Fiction

5 Short Story Recommendations in 1,012 Words or Less

PETERMBALL Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption , , , , , , , ,

Over the last few weeks I’ve occasionally thrown a short-story link up on twitter, in that way that you do when you remember there are *fucking awesome short stories* out there and you want to share them with other people. Twitter is a horrible medium for recommending short fiction though – it has the kind of immediacy that makes it easy for people to go follow the link, but it lacks the real space to provide any kind of context beyond saying *awesome story here*.

So I wrote a blog post. And threw in some stories I haven’t linked to on twitter so people who follow me there still have something to go read on this fine Monday. All of the stories are free to read online at the time of writing, so links are provided.

And so, in no particular order, I give you…

5 SHORT STORY RECOMMENDATIONS IN 1,012 WORDS OR LESS

1) MARY MARGARET ROAD-GRADER by Howard Waldrop 

This is a two-pack of firsts for more – it was the first Howard Waldrop I ever read and the first short-story I read over at Strange Horizons. It’s one of those stories that stuck with me for a long time. Long enough that I eventually started acquiring Waldrop short story collections, for which I can honestly say to Strange Horizons, thank you very damn much. I’m now, like, 90% convinced that Howard, Who? is one of those short-story collection everyone who claims to be a short story writer really should own.

I’ve noticed that a lot of the short-fiction I recommend tends to play with plot or structure in some way. Not this one. It’s a good, old-fashioned short story with a beginning, middle, and end, and it peeled the top of my skull and rewrote my brain by the sheer fact that it’s kick-ass.

2) THE RAPID ADVANCE OF SORROW by Theodora Goss

I’ve often said that writing is an ongoing conversation that writers are having with other works. The Rapid Advance of Sorrow is exactly that, a retelling of The Snow Queen fairytale that is utterly unlike any other retelling of said fairytale than you will ever come across. There are no fucking words for how much this story fascinates me – I keep coming back to it, again and again, and seeing some new facet in the tale that interests me.

Somewhere on my bucket-list there’s an entry that says “Write something as good as Rapid Advance o/Sorrow.” I keep trying, but I haven’t cracked it yet.

3) REPORT ON THE SHADOW INDUSTRY by Peter Carey

Somewhere along the line Peter Carey went from being a writer of weird short fiction to becoming a writer of slightly less weird novels, which is a damn fucking shame, ’cause I really liked Carey as a short story writer. Fat Man in History lives in my list of short-fiction collections everyone should own if they’re a short story writer too, right up there with Howard, Who?

There are so many seriously bad habits that I’ve picked up as a result of reading too many Carey short stories at a young age: stories broken into numbered sections; narrative ambiguity; vaguely real-world settings that aren’t really real.

I recommend this story to people all the time and half of them hate it on site. Also, the link heads over to the Adbusters website, which means I’m going to reiterate the first rule of reading short fiction on the internet – do not read the fucking comics. I know you’ll be tempted to do so now, simply ’cause I’ve specifically said so here, but no, for the love of the gods, don’t read the comments.

4) JOHNNY MNEMONIC by William Gibson

Yes, yes, I know you’ve already read Johnny Mnemonic. It’s a classic of the SF genre these days and it’s reprinted again and again, and besides, they made a movie out of it, even if  it’s a terrible goddamn movie whose sole redeeming features are Dina Meyer, Ice T, and Henry-fucking-Rollins all being in the same film. Put all that out of your mind. Go re-read it. Especially if it’s been a while.

This is the short story that made me want to be a writer.

Don’t get me wrong – I’d toyed with the idea. Through most of my pre-teen years I wrote things – terrible stories, half-arsed novels that would get two thousand words in and peter to a halt, poetry that was beyond awful. If you’d asked me what I wanted to do with my life, my default answer was usually “be a writer” and “play dungeons and dragons.” (In that respect, I’m living the damn dream).

Then I read Burning Chrome at age fourteen and, man, I was done. There were no other options for me; if I couldn’t go out into the world and write cool things, there was no point to life. And so began a series of poor life choices that, all things considered, have turned out far better than they should have.

