Mundanespotting Asimov's January 2012

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]

Mudanespotting Welcome to the Greenhouse

This is my first ever mundanespotting of a freebie review copy--WELCOME TO THE GREENHOUSE, edited by Gordon Van Gelder. This is an original anthology of 16 stories about "climate change," featuring several Big Name SF Writers. What a welcome relief from all the wish-fulfillment and thumb-twiddling bullshit that regularly gets published as SF--never mind the straight fantasy that now dominates.

During the Golden Age of SF, there was a consensus that atomic power and rocketry were big things in our future. It was just a matter of how the science and society would play out. Well, that has all pretty much played out, and sorry, we do not have a libertarian space age with unlimited resources. Now, as then, we need to make do with scientific reality. That reality now includes "climate change." The stories in this anthology speculate about how things will play out with that.

1) "Benkoelen" by Brian W. Aldiss -- Does a rising global tide sink all boats, even the upper middle class ones? This story takes a look-see.

2) "Damned When You Do" by Jeff Carlson -- What if a fantastic savior is born to fix things? I would give this one satirical mundane credit if it wasn't so sketchy

3) "The Middle of Somewhere" by Judith Moffett -- How to cope with tornadoes in the very near future? Quite thin on sf content, but creepy to read after the recent tornadopacalypse so I'll let it through the mundane filter

4) "Not A Problem" by Matthew Hughes -- What an intriguing idea! maybe aliens with ftl can help?

5) "Eagle" by Gregory Benford -- Here's a small hint about what geoengineering will be like.

6) "Come Again Some Other Day" by Michael Alexander -- What to put between Benford and Sterling? Mercifully short time travel crap.

7) "The Master of the Aviary" by Bruce Sterling -- Here's a look at the future of The Philosopher after The Fall; amusing, with good insights, but a bit sketchy towards the end

8) "Turtle Love" by Joseph Green -- Here's one about how the bureaucracy might handle the rising tide

9) "The California Queen Comes A-Calling" by Pat MacEwen -- Rising tide again, this time things are pretty bleak, but the legal system survives, like the postman in The Postman

10) "That Creeping Sensation" by Alan Dean Foster -- a nice short speculation about how nature might respond to the Big Changes

11) "The Men of Summer" by David Prill -- fantasy romance irrelevantly set in the future of climate change; I might welcome this in F&SF or Interzone but the space is wasted here

12) "The Bridge" by George Guthridge -- a good look at things falling apart in Alaska

13) "FarmEarth" by Paul Di Filippo -- maybe there is a video game solution to the problem; I'm a sucker for coming of ages stories, so I liked this

14) "Sundown" by Chris Lawson -- the sun stops working so well, and then our current climate problems don't seem at all bad; escapism, but nonetheless interesting speculation

15) "Fish Cakes" by Ray Vukcevich -- a very virtual life amidst the big time warming is what somewhat happily awaits us here

16) "True North" by M. J. Locke -- longer survivalist story in a very warm and bleak future; does our hero win? you'll have to read to find out

So that's it. Four out of the sixteen did not even get the coveted mundane label. Nonetheless, there's some good speculation here, and a fair amount of variety. This is a good mundane value for a $17 list price. It's too bad there is wasted space because some of the stories needed more room to develop. None of the stories really excited me, but some of the Big Name ones are at least worth a second read. I'm glad this book is available, and now I can get back to my regular mundanespotting rituals.

Mundanespotting F&SF March/April 2011

And here's the latest F&SF, crammed with 11 stories.

1) "Scatter My Ashes" by Albert E. Cowdrey -- fantasy

[that leaves 10 more, but I've abandoned the issue, sorry]

Mundanespotting Asimov's April/May 2011

Here's a double issue of Asimovs, featuring 11 stories.

1) "The Day the Wires Came Down" by Alexander Jablokov -- counterfactual boredom

[10 more to go, but I've abandoned the issue (though I might have finished it, don't remember), sorry]

Mundanespotting Analog May 2011

The big three are back for another round. Analog is the thinnest so I will start with that. Blanket Spoiler warning: surprising alien twists!

