Literary criticism and the difference in good and bad editors

A friend of mine, Dan Schneider, has a fascinating essay up dealing with his experiences with Cambridge University Press. An excerpt from one of Dan's critical essays was recently reprinted in their new textbook Contemporary Fiction: TheNovel Since 1990, edited by Pamela Bickley. As Dan points out in the essay, he wasn't paid for this reprinting and knew going in that the editors would probably take his words out of context. All he asked was that the editors not mangle his criticism too much and credit him as "Dan Schneider, webmaster of Cosmoetica.com, reprinted with permission from Hackwriters.com." As you can see by reading the essay, the editors couldn't even get that one simple request right.

Contrast this with Stanley Schmidt and the other editors of Analog Science Fiction and Fact. My story "Where Away You Fall" is forthcoming in Analog and yesterday I received the page proofs so I can have a final look before the story is published. Very nice. That's how good editors do things--as opposed to the esteemed Cambridge U.P.

Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun

I just finished the first volume in Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun. For those not familiar with the book, Neil Gaiman has called this "The best SF novel of the last century." Even though I still have a ways to go before I finish the entire novel, so far I have to totally agree with Neil. I highly recommend people grab a copy of the novel and start reading.

BTW, because I have a lot of personal writing and reading to finish, I won't be blogging that much during the next month. I suggest blaming the silence of the blogs around here on Gene!

Some Brief and Frightening Tips from George Saunders

I'm working on a review of the wonderful new anthology series Best of the Web--and yes, by using the word "wonderful" I obviously like their inaugural 2008 edition. I strongly suggest people order a copy. Anyway, one essay which jumped out at me in the book is "Some Brief and Frightening Tips from George Saunders" from Konundrum Engine Literary Review. This short essay is an advanced primer for writers, told in Saunders' unique voice and style. The sections on voice alone are worth worth checking out and the essay is highly recommended for all writers.

When genre writers don't read stories in their own genre

James at Speculative Horizons raises an excellent point: Why do readers tolerate "fantasy authors who, when asked what other genre writers theyread/admire, give a reply along the lines of: 'Oh, well...I don't really read fantasy, you see.'" Specifically, James harps on fantasy author David Bilsborough for having this attitude and claims that author Steven Erikson has also noticed it among his fellow writers.

Personally, I'd expand this rant to not just include genre writers--as I mentioned in an essay last year, mainstream literary novelists have been appropriating genre tropes and themes for years. You can bet these authors have the same attitude to genre writings as James talks about. But it's one thing to have intellectual snobs looking down their noses at the genre. To have this attitude come from people within the genre ... ouch.

Countdown to the Million Writers Award

These are the final hours of the Million Writers Award, with voting set to end at 11:59 p.m. Eastern time tonight. I'll be up until the very end--making sure there are no last minute attempts at vote stuffing--and I'll officially announce the winner shortly after midnight.

For those needing more of a MWA fix, blogger Erica Naone has written some excellent posts about this year's finalists. Here's her review of Cat Rambo and Jeff VanderMeer's "The Surgeon’s Tale," her thoughts on Matt Bell's "Alex Trebek Never Eats Fried Chicken," her review of Kelly Shriver's "The Ethical Dilemma of a Sandwich Down the Pants," and her analysis of how much fantasy it takes to make a fantasy (with regards to Liz Williams' story "The Hide").

More William Sanders crap (or how not to be a professional SF/F editor)

I promised myself I wouldn't devote any more of my limited time to the William Sanders affair. But now I see that Sanders has gone off the deep end on Yoon Ha Lee, a talented writer I admire whose story "Notes on the Necromantic Symphony" was selected as a notable story in the current Million Writers Award.

Lee asked that her story"The Shadow Postulates," which Sanders had published on Helix, be removed from that site because she no longer wished to be associated with Sanders' comments about Muslims. Sanders responded by saying that her story "never did make any sense" and that he only accepted it to "please those who admire your work and also because (notorious bigot that I am) I was trying to get more work by non-Caucasian writers." Sanders closed his e-mail my stating "There was a suggestion I was going to make, but it is probably not physically practicable." Very tasteful.

If there's anyone out there who still thinks Sanders retains any shred of professionalism, this should put that view to a quick death. Let me also state that Yoon Ha Lee is a talented writer whose stories I have greatly enjoyed reading. Show your support for her by reading more of her fiction.