And every year I still re-read Johnny Mnemonic, just to remind myself why I do this writer thing. And every year, I sit there and remember why I do this writing-thing. (Bonus points: Fragments of a Hologram Rose)

5)  UP HIGH IN THE AIR by Laura van den Berg

I discovered van den Berg relatively recently, through the simple expedient of her short-story collection, What the World Will Look Like When All The Water Leaves Us, getting reviewed in our local paper. I mean, let’s be clear here: her *short story collection* was reviewed in our local paper, which is traditionally the kind of publication that…well, let’s say it’s not the place I expect to find recommendations for good short fiction. Or, you know, news.

I immediately went out and acquired the book, ’cause it sounded kind of interesting, and ’cause there are few facets of my life that don’t get recorded here on the blog, I wrote up my initial reaction to it back in 2011:

Last night I started reading Laura van den Berg’s short story collection, What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us,  which became one of those books that you start reading at a reasonable hour and stop reading in the wee hours of the morning, many hours after you planned on going to sleep.

It’s not simply that it’s a good book, more that it’s fiction that’s brushed with that touch of magic that great short stories are capable – brief and delicate and surprising and altogether beautiful. Not quite fantasy stories, but certainly on that strange intersection of literary and almost-fantasy-but-mostly-weird where all sorts of interesting things happen.

It reminds me very much of reading Miranda July’s short story collection for the first time, or the peculiar rewriting of the familiar that comes from your first exposure to Kelly Link.

I stand by all of that, really. You should totally go read Laura van den Berg.

 

In this post, I swear a lot for no apparent reason

PETERMBALL Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I’m sitting here on a Sunday trying to remember what I was going to blog about. There was plan a while back – perhaps even a written one – but I’m afflicted with a curse that causes me to forget anything remotely plan-like the moment I sit down at a keyboard. Fortunately, I have a back-up plan: 4 Random Things where I place Fuckin’ in the centre of the entry title.

1. DENNIS FUCKIN’ LEHANE

One of my favourite book stores is Brisbane’s Pulp Fiction, a speciality-store focused exclusively on Fantasy, SF, and Mystery/Crime fiction. When I first started patronising the store I stuck to the fantasy/SF side of things, revelling in the ability to pick up fiction from small presses and mid-list authors I wouldn’t ordinarily be able to track down. All that changed about…jeez, I don’t know, but a while back…and these days I tend to pick up a few things from the crime side of things. I’m a fan of the hardboiled mystery, after all, and I’m developing a growing affection of the cosy murder mystery, and there a depths of awesome in those genres I’m still to find.

But last week I picked up a copy of Denis Lehane’s A Drink Before the War and…well, holy shit, I kinda dig this book. There are certain writers who have the ability to engender trust in a reader, simply be deploying an opening paragraph that makes you think, well, yeah, this writer gets it, and Lehane is one of those. There’s a control there, an ability to deploy language in a certain way, that I knew from the opening paragraph how much I’d enjoy what follows (and, lo, I enjoyed what followed exactly as much as I expected).

I went back on Friday and picked up the second book featuring the same characters. I inhaled the damn thing in one manic night of reading, staying up until the wee hours when I should have been getting some sleep prior to going to the dayjob.

2. LL FUCKIN’ HANNET

It’s always nice when friends who do good work are recognised for, well, being fuckin’ aces at the things that they do well. Case in point: this year’s Aurealis Awards were given out over the weekend and while I’d offer congratulations to all the winners, I was really happy to hear that the immensely talented LL Hannett had walked away with the gong for both Best Collection (for Bluegrass Symphony) and co-winner of Best Horror Story (for The Short Go: a Future in Eight Seconds).

Congratulations, also, to Thoraiya Dyer for picking up the Best Fantasy Story nod for Fruit of the Pipal Tree (yes, she totally deserves her own entry as Thoraiya fuckin’ Dyer, but I’m not yet sure we know each other well enough for such familiarity not to be seen as offensive).