1) "Tower of Worlds" by Rajnar Vajra -- humans and aliens are in some big tower doing stuff for many, many pages
2) "Boumee and the Apes" by Ian McHugh -- an elephant clan confronts the horror of a planet of apes! or something like that; not sure why this is in Analog; maybe this is our forgotten past or our elephant supremicist future, but I'm not going to read it to find out
3) "The Wolf and the Panther were Lovers" by Walter L. Kleine -- cowboy western in which, pinch me! the strange animals turn out to be aliens
4) "The Old Man's Best" by Bud Sparhawk -- jaded space workers out at Jupiter make homebrew to stick it to the Man
5) "Ellipses" by Ron Collins -- suburban neighbors turn out to be, what a shock! aliens
6) "Blind Spot" by Bond Elam -- fourth paragraph: "Effie is strictly software. She doesn't have a body of her own, so she's taken to commandeering the building's maintenance bot whenever she feels the need to assert herself physically."

So that one's a total bust.

Mundanespotting Analog April 2011

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this is the 958th issue of Astounding/Analog.

1) "Hiding Place" by Adam-Troy Castro -- cyber-brain-merging interstellar something or other with "entire alien civilizations" mentioned on page 25
2) "Ian's Ions and Eons" by Paul Levinson -- time travel
3) "The Flare Weed" by Larry Niven -- space opera
4) "Two Look at Two" by Paula S. Jordan -- aliens
5) "Blessed Are the Bleak" by Edward M. Lerner -- brain dumps
6) "Remembering Rachel" by Dave Creek -- fantastic homicide investigation on the moon
7) "Quack" by Jerry Oltion -- counterfactual medicine
8) "Balm of Hurt Minds" by Thomas R. Dulski -- aliens

And not a very satisfying mundane issue.

Mundanespotting Asimov's March 2011

Here it is, the actual current issue of Asimov's.

1) "Clean" by John Kessel -- good geriatric mundane sf
2) "Where" by Neal Barrett, Jr. -- odd story lacking an infodump, but seems to be about child-like AI robots; maybe it's far future enough to be mundane if you're in the right mood
3) "'I Was Nearly Your Mother'" by Ian Creasey -- parallel universe crossover thumb-twiddling
4) "God in the Sky" by An Owomoyela -- totally big-ass supernatural thing in the sky in an otherwise mundane near future
5) "Movement" by Nancy Fulda -- temporal autism viewpoint chararacter; best story I have read so far this year
6) "The Most Important Thing in the World" by Steve Bein -- A cabdriver starts fooling around with a gadget left behind accidentally by a customer; and what a shocking turn of events, the gadget is a time machine!
7) "Lost in the Memory Palace, I Found You" by Nick Wolven -- this is cyberpunk without the punk or style, and sort of satirical without being clever; maybe it would make some mundane sense to you, but not to me
8) "Purple" by Robert Reed -- aliens

I definitely recommend the two highlighted mundane stories, and the rest is a typical mixed bag. And guess what? I'm up to date on the 2011 Asimov'ses. Stay tuned for the actual month of March to arrive.

Mundanespotting Analog March 2011

Not quite the current issue, but not to be missed because it has humonoid aliens on the cover.

1) "Rule Book" by Paul Carlson -- trucking in the age of AI robots taking over the human jobs
2) "Falls the Firebrand" by Sarah Frost -- aliens
3) "Hiding From Nobel" by Brad Aiken -- memories of a supernatural childhood event turn out to have a silly fantastic explanation
4) "Julie is Three" by Craig DeLancey -- contempory medical story about abnormal psychology; not very convincing, but I'm pretty tolerant about giving this sort of thing the mundane label
5) "Astronomic Distance, Geologic Time" by Bud Sparhawk -- grand universe-spanning whatever
6) "Taboo" by Jerry Oltion -- the near future is bright because thanks to some offscreen technology people are pretty much immortal and enjoying their hopefully eternal middle classness, but there are twists nonetheless; I'll tolerate this one too as mundane
7) "Betty Know and Dictionary Jones in 'The Mystery of the Missing Teenage Anachronisms'" by John G. Hemry -- time travel

Another Analog down, and not a total loss thanks to my softness for bogus biomedicine. The overall quality of the writing seems better, even.

Mundanespotting Interzone #232 (Jan-Feb 2011)

The new Interzone has reached the U.S.

