March – May Reading & TBR

Some recent reads, from novels and anthologies to short stories, opinion, and nonfiction. Plus  reads I’ve already placed on my TBR book stack. What about you? What have you read lately and loved?
 

Some Funny News:

Over the weekend, when I wasn’t slipping on banana peels at the local coffee shop, I learned that the UFO2 anthology has accepted my story, “How to Feed Your Pyrokinetic Toddler”.

So, despite all of my best attempts at becoming a stodgy stuffed shirt, someone thinks I’m funny. Or at least they think one of my stories is. I’m delighted because this story is completely inappropriate, highly pear-shaped, and was a lot of fun to write.

UFO2 is, like its predecessor, Unidentified Funny Objects, a collection of humorous science fiction and fantasy stories. UFO2 will feature Robert Silverberg, Esther Freisner, Mike Resnick, Ken Liu, Tim Pratt, Jody Lynn Nye, Jim Hines, me, and many more*.

Hey, do you write funny? *Because you could be in this anthology too. The open reading period is May 1 – 31 and submission guidelines are here.

UFO2 is a kickstarter-funded anthology. I’m not going to tell you that you should help back it, because I’m obviously biased. But if you like backing highly entertaining and suspiciously funny anthologies, I’d say this is a good place to start. Plus, then you’ll get to read about the care and feeding of pyrokinetic toddlers. You know, in case that should ever become a thing.

Sheer Awesome: The Impossible Futures Anthology Cover

It’s been spotted in the wild! The incredible Impossible Futures cover for the anthology edited by Tom Easton and Judith K. Dial. Artist Duncan Eagleson is a genius.

I’m ridiculously excited to be a part of this anthology – the TOC is amazing. The anthology includes stories by Rev DiCerto, Paul Di Filippo, Debra Doyle & James D. Macdonald, Duncan Eagleson, Jeff Hecht, Edward M. Lerner, Shariann Lewitt, Jack McDevitt, James Morrow, Mike Resnick, Sarah Smith & Justus Perry, Allen M. Steele, and yours truly.

And this cover? I want it as a poster / t-shirt / wallpaper, you name it. It’s glorious. Well? It is.

Impossible Futures (Fall 2013, Pink Narcissus Press). Edited by Tom Easton and Judith Dial.

Eeeeeee. So. Shiny!

Short Fiction 2013: January – March

Some of the online short stories I’ve read so far this year, and liked a whole bunch:

• Lettie Prell, “The Performance Artist,” Apex.
• AC Wise, “With Tales in their Teeth from the Mountain They Came,” Lightspeed.
• Sofia Samatar, “Selkie Stories are for Losers,” Strange Horizons.
• Adam Calloway, “Sate My Thirst with Ink and Blood,” Beneath Ceaseless Skies. 
• Kij Johnson, “Shrodinger’s Cathouse” (reprint), Galaxy’s Edge.
• Jake Kerr, “Biographical Fragments of the Life of Julian Prince,” Lightspeed.
• Genevieve Valentine, “86, 87, 88, 89,” Aliette de Bodard, “The Weight of a Blessing,“ and A.C. Wise, “The Last Survivor of the Great Sexbot Revolution,” all from Clarkesworld 78.
• Rachel Swirsky, “If You Were A Dinosaur, My Love,” Apex.
• Margaret Ronald, “A Family for Drakes,” Beneath Ceaseless Skies.
• Genevieve Valentine, “Terrain,” Tor.

Jump into the comments to tell me what I’ve missed –

What Heroes Eat: Cooking the Books with Saladin Ahmed

While fighting and magic are central to the action in many of Saladin Ahmed’s stories, he never makes the mistake of letting his characters go to battle on empty stomachs. Whether the 2013 Nebula Nominee is describing a tavern’s spiked beer or the mess caused by thousand-layer pastries, food is an important part of Ahmed’s worlds, as seen in the collection Engraved on the Eye and in his first novel Throne of the Crescent Moon.

