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aseI checked my email and found a message about the imminent read/rate deadline for the WSFA Small Press Award nominees shunted into a "to do" folder. So I read, and rated, on a two-day deadline. If I'm in a tearing hurry to read a set of short fiction nominees, I get mean. Really:
1.) I grade on a curve favoring shorter stories.
2.) No-caps titles: pretentious, or really pretentious?
3.) I've been in media fandom. I have seen zanier and more clever premises: story prompts by way of they fight crime will not carry the day. Or your story.
My approach to WSFA Small Press Award grading was a combination of craft/art evaluation and popularity contest. Any horror story starts at the bottom of the heap, because I dislike the genre. (Sorry, writers: I totally judge.) Craft/art evaluation involves several categories:
1.) Worldbuilding (premise and follow-through): Does the story invent or borrow a cool idea to explore? Does it fully explore primary ramifications? Does it bring out clever secondary implications? If set in a "real world" location, does it capture some sense of place? This is a speculative fiction award, do something "what if" that captures my sense of wonder.
2.) Plot (innate interest and exploration of a theme, idea, or human condition): can I poke holes in your "A therefore B therefore conclusion"? Is there a clever narrative twist that makes me immediately reread your story? Does the prose serve your narrative objectives?
3.) Characterization: do I care about any of these people?
4.) Special considerations: your wacky premise is one of my favorite narrative devices, there is head-turning fake biology, the story is clearly an installment of one of my beloved series.
Warning: these are not kind reviews. I would go so far as to say these aren't reviews: they're my idiosyncratic reactions to a set of short stories I read in a compressed time-frame. On a sugar high. Anyone getting here by google alerts: this is your only warning.
On to the alphabetical-by-title op-ed!
"each thing I show you is a piece of my death" (Gemma Files and Stephen J. Barringer) - Forty-five pages of pretentious horror flick. I see no point in wasting my time elucidating how little I found to appeal in this story.
"Images of Anna" (Nancy Kress) - Failure by the numbers: boring worldbuilding, the plot rests on stalking your "sexy lingerie pictures for my Whatever" photography clients and a series of "I never ask about X / never talk about Y - except when I totally do, like now!" incidents, and the characterization - well: telling "I don't do this" and showing a completely contrary set of actions. I should not be surprised this is a Kress story: historically, I'm interested in themes Kress is interested in, and react very badly to how her fiction explores these ideas.
"James and the Dark Grimoire" (Kevin Lauderdale) - Another Cthulu story?! Another one?! I have not read Lovecraft for good reason! I don't care if this is basically English cozy with the butler masterminding a murder and the banishment of an Old One!
For what this is, it's nicely written, but if there's a spark of creativity in this story, I'm blinded by my failure to appreciate the sub-genre. Lovecraft pastiche writers are not Lovecraft! Stop waving "A Study in Emerald" in my face, it wasn't that good. Go find another stupid trope from which to suck the life! I suggest rainbows and Girl Scout cookies.
"The Pirate Captain's Daughter" (Yoon Ha Lee) - Since I was told, "if you like Patrick O'Brian's novels, you'll like this new movie with Johnny Depp", I have harbored an extreme distaste for pirates and Depp. My initial "pirates again? Again?!" reaction was overtaken by events. This borders on lush, but stays on the side of lyrical. High marks for brevity: the story says what it wants to, and clears out before it starts dragging. I'd read more by this writer.
"Race to the Moon" (Kyell Gold) - Awww, boy meets girl, and it's really sweet. Coyote's son and Raven's daughter to the moon! Points for the sneaky raven. This felt like a slightly updated fable, especially at two in the morning.
"Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast" (Eugie Foster) - I read stories in "largest PDF first" format. When I read this story I'd just I'd done death by steadicam, and death by water, so death by mask and bludgeon was more of the same. Points for premise & language; detraction for infodump, distracting amounts of deeply unsexy sex, gratuitous blood spatters. This needs to examine the implications of the society structure instead of falling into knee-jerk individualism, unless my conclusion is supposed to be individualism bad.
"Siren Beat" (Tansy Rayner Roberts) - I've seen crazier premises than hard-boiled sea-magic. Now, sell me on this setup. By "sell" I do not mean "angst".
"The Very Difficult Diwali of Sub-Inspector Gurushankar Rajaram" (Jeff Soesbe) - Major points for transparent prose and setting, and sheer entertainment. I'd be interested to see what other fiction this writer has produced.