1) "Noam Chomsky and the Time Box" by Douglas Lain -- time travel
2) "Intellectual Property" by Mark Pexton -- corporate espionage; interesting, but relies on memory plug-in jacks that are too fantastic for my tastes of the moment
3) "Plucking Her Petals" by Sarah L. Edwards -- fantasy
4) "Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise" by Sue Burke -- POV of an AI app that is apparently helping with some social difficulties
5) "Flock, Shoal, Herd" by James Bloomer -- people downloaded into animals

Oh well, maybe next time.

Mundanespotting Asimov's February 2011

Although the March issue is already out, at least I am ahead of the calendar for the moment.

1) "Out of the Dream Closet" by David Ira Cleary -- technology looks like magic or psi or whatever in the apparently far future
2) "Waster Mercy" by Sara Grange -- post-apocalyptic sociology
3) "Planet of the Sealies" by Jeff Carlson -- clever story about future archaeology
4) "Shipbirth" by Aliette de Bodard -- alternate history
5) "Brother Sleep" by Tim McDaniel -- what if for those who can afford it, the disease of sleepiness has been cured? otherwise a story about Thai kids in college featuring excellent dialog
6) "Eve of Beyond" by Bill Pronzini & Barry N. Malzberg -- future corporate politics; not enough sf content to satisfy my mundanespotting sense of the moment
7) "The Choice" by Paul McAuley -- aliens

A nice harvest, and I'm even tempted to look for other works from these authors.

Mundanespotting F&SF January/February 2011

Here is a big fat F&SF.

1) "Home Sweet Bi'Ome" by Pat MacEwen -- whimsical story about a house that is alive; mundane enough for my tastes
2) "The Bird Cage" by Kate Wilhelm -- cryogenics; mundane only if you can look past the fantastic psi powers
3) "Long Time" by Rick Norwood -- an old guy hangs out with Ishtar in Babylon or something
4) "Canterbury Hollow" by Chris Lawson -- love in the time of humans living on some far away planet
5) "Christmas at Hostage Station" by James Stoddard -- holiday fantasy
6) "The Whirlwind" by Jim Young -- downloaded and/or uploaded people
7) "The Bogle" by Albert E. Cowdrey -- ghost fantasy
8) "Paradise Last" by Bill Pronzini and Barry N. Malzberg -- zombie fantasy
9) "12:02 P.M." by Richard A. Lupoff -- time travel
10) "Ghost Wind" by Alan Dean Foster -- character fantasy
11) "The Ghiling Blade" by Matthew Corradi -- heroic fantasy

After the slightly promising start, not too much to see here.

Mundanespotting Analog January/February 2011

Here is a big fat Analog, bursting with aliens and a very thin stew of mundane content.

1) "At Cross Purposes" by Juliette Wade -- alien contact from multiple viewpoints
2) "The Unfinished Man" by Dave Creek -- finding oneself on an alien planet
3) "A Snitch in Time" by Donald Moffitt -- time travel crime fighters
4) "Some of Them Closer" by Marissa Lingen -- interstellar terraformer copes with the loneliness of relativity; if one believes that multiple interstellar travels without ftl by someone with a recognizable lifespan is a practical hope in the recognizable future, then this is mundane; on a very generous day, or for a very good story, I could go that far, but not today, for this one
5) "Enigma" by Sean McMullen -- genetically modified human/animal hybrids explore an alien planet
6) "The First Conquest of Earth" by David W. Goldman -- alien invasion
7) "Out There" by Norman Spinrad -- meta short-short about interstellar travel; blatantly and refreshingly mundane (believe it or not)
8) "Stay" by Stephen L. Burns -- aliens put dogs in charge of the U. S. of A.
9) "Non-Native Species" by Janet Freeman -- aliens in the Outback
10) "The Frog Prince" by Michael F. Flynn -- space opera
11) "The First Day of Eternity" by Domingo Santos (translated by Stanley Schmidt) -- multigeneration interstellar space colonization by orthodox Jews in a giant super spaceship run by AIs; more interesting than it sounds, though probably much is lost in translation

That's it for the "SPECIAL DOUBLE ISSUE!" Stay tuned for the March 2011 edition.

Mundanespotting Asimov's January 2011

It's hard to complain about the state of mundane sf after the incredible breakout year of Paolo Bacigalupi. But I will try. I "discovered" Bacigalupi during his first big wave of stories that preceeded the various award nominations, and had the unprecidented pleasure of buying his first story collection knowing that I had read all the previously published content. I started blogging way back in 2004.