3. RED FUCKIN’ DAWN

Last night’s Trashy Tuesday Movie. Watchable, enjoyable, and utterly terrible. #Wolverines

Next week I’m watching Doom. Actually, next week I’m watching the *extended directors cut* of Doom. Because someone, somewhere, though it was a film that needed to be longer and my flatmate is the kind of person who pays money for such things.

I’m already afraid.

4. AMANDA FUCKIN’ PALMER

‘Cause, really, if you’re going to make a list of people and things with the word fuckin’ inserted in the middle of their names, it’s a fairly natural fuckin’ progression.

Also because I wrote a post for QWC’s blog about her recent kickstarter, John Scalzi’s commentary on it, and what that means for writers. I wouldn’t ordinarily bounce people from this blog to that one, but one of the curses of working on three different blogs every week is that occasionally there’s a conversation on one that you really wish could involve readers from another. Also, the QWC blog is shiny and new, so I figure it can’t hurt to send anyone interested in that direction.

5. AND ONE FINAL NOTE, WITHOUT SWEARING, REGARDING CONTINUUM

If there’s anyone whose heading along to the Continuum Nat-Con in June that may be interested in half a hotel room, drop me a line. It turns out the room that I’ve got has two queen beds, and many of the usual suspects I’d split a room with either aren’t coming along or already live in Melbourne. I’m not opposed to having the room to myself and all, but if the opportunity is there to split costs…

12 Things

PETERMBALL Gaming, Journal, News & Upcoming Events, Works in Progress , , , ,

We’re mid-way through a long weekend here in Oz. This still catches me off-guard, since I’ve spent the majority of my adult life not really paying attention to long weekends, but the acquisition of a dayjob changes your relationship to such things. And so we’ve hit Sunday and I’m mooching around the new house, grooving to a mix of the Hilltop Hoods and the Beastie Boys (RIP, MCA), just kinda…randomly getting things together.

And so, in that spirit, a random grab-bag of twelve things I felt like mentioning.

1. MOVING IS, LIKE, 90% DONE

So my flatmate bought a new home and we moved into it. Most of the last two weeks has been spent getting stuff there, unpacking it, figuring out where it will live for the foreseeable future, and generally waiting for the internet to be turned on.

You know, moving stuff.

There’s a part of me that wants to just kick back and say “yup, we’re done now,” ’cause we’ve basically moved enough that it feels like we’ve moved in and can live a functional life. The truth is there are still all those odds and ends that need to be fixed up, and the room containing my computer/files/desks is littered with boxes of files that should probably be put into the filing cabinet, just as the bedroom closet looks more like a place to store half-full boxes of clothing rather than a bedroom closet.

Although, to be fair, you should see the closet. For a single bloke who owns three pairs of jeans, three jackets, and a seemingly endless supply of t-shirts, it’s one of those spaces that feels slightly epic and impossible to fill.

2. ERNEST HEMMINGWAY

I’ve never really been big on Hemmingway as a writer. I’ve known people who adored him, but I always leant towards F. Scott. Fitzgerrald as my writer of choice for that particular era of American letters. I mean, seriously, The Great Gatsby. It has its issues as a book, just as Fitzgerald has his issues as a person, but there is something about the sheer amount that book packs into approximately 50,000 words that makes me look at 100k novels and think, really? This is our standard length? Did we miss the levels of awesome that could be achieved at half that?

But we were talking about Hemmingway, who I seem to have started reading in earnest for the first time since I was…shit, eighteen? Nineteen? A really long time. It’s the net result of watching Midnight in Paris, in which Hemmingway shows up as a character, and I’ve always been a bit of a sucker for the reflection of Hemmingway that’s thrown up as a social construct. He’s just such an unremitting bastard, capable of throwing out these moments of sparse beauty, yet so…self-loathing? Or a kind of loathing far more external than that?

In any case, I picked up a small book of writing advice that’s been curated from Hemmingway’s letters and articles, and it’s full of these moments that are both beautiful and angry. My favourite, thus far, is this:

“F. Scott Fitzgerald’s talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly’s wings. At one time he understood it no more than the butterfly did and he did not know when it was brushed or marred. Later he became conscious of his damaged wings and of their construction and he learned to think and he could not fly any more because the love of flight was gone and he could only remember when it had been effortless.” (From A Moveable Feast)

There’s a part of me that thinks, well, yes, that. There is another part of me that thinks, really, Hemmingway? Just ’cause you say it pretty, it doesn’t mean you aren’t a dick.