Fresh from a recent NPR column on worldbuilding and fantasy, and the paperback and UK launches of his first novel, Throne of the Crescent Moon, Ahmed agreed to visit Cooking the Books to discuss his characters’ views on food, how food defines their societies, and six-foot tall warrior rabbit women.

SF Squeecast talks about food and fiction (and Cooking the Books!)

This week, the fantastic crew at sfsqueecast talked about food and fiction. They mention several blogs including the amazing Inn at the Crossroads, Food through the Pages, Fictional Food, author Lawrence Schoen’s Eating Authors and my mostly monthly Cooking the Books column.

(I’ve had to go through this post eleventy hundred times removing exclamation points. Dying of squee here. I’m a huge squeecast fan.)

If you’re coming from squeecast, there’s a list to the right – recent interviews include Aliette de Bodard, Steven Brust, and Elizabeth Bear, mentioned on the podcast, as well as the amazing (and somewhat gross) Strange Horizons roundtable.  And stay tuned!  January’s interview is Saladin Ahmed, and Scott Lynch is scheduled for February.

If you’re a regular Cooking the Books reader, get on over to the squeecast. They’re fantastic and great listening each and every broadcast.

Librum Gatherum 2012

When I think back over what I read this year, these are the stories and collections that most come to mind. They’re by no means all of the best, but they’re a good cross-section.

Reading, Railways & Radio – big fun day

I seem to be liveblogging today’s adventures. We’ll see how long it lasts!

Update (10/20) : Here’s the link to the CUNY interview. John Kessel talks about the Digital Rapture anthology at about 13:30.

Setting out:

Setting Out
Background music: Richard Thompson – Rumor & Sigh

Art Deco…
Background music: Gillian Welch – Revelator

… & John Kessel
Background music: Gillian Welch – Revival

City
Background music: car horns

For the Greater Good

The Internet and one of its many, many kittens. Wikimedia Commons image. Photo Credit: Sasan Geranmehr

Ok, some Sunday morning musing for you: How do we as a culture determine what is ‘good’?

In any field, at any point in history, a pulse-point of ‘good’ has been established. That’s where we get various canons – quite often the creative works of a dominant culture, to the detriment of other voices, other data.

Also throughout history, arbiters of taste abound, marketing studies flourish, trends analyses bloom like algae (or tulips) all over the surface of ‘good’ in the marketplace. And sometimes the only result is noise, or mundanity: a horse designed by committee, versus something sleek and fast and wonderfully new. That’s not good at all.

Now though. Now we can quantify good. We can see how and where the market reacts to what we give them, we can establish datapoints, and we can give the market more of what it wants. And we will make the market happy and that will be good. Right? This is the message I’m getting from Fast Company’s article on Amazon’s Serialized Novel program. A cautious sense that -hooray- we will Finally Know What People Like And Be Able To Give Them More Of It. With data.

A Richness of Firsts: Chicon 7, the Retrospective

Food & Fantasy panel audience – my first panel audience. Missing: excellent co-panelists James Bryant, Petrea Mitchell, Daio, and Mary Frances Zambreno. Included in photo: Classic Kelly Lagor photobomb

(with added booklist from the food & fantasy panel, see below)

The Short Version

When I deplaned in Philly on Monday night, I had this silly grin on my face, and I was still tweeting and messaging up a storm, as I’d been doing for the past five days in Chicago for Worldcon.  My family found it amusing, and a little annoying.  ”You’re home now,” they said. “Con’s over.”

Except it’s not, not really.

This was my first Worldcon, and I had a few things on my schedule that I’d never done before – namely reading the opening of my new novel aloud to people who weren’t related to me, and talking on convention panels. Those went great.  Especially because my friends, old and new, were there, cheering me on – by photobombing my pics of my first panel audience, among other things (I see what you did, there, Kelly Lagor).