But Bacigalupi is about the only bright spot, and his reliance on the small press ghetto a massive indictment of sf publishing. In 2009 I made a heroic effort (meaning: with the help of interlibrary loan) to find and read all the nominated short fiction for the Hugo, Nebula, and Sturgeon awards. Not just mundanespotting, but full-on reading. I came up 3 novellas short (still might finish 'em), but read quite a lot of what was considered the best. There was not much mundane sf at all, and despite some good writing, there was some blatant crap, even among the winners.

Which brings me to today. I have made various attempts to revive the mundanespotting habit, but they all fell short of pressing the "Publish Post" button. This time it's for real. I'm going to attempt to mundanespot the nominal 2011 magazines, all in old school paper format, from front to back. In 2011, that's the big three, Asimov's, F&SF, Analog, plus Interzone, all still functioning.

My new trick is that I will not wait to finish a magazine (and risk losing all momentum) before posting. So here's starting with Asimov's January 2011 [since edited to completion].

1) "Two Thieves" by Chris Beckett -- warp gate
2) "Dolly" by Elizabeth Bear -- android homicide, ripped from headlines
3) "Visitors" by Steve Rasnic Tem -- the blurb says "collateral consequences of cryobiology," and I say mundane
4) "Interloper" by Ian McHugh -- seems to be about mind-controlling aliens in the Outback, though there wasn't much of an infodump
5) "Ashes on the Water" by Gwendolyn Clare -- mundane future India
6) "Killer Advice" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch -- ftl

Two out of six is not so bad for a start, and both of the mundane stories are worth a read.

Mundanespotting December 2007

Mundanespotting December 2007

I had a little time to try some new short sf recently. I won’t be able to keep up in the near future (maybe I’ll be back for the major award nominees), but here’s a look at a recent month to see what the market is like.

I am covering these nominal December 2007 ezines:

Analog
Asimov's
F&SF
Interzone (#213)
JBU

Interzone is finally available from fictionwise. Fictionwise also now directly supports the Sony ereader. Thus, I’m getting a pretty convenient reading environment for most of this (less so for JBU—I use their RTF release with the graphics removed).

— “Stray” by Benjamin Rosenbaum and David Ackert (F&SF): fantasy
— “Odin’s Spear” by Steve Bein (Interzone): mountain climbing on Callisto in a traditional sf future. I was unconvinced enough that I didn’t read very far, but there may not be anything hopelessly un-mundane if you like this kind of space adventure.
— “Kukulkan” by Sarah K. Castle (Analog): aliens
— “‘Domo Arigato,’ Says Mr. Roboto” by Robert R. Chase (Analog): race to grab an asteroid to build a space elevator to get to the “wealth” of the solar system, but a robot puts a fly in the ointments, as it were. Thoroughly traditional space story. The technology to exploit all that “wealth” (or even make a simple step in that direction) is always conveniently 20 years away. Keep dreaming, and read this story if you like that stuff.
— “The Lost Xuyan Bride” by Aliette De Bodard (Interzone): historical fantasy
— “The Bone Man” by Frederic S. Durbin (F&SF): fantasy
— “Double Secret Weapon” by Tony Frazier (JBU): fantasy
— “Who Brought Tulips to the Moon?” by S. L. Gilbow (F&SF): another interesting sociological story by the author of “Red Card” from February 2007. The minimally convincing moon setting is not really important to the story, which has the Outer Limits vibe.
— “Reunion” by David W. Goldman (Analog): aliens
— “Second Banana” by Way Jeng (JBU): space opera
— “Icarus Beach” by C. W. Johnson (Analog): space opera
— “do(this)” by Stephen Graham Jones (Asimov’s): a kid brings a computer to life
— “Laws of Survival” by Nancy Kress (JBU): aliens
— “The Rules” by Nancy Kress (Asimov’s): the Corporate Power Elite respond to ecological crises in the near future.
— “Misfits” by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller (JBU): time travel
— “The Lonesome Planet Travelers’ Advisory” by Tim McDaniel (Asimov’s): aliens
— “Darwin's Suitcase” by Elizabeth Malartre (JBU): time travel
— “The Art of Memory” by Barry N. Malzberg and Jack Dann (JBU): fantasy
— “Osama Phone Home” by David Marusek (F&SF): the Corporate Power Elite respond to terrorism in the present. My favorite story from this rather weak batch of mundane sf.
— “Finisterra” by David Moles (F&SF): historical fantasy or space opera or something otherwise otherworldly
— “The Men in the Attic” by John Phillip Olsen (Interzone): political dissidents are hidden inside a guy’s head. This is well on the cyberfantasy side of my personal mundane sf line. I can imagine lots of neat cyber stuff but I need to see some reasonable level of extrapolation—not just magical brain dumps with no serious changes in society to go with it.
— “Salvation” by Jerry Oltion (Analog): time travel
— “Christmas Eve at Harvey Wallbanger’s” by Mike Resnick (JBU): fantasy
— “Don’t Ask” by M. Rickert (F&SF): fantasy
— “Metal Dragon Year” by Chris Roberson (Interzone): historical fantasy
— “Molly and the Red Hat” by Benjamin Rosenbaum (Interzone): fantasy
— “Fossilized Gods” by J. Simon (JBU): fantasy
— “Strangers on a Bus” by Jack Skillingstead (Asimov’s): fantasy
— “Anything Would Be Worth It” by Lesley L. Smith (Analog): time travel
— “The Best of Your Life” by Jason Stoddard (Interzone): Somewhat interesting (if not entirely convincing) social extrapolation that is mundane enough for me. There is some cyberfantasy in the background that I can overlook.
— “Queen's Mask” by Barbara Tarbox (JBU): fantasy
— “Inheritance” by David Wesley (JBU): weather satellite goes AI as asteroid approachs to destroy civilization, or something like that. Too cyberfantastic for me to bother but others might be more patient and find something to like.
— “All Seated on the Ground” by Connie Willis (Asimov’s): aliens

