Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Mundanespotting Asimov's January 2012

Posted by frankh at 6:47 PM
Okay, so I haven't been reading new short fiction lately. I had some from last year ready to go, but I never got around to posting. So I guess I haven't been all that organized either. But now I'm going to try to work with the 2012 Asimov's, at least. Here's an easy start.

1) "Bruce Springsteen" by Paul McAuley -- aliens in the first sentence
2) "Recyclable Material" by Katherine Marzinsky-- a self-aware AI robot picks up trash in an otherwise recognizable world
3) "Maiden Voyage" by Jack McDevitt -- a space jockey prepares for her first interstellar voyage
4) "The War is Over and Everyone Wins" by Zachary Jernigan -- family drama in near future America, after a plague has wiped out the white people
[3 more to go]

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2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I like the mundane principle, barring the inflammatory aspect which can be excused as good for publicity.

I don't understand why such a deliberately dull word was chosen.

The second entry for Mundane at Dictionary.com says: "common; ordinary; banal; unimaginative." I don't care that the first entry might sum up the concept perfectly. It makes it unsalable and IMO the label does injury to any author that it is applied to, unless of course they seek quality over quantity in their readership.

At a gut level Im sure the general audience will assume it to mean "plausibility at the expense of thrills".

The thing I seek can be easily defined without a manifesto:
"The thrill of a vision within reach"

Red Mars: wow, we could actually do this.
Climate Fiction. Oh-oh. we might actually be doing this.
1984: phew, that book may actually have helped avoid this.

8/27/2014 06:44:00 AM  
Blogger Hank Roberts said...

Good Asimov, this site is full of spam on the older threads.

Well, anyhow, here's a webcomic that accepts the speed of light:

http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff2800/fc02784.png

3/14/2016 12:39:00 PM  

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