and an index too), its fantasy companion Unknown/Unknown Worlds (1939-1943), and the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Specifically, the heirs want to honor their dad's love and respect for SF by finding a home for the collection "with either some institution like a university library, or someone who'll read it and use it to enrich the SF community." Keith also hopes there's a university or local public library out there with a computerized microfiche reader hybrid machine that can scan and create PDFs from the originals.

For more information, see the original post or contact Keith at asfmicrofiche@gmail.com. As with all internet purchases, please check out the details before sending any cash (although this seems very legit and an excellent way for a library to gain instant credibility as a destination for SF/F researchers).

Pimping for that Hugo or Nebula Award

The SF/F awards season must be upon us because across the blogoshere authors are pimping their writings in hopes as catching an award nomination. As usual with online trends, John Scalzi started this ball rolling several years ago by annually listing his works which were eligible for the Hugo and Nebula Awards. Now that so many others are jumping on the award-blogging bandwagon, I thought I'd compile a list of links to the different authors and editors who are promoting their award-eligible works:

  • John Scalzi (For his novel The Last Colony, novelette "The Sagan Diary," and more.
  • Chris Roberson (For his novelette "The Sky is Large and the Earth is Small," which is slated to appear in two "best of" collections and is posted on Chris' blog.)
  • Robert J. Sawyer (For his novel Rollback, which Publisher's Weekly says "may well win another major SF award." Sawyer also promotes Stanley Schmidt as the person most deserving of the next Hugo Award for best editor.)
  • Jay Lake (For his novel Mainspring and assorted short fiction.)
  • John Joseph Adams (Mainly for his editing work under the Hugo's Special Award: Professional category; he also lists short stories by other authors for consideration)
  • David Louis Edelman (For the 2008 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Science Fiction or Fantasy Writer. Edelman also promotes Mary Robinette Kowal and Cat Rambo for the same award, which IMHO is mighty nice of him.)

For those in the dark about how the Hugo Award process works, Frank Wu offers an excellent primer (along with his ideas on nominees in the fanzine and fan writer categories).

I hope people will also check out two of my SF/F stories from the last year: "Book Scouts of the Galactic Rim" in Menda City Review and "Rumspringa" in Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show. I'm not trying to pimp these stories for an award because I'm realistic enough to know that neither has a snowball's chance in hell of landing a nomination. Still, I'm proud of the stories and hope readers enjoy them.

The end of the book--and the world

John Scalzi has released the ending of his new book: "And then the planet blew up and everybody died horribly. The end!" I wonder if the pressure of finishing the book is getting to Scalzi? :-)

And while I hesitate to add more pressure to one of my favorite authors, Douglas Adams beat him to that hilarious ending by about 15 years. The fifth and final book in Adam's Hitchhikers Trilogy, Mostly Harmless, ends with earth--or more precisely, all the earths across the entire multiverse--blowing up, much to Arthur Dent's everlasting relief. At which point life goes on as before, with the exception that there's now nothing on television.