That’s only four stories I’m calling mundane. A pretty weak crop, but at least it was not hard to get through because of all the obvious time travel and alien crap. Stay tuned for more mundanespotting….

Mundanespotting February 2007

I read most of these and then had some distractions before I wrote this up, so some of these thoughts are a bit stale. This is my first sustained reading of Jim Baen’s Universe (JBU), which is an electronic periodical using the subscription model. With the “big three” in perpetual circulation decline, and the “corporate patron model” of SciFiction shriveling up and dying, maybe this is the future for short “speculative” fiction. I found JBU to be an interesting alternative to the mostly stale form that is Analog (which had a double issue for January-February, covered last time). Interzone is at the other end of spectrum—a full-blown colorful magazine. The mundane-ness of this particular Interzone didn’t excite me, but overall the magazine is great to have (though quite expensive to import) as a counterpoint to the U.S.-centric sources.

Short fiction contents from:
Interzone 208 (February 2007)
F&SF February 2007
Asimov's February 2007
JBU Volume 1 Number 5 (February 2007), excluding “classic” stories

— “War Stories” by Elizabeth Bear (JBU short): soldiers in a mundane future; not very interesting to me
— “I Could’ve Done Better” by Gregory Benford and David Brin (JBU short): historical fantasy with time travel, apparently; that is, crap
— “Demonstration Day” by Ian Creasey (JBU short): unserious and not mundane
— “Storm Warning” by Robert Cruze (JBU medium): ridiculous solar system space story, thankfully with ftl communications so I could stop reading at that point
— “The Star Necromancers” Alexander Marsh Freed (Interzone medium): “We await the necromancers in the palace of the Gloriarch, whispering to one another as jealous eyes watch from dataspace an mnemetic pollens cloud the air.” Yawn. Space opera or far future science-is-magic or both, or otherwise un-mundane.
— “Red Card” by S. L. Gilbow (F&SF short story): interesting sociological story in the 1950s “Galaxy” mode; an odd future that may not be very convincing to many, but is quite mundane
— “Pawn’s Gambit” by Carol Hightshoe (JBU short): fantasy
— “Brain Raid” by Alexander Jablokov (F&SF novelet): an AI story that could go either way for me as mundane because it’s an interesting take on the sociology of this particular (otherwise) mundane future; I’m calling this story “not mundane” based on personal whim about AI; I think real AI could eventually come, but it is not at all on the near future horizon; the “bigger computers are smarter computers” argument failed long ago in real life, but lives on through too much crappy sf; if you think otherwise then this story is worth a mundane read
— “Old Folks’ Home” by John Kratman (JBU short): traditional adventure story about a retirement home in orbit; silly, but I’ll let it pass for mundane
— “Where the Water Meets the Sky” by Jay Lake (Interzone short): mundane ecological future in the U.S.; story didn’t leave much of an impression
— “Cold Fire” by Tanith Lee (Asimov’s short story): some sort of pirate fantasy or alternative history
— “Empty Clouds” by G.D. Leeming (Interzone short): mundane ecological future in China; story didn’t leave much of an impression
— “A Stranger in Paradise” by Edward M. Lerner (JBU longish): ftl space opera far future crap
— “The Spiral Road” by Louise Marley (JBU longish): fantasy
— “Marklord Pete” by Wil McCarthy (JBU longish): fun speculation about law and intellectual property; would likely be quite tiresome if bloated to novel length; in this form, my favorite story from this batch
— “Islington Crocodiles” by Paul Meloy (Interzone long): funky urban story; I read one chapter and would have kept going if this had any real hope of not being a fantasy
