Monthly Archives: August 2012

World Fantasy Award Nominees Announced

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The Nominees for this year’s World Fantasy Award were announced yesterday.  The Lifetimes Achievement winners were announced earlier this year and are Alan Garner and George R. R. Martin.  I have to admit I’ve not anything on the list other that “A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong” by K. J. Parker, although I’ve got copies of a few others.  One or two are on my wishlist as well. 

Since I seem to be more deficient than usual in my reading of what got nominated, I’ll not comment except to say that there doesn’t appear to be much, if any, sword and sorcery.  No great surprise, I suppose.

So does anybody have any favorites?

World Fantasy Award Ballot
 
Novel
•  Those Across the River, Christopher Buehlman (Ace)
•  11/22/63, Stephen King (Scribner; Hodder & Stoughton as 11.22.63)
•  A Dance with Dragons, George R.R. Martin (Bantam; Harper Voyager UK)
•  Osama, Lavie Tidhar (PS Publishing)
•  Among Others, Jo Walton (Tor)

Novella
•  “Near Zennor”, Elizabeth Hand (A Book of Horrors)
•  “A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong”, K.J. Parker (Subterranean Winter 2011)
•  “Alice Through the Plastic Sheet”, Robert Shearman (A Book of Horrors)
•  “Rose Street Attractors”, Lucius Shepard (Ghosts by Gaslight)
•  Silently and Very Fast, Catherynne M. Valente (WSFA Press; Clarkesworld)

Short Fiction
•  “X for Demetrious”, Steve Duffy (Blood and Other Cravings)
•  “Younger Women”, Karen Joy Fowler (Subterranean Summer 2011)
•  “The Paper Menagerie”, Ken Liu (F&SF 3-4/11)
•  “A Journey of Only Two Paces”, Tim Powers (The Bible Repairman and Other Stories)
•  “The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees”, E. Lily Yu (Clarkesworld 4/11)

Anthology
•  Blood and Other Cravings, Ellen Datlow, ed. (Tor)
•  A Book of Horrors, Stephen Jones, ed. (Jo Fletcher Books)
•  The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities, Ann & Jeff VanderMeer, eds. (Harper Voyager US)
•  The Weird, Ann & Jeff VanderMeer, eds. (Corvus; Tor, published May 2012)
•  Gutshot, Conrad Williams, ed. (PS Publishing)

Collection
•  Bluegrass Symphony, Lisa L. Hannett (Ticonderoga)
•  Two Worlds and In Between, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Subterranean Press)
•  After the Apocalypse, Maureen F. McHugh (Small Beer)
•  Mrs Midnight and Other Stories, Reggie Oliver (Tartarus)
•  The Bible Repairman and Other Stories, Tim Powers (Tachyon)

Artist
•  John Coulthart
•  Julie Dillon
•  Jon Foster
•  Kathleen Jennings
•  John Picacio

Special Award Professional
•  John Joseph Adams, for editing – anthology and magazine
•  Jo Fletcher, for editing – Jo Fletcher Books
•  Eric Lane, for publishing in translation – Dedalus books
•  Brett Alexander Savory & Sandra Kasturi, for ChiZine Publications
•  Jeff VanderMeer & S.J. Chambers, for The Steampunk Bible
 
Special Award Non-Professional
•  Kate Baker, Neil Clarke, Cheryl Morgan & Sean Wallace, for Clarkesworld
•  Cat Rambo, for Fantasy
•  Raymond Russell & Rosalie Parker, for Tartarus Press
•  Charles Tan, for Bibliophile Stalker blog
•  Mark Valentine, for Wormwood

Sword and Sorcery: Short or Long?

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The recent post on naked slave girls has generated a small but steady stream of traffic.  Some of Al Harron’s comments have got me to thinking about some things that I’ll probably address in a follow-up post.  In the meantime, I thought I’d ask a different question at the end of this post.

Much of the classic sword and sorcery, the stuff written by the likes of Leiber,  Howard, Moorcock, and to a lesser degree Kuttner, Wellman, Anderson, Saunders,Wagner, etc. was in the form of short fiction: short stories, novellettes, and some novellas.  Novels were rare in the early days.  By the 1980s, though, when I began reading S&S, it was the other way around.

I realize that was in large part driven by the market.  When pulps were the primary, if not only, source for S&S, then short fiction was what was written.  As the market changed over time, and paperback novels replaced pulps and digests, of course writers would switch to novels.  Some of the authors listed in the previous paragraph wrote equally well at all lengths.

What I’m interested in is the question of which fans of S&S prefer.  It should come as no surprise that Robert E. Howard is my go-to guy for S&S.  He was the first author I read who wrote the stuff.  I’d been reading science fiction for a number of years before I read Howard and was familiar with Kuttner, but his S&S wasn’t available at the time.   At least not to a teenager in semi-rural Texas.  (I started reading Anderson about the same time.)  With the exception of The Hour of the Dragon, Howard’s S&S was of the short variety.  As a result, I tend to prefer S&S novelettes and novellas to novels. 

There are a couple of other reasons as well.  One, I can read a story in one sitting, two at the most if it’s a novella.  This means if I have a block of time free, I can often read more than one.  Novelettes and novellas are, in my not so humble opinion, the ideal form for fiction in general.  They allow for character development, multiple plots, and detail in world building without much of the padding that often accompanies novels.  Given my time constraints these days, there’s another reason I like shorter works.  When it takes me a while to finish something, I tend to get frustrated with it, especially if the delay is due to interruptions or an uncooperative schedule.  That rarely happens with novellas and novelettes.

So, just to satisfy my own curiosity, and to hopefully gather some very unscientific data for a future post, do most of you prefer S&S at the shorter lengths or novels?  Or do you even care? 

On the Home Front

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Well, if you felt the earth tremble last Saturday, it was because my wife and I looked at a house and both thought it was perfect.  She’s come into a bit of a small inheritance, and it’s allowed us to look for bigger lodging a few years sooner than I thought we would be able.  Ever since moving to West Texas we’ve been living in a small house, and by small I mean almost half the size of the house we lived in previously.  We’re only moving three streets over, but there’s a major through-street directly behind us, so it’s a much nicer and quieter neighborhood.

We made an offer yesterday and received word a few hours ago that our offer had been accepted with some nice additions thrown in.  Like the workbenches in the shop building and a freezer, something we weren’t expecting.  Since we offered less than they were asking, we were a little surprised they took the first offer.  Not that we’re complaining.

I mention this here because the closing date in the contract is on or before the 15th.  There may will be some days during the move when I’ll be offline.    Short moves are sometimes the most hectic, since we’re going to try to do this in an organized manner rather than throw everything in a van and unload it as quickly as possible when we get there.  That means I’ll be able to set up the library in an organized manner with everything exactly where I want it.  (I promise to post pictures.)

But if I seem to drop off the earth for a bit, there’s a good reason.  Emphasis on good.