1.) I grade on a curve favoring shorter stories.
2.) No-caps titles: pretentious, or really pretentious?
3.) I've been in media fandom. I have seen zanier and more clever premises: story prompts by way of they fight crime will not carry the day. Or your story.
My approach to WSFA Small Press Award grading was a combination of craft/art evaluation and popularity contest. Any horror story starts at the bottom of the heap, because I dislike the genre. (Sorry, writers: I totally judge.) Craft/art evaluation involves several categories:
1.) Worldbuilding (premise and follow-through): Does the story invent or borrow a cool idea to explore? Does it fully explore primary ramifications? Does it bring out clever secondary implications? If set in a "real world" location, does it capture some sense of place? This is a speculative fiction award, do something "what if" that captures my sense of wonder.
2.) Plot (innate interest and exploration of a theme, idea, or human condition): can I poke holes in your "A therefore B therefore conclusion"? Is there a clever narrative twist that makes me immediately reread your story? Does the prose serve your narrative objectives?
3.) Characterization: do I care about any of these people?
4.) Special considerations: your wacky premise is one of my favorite narrative devices, there is head-turning fake biology, the story is clearly an installment of one of my beloved series.
Warning: these are not kind reviews. I would go so far as to say these aren't reviews: they're my idiosyncratic reactions to a set of short stories I read in a compressed time-frame. On a sugar high. Anyone getting here by google alerts: this is your only warning.
On to the alphabetical-by-title op-ed!
"each thing I show you is a piece of my death" (Gemma Files and Stephen J. Barringer) - Forty-five pages of pretentious horror flick. I see no point in wasting my time elucidating how little I found to appeal in this story.
"Images of Anna" (Nancy Kress) - Failure by the numbers: boring worldbuilding, the plot rests on stalking your "sexy lingerie pictures for my Whatever" photography clients and a series of "I never ask about X / never talk about Y - except when I totally do, like now!" incidents, and the characterization - well: telling "I don't do this" and showing a completely contrary set of actions. I should not be surprised this is a Kress story: historically, I'm interested in themes Kress is interested in, and react very badly to how her fiction explores these ideas.
"James and the Dark Grimoire" (Kevin Lauderdale) - Another Cthulu story?! Another one?! I have not read Lovecraft for good reason! I don't care if this is basically English cozy with the butler masterminding a murder and the banishment of an Old One!
For what this is, it's nicely written, but if there's a spark of creativity in this story, I'm blinded by my failure to appreciate the sub-genre. Lovecraft pastiche writers are not Lovecraft! Stop waving "A Study in Emerald" in my face, it wasn't that good. Go find another stupid trope from which to suck the life! I suggest rainbows and Girl Scout cookies.
"The Pirate Captain's Daughter" (Yoon Ha Lee) - Since I was told, "if you like Patrick O'Brian's novels, you'll like this new movie with Johnny Depp", I have harbored an extreme distaste for pirates and Depp. My initial "pirates again? Again?!" reaction was overtaken by events. This borders on lush, but stays on the side of lyrical. High marks for brevity: the story says what it wants to, and clears out before it starts dragging. I'd read more by this writer.
"Race to the Moon" (Kyell Gold) - Awww, boy meets girl, and it's really sweet. Coyote's son and Raven's daughter to the moon! Points for the sneaky raven. This felt like a slightly updated fable, especially at two in the morning.
"Sinner, Baker, Fabulist, Priest; Red Mask, Black Mask, Gentleman, Beast" (Eugie Foster) - I read stories in "largest PDF first" format. When I read this story I'd just I'd done death by steadicam, and death by water, so death by mask and bludgeon was more of the same. Points for premise & language; detraction for infodump, distracting amounts of deeply unsexy sex, gratuitous blood spatters. This needs to examine the implications of the society structure instead of falling into knee-jerk individualism, unless my conclusion is supposed to be individualism bad.
"Siren Beat" (Tansy Rayner Roberts) - I've seen crazier premises than hard-boiled sea-magic. Now, sell me on this setup. By "sell" I do not mean "angst".
"The Very Difficult Diwali of Sub-Inspector Gurushankar Rajaram" (Jeff Soesbe) - Major points for transparent prose and setting, and sheer entertainment. I'd be interested to see what other fiction this writer has produced.