— “A Portrait of the Artist” by Charles Midwinter (Asimov’s short story): not very convincing story about an artist in some sort of biotech future, but otherwise I’ll say it’s mundane enough
— “Fool” by John Morressy (F&SF novelet): fantasy
— “Close” by William Preston (Asimov’s short story): psychological story with an un-mundane ending
— “Recovering Apollo 8” by Kristine Kathyrn Rusch (Asimov’s novella): alternate history
— “The Chimera Transit” by Jack Skillingstead (Asimov’s short story): escaping Earth with ftl
— “Stone and the Librarian” by William Browning Spencer (F&SF short story): nice tribute to Robert E. Howard, but too much of a stretch to be anything but a fantasy
— “The Goblin Hunter” by Jeff Stehman (JBU short): fantasy
— “Softly Shining in the Forbidden Dark” by Jason Stoddard (Interzone long): characters seem to be “jacking in” to some sort of “group mind” on trips to Alpha Centauri; might be mundane in some far out wacky sense, but I didn’t give it much of a chance
— “Rebel the First” by Edd Vick (JBU short): fantasy
— “Outgoing” by Alex Wilson (Asimov’s novelette): space story that might be mundane if it wasn’t utterly ridiculous; I am embarrassed that something like this was published in a magazine with Isaac Asimov’s name on it

Again, 7 stories that made the cut, but I’m less excited about this batch than the January ones. Asimov’s was especially disappointing this time. This issue of JBU has Mike Resnick as editor, apparently for the first time, so it’s too early to tell what direction he is taking it. Being able to publish a pile of stories without worrying about fitting them into an artifact of a specific size must be nice for the editor. Stay tuned.

Mundanespotting January 2007

A few years back when I learned about this Movement I was attracted to the idea. But I thought, surely there is a reasonable amount of mundane sf being published in short form. It can’t all be time travel crap. I decided to try reading some of the magazines to look for such stories. In the past I was generally discouraged by the quality of magazine stories, and relied on the Best Of editors to filter the field for my occasional fix. But now I had a Mission, to see if there was really mundane sf out there like I thought. In the process, I actively bypassed the obvious fantasy or fantastic (my favored word for non-mundane sf) stories. Some of them might still be great stories but I wasn’t willing to spend the time finding out. Mundane sf was what I wanted to experience. I might just be another jaded fan without it.

So now, after a long break because I have had little time for fiction, I am at it again. I try to be pretty tolerant of different approaches to mundane sf. If it’s about something reasonably human on something that seems reasonably like Earth in the future, I’ll give it a chance. I have some biases, but for the most part I am looking for any kind of meaningful speculative experience. There’s plenty of high quality escapist fiction in my collection, so I feel no need to dig through the current sf magazines to look for more.

Finally, I have the excitement of the Sony PRS-500, the e-reader with the funky “ink” technology that you can read about elsewhere (readability and low power drain are the big hooks). It is my first e-reader and it has surprised me by being substantially better than expected (after I got over the initial quirks). I am using the “large print PDF” format from fictionwise (which itself is a quirky source, but generally an excellent way to go), in landscape orientation (half page at a time) at the highest available magnification (medium). Now if I read from a digest magazine it seems like such a dirty experience. Skipping over the non-mundane stuff is also relatively easy. This overall scheme isn’t particularly cheap, but the experience of having my own growing library in the palm of my hand is a new one that I am liking. Maybe in the next generation of hardware it will be possible to read a full-blown facsimile of a digest magazine page on one of these things.

