Quick Sips - Terraform March 2015

Another month comes to a close, so there's another month's worth of weekly stories from Terraform. This month the stories range a bit longer on average than in most since its start, but overall I think they are worth checking out. It's a somewhat bleak look into the not-too-distant future, but there are some humorous bits as well, and enough to think about to make this another interesting month for this unique publication. So here we go!

Stories:

"Headshot" by  Julian Mortimer Smith (1701 words)

In this rather interesting story told via fictional interview, a future is imagined where military action is taken via direct democracy. Civilians can follow people online and any action requires the input from those people following. You need to be approved to take a shot, to make a patrol. It puts some of the participation in the hands of the public. I liked the style of it, the way that social media had integrated into the technology of war, the way it all seemed to flow. The ridiculousness of having to rouse people to vote on an important military action. I liked the idea, that such things would be more open to the public. I mean, on the one hand it's a terrible idea, because the public is swayed by things that would lead to some terrible decisions, but I did like that ultimately the military was answering to the public and nothing else. I think there would be a much more troubling problem in that soldiers would face much greater risk in that situation, when they might not be able to comply to the wills acting on them. But the story does provide an interesting glimpse into the system, into something where the public really isn't allowed to be in the dark. Plus the tone is just sort of nicely disturbing, the way the headshot is glorified. As it would be. It's just nice that it shows this system that is in many ways repellent but still holds a small sliver to promise. Indeed.

"Springing Backwards" by Rick Paulas (2140 words)

In this story is a comedy-apocalypse, the end of the world coming from the removal of daylight savings time. It's a fun, light story of a man and the mistakes he makes that lead to the end of the world, or at least a small end of the world. And, really, it's not exactly something that had much to do with daylight savings time. Sure, it seems to have contributed, but it seemed more that this one guy rather caused most of the troubles all on his own. Still, it sort of the blown-out-of-proportion kind of thing, people battling to keep daylight savings time despite it not serving a real definitely purpose anymore. It's cute, though I kind of hope that the main character gets what's coming to him for being a complete ass and probably causing the deaths of untold number of people. I can imagine, I guess. A funny little diversion, to be sure.

"The Dragon and the Martian" by Becky Ferreira (2510 words)

Two very different kinds of biological engineers work in the same area in this story. One is working on microbes that will help give Mars an atmosphere. His work is long, largely invisible. But he believes. He believes that he is doing something right. Good. The other is designing mythic animals for the few wealthy enough to afford them on an Earth that is devastated and resource strapped. This designer is vain, aggressive, and frustrated because the dragon he's designing doesn't want to be made. Figuratively and literally. While he is trying to force the world to fit his vision, to be a god of sorts, his friend is actually working at terraforming a planet, and yet isn't driven in the same way. It's quite a shift between the two, and well handled in the story. I really liked how the two men clashed and contrasted, and how their missions showed a lot about them. I was a little less convinced about the ending, which seemed a little abrupt, but overall I think the story pulled it off all right. I did like the image of the herd of wild unicorn in the end, that way of summing up the one guy's work. It's an effective bit of story, a glimpse at what might be in the future of designed life and two very different visions that can shape it.

"Flesh For Trade" by Nicholas Budgen (1350 words)

This story is short and seems to be about the circle of how people use technology, in this case in the sex trade. In the story, androids have replaced human workers in sex work, and a pair of new seemingly android workers are delivered to a brothel to work. They are billed as being incredibly life-like. That they'll be able to simulate everything. And, of course, they turn out to be human. The cycle of wanting something to mimic humanity comes back around so that (one would assume) the only way sex workers can make money is to pretend to be robots. It's an interesting premise but one that I think gets a but muddied by the ending, which seems to imply that these new workers, the human ones, don't really want to be sex workers. That they're doing this just to live. Which makes an interesting point but also kinda paints sex work as being demeaning and I'm not really for that. Perhaps it's trying to make the case that for these people it's all they have left, but with the protests shown in the beginning of the book I'd think they could find people more willing to do it. Of course, maybe the point is that people don't want humans, they want robots who seem human so that they can have more license to actually abuse the robots. There's enough in the story to make it provoking and the style is interesting, the lingering question that finally gets answered in the last few sentences. Indeed.