3. CONTRIBUTORS COPIES

These showed up my PO Box earlier this week

It’s shiny, in both the metaphorical sense and the literal sense, and the print edition is due out in Mid-June, which means this is one of those rare occasions where I’ve received contributor copies before the book goes on sale.

4. SPEAKEASY

So as part of my dayjob I curate a bunch of writing and publishing links every Friday for the Speakeasy blog. I have to admit, it’s one of my favourite parts of the dayjob, since it means the vast majority of the stuff that I’m reading on the internet anyway now becomes part of my working day. And since I figure there are probably a couple of writer-types reading this who may be interested, I figured I’d point the way in case you’re inclined to check it out.

5. PLANNING

One of the random things I’m doing this week? Putting together a new writing plan.

Someone asked me the question “how many stories do you submit a year” at work on Friday. It freaked me out a little, ’cause once upon a time there would have been a pretty steady answer to that, and now there is not. I’ve been living without a writing plan for months now (and, effectively, since life went kaboom back in November of 2010). I have grown weary of the uncertainty, and I figure I’m staying in place for the next twelve months, so I’m going to spend a few hours this evening putting together a plan that’ll allow me to…well, get stuff done.

The problem with writing plans is…well, me. I over-estimate my own abilities a lot, particularly after I’ve let writing lie fallow for a stretch, and it often results in plans where I’m trying to do all the things all the time. This barely worked when I was a marginally employed writer-type with a wealth of free time. It’ll surely fall apart now that I’m regularly employed and trying to fit writing around the edges of things.

6. I CANNOT GO NEAR MY POST OFFICE BOX

I maintain a PO Box that I use for three things: receiving subscriptions, ordering things online, and an address I can put on contracts that doesn’t change every six-to-eighteen months.

A few weeks ago, in the lead-up to the move, I realised that Shifty Silas, my new laptop, was capable of running a bunch of computer games people had recommended to me. I’m usually pretty careful about playing computer games, since I have an addictive kind of personality when it comes to narrative. If I start watching a DVD boxed set of a TV series, for example, I’ll down it in one sleep-deprived sitting rather than space it out. I want, in essence, all the story, all the time.

Also, basically, I like to win things. I mean, I really like to win things. To the extent that, if there are no victory conditions, I’ll invent them simply so I can win.

It’s…well, it’s not a pleasant side of my personality.

These two things, when combined, generally make computer games the equivalent of narrative crack and I’m usually careful to avoid them. But friends raved about Mass Effect and Mass Effect II, and my flatmate had some copies floating around, and it wasn’t like I was doing anything other packing, so I fired Shifty Silas up and played them both. In fact, I played the hell out of them. In, like, rapid succession.  even started replaying the game, this time with an external mouse, ’cause the first time around I wasn’t able to use sniper rifles.

They were exactly the kind of interactive narrative-crack I fear when it comes to computer games.

And because the designers of Mass Effect are evil, you can’t really play those two games and get the end of a story, so I’ve ordered a copy of Mass Effect III. It’s been posted and now it’s sitting in my PO Box, waiting for me to come pick it up.

And when that finally happens, when I pick it up and start playing it, well, I’m going to be good for very little else that week. And I have the self-control of a lemming that’s just been shown a cliff.

Which means I can’t pick up my mail at the moment. And I’m going to avoid it for as long as I possibly can.

7. RABBIT HOLE

If you’re a writer-type, you probably want to come do this.

Basically, the Rabbit Hole is a three-day event where a bunch of writers come together and collectively thumb their noses at, say, NaNoWriMo. Instead of being all 50,000 thousands words in a month, the word-warrior heading down the rabbit hole is chasing 30,000 words in three days. It’s run at the QWC a couple of times, but this year the event is going national as part of the Emerging Writers Festival, with teams gathering in Melbourne (where it’s hosted by Jason Nahrung), Tasmania (hosted by Rachel Edwards), Brisbane (hosted by, well, me), and online (hosted by Patrick O’Duffy).