For this first new round of mundanespotting I have read or skimmed through the nominal January 2007 magazines in e-form. I report below on the short fiction, sorted alphabetically by author. Although Analog is a double issue, a lot of its pages were devoted to articles and a serial. I was pleasantly surprised for the first time by the experience of reading it. I will see if I sour on it in the future.

Contents from:
F&SF January 2007
Asimov's January 2007
Analog January-February 2007
[na = novella, nv = novelette, otherwise short story]

— “The Face of Hate” by Stephen L. Burns (Analog): aliens
— “Gunfight at the Sugarloaf Pet Food & Taxidermy” by Jeff Carlson (Asimov's): sort of a whimsical chase story; very little speculation and thus perhaps a bit too safely mundane
— “Café Culture” by Jack Dann (Asimov's): a decently edgy psychology-of-terrorism story complete with an Asimov’s brand disclaimer
— “Double Helix, Downward Gyre” by Carl Frederick (nv Analog): a somewhat preachy chase story that is nonetheless mundane enough for me and a nice story to see in Analog
— “How to Talk to Girls at Parties” by Neil Gaiman (F&SF): an otherwise mundane story with fantasy or fantastic elements; I stopped halfway through, though the story probably had more going for it than the Gerrold…
— “The Strange Disappearance of David Gerrold” by David Gerrold (F&SF): a Being David Gerrold Story with fantastic or fantasy elements; I gave up halfway through
— “Radical Acceptance” by David W. Goldman (Analog): some sort of fannish non-mundane story, I guess
— “Exposure Therapy” by R. Emrys Gordon (Analog): interstellar travel or aliens or whatnot
— “Safeguard” by Nancy Kress (nv Asimov's): bio-political intrigue; not all that convincing but still a nice story
— “The Unrung Bells of the Marie Celeste” by Richard A. Lovett (Analog): FTL
— “Poison” by Bruce McAllister (Asimov's): overt fantasy
— “The Darkness Between” by Jeremy Minton (nv F&SF): generally traditional sf story about science and superstition in a fantastic future
— “Numerous Citations” by E. Mark Mitchell (na Analog): a somewhat mundane story with a bit too much unconvincing AI to make the cut; I would probably give this a mundane rating if the storytelling did not break down badly towards the end
— “The Hikikomori's Cartoon Kimono” by A.R. Morlan (nv Asimov's): a really funky story about art and culture in an otherwise straightforward mundane setting; my favorite story of this bunch—worthy for any “Best of” collection—Recommended
— “Battlefield Games” by Games R. Neube (Asimov's): non-mundane military sf
— “If Only We Knew” by Jerry Oltion (Analog): generally mundane story with hint of fantastic or fantasy elements I was unwilling to forgive
— “The Dark Boy” by Marta Randall (F&SF): mundane non-sf with a thin veneer of fantasy
— “X-Country” by Robert Reed (F&SF): I’ll call this a contemporary fantasy; interesting, but not credibly mundane
— “Super Gyro” by Grey Rollins (nv Analog): mundane sf power fantasy
— “The Taste of Miracles” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch (Analog): near Earth space story in a blatantly traditional non-mundane future
— “Kiosk” by Bruce Sterling (na F&SF): distinctive Sterling story about Eastern Europe and consumerism and technology and stuff like that; could easily be bloated into a novel that would bore me; works well enough in this form and is mundane enough for my tastes
— “Trunk and Disorderly” by Charles Stross (nv Asimov's): I think this was supposed to be about a future sport in a non-mundane future; I didn’t try reading very far into it
— “Emerald River, Pearl Sky” by Rajnar Vajra (na Analog): blurbed and skimmed as some sort of far future non-mundane science-is-like-magic story

OK, so that’s 7 stories that made the cut, including a fair number of long and memorable ones. That would make a good-sized mundane sf magazine for January if there was room in the field for a periodical with editorial tastes other than “eclectic,” “fantasy” or “Analog.” I will optimistically move on to February, thinking that the field for mundane sf may be improving. The next batch won’t include Analog because of the double issue this time, but I will be reporting on Interzone (in actual paper form!) and Jim Baen’s Universe (JBU) for the first time. Stay tuned.