"From Fire" by Cecca Ochoa (701 words)

The last story of the month is also (by far) the shortest. Here the narrator (using the second person you) creates a small avatar or person in a game. Kind of like the Sims or something similar but with more laterality. You start out interested, invested, giving the little person things to do, meddling and helping and all that. Then, invariably, you get bored and reward the person in a way that it doesn't understand. It reacts poorly, and then you get even more bored and stop playing for a while only to check in later and find that the little person is near death, the landscape destroyed. Basically what happens to me in between bouts of Animal Crossing. The ending then turns it a bit, imagines that this little person is creating a little person of their own, imagining that perhaps that is what reality is, that we're all just layers of programming. Which is a pretty interesting idea, though if that were the case I'm not sure where the story says we are. I prefer to think that the story brings up the point that maybe we're the ones inside only to reject that idea. I mean, our world is not entirely destroyed. If we're in a game it's one that's being played for a long time by someone fairly vested in us not completely going to hell. But I do think that maybe it's that knowledge that this isn't a simulation in the end that prompt the most introspection. An appreciation that we are not at the whim of our own playing, that perhaps we need to be more conscious of what we do to our simulations, to the lives we might create, because if life ever erupts online or in a game, we don't want to be terrible through out ignorance and laziness. A good story with lots to think about.

Quick Sips - Tor.com March 2015

I'm taking a look at the month's offerings from Tor today. On the whole a rather sad bunch of stories. But varied in their sadnesses. The sadness of estrangement and betrayal, sadness of isolation, sadness of loss, all distinct from story to story. They are also mostly creepy, with some strong ideas about body and characters running across something that is profoundly foreign. That said, time to get reviewing!

Art by Richie Pope

Quick Thoughts - Masculinity and Reading

Today my thoughts are ranging far and wide. You see, I've recently signed up for a new penpal group and it has a database of people that you can browse to find similar interests so that, I'm guessing, you're not sending blind to someone you share zero common things with. Which I hope means more meaningful connections. I hope it means people who are motivated to send and receive some mail. I've been struggling to find some penpals I can use all my geeky stationery, stickers, and washi tape for. But I digress. While browsing, I noticed something that solidified some feelings and such I've had for a while on such things.

First, I'm a guy. I'm bisexual. I read, almost literally, all the things. There are a few things I tend to stay away from, but it's typically because it's...because I've chosen to. Normally, though, that's informed by my own reading experience. For instance. I like romances and cozy mysteries. This weirds some people out. Men and women. For men, I think it affronts their idea that romances are just for women. It makes romances into something other than the books that they're allowed to avoid because they aren't meant for men. But it bothers some women, too. In part I'm sure it's because I'm intruding into what is normally a fairly safe space for women and I get that it's not cool when someone intrudes into a space that's supposed to be free of judgement. And I'm not reading romance to judge. I'm looking for good books. But then, I also feel like romances in general are only okay for some people (regardless of gender) if they're viewed as fluff, as less than other kinds of books. They're guilty pleasures, or indulgence reads. I wonder if this, too, is a sort of defense mechanism to keep (or to try to keep) readers of romances (mostly women) safe.

It reminds me of much of the book landscape in general, but especially what's been going on in increasingly mainstream spaces with regards to women and other marginalized groups. Basically, the most powerful group (white, straight, cis-men) are generally "okay" with things as long as they are given permission to ignore them. Women? PoC? Queer people? Sure, okay, whatever, as long as I can read my WSCM authors. But more than that. Sure, okay, whatever, as long as there is not the expectation that I read any non-WSCM authors. And that is something completely different. Because that means that non-WSCM authors are only okay if they are kept somehow separate from science fiction or fantasy. If they're science fiction or fantasy with romance (which I love), they must be cast out to the separate romance section of the bookstore. To the romance section of the conversation. To the romance section of the awards. This happens all over the place based on who is supposed to like a thing. In the major bookstore near me, Gregory Maguire is in fiction, not SFF. Octavia Butler (all of one book, but still) is in fiction. They only started putting urban fantasy in with SFF instead of romance somewhat recently. It's...disturbing.

Because it pushes everyone into camps, with WSCM (mostly) readers deciding the lines. And I can see perhaps the financial reasons why bookstores and publishers do it. They want to sell books, they think this is how it's done. But this only strengthens that whole "books with feelings don't belong in SFF." This prompts people to complain, endlessly, that there is a problem with short fiction and awards because those works being highlighted there are...not white and masculine enough. Like, okay, if a woman or PoC or queer person wants to write SFF, yay, but only if they write it like a WSCM writer. Because that's the "style" that I like and you can't tell me that's wrong! And right, no one's telling you that you're wrong for liking or not liking a book (exactly). People are just out there, liking the books they like, trying to be as passionate about them as fans of SFF have always been passionate about their books. Only these ones don't as much resemble the works of Asimov or Tolkien or any of the other people most people get told are the architects of the genres. If it's not like them, it must be different. Please put it on a different shelf. One not labeled science fiction or fantasy. Call it soft. Call it fluffy. Call it feminine.