Story of the Week: "The Tale of Junko and Sayuri" by Peter Beagle

Shout the news from the rooftops: "Peter S. Beagle is back!" For many years it seemed that Beagle, the author of such classic novels as A Fine And Private Place and The Last Unicorn, was finished with fantasy writing. Then he returned in 2005 with the Hugo and Nebula Award winning "Two Hearts," which is a coda to The Last Unicorn. Then last year there was his wonderful "We Never Talk About My Brother", which I selected as a finalist for the Million Writers Award. And now comes the most haunting fantasy story I have read in years,"The Tale of Junko and Sayuri" from the July 2008 issue of Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show.

"The Tale of Junko and Sayuri" is the story of a huntsman in ancient Japan and the woman he loves, even though her humanity is questionable since she is a shapeshifter who can change into different animals. The story is a tale of love, envy, and the things that make us human. The tale is also an exploration on how the culture around us can both define and limit us, and how sometimes the price for overcoming these constraints is simply not worth paying.

I can not praise this novella enough. Beagle's use of dialogue is flat-out unbelievable. With just a few, delicate words--such as when a character exclaims "So beautiful," or states "Whatever I am"--Beagle gives more insight into life that most authors can create with an entire page of text. Even though I call myself a writer, as I read this story I marvelled at how far I have to go to attain even a fraction of Beagle's ability. And even though I fancy myself an experienced reader of fantasies, this story still took me by surprise with its overwhelming humanity. I fully expect this story to be a finalist for all of the major speculative fiction awards.

Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fifth Annual Collection

The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fifth Annual Collection, edited by Gardner Dozois, arrived in the mail yesterday. While this anthology is a perennial favorite of mine, this year's edition appears to be even better than the norm (and my opinion has nothing to do with being named to the honorable mention list, although that was a pleasant surprise). As I always do, the first thing I turned to was Gardner's excellent summation of the past year in science fiction. Once again I found his summary to be top-notch, with it both refreshing my memory about a few things and bringing in many points which I had not previously known.

Look for my complete review of the anthology in a few weeks.

Final week of voting for Million Writers Award

We're into the last week of voting for the Million Writers Award. "Alex Trebek Never Eats Fried Chicken" by Matt Bell (Storyglossia) holds a narrow lead over "Friday Afternoons on Bus 51" by Sruthi Thekkiam (Blackbird), while "The Surgeon's Tale" by Cat Rambo and Jeff VanderMeer (Subterranean) and "We Never Talk About My Brother" by Peter S. Beagle (IGMS) are close behind. So don't forget to cast your vote before voting ends on July 17.

More on William Sanders and posting rejection letters

Guess I'm going to have to explain more about my previous comments on the William Sanders rejection letter. I totally agree with Tobias Buckell that the "context" argument from Sanders' supporters makes no sense. I've never used the term "those people" in my entire life. When I've heard the term used by others, it's never been in a good sense (such as "Those people are great!).

The more I think about this issue, the more I realize that if one receives a rejection with similar crap in it the best thing to do is post it online and expose said crap to the light of day. But the truth is that very few rejections will have content which calls for doing this. Just as it is unprofessional to call an editor every week and ask about your story's status, or to submit a handwritten manuscript, or to spam every editor under the sun with submissions, so too is it unprofessional to post a rejection letter online. Yes, the Sanders' letter seems to one of those "exceptions to the rules." But new writers shouldn't look at this situation and think, "Oh, I should post every rejection letter I receive online because that will bring me some attention." Odds are the attention you'd get would not be the good type of attention.

UPDATE: I don't know how I missed this, but on Buckell's website a woman named Nora, who has been published twice in Helix, posted a comment in which she says Sanders told her that because she criticized him in an online forum, he will no longer publish her stories in Helix. Unbelievable. While I stand by my view on (generally) not posting rejection letters, in Sanders' case this exposure was a good thing because it is allowing his festering sore of racism to be exposed to the world.

Campbell and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Awards

The winners of the John W. Campbell Memorial and Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Awards have been announced. Kathy Goonan’s novel In War Times has won the Campbell award, while the joint winners of the Sturgeon short story award are "Tideline" by Elizabeth Bear and "Finisterra" by David Moles. Both of these short stories are amazing. Last year I selected "Finisterra" as one of my stories of the week, and you can read my analysis of the story here. Congrats to all these winners.

Never post an editor's rejection letter!

In case things aren't clear enough from the title of this post, let me repeat: Writers should never post an editor's rejection letter on the internet!

Over on the Asimov's forum, people are discussing an incident where a writer named Luke Jackson posted a rejection letter he received from William Sanders at Helix. The letter was originally posted on the blog of William Preston, who is defending the posting. Luke, however, has now apologized for the posting and Sanders has evidently accepted the apology.