Mundanespotting 2007

After a long absence, I am going to try to do some reading and blogging again. I have some time, finally, to work with, and have stockpiled lots of fiction. To start off, I will be looking for (my idea of) mundane sf in the major periodicals with a nominal 2007 publication date. I've got Analog, Asimov's, and F&SF from fictionwise on my Sony ereader, and most exciting of all for this side of the Atlantic, I have an active Interzone subscription plus a giant pile of back issues (darn if I can't find 196 or 200, though). Also, I've got the first year of the Baen ezine and I might give that a look and maybe resubscribe. Stay tuned.

Ian McDonald "The Little Goddess"

I read this from the fictionwise ebook of the June 2005 Asimov's, as promised earlier.

It almost loses for me with several cliches at work (juvenile heroine, India through Western Eyes, warmed over cyberpunk). What made me like it in the end (and I would also call is mundane sf) was that the use of "alien" jargon was so over the top compared to the norm I've experienced (for South Asian fiction for an English-speaking market) that I was in shock. Also I liked that the future USA was a minor villian in a story published in a US market. An interesting novella that I hope can find a place in the Best Of market next year.

This is another story that depends on major AI breakthroughs that I don't think are on the way. Compared to the sorts of crap that Mundane SF is railing against (and which I oppose as a reader mainly on the grounds that they are incredibly tired in 2005 coming from any but the most talented writers) this kind of speculation is still somewhat fresh.

However.

If indeed River of Gods uses some sort of time reversal in this same future setting, and it's all based on some sort of AI singularity mumbo jumbo, well then for me that's an unfortunate waste of an interesting world.

mundanespotting the 2005 Hugo Novel nominations (Ian McDonald)

I won't have time for quite a while to do the short form mundanespotting I set out to do, but at least I can take a dip in the pool with the 2005 Hugo nominations for novel:

-- The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks (Orbit) -- space opera
-- Iron Council by China Miéville (Del Rey; Macmillan) -- fantasy
-- Iron Sunrise by Charles Stross (Ace) -- [hard] space opera
-- Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke (Bloomsbury) -- fantasy
-- River of Gods by Ian McDonald (Simon & Schuster) -- near future mundane set in India [P.S. the story is said to have time travel; if that is indeed true I'll have to add "with extremely fantastic elements"]

Ian McDonald doesn't, um, want to join the fun of the Movement, but sorry, he's still written a book that appears quite mundane (I'll keep using the lowercase "mundane" to describe stories that seem to follow the Mundane Manifesto, even for authors who disavow...) and I'm very interested in reading it. I don't say that about a new novel very often these days. McDonald also mentions his related novella "The Little Goddess"--the cover story of the June 2005 Asimov's. I've put that at the top of my e-reading list.

Sci Fiction, January 2005

I'm falling behind a little on the mundanespotting, but here's a rundown on the first month of stories on Sci Fiction (available for free on a certain cable channel's web site).

1) "Nocturne" by J.R. Dunn (January 5, novelette) -- near future noirish biotech; mundane
2) "Follow Me Light" by Elizabeth Bear (January 12, short story) -- contemporary biological fantasy
3) "The Five Cigars Of Abu Ali" by Eric Schaller (January 19, novelette) -- contemporary Near Eastern fantasy
4) "A Man of Light" by Jeffery Ford (January 26, novelette) -- contemporary weird fantasy

AFAIK, Sci Fiction is the top sf/f short fiction market, and is reliable for good writing. It probably survives as a rounding error in a big spreadsheet somewhere--perhaps as a warning never to even think about starting an actual sf magazine. As a form of patronage it works pretty well. One day I expect one of the nerd billionaires to step up and do something similar (but probably not as long as the real magazines are still breathing).

Although the other stories are all fantastic, the Dunn is solidly mundane, though the science is not featured heavily (if you are looking for that). Featuring a billionaire and an obsession with music, it uses a "security consultant" as viewpoint character. This story has a lot going on in about ten thousand words. At times it is a bit too "breathless" at this length, but I would find it dreary if bloated into a much longer form. It's a worthy effort, and I give it a mild recommendation for mundane sf reading.