I have, perhaps it's obvious, a weird relationship with masculinity. On the one hand, it's been hammered into me my entire life. Value these things. Don't this. Always this. Masculinity is rigid; femininity is flexible, supple, and probably fuckable. And while I knew that wasn't right, that I tended a bit more toward the feminine, toward wanting to express, to feel, to enjoying things "I wasn't supposed to," I still tried to appear to conform. I played sports (swimming and water polo...probably did not, in the end, help my masculinity) and read masculine books (when I wasn't smuggling in other, less "acceptable" books) and talked about them loudly. Nothing really worked, of course, because while I was doing this I wanted more, wanted something different. Any validation I received wasn't for me but for my toeing the line. When I finally worked myself out more and figured out more of what I wanted, when I finally started reading all the books I wanted openly, that's when I found myself enjoying myself much more, but also much more out of place.

Or maybe equally out of place but without anyone to even talk books about. As long as I was talking up Robert Jordan and George R.R. Martin I was at least tolerated. People would talk to me. But I was having to restrain myself from really talking about them. Talk about how great they are, how cool the plot is, how awesome it was when x, y, or z happened? Okay, yeah, all goes smoothly. Talk about sex and gender and how they make me feel and how I might not like aspects of them? Well, let's just say that I've lost most of the people I used to talk with about books because I don't do it right. I forgot that to be a man reading you have to read masculinely. You have to do everything masculinely. Heaven forbid you get one drop of feminine on you or you'll be gay. And wouldn't that be the worst thing ever HAHA!

Okay, settling down. These thoughts have quickly spiraled out of control. What I mean to say is that I think people are conditioned to be silent about their book preferences when it comes to books that don't fall into the masculine "norm." Well, not just their book preferences, but I'm talking about books so will limit to that. Like romance. I think people want to be quiet about it. They don't want to talk about it in mixed company. It gets them in trouble. It gets people to walk away from them, avoid them, belittle them, maybe even attack them. It makes them afraid to express a positive opinion. It also isolates them, and it isolates the form. Do I like all romances? No (shifter stuff is normally pretty iffy for me, and almost anything regency...also cowboys). But how to discus what I like and what I don't, how to move anything forward to reach new and different readers, when there's this culture of silence about it? No doubt it will be the next signal of the bookpocalypse about to ruin everyone's childhood, but I want to see some shelves merge. I want to see paranormal romance next to urban fantasy next to fantasy and science fiction. I want it to blend. I want readers to know, hey, if you like this you might like this. Because you might!

And only through the breaking down of some of these very rigidly held divides are people going to see and experience that the differences are not too great. And maybe that then they won't be scorned for what kind of science fiction or fantasy they like. And maybe then they won't have to feel like they have to hide it. And maybe then the quality of everything effected will increase. Because more people will be participating. Because more people will feel safe for it. So please, talk to me about romances. Talk to me about books. I think one of the worst things that can happen is to have someone stop talking about what they love. For me, I guess I'll keep talking even if it's only with the few people who can still stand me. And I'll keep looking for that place where I fit in.

All the best,

Charles Payseur

Quick Sips - Beneath Ceaseless Skies #169

I'm looking at the latest from Beneath Ceaseless Skies today. The two stories pair fairly nicely, but much more in contrast than in compliment. Both are about risk and choices, about taking chances and whether those chances are worth taking. They present very different glimpses into how people approach the question of if action is worth taking. Together they leave it more to the reader to chose which they prefer. So let's see!

Art by Takeshi Oga

Quick Sips - Lightspeed #58

I look at the latest from Lightspeed Magazine today, which is always a cause for celebration. This month most of the stories are dealing with war, which is an interesting choice. They work fairly well together, too, though the serial story sticks out a bit. Not sure how the reprints would fit into this tapestry because time prevents me from reading the reprints, but the new fiction is solid and creates an interesting whole. That cover really does do a nice job of showing the imagery of war and civilization contrasting and working together. But time to get to the stories!

Art by Wylie Beckert

Quick Sips - Urban Fantasy Magazine #5

I'm taking a look at a new magazine (for me) today with Urban Fantasy Magazine. I heard about it some time ago but never really got over there, something that I will likely rectify now. It's quite a bit of fun and the two stories that I'm looking at this month are well worth reading. Plus there's more stuff that I'm not going to be looking at (at least not in this review...might be back to peek at the nonfiction but unfortunately it's not out yet). Still, it looks like here is a new market that I'm going to be stopping back at. Which is always a good find.

Quick Sips - Nightmare #30

Today I'm looking at the latest from Nightmare Magazine. As always, two new stories, which means a relatively light load for reviewing, but I can really understand why this magazine puts out less than its sister pub, Lightspeed. These are dark stories. Stories that have a bit more impact when let a little more room to breath. So take a deep breathe, and let's get started!

Art by Robert Emerson