I'm glad Luke Jackson has worked things out with William Sanders, but to everyone else saying editorial rejections are fair game for posting online, I'd like to add a few words: Are you crazy? Do you actually want to see your stories in print one day?

I have worked as an editor for a number of years, both at a commercial publishing house and at the online journal storySouth. The only reason I ever took the time to write a detailed rejection letter like the one Sanders wrote was if I thought the author had talent and I wanted to encourage that talent. If anyone had ever posted one of my rejection letters and then refused to apologize or remove the posting, I would have never considered any other submissions from that author. Period. And while I wouldn't have passed the word about the incident to other editors, if the letter attracted a lot of attention online you can bet other editors would have noticed and taken this into consideration come their own submission time.

It appears Luke Jackson made an honest mistake and has worked things out with his editor. But for all those crying defiance over this issue, pledging to post their own rejection letters for the world to critique, don't say you haven't been warned.

UPDATE: Someone e-mailed asking about my thoughts on the content of William Sanders' rejection letter. Just FYI, I focused this musing on the issue of posting an editor's rejection letter on the internet because I wasn't initially aware of what was in the letter. Once I read his letter, all I can say is that Tobias Buckell sums up my feelings very well on the matter. I've also posted more of my thoughts on all this here.

Review of June 2008 Strange Horizons fiction

My take on the June 2008 fiction from Strange Horizons is now up at The Fix short fiction review. Of the five stories published that month by Strange Horizons, my favorite was "Jimmy’s Roadside Cafe" by Ramsey Shehadeh. For complete details, please see my review.

As a staff reviewer for The Fix, I will be reviewing Strange Horizons' fiction each month. Look for my thoughts on their July fiction in early August.

Story of the Week: "The Political Prisoner" by Charles Coleman Finlay

My new story of the week is "The Political Prisoner" by Charles Coleman Finlay from the August 2008 Fantasy and Science Fiction. A sequel to Finlay's 2002 story "The Political Officer," which was reprinted in Gardner Dozois's The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twentieth Annual Collection, this story picks up the tale of Maxim Nikomedes, a political officer/secret agent for the fundamentalist Christian world of Jesusalem. In the last story, Max's work as a double agent almost cost him his life; in this story, it causes him to be sent to a reeducation camp on his harsh and austere homeworld.

Jesusalem barely supports human life and since its settlement the colonists have been terraforming the planet. However, since the Christian sects of this world reject most advanced technology, this terraforming is done by hand, by prisoners dragging baskets of algae across the planet's burning sands in an attempt to create topsoil. Finley's descriptions of the harsh reality of a reeducation camp--which is modeled on those infamous gulags of the old Soviet Union--are simply awe-inspiring, as are his descriptions of what people will do to survive in such a death-inducing environment.

However, the most amazing aspect of the story is Max himself. As a political officer, Max has a unique view on why all of this is being done to him. For example, when prisoners are killed as a way to teach everyone to stay in line, Max is both horrified at the sight and appreciative of the political skill of the man doing the killing. Likewise, he is now seeing the fruits of his own political work. For example, decades ago he created a derogatory term for a group of genetically altered humans; now Max hears people bandying this term around as they hate these altered people with an outsized passion. Max is vain enough to take pride in this outgrowth of his work--and old enough to also be ashamed. It is in this conflict between what Max has done in the past, and the changes he is undergoing in the reeducation camp, which makes the story such a winner. This story will likely be reprinted in some of the "year's best" anthologies, and I highly recommend it to all readers.

Nebula Awards website

In the "it's about time" category, the SFWA has created a website devoted to their Nebula Awards. The site is informative and nicely laid out, although it is still very much a work in progress. For example, the archives of all the past winners is missing the years 1967 to 1989, and the guest blog is still in progress. But all in all, this is something the SFWA has been needing to do for a long time and I'm glad it finally exists.

Vincent Chong's artwork for my upcoming story

Vincent Chong illustrated my story "The Ships Like Clouds, Risen By Their Rain," which is due to be published in a few days in issue 217 of Interzone. He has now uploaded a full-color version of the story's artwork--titled "The Weather Tower"--to his website.

I think Chong's interpretation of the story is amazing. In other good news, Chong said he will also illustrate my next story for Interzone, titled "When Thorns Are The Tips Of Trees." I'm truly honored that Interzone has paired me with this world-class artist. I should also mention that Chong sells prints of all of the artwork found on his website.