It takes place between the 1st and the 3rd of June, and it promises to be a weekend of words and smack-talk between the four teams. I may even bring the Spokesbear as a mascot.

You can register for Team Brisbane over the QWC website.

8. SEASON THREE OF 30 ROCK

I don’t really review things, ’cause I kinda suck at it. Me and non-fiction, it’s not a thing that works well (and I’ve been reminded of this, quite explicitly, because I’ve been writing a non-fiction article for work and it’s like pulling teeth, dammit).

But I did watch the third season of 30 Rock recently. And, at one point, I may have laughed so hard that I developed tunnel vision and passed out for a few seconds.

Just saying.

9. TRASHY TUESDAY MOVIE

So about a month ago I tried to watch the 2011 Conan the Barbarian film with my flatmate. It…wasn’t good. I say this as a person who has a really, really high tolerance for bad movies, especially any kind of fantasy epic. The only way I got through it was jumping on twitter and making fun of the movie as we went, so other people shared my pain.

Halfway through the topic of Hawk the Slayer and whether or not it was worse than Conan 2011 came up.

I’d never seen it before, so my flatmate and I arranged to watch it the following Tuesday. And, since I’d tweeted the first film, I figured…well, why not? I tweeted throughout the second film, and about halfway through people started suggesting films we should watch and make fun of in the future.

And thus the tradition of the Trashy Tuesday Twitter Movie got started. It was an accident, I swear, but somewhere along the line we developed a schedule. If you’re interested in joining in, we generally kick off at 7:30 PM, Brisbane Time, on a Tuesday evening. Next week’s film is RED (Helen Mirren with a Sniper Rifle!), and on the 15th we’re watching Red Dawn. Debate about the hashtag usually starts earlier on a Tuesday, and the results can be found on my twitter feed @petermball

And yes, this is basically what I do when I’m avoiding posting here. I’m sorry blog, but Twitter is my new love.

10. I’M NOT SURE I LIKE HAVING A SMART PHONE

Actually, that’s not true. I acquired my first smart-phone at the beginning of the year, and it’s instantly become one of my favourite things ever. It’s the promise that SF always offered me – a miniature computer that I can carry around in my pocket and access nearly everywhere. It lets me carry around my email and a collection of books to read and all that stuff.

What I dislike is the way it’s changed my relationship to the internet.

Over the past four months I’ve watched my engagement with things become increasingly passive, largely because I spend the vast majority of my non-dayjob internet surfing on the phone rather than the computer.

I receive my email on the phone, but I dislike the keyboard I’m forced to use there so I don’t respond until I’m sitting at a computer. I can read blogs and my RSS feed, but I don’t comment or come here to write things unless I’m sitting at a keyboard. I can check facebook and twitter, but…well, actually, facebook and twitter are the places where the phone really shines, so it’s not like either of those have suffered.

Basically, I put a lot of things off until I’m sitting at a keyboard, and that never seems to happen ’cause I can check things on my phone.

I’m trying to figure out how to combat this problem, since it really doesn’t sit right with me. Half the reason I love the internet is that it allows me to engage with things, and I’m not really a huge fan of any medium where passivity is the primary mode of engagement.

11. THE AVENGERS

Last week, in the midst of moving, I took an evening off and went to see The Avengers with a bunch of my co-workers. I freakin’ feared this movie so hard, since I’m a) a huge comic nerd,  b) not a fan of anything Joss Whedon has done that involves armies of villains, c) generally irate about films and not inclined to like them, and d) a huge fan of the Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Hero TV series which delivered everything I want in an Avengers comic in cartoon form instead.

In short, I wanted this to be teh awesomes and figured it wouldn’t quite get there. I certainly didn’t think it’d live up to the cartoon.

What I got was teh awesomes. I may have made high-pitches squealing noises of joy in the theatre.

If I had to deliver a review, I can do it in three words: FUCK YEAH, AVENGERS!

12. NINJAS!

They’re everywhere. You just haven’t